QuickBooks Support Slashed, Intuit Deathwatch 6 ( 6th in the series of articles)

Mike Block of Quickbooks-Xero Blog writes: Get ready for extra long waits for QuickBooks phone support. We now know Intuit QuickBooks support was slashed, resulting in this Intuit Deathwatch 6.

I recently posted Xero vs Intuit vs NetSuite Stock Price Change, Xero Wins Big, The Big Switch. 

NillaKig commented:

Intuit laid off just over 350 employees this past July, including about 1/3 of the support team, so be prepared long waits if you plan to call them.

WOW!

So much for Intuit's recent supposed dedication to professional accountants. We heard that often before. It was never true. I do not yet know how many slashed were QuickBooks ProAdvisor, tax or regular QuickBooks support techs. However, regular QuickBooks support is in India and tax support jobs rarely involve July cuts. I also know NillaKig's approximate location, so the QuickBooks support slashed  is ProAdvisor support.

These were the only Intuit support people who knew QuickBooks. Other Intuit QuickBooks support is in India, even for QuickBooks Enterprise. I have very good inexpensive remote assistants, including CPAs (Chartered Accountants), in India, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Texas and Arkansas. Therefore, I am not deriding QuickBooks support because it is in India. I deride it because no Intuit Indian support people need know (and usually do not know) QuickBooks.

 I initially shrugged off long ProAdvisor support waits. However, today I got a hang up after being told to call after 3 PM Pacific time when it was after 3 PM Pacific. We can expect terrible waits from late December throught January or later. That is sure to turn off many professional accountants, which Intuit needs to stop big QuickBooks user losses. QuickBooks desktop lost 17% of users and QuickBooks add-ons lost 70% of Google web links in 21 months. Many important QuickBooks and CPA firm consultants were with me at a recent San Francisco Xero show. Most seemed ready to move many clients to Xero, so this is Intiuit Deathwatch 6. 

Intuit lost $320 million (50%+ of 2012 after tax net income) when it sold part of its financial and medicical service divisions. It is selling these divisions like it sold its web site, real estate, Quicken Loans and other divisions. Intuit will use the $1 billion of division sales proceeds, plus other amounts, for $2.43 in billion stock buybacks. Prior buybacks ($4 billion) were more than cumulative earnings (since 1983). The $2.43 billion is more than 2012 adjusted net capital (adjusted for the financial service loss) or four times net 2012 income. Stock buybacks mainly benefit insiders, who sold $4 billion of stock in four years, buying only option stock.This means Intuit is already effectively liquidating. This adds many more reasons to my 15 Reasons Why QuickBooks is the Worst Place for Your Data.

We now see near daily evidence that the 40 year old Intuit Titanic is not keeping up with Xero and is sinking fast. The next Intuit Deathwatch 7 involves Quicken, which already has har less users than it once did.