It’s no secret that I’m not a big fan of cold weather, so I’m sure it will surprise many people to know that I love January. No, not because I like to spend as little time as possible outside, and not because I like to drive around in a car that always needs to be washed. It’s because I get to witness the best software team on the planet shine.

I don’t like to brag about our team (that’s a lie, I do it all the time), but if you ever get a chance to visit our office, you too can see a group of people that truly enjoy working hard at answering customers’ questions. When I wander into our support area, the entire team is quietly focused on dealing with the issue at hand, call after call. It’s kind of like watching ducks on a still pond. As they gracefully and effortlessly move across the water, you just know they are paddling like crazy under the surface. To use another duck analogy, our entire team is always flying in formation. A call might originate at the front desk and may not need to go any farther. If others need to be involved, one team member may take the initial lead on a problem, and then pass it on to another for additional research or analysis, and then it may move through the Quality Assurance department, and on to our programming staff as they help take some load off the front-line support team, and so on. Rarely do I hear any of our team members quack. That’s probably because we also have the best customers on the planet.

A few years ago, we set a goal to answer at least 80% of our support calls as they come in, as opposed to having to call a customer back. We review that metric weekly, and for the past few years, it is rare that we attain lower than 89%. This January our call volume was up more than 10% over last year. We were still able to maintain our high standards, and rarely did any customer have to wait a long time on hold.

As you walk into our Red Wing office, you’ll see our vision painted on the wall under the Red Wing Software logo. It reads, “Creating the Best Management Software Experience”. Our entire organization makes every attempt to live up to that vision.

- Ken Hilton, President