The Software Bureau is the renowned leader in data processing, sortation and Mailmark software. More than 100 organisations rely on Cygnus, SwiftSort and GeMMA as the backbone of their data services function. The business has its roots in the mailing industry where the founders built software for their own data processing needs before branching out to become a software vendor for the rest of the industry. To ensure the business remains acutely focused on those real-world needs of data professionals, The Software Bureau launched their inaugural benchmark customer survey. They asked customers to provide feedback about everything from product capabilities, to support response times and industry trends. The results are in!
Why Clients Choose The Software Bureau Over Competitors
Two thirds of respondents suggested unique functionality or ease of use were the reason for choosing The Software Bureau over competitors. During the past 20 years The Software Bureau has introduced functions for just about any possible data processing brief. Advanced deduplication, data manipulation, seeding, deceased and goneaway suppression give clients confidence to tackle even the most challenging brief. Many users of Cygnus data processing suite continue to cite the ability to build data processing jobs using a canvas-like graphical user interface as the most intuitive method of working with data to clearly visualise processing and minimise errors.
Customer Satisfaction
You may have heard the question ‘How likely are you to recommend this product to a colleague or friend’. The average response to this question was 8.8 out of 10 with almost half of all customers ranking The Software Bureau a 10.
The support team also fared well achieving an average of 8.94 out of 10 for responsiveness and 8.74 for knowledge. The UK support team has a combined 100 plus years of experience working in data bureaux and mailing houses across the UK. Most of the team have used The Software Bureau products in the field, a factor specifically searched for by The Software Bureau when expanding the team.
Usage and Industry Trends
Sentiment among users of The Software Bureau products is strong for the next 12 months. Of the 46 Cygnus users who participated, 45 expect their use of Cygnus to increase or stay the same in the coming 12 months with only 1 respondent expecting usage to decline. All SwiftSort and GeMMA users expected their usage of the products to increase or stay the same. Clients also cited a wide variety of business challenges from GDPR to volume and margin pressures facing their organisations. This uncertainty is making it more pivotal than ever to ensure high value data services remain the differentiator for mailing businesses and data bureaux.
How We Can Improve
Although the responses were overwhelmingly positive, there are always areas where The Software Bureau can improve. Product development ideas such as publicly available Splerge libraries to the more general request for a technical tips and tricks webinar series have been well received and will be addressed in due course. The Software Bureau will be contacting all clients with more detail about product, academy and training plans in the coming months.
And the Winner Is
As a thank you for participating in the survey The Software Bureau entered each respondent into a prize draw to win £100 Amazon voucher. Naturally a Cygnus USP (user specified process) called ‘Prize Draw’ was used to randomly select the winner. Simon Parks from Air Business, the mail fulfilment, distribution and subscription management company was selected and the voucher is currently on its way to Simon.
