QuickBooks named most puzzling app

When people are confused about a piece of software but aren't quite ready (or able) to call tech support, they often turn to the Internet. Presumably, the easier something is to use, the less people have to make such searches. With this in mind, a recent study has named QuickBooks the most confusing app, based on Google searches.

The researchers, from  digital-adoption.com, paired apps with 35 support-related search terms (e.g. "Salesforce help") to find the global search volume for each app on average. Using this method, they found that QuickBooks averaged 68,320 support searches per month. The most commonly searched term is "QuickBooks customer service," making up about 19,000 searches per month.

Kim Amsbaugh, a spokesperson with Intuit, felt the study's results needed some additional context. 

"Most calls into QuickBooks support are about issues that customers, for the most part, can more easily solve via self-serve. Issues like a forgotten password or adding an admin to an account are top call topics into support. With these common, easily solved issues, we purposefully drive customers to our self-help tools, which include chat and articles available and searchable inside QuickBooks and through the QuickBooks Community, to name a few. This helps keep our customer care lines open and staff free to focus on larger issues customers are experiencing," she said in a statement. 

She added that the phone number to contact support is 1-800-4-Intuit (1-800-446-8848). Customers can select "option 2" for QuickBooks help and be connected to a customer care representative. This number can be found by searching for phrases such as "Intuit support" or "QuickBooks Support Number." 

Coming in second was Microsoft Excel at 49,490, with the majority of users wanting to know "how to use Excel" or just where to find "Excel Help."

This was followed by:

• Shopify at 44,720 (most common term is "What is Shopify");
• Salesforce at 39,420 ("What is SalesForce" being the most common);
• Square at 34,510 ("Square customer service");
• Microsoft OneDrive at 26,140 ("What is OneDrive?");
• Microsoft Teams at 25,780 ("What is Microsoft Teams?");
• Zoom at 24,300 ("How to use Zoom");
• WordPress at 24,290 ("What is WordPress" and "WordPress tutorial"); and,
• DropBox at 21,730 ("How to use DropBox").

"These results show that as companies implement digital adoption strategies, it is vital that their employees are well supported to ensure that the approach is implemented effectively and brings clear benefits rather than confusion," said a digital-adoption.com spokesperson in a statement.