Outstanding Customer Loyalty Underscores Sage Software Appearance at Net Promoter Conference

Simply Accounting by Sage Customer Loyalty Gurus to Speak About the Art of Customer-Centric Management


IRVINE, CA--(Marketwire - January 21, 2008) - Sage Software announced today that two executives from the company's Simply Accounting and Sage Accpac ERP business unit will present a best practices session on improving customer loyalty at the upcoming Net Promoter conference to be held January 24th-25th in Miami, FL. To date, Simply Accounting by Sage has one of the most loyal customer bases among major accounting software vendors in North America, and Margaret Dron, senior manager, Customer Loyalty, and Scott Zandbergen, vice president of product management, are scheduled to speak at the event about how they effectively utilize Satmetrix and the Net Promoter Score to drive improvements in customer experience.

"We have worked hard over the past few years to develop strong product lines, improve our customer contact centre and empower our employees to help create a world class experience for our customers," said Laurie Schultz, general manager, Simply Accounting and Sage Accpac ERP, N.A. "Simply Accounting has the largest customer base in the Canadian accounting software market, and we work hard to keep our customers happy. Net Promoter enables us to effectively gauge customer satisfaction and loyalty to determine if our efforts are working, and to uncover areas for improvement."

Dron and Zandbergen have been instrumental in guiding much of the efforts for implementing Net Promoter within the Simply Accounting and Sage Accpac ERP product lines. Net Promoter utilizes a scoring process to determine which customers would highly recommend a product, and then a percentage is computed based upon the scores achieved to determine the final Net Promoter Score (NPS). Simply Accounting has consistently scored high among accounting software packages in its market.

During their presentations, Dron and Zandbergen will share with the audience Sage Software best practices as they relate to Net Promoter, and some additional tips for improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.

"We have achieved exceptional success using Net Promoter for Simply Accounting, and we are continuing to explore ways to maintain and continue on this track, and to expand this success across other Sage Software products," said Zandbergen. "We recently introduced two programs for soliciting feedback and ideas from our customers in the product development phase, our Customer Connected Design (CCD) lab and Ideascope, which both enable our customers to directly assist us with designing and providing feedback with each upcoming new release."

"We are in regular contact with our customers through a number of channels, and we've found that keeping the lines of communication open has definitely helped us to achieve our customer satisfaction goals," added Dron.

Zandbergen has been with Sage Software for ten years, with experience in account and product management. He was instrumental in creating the Simply Accounting Business Partner Program and annual conference, and along with Dron, spearheads the Net Promoter program for Simply Accounting and Sage Accpac ERP.

Dron has been with Sage Software for two years, and began as a product marketing manager for Simply Accounting before moving to her current position. She drove the development of the Simply Accounting online support community, and recently organized the first Net Promoter regional user group, based in Vancouver, B.C., for industry-leading companies to discuss best practices.

About Net Promoter

Introduced in 1999 by author Fred Reichheld, Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Bain & Company, Net Promoter has grown as more companies across industries adopt the methodology and Net Promoter Score to improve customer loyalty and create 'customer promoters.' The Net Promoter conference is produced by Satmetrix, co-developer of the Net Promoter Score, and offers unique opportunities to learn about NPS, share ideas and best practices, and network with others responsible for customer-facing initiatives. To learn more about the conference and Net Promoter, visit http://www.netpromoter.com.

About Sage Software

Sage Software supports the needs, challenges and dreams of nearly 2.8 million small and mid-sized business customers in North America through easy-to-use, scalable and customizable software and services. Our products support accounting, operations, customer relationship management, human resources, time tracking, merchant services and the specialized needs of the construction, distribution, healthcare, manufacturing, nonprofit and real estate industries. Sage Software is a subsidiary of The Sage Group plc, a leading global supplier of accounting and business management software solutions and related products and services for small and mid-sized businesses. Formed in 1981, Sage was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989 and the Group now has 5.4 million customers and employs over 13,000 people worldwide. For more information, please visit the Web site at www.sagesoftware.com/moreinfo or call (866) 308-2378.

©2008 Sage Software, Inc. All rights reserved.

Net Promoter, NPS, and Net Promoter Score are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld.

Contact Information: Contacts: Marchell Gillis 770-724-4256 marchell.gillis@sage.com Mark Priscaro 925-931-7048 mark.priscaro@sage.com