40 Marathons in 40 Countries in 4 Months - all for Cancer Research

Our good friend and client John Read of CleanUpBritain (remember, we built the roadside-litter-tracking RoadVlog app?) is a very proud Dad.  His son, Angus (22) is running 40 marathons in 40 countries in 4 months, raising funds for Cancer Research.

Angus is hoping to be the youngest person to achieve this feat, and he is doing it completely unsupported. Wow, what a challenge!

You've got this, Angus!

Follow Angus on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@angus_read/video/7545555352952130838

And - just an importantly - donate to the cause by clicking here: https://fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/page/angus-reads-euro-40-40-4-expedition?feed=e8d79554-289a-48eb-be2a-2e59e4a6add8

Thanks in advance!

Update - Angus has just started his Montenegro marathan and sent us this message...

Support Desk Performance - August 2025

August was another busy month for our support team, with 832 tickets solved in total. Of these, 166 were high-priority – the kind of issues our clients really need us to resolve quickly.

We’re pleased to report that:

• 97.08% of high-priority tickets were solved within the timescales set by our customers.

• Across all tickets, 90.99% were solved on time.

Although August’s overall performance dipped slightly compared to earlier months, our handling of urgent issues remained consistently strong. Clients can be reassured that when a critical problem arises, we act swiftly and effectively.

Good performance over the last 6 months

Looking back over the last six months, a few trends stand out:

• High-priority tickets are always given the attention they deserve – month after month, we’re above 95%, peaking at an excellent 99.2% in April.

• Ticket volumes have eased slightly since the spring (down from 1,080 in March to 832 in August). That gives us some breathing space, but we’ll keep working to bring overall “on time” performance back up towards the mid-90s.

• Consistency is key – even with fluctuations, we’ve handled around 800–1,000 tickets every month, showing the reliability and resilience of the team.

In short: August showed that we can be relied upon when it matters most, and we’ll be focusing on lifting our overall response rates back up as we head into autumn.

Away Day brings Traction to our software teams

Our Away Day in central Birmingham brought our Start and CTT software leaderships teams together to discuss plans and challenges.

Joining us was the inspirational Ian Groves from Start Tech who brought his passion for the EOS/Traction business development process to us over lunch.

Andrew listening to Ian enthusing about his Traction journey

Dan & Catherine

Mickey & Dan

Might Traction be the next step for Start Software?

Our CTO Jack

Jack, Andrew, Dan

Dan & Catherine

We used "Spaces" at the Lewis Building for our Away Day - recommended

Discussing Support over a coffee

Dan, Jack & Robin studying financial forecasts

Mickey, Catherine, Dan, Andrew

Also - a big thanks to our good friend and inspiration Andrew Bedwell (https://www.facebook.com/p/Big-C-Atlantic-Challenge-100082612007911/?locale=en_GB) for sending us this video!

Another 90%+ month for the Support Desk! Congrats Zac & team

Our Support Team resolved 977 tickets in July 2025.  

We ask each caller "When do you need this resolved by?" and that's how we measure our performance.  In July, 91% of all tickets were resolved in the caller's stated timescale, and 98% of high priority tickets were solved on time.  That's quite a performance!

Zac and Melika reviewing a sticky ticket

We're improving our automatic ticket emails this month so watch this space!

Support Desk performance - June 2025

Our Support Desk team in June resolved 761 tickets across all of our software systems.  We helped... 

• asbestos surveyors (Alpha Tracker)
• water hygiene technicians (Alpha Tracker)
• legal advisors and will writers (Alpha Legal/Legacy Portal)
• ecological consultants (ecoScribe)
• CleanUpBritain supporters (RoadVlog)
• and many, many more!

Here's Dan & Lucas helping a caller earlier today:

Dan & Lucas (pretending to answer the phone)

97.4% of callers were happy with their ticket response in June, let's hope that Lucas's caller will be another happy customer when we look at July's statistics!

Dan would have done less time for murder! 15 years of service to Start Software

Dan's 15-year career with Start Software has seen him grow from an apprentice software developer into a mature, trusted, senior leader appreciated by his colleagues and clients around the world in equal measure.

His technical skills are incredible, but it is his attention to detail, ability to plan, and determination to always do his best make that make him an exceptional person to work alongside.

It's a shame that the only 15-year celebration card we could find was for wedding anniversaries, not work ones, but it's the thought that counts, Dan!

Robin & Dan outside the Start Software UK offices

Thank you Dan for your service - we hope you'll still be running the show in 2040!

Zac & his Support Team answered 852 tickets in May

Not the busiest month, but still plenty of tickets to answer for Zac, Lucas, Melika & Jamie. 852 tickets in total were responded to through the month of May.

Zac (with Dan) a long time ago (he doesn't look as young now!)

Zac's new focus on Support Desk performance is really paying off and we hope that our clients are noticing even better response times.  Don't forget, we're open 24x7 to help you - so call or email us whenever you need assistance.

Zac & team join the 99% club with 99.2% of urgent tickets resolved within 2 hours during April

Zac and his Support Team responded to 957 tickets in April.  More than 99% of the urgent tickets raised were resolved within our 2-hour target time - a fantastic result.

Zac looking appropriately surprised!

The number of open tickets has also been kept under control, with only one ticket remaining open at close-of-business on the Friday before the long weekend.  That's one ticket between hundreds of client companies - quite an achievement!

Overall, nearly 94% of tickets were solved within the timescales requested by the caller during April.

First time reaching 300 raised tickets in one week!

March was another strong month for our Support Desk, with the team handling a total of 1,081 tickets. Notably, we achieved a milestone with 300 raised tickets in a single week! Our commitment to timely support remained steadfast, as 95% of these tickets were resolved within the target timeframe.

This image was created by Maria using Photoshop!

We take immense pride in our Support Desk's consistent performance and dedication to customer satisfaction. If you require assistance with any of our software solutions, please don't hesitate to reach out to our 24/7 support service.

Best Support Desk performance for 6 months! Congratulations to Zac and the support team

Zac has had a great start in his new role leading our Support Desk.

In February, 96% of urgent tickets were solved in the timescales requested by the caller.  Looking at calls of all types (854 in total), 92% were resolved on time - that's the best performance for the Support Desk in 6 months.

Zac - leading our Support Desk

Zac truly is the Support Desk Captain!

Consistency is key on our Support Desk

This chart underlines how consistent our Support Desk is.  It is showing 6 months of data back to August 2024.

The blue bars show % of tickets solved on time; the red bars are the High Priority problems

We resolved 904 tickets in January and met the caller's required timeframe 89.2% of the time (for all tickets) and 93.5% for urgent problems.  From the chart, you can see how consistent this has been with only minor variations each month.

Remember Andrew Bedwell and the "Big C"? He is trying again in May 2025 to break an incredible world record

Andrew Bedwell is one of those people you meet only once or twice in a lifetime.  Fearless, determined, funny, humble and downright bonkers.  A couple of years ago, Andrew attempted to break the world record for the shortest boat ever to cross the Atlantic.  Not the shortest crossing, mind you, the shortest boat - a vessel that's only just about 1m in length.  Smaller than a bathtub!

Well, the first attempt didn't go to plan but Andrew is trying again this May and has spent two years designing and building his second boat - Big C V2.  We're sponsoring Andrew again here at Start Software and helping him to raise funds for his boat and for for cancer charities.

The boat is taking shape, as you can see, and Andrew will soon be taking it for sea trials and finalising his equipment.  We'll be publishing regular updates now that he's closing in on the attempt, so watch this space!

PS in case you're wondering, it's likely to take Andrew 90 days and he will be completely unsupported whilst at sea

Start Software is having quite an "International" January

An integral part of our commitment to our customers is providing 24/7 support, no matter where in the world they are.

This isn't easy to organise, as you can imagine.  It is slightly easier this January, as we've found ourselves with members of the team based in more countries than ever before.

Call us for support and you could be speaking to us anywhere!

In January 2025, we have staff members working in:

• UK
• Australia
• South Africa
• Indonesia
• Albania
• USA, and
• Japan

Phew!

Happy New Year! We'll be sharing our 2025 plans soon. What are yours?!

We've wrapped up 2024 and it's been one of our busiest years yet.  Many new clients have switched from competitor software products to become customers of ours, having heard about our ambitions, our technology and our 24x7 personal support.

Another shockingly-bad AI generated image... will they improve in 2025?!

On the Support Desk, we've regularly seen more than 1,000 tickets raised in a month although December was quieter.  During last month, December 2024, we had 715 calls for assistance altogether of which 193 were deemed to be high priority by the caller.  88% of the most important tickets were resolved within two hours.

2025 is going to be really interesting.  We're working hard for some international clients (providing Alpha Software consultancy), we have new versions of all of our products in development (including Alpha Tracker and ecoScribe), and we have opportunities to work in new markets including Norway and elsewhere in Europe. 

Naturally, 2024 has been difficult at times for us, too.  In particular, we tragically lost one of our most inspiring business associates and long-time friend of director Robin, Clive Ponder.  Clive was a supporter, a mentor, a client, a friend.  He'll be sorely missed.

Looking ahead, we are refreshing our UK team and we have been joined by talented contract specialists from Albania and beyond.

We'd like to thank all of our customers for supporting us throughout 2024.  We know we don't always get everything right, but we always put our customers first and you can count on us to go the extra mile to support you and help you grow.  We never forget that our success depends on your success.

Thanks again and here's to a prosperous 2025 for us all.

Robin, Judy, Catherine, Dan, Jack, Jamie, Zac, Adam, Lucas, Melika, Kim, Ferry, Falah, Fatbardh, Jaime, Leanne, Tina, Josh & Russ.

PS Don't forget to share your plans with us! The more we know about your business, the more we can help

Christmas 2024 opening hours. We're open and here to support you throughout the holiday period

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and we're still here to help you right until 4pm on Christmas Eve! 🎄

We want to make sure all our wonderful clients know about our opening hours during the festive season. Here’s what you need to know:

✨ Closed: Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Year's Day – because even we need time for mince pies and New Year’s resolutions!

✨ Open: We're here for you 24/7 on all other days until we resume our regular hours on 2 January 2025.

Thank you so much for your support and business throughout 2024.  We're bigger than ever and looking forward to a successful 2025.

Enjoy the holidays, and don’t hesitate to reach out if you need us before or after the big celebrations!

We might even get some snow this year

PS when it snowed a few weeks ago, we tried to make a snowman on our balcony.  Not a great effort, but we tried...

Please don't ask why he is wearing plastic gloves and a Captain's hat

PS We've made a donation to the incredible Mesothelioma UK charity instead of spending money on Christmas cards - please do support them if you can, too

Call volumes to our Support Desk are coming down. November tickets were 23% fewer than October

Ticket numbers are finally dropping on our Support Desk.  In November, we received 896 calls for help, down 23% compared to October.

ChatGPT invented the image - it's getting better!

Why the reduced number?  Our new clients have now settled into their routines and so the number of "how do I?" calls has dropped considerably.  We've also been focused on performance for a number of clients, changing our cloud setups so that documents produce more quickly and system response is better.

Response times were good, too, with 19 out of 20 calls being resolved in the timescale needed by the caller.

It's our ISO9001 and ISO27001 recertification week where we focus on Quality and Information Security

It seems like Catherine has been preparing for months for our ISO9001:2015 and ISO27001:2013  recertifications.  This week, she's been working non-stop with ISO assessor Chris and our ISO consultant Kieran alongside our Telford team to provide evidence of our conformance to the standards.

Catherine, Chris and Kieran

Keeping our ISO certifications is a long and costly process, so why do we put ourselves through it?

ISO9001 has been the bedrock of our business since we started trading.  ISO9001 is a measure of an organisation's Quality Management System, essentially a guarantee that a company will work in an orderly, consistent and measured way.   Our software is used by hundreds of organisations every day and they rely on us to provide a consistent service.  Our Support Desk has never been busier, handling more than 1,000 tickets each month and we aim to deal with each one in a timely and professional manner.

ISO27001 ensures that we treat data and information within our custody with appropriate care and diligence.  It is an internationally recognised standard relating to Information Security specifically and there are not many companies of our size who have spent the time and money necessary to obtain the certification.

We won't know until the end of the week whether any non-conformances have been found, so please do wish us luck!

Meet Melika! She is half-way through her work experience with Start Software

We're giving Melika a month's work experience to help start her career in software development.

Team Leader Dan helping Melika

Melika is based in Glasgow, but has taken the leap to move to Telford for the month to embed herself in our team, and see how we build software for our clients.  She's been looking at asbestos software Alpha Tracker, ecological report-writing system ecoScribe and some of our other software products.

She is also helping out on Support, too, so do say hello and make her welcome if you call in and Melika picks up the phone.  She's the only one in our office with a Scottish accent so won't have a problem spotting her!

October saw another 1,000+ tickets on the Support Desk

October 2024 was another 1,000 ticket month - 1,167 to be precise.  Zac, Jamie & Lucas were joined by Melika this month, helping customers using our apps to get the most from their software.

6 months of Support Desk performance

Performance dropped slightly but was still good.  94% of high-priority tickets were answered on time compared to 91% of all tickets.

Time flies! We're celebrating 5 years of being a Living Wage employer

It's 5 years since Start Software became a Living Wage Employer.  We're as proud of that fact today as we were back in 2019.

Find out more at www.livingwage.org.uk

The real Living Wage is based on the real cost of living and is voluntarily paid by more than 15,000 UK employers.  It's calculated independently each year and these are the latest rates:

If your company hasn't explored the benefits of joining the movement and becoming a Living Wage Employer, we urge you to take a look.  Visit www.livingwage.org.uk for more info.