Customer Satisfaction Survey Results 2023

Increased Use of the Property Model Calculator

More people answered that they have used the Property Model Calculator compared to 2019, which was the last time we asked about it. Over the last several years we have added more models and created more application examples and tutorials. With Thermo-Calc 2021a the Bainite Model for the Steel Model Library was introduced, and in the same release five other models were included. Thermo-Calc 2021a also introduced users to a new way to create their own models using TC-Python. In Thermo-Calc 2022a the Nickel Model Library with three pre-built Property Models was introduced, and in 2022b a new ferrite model was added to the Steel Model Library.

Since 2019 we have created four more tutorials about the Property Model Calculator and two application examples called “Hardenability Design of Steel” and “Titanium Alloy Design for Additive Manufacturing”.

In the survey, some of you asked for more models and examples to be added. We are planning to continue developing the Property Model Calculator and creating more examples. We recently hired another person on our team that is working on developing new models and examples.

Continued High Customer Satisfaction

We were happy to see that customer satisfaction has continued to be high. Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a widely used metric that allows companies to measure customer satisfaction. According to Retently, the global benchmark for the computer software industry had an average score of 34 in 2023. We are pleased to see that we are well above that with a NPS of 39,7. 

The majority of you who participated in the survey answered that you see yourselves continuing to use our products over the next year; 60% answered that you were extremely likely to do so. Those of you who said you were likely to continue using our products spoke about being satisfied with our products and finding them useful in your field of work and research.

Customers with a Maintenance and Support Subscription also reported high satisfaction. And satisfaction for technical- and customer support has continued to be high. The comments about the technical- and customer support were mostly positive, saying that the support is excellent, helpful, useful, and consistent. The negative criticism was mostly about the response time or that more complex issues were harder to get answers to. We have recently hired more support staff to meet the demand for quicker support. 

Training and Documentation

When asked for feedback about our products and databases, you who participated in the survey asked for more application examples, tutorials, use cases, and improvements to the help system and the documentation. 

We are continuously working on improving the documentation and creating more examples. Our video tutorials can be found on our website and YouTube. You can also subscribe to our YouTube-channel to get notifications when we upload new videos so you do not miss out. Additionally, our digital platform the Learning Hub is an option for users who are looking for in-depth lessons to learn how to use Thermo-Calc and apply it to real world conditions. Learning Hub subscriptions also include live, monthly office hours, where you can ask questions about any of the content on the Learning Hub or about your work with Thermo-Calc.

To learn more about the Learning Hub, visit the Learning Hub website.

Properties and Satisfaction About the Results

Over the last several years we have added a lot of new properties to our databases. Therefore this year’s survey included questions about which properties customers have the most use for and interest in. This year we also asked those of you who use our products to calculate specific properties, if you were satisfied with the results. 

Compared to previous years, this year more of you have used our products to calculate density, coefficient of thermal expansion, or lattice parameters, as well as calculating thermal resistivity or thermal diffusivity, and electrical resistivity or electrical conductivity. The majority of you who answered that you have used our products to calculate the properties listed above, responded that you were satisfied with the results.

We also asked you to rank how helpful you found different properties on a scale from 1 to 5.  The answers about which properties are the most important to you have given us valuable insights that will help us to know which properties we should prioritize in our development. 

Winner of the Customer Survey Raffle Prize: Dr. Dirk Ponge

Participants in the customer survey had the chance to win a €250 prize in a raffle. This year the winner was Dr. Dirk Ponge, Group Leader at Max-Planck-Institut in Düsseldorf, Germany. Read below about his work with Thermo-Calc products.

I am the group leader of the group ‘Mechanism-based Alloy Design’. The group works on the microstructure-oriented design of high-performance steels, engineering Al-, Ni- and Ti-alloys. Projects focus on strain hardening mechanisms such as the interplay of dislocations, twins and deformation driven phase transformations. Of special interest are confined phase transformation phenomena at grain boundaries and dislocations. Especially for materials with high strength, hydrogen embrittlement provides a challenge. Here the damage and failure mechanisms are analyzed in order to develop novel high strength materials with low susceptibility against hydrogen embrittlement. In order to improve the sustainability of materials, we design alloys that can tolerate the highest possible scrap and thus impurity fractions.

For alloy design, not only the alloy composition is decisive, but also the corresponding thermomechanical treatment. This enables us to create tailored microstructures to improve combinations of mechanical properties like strength, ductility and toughness. We use Thermo-Calc to design new alloy compositions. This helps to prevent solidification problems and design heat treatments. In medium manganese steels, for example, we use thermodynamic calculations to predict composition and stacking fault energy of reverted austenite formed at a specific intercritical annealing temperature. Kinetic simulations by DICTRA helps to plan the heat treatment time. We further develop multi-step heat treatments based on DICTRA simulations to produce very special multiphase microstructures with ferrite, metastable austenite (for high ductility) and stable austenite (increase security against hydrogen embrittlement).

Questions You Asked Us in the Survey

Some of you asked questions in the survey. Since the answers are anonymous, we cannot contact you via the survey. Please email us at info@thermocalc.com and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Money Raised for Charity

As a thank you gift to respondents, we gave you the opportunity to select from three charities to have us donate €10 on your behalf.  Together we raised €560! Through your generosity, the UNHCR, UNICEF, and the International Committee of the Red Cross have received donations that will help further their important missions. Thank you to those who chose to donate.

Thank you again to everyone who took the survey. We appreciate the time and thought you put into your responses. We analyze all of the feedback and consider it when deciding upon our roadmaps. You are welcome to email us anytime with ideas and feedback at info@thermocalc.com.