Since VNC® Connect was launched in November 2016, we’ve taken significant steps to find out what you, our customers, want from your remote access software.
Your feedback is truly important to us, and this year, more than ever before, we’ve been listening to you. In this article, we’ll explain how customer experience shapes our software roadmap and what we’re doing to make VNC® Connect even better, and review all the improvements we’ve made over the last 12 months.
How do we know what you need?
When it comes to seeking and collecting customer feedback, we find the following tools useful:
Surveys
You may have received a survey from us asking “How likely are you to recommend VNC® Connect to a friend or colleague?” As well as providing a numerical value (0-10) to help us gauge your general satisfaction, the reasons that you give for your score are analysed and categorized, which gives us a better idea of the areas we need to improve in. We also get a better feeling for the things you already love.
We’re sending out more surveys than ever before, and your responses are proving incredibly valuable in guiding our decisions. Whether you reply to a single question in an email, or fill out a 10-point questionnaire, it’s all helping to build us a clearer picture of who our users are and what they want.
Customer Interviews
Our Product team sets up regular calls with VNC® Connect users to talk about how our software is helping you work smarter and better. We’re interested in how you found us, what solutions you used before, and of course whether there are any problems we can iron out for you. These calls help us both to decide what features and improvements to make, and also when to schedule them in order to deliver as much value as possible.
Beta programs and prototypes
There’s nothing more demoralizing for an Engineering team than working on a feature for months, only to send it out into the world and find that people can’t or don’t use it. This year, we’re committed to smarter iteration, to show what we’re working on early and often, and act on the feedback. This will help ensure that what we’re building is what you need.
Now that you know a bit more about the approach we’ve taken to find out more about you, here’s a quick summary of the major features we’ve introduced over the last 12 months.
Increased security
Improved multi-factor authentication
Last year, we introduced the ability to use a second authentication factor when connecting to a remote computer. The overwhelmingly positive response showed us that security is still high on your priority list (as it should be!), so we decided to take things one step further and introduce additional measures to make the authentication process even more secure.
We have recently rolled out a new service that adds another layer of protection to your RealVNC® account, requiring you to authorize all new devices via email before you sign in. This helps prevent fraudulent sign-ins using cracked or leaked credentials. You can also now mandate 2-step verification for all the other people in your remote access team.
Screen blanking for Windows 8 and 10
Screen blanking has consistently been a top requested feature and it is now available for Windows 8 and Windows 10, in addition to Windows 7 and earlier versions. It works best for desktop computers (some laptops can be troublesome), but you can test the feature before you roll it out.
Instant support
Branding customization
Users taking advantage of the instant support capability of VNC® Connect told us that they wanted to add their company’s branding when performing a support session. If you have an Enterprise subscription, you can now replace the RealVNC® logo, app icon and wording with your own, so end users know straight away who is providing the service and enjoy a more personal support experience.
User experience
Website changes and support
You told us our website was not always easy to navigate, so we took the feedback on board and worked on a major redevelopment. All the information about VNC® Connect is now in one place, with much richer menus and navigation to help you find what you need. It’s also now much simpler to get in contact with our Support team via live chat, and to determine the status of our cloud connectivity service.
iOS touch panel mode
Speaking of user experience, our iOS users have been asking to control a remote touch panel directly, rather than using the device screen as a trackpad. Touch panel interaction mode was released earlier in the year and is now available for all iOS devices; simply switch the Interaction method to Touch when you set up a connection.
So, what’s next?
2019 is shaping up to be an exciting year for us, and hopefully for you too. Our Engineering team continues to work on hard on new features in the hope and expectation that they will delight you!
Following extensive beta testing (thanks to everyone who participated!), we are just about to release the first major update of the year. The upcoming 6.4.0 release of VNC® Connect introduces high-speed streaming, which should significantly improve the performance of remote access sessions without sacrificing picture quality. Everyone’s experience should be more responsive, but the change will be especially transformative for use cases where the remote screen changes very quickly, like watching video, or your connection has a high latency, for example when connecting across continents .
We are sure that our users will be as excited as we are about the introduction of another major feature, the ability to listen to remote audio, also due to be released in 2019. Also, customers using the instant support capability should be happy to hear that support for Android devices is high on the roadmap.
For more information about the most recent updates and upcoming releases, please read our Quarterly Product Update Notification , which goes out to all our customers.
In the meantime, if you want to let us know what you think of VNC® Connect, or what features you’d like us to add in the future, please let us know here. Who knows, you might see it mentioned in this very same update next year!
