An Old Problem with New Solutions

One morning the CEO had the sales manager in his office. The conversation turned from current orders to customer support:

CEO: Tell me, why do we get so many calls for help from our customers?

Sales Manager: I don’t know. They tell me they don’t want to place more orders because they have trouble learning how to use what they already have.

CEO: Well, don’t we give them a manual and a stack of training materials?

Sales Manager: They say the manual is too hard to use, and I’m not sure what they do with the training materials. They’re just a bunch of handouts anyway. I think they get lost.

CEO: I can’t figure the manual out, either, and we make this stuff. Who wrote it, anyway?

Sales Manager: Nobody knows. Bradley down in engineering says that the marketing people pulled it together about five years ago.

CEO: No wonder no one can use it! Do you know how much the product has changed since then?

Sales Manager: I can imagine. Trouble is, the specs for the updates are scattered all over the place. It’ll take the engineers some time just to get started, and they’re pretty busy already.

CEO: I really hate problems like this. We don’t have time to do it ourselves, and we don’t have the money to hire someone else to do it.

Sales Manager: Why don’t you let me check some prices? It sure would help sales if we could give our customers a manual they can actually use.

CEO: Okay, do it. We have to get off the dime here. Let me know what you find out.

TechWrite Publishing has helped companies increase their sales and satisfy their customers since 1997. Contact Steven Greffenius, Ph.D.