Good News

Well-written user manuals are an easy way to build a strong, positive company image. Like your sales teams, these manuals are your company representatives who meet and engage your customers. A well-written user manual will please your customers and can be a powerful tool to help you build an image of a customer-centric company — a company that cares for it customers.

Bad News

On the other hand, a poorly written user manual will annoy your customers and reflect badly on your company and your product. These obtuse documents represent the worst of business writing. They send the message that you care only to sell the product and couldn’t care less about the customer.

How Poor Manuals Get Written

Essentially, four situations cause user manuals to be useless.

• The user manuals are usually an afterthought, so there is no time to write a good one.

• The engineers who develop the product and are most familiar with the product have

never been trained to write manuals and would rather drink muddy water and live

in a hollow log than write a manual.

• Tech writers who are hired to write the manuals (after the product is fully developed)

are not familiar with the product and get very little support from the engineers

who do know the product but are now busy on a new project.

• Management assumes that tech support can answer users’ questions.

So the customer is ignored and left to fend for himself. If he calls tech support and can

get past the recordings to a live person who speaks passable English, he is then treated

like a moron for not being able to figure out how to operate the new fantastic Famboozie

Widget.

Yet all these situations can be remedied by planning, training, and putting the customer first.

Good News

Easy-to-use user manuals are not that difficult to produce.

All you have to do is train your techies to write user manuals. This is not rocket science. If your technical people can think logically, we can teach them to plan and write manuals that will become your goodwill ambassadors.

We’ll show them how to organize and format a user’s manual, and — most important —how to write one that the user will cherish.

Call us at 800-716-1601.


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Home Company SITE MAP Course Descriptions Benefits Why Writing Training? Writing Coaches Our Business Philosophy Consulting Manager’s Page FAQs How-To Tips Testimonials Book Contact Us		Customer User Manuals Your Goodwill Ambassadors Good News Well-written user manuals are an easy way to build a strong, positive company image. Like your sales teams, these manuals are your company representatives who meet and engage your customers. A well-written user manual will please your customers and can be a powerful tool to help you build an image of a customer-centric company — a company that cares for it customers. Bad News On the other hand, a poorly written user manual will annoy your customers and reflect badly on your company and your product. These obtuse documents represent the worst of business writing. They send the message that you care only to sell the product and couldn’t care less about the customer. How Poor Manuals Get Written Essentially, four situations cause user manuals to be useless. • The user manuals are usually an afterthought, so there is no time to write a good one. • The engineers who develop the product and are most familiar with the product have never been trained to write manuals and would rather drink muddy water and live in a hollow log than write a manual. • Tech writers who are hired to write the manuals (after the product is fully developed) are not familiar with the product and get very little support from the engineers who do know the product but are now busy on a new project. • Management assumes that tech support can answer users’ questions. So the customer is ignored and left to fend for himself. If he calls tech support and can get past the recordings to a live person who speaks passable English, he is then treated like a moron for not being able to figure out how to operate the new fantastic Famboozie Widget. Yet all these situations can be remedied by planning, training, and putting the customer first. Good News Easy-to-use user manuals are not that difficult to produce. All you have to do is train your techies to write user manuals. This is not rocket science. If your technical people can think logically, we can teach them to plan and write manuals that will become your goodwill ambassadors. We’ll show them how to organize and format a user’s manual, and — most important —how to write one that the user will cherish. Call us at 800-716-1601.