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QUERY: trying to increase website use by our customers
Subject:QUERY: trying to increase website use by our customers From:Donna Horowitz <horowit -at- en -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 30 Mar 2001 11:05:30 -0500
Our company designs and manufactures equipment for the transportation
industry with heavy emphasis on the automotive segment. As Hickok has
become acquainted with the WWW, our management, driven by the board
of directors, wants to use our website as a tool for encouraging
customer contact.
One of the recent suggestions is that we eliminate any addresses in
our manuals and instead give phone number and website address. When
they call or contact us through the website, they will receive an
authorization number for service which they need to include with the
equipment when they return it. We want to encourage customers to
contact us before sending equipment back to us for service with no
clue as to what the problem is.
When I listen to the comments and suggestions at the meetings, I'm
getting the idea that the main concern is to improve our relationship
with our customers. We typically have distributors selling our
equipment, so we are often invisible to the end user. The issue here
is that often, when customers have any problem, even something minor,
they go back to the distributor who doesn't really care about
providing service to the customer. They solve the problem by taking
back the equipment and sending another one; this leaves the customer
with the idea that the equipment was faulty. We are newly eager to
cut to the chase in these cases so that customers know we are here
and willing to provide service that is both effective and timely.
In terms of my documentation, I'm trying to think of ideas that will
address this new eagerness. I have a contact information page that
provides all the phone and fax numbers and Web addresses. This page
is next to the warranty page at the back of the manual and has
references to it in the warranty and a few other places in the manual
(for example, any reference in the manual to equipment maintenance or
trouble has a reminder that we are here to help . . . see the contact
information for numbers . . .
Does anyone have any suggestions or thoughts on ways to improve
customer communication while also increasing traffic to the website
using the manuals or other items that the customer gets with the
product. I'm brainstorming, so I'll be happy for any thoughts however
far-fetched or perhaps tried and true but forgotten.
--
Hectic but free
no other way to be
life is joyous when
you pursue
what you love .
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IPCC 01, Oct. 24-27 in Santa Fe. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
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