Whether you sell to businesses (B2B) or consumers (B2C), this time of the year is extremely hectic.
People are easily distracted by the latest Christmas tech, including the PlayStation 4 and iPad 5, so it is more important than ever to cut through all the marketing noise and get your product in front of your target audience.
Just closing the sale is not enough to keep your company in the black. We conducted research looking into this with YouGov sampling 2,000 UK consumers and found that one third of consumers are less likely to buy products from a company if they know they have complicated and confusing instruction manuals.
The research shows that clear and easy-to-understand ‘how to’ guides for your products are not just a way to spare consumer irritation, they are an essential component of the customer experience and affect your bottom line.
According to the research, one in 10 consumers admitted that inadequate guidelines lead to arguments in their household and over one in 20 even confessed to breaking their product after being confused by instructions.
The survey also revealed that 21 per cent of people find instructions difficult to understand with the same percentage believing that they are not detailed enough. This percentage is just too high and highlights that there is a systemic lack of understanding of how many everyday technology devices actually work. More than 1 in 5 (21 per cent) claimed that they don’t fully understand how to use their mobile phones while 25 per cent don’t have a complete grasp of their personal computers.
Consumers over 55 years of age are especially discriminating, with 46 per cent factoring the quality of product instructions into their purchase decision. This clearly demonstrates that communicating the full functionality of the product is an essential stage in the customer buying journey, particularly for this demographic.
Providing confusing instructions is like providing a keyboard without the letters printed on – consumers can muddle through but it will take them a lot longer and cause lots of irritation.
We see three main things that companies need to improve. First is creating better content, using simpler language, avoiding jargon, and standard terminology. Second is publishing this content across multiple channels, making it easy for customers to access on their smartphone, tablet or within the product itself – as the survey also showed a preference by most users for alternative electronic product instructions in addition to paper based ones. Third is to make fuller use of more visual elements, such as YouTube videos, animations and 3D diagrams to convey their message.
As a service provider in this space, it’s our aim to help large companies achieve all this: create simple, easy-to-understand manuals, available through multiple digital channels, and more engaging and interactive. Companies that get this right see lower after-sales support costs and improved customer experience.
Overall, to offer your customers the best possible experience, it’s essential to know how well they understand the product especially at home or in the office. If they easily understand and use its full functionality, they in turn will be an advocate of the product. The alternative is increased stress, dissatisfied customers, negative reviews online and nasty cases of ‘product rage’.
By Julie Hesselgrove, Group President of Xerox Communication and Marketing Services.
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