The Devil is in the Details

Technical writing includes:

• white papers
• owner's and service manuals
• Help files
• product specifications.

White papers, specifications and (occasionally) owner's manuals are pre-sale communications. The rest are part of the post-sale relationship between customer and brand.

Customer Relationship Management has been a buzzword for a while. But if CRM is dumped in the Sales silo, little attention is paid to the most important stage of the customer's journey: the use experience. The proof is in the pudding, and if your documentation, tech support and service are weak, so is your product. No amount of great design or exciting pre-sale promotion can make up for bad experiences. If the owner's manual is confusing, if it just lists out a bunch of functions and controls without providing any results-targeted recipes, your product sucks. If users can't answers to problems or replacement parts when they need them (and that's always yesterday), your company and your brand suck.

It's usually fairly obvious that service businesses are customer-service businesses. But manufacturing is too. Products are more than the object in the box. They are also service, and also entertainment, even identity in some cases. Good writing based on a clear understanding of what engineering put into the product and what the customer needs to get out of it is essential to healthy, long-lasting customer relationships.