Technical support is expensive to provide. If you employ only 10 tech support specialists, each earning $25 per hour plus benefits, each working 40 hours per week for 50 weeks a year--well, you see how it can add up. In fact, that little exercise runs up to half a mil per year, just in tech support salaries--not counting training costs.
Now suppose your online help and documentation is so excellent that your end users can actually understand it. Suppose that reading your help and docs gives users such a clear understanding of the way your product works that they don't have to make constant tech support calls. Suppose that your tech support costs go down because you were far-sighted enough to have your documentation well-written in the first place.
Wouldn't that be wonderful?
The synergy of excellence
What the user needs from you is an excellent product. What the user needs from your documentalists is excellent help and documentation. A user who gets both is a happy user--and a repeat customer.
It's also good to keep in mind that product reviewers express themselves vigorously about the quality of the documentation they have to work with while evaluating a product. That means that it would be a mistake to assume that help and documentation isn't very important. Vendors who try to cut corners by producing slipshod help and documentation have to pay the price for their carelessness in terms of high support costs--and bad reviews in the trades.
TechVoice is skilled in documentation writing, both for printed docs and online documentation. And we specialize in helping your non-technical users understand and appreciate your product.
If you need to outsource a documentation product, we'll be happy to talk with you. Our services can help you cut costs for the lifetime of your product.
