It is sad that it is the case, but I have very low expectations of larger Fortune 500 companies when it comes to web presence. It seems like unless they were born of the web, many of them still view there corporate site as brochure ware or of minimal value unless it can drive some form of revenue. The extension of customer service and customer satisfaction upward into a revenue stream just seems to escape most corporations. Often, when you go to look at resources on a product you have purchased, the best you can expect to find is a PDF of the user’s manual that came in the box.
This was the exactly the level of detail I expected when I visited the the Jeep site today. The onset of warmer weather prompted me to replace the hard top with the soft top this past weekend. Anyone who has ever owned a jeep knows that installing the soft top is a combination of contortionism, origami and finger strength and dexterity beyond human comprehension. My personal efforts have left pieces of canvas flapping wildly in the wind; more sailboat than modern vehicular transportation. Despite the fact that half of the owner’s manual is dedicated to top installation and removal, I still had no clue how to attach several pieces of top. I hoped that at the very least I might be able to blow up an image of a properly installed top and glean a modicum of information on what went wrong. Imagine my surprise when on the Jeep site there are detailed videos specific to each vehicle demonstrating the proper installation of the top. All questions answered and I leave once again enamored with my car and no longer flapping in the breeze.
It is nice to see that Jeep realizes that satisfying your current customers goes a long way toward acquiring new customers. No matter how much I enjoyed my car, if I could never properly install the top, I am not likely going to recommend it to a friend. A simple two-minute video solves the problem and makes me happy. This kind of stuff happens on the web all the time as developers employ screencasts to educate their audience on how to use their application, it is nice to see it trickling into the consumer product market as well. Imagine if all those VCR manufacturers has videos on how to set the clock and schedule recordings.
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