To be or not to Be
Posted on fredag, februar 13, 2009 @ kl. 15.47 by chuck
To Be or Not to Be
That is the questions when it comes to supporting and marketing to our customers. To be at their firm each time they call for a demonstration or ask for support of our software or service along with training-- or not to be there.
THE GOOD OLD DAYS
In the “good old days” it was not uncommon to pack up our huge Sony 21 inch monitor and box up the 52 lb Dec PC and race across the country day after day, visiting and doing customer demos. The cars we purchased the planes we rode on were determined by the size of the Monitor Box. Our world revolved around our equipment and the need to be on-site for our customers and potential customers.
NEW TECHNOLOGY HAS CHANGED THE CAM LANDSCAPE
While technology has dwarfed the size of our carry on luggage to a laptop, the expense of traveling has gone the other direction. With this in mind communication technologies have created a virtual world where support and demonstrations of software can be just as effective as on-site presence if used in the proper balance.
I have found that this virtual world is quite acceptable to some firms and to others it’s not open for discussion. We must be there on the first demonstration of our product or they will not deal with us.
With this in mind I decided to conduct a rough survey of 100 Manufacturers in the Michigan area asking 3 questions
The First question involved looking for software among several vendors for the first time. Say a Firm is deciding to change software and has narrowed the search down to 5 software firms. It came out to be 62% were fine with Web-X demos and 38% wanted an on-site demo.
The second question concerned support. Would you rather have on-site support, or web-x support (along with email)? Here the overwhelming response was web-x 86% to 14%
The last questions was,” If you had a software product to sell or service would you prefer to do it over web-x or on-site. Here again 75% would prefer web-x and 25% on-site
This was a very small survey and perhaps larger numbers in different areas would produce different results. But it does indicate that many customers would prefer web-x support, training and first time demos over the web. But it seems from these numbers that most customers prefer support via web-x and email because they have found this to be the most efficient and productive for THEM.
But, some customers (38%) a large number by comparison still want us there. Could this be a technology change indicator? Its hard to say since some firms only do business face to face. Perhaps those firms should ask themselves this question “When this AE is traveling all this way to give me an on-site demo how can he be supporting me writing posts answering questions when he is in a plane or car?”.
I think all software vendors struggle with a balance of how to support their customer base and staying in business with the high cost of travel. Using the most current Communication Technology allows us to spread our expertise in manufacturing to more and more customers in a timely manner.