Every morning, I make the same breakfast. I’ll put the coffee on, then make myself an egg bagel. Pop the bagel in the toaster, fry up a couple of eggs, and good to go. Except it’s not.
Every morning, without fail, my smoke alarm goes off. “Adjust the toaster,” you might say. I did, and still the alarm goes off. “Cook the eggs on a lesser heat,” another good suggestion. Which I’ve tried. And still the damn alarm goes off.
Off course, it being a smoke alarm, I can’t adjust the sensitivity on it – too unsafe, right? Or is it? Couldn’t the manufacturers allow for sectioned adjustments, say one at a time until the problem is solved? There’s a big difference between cooker smoke and fire smoke, after all.
That got me to thinking how user-friendly we are to our customers.
Look at the iPod. Officially, you can’t replace the battery on it when it runs out, you need to have an authorized dealer do this. There are plenty of solutions online so you don’t need to go the official route, but why make it so much of a runaround in the first place?
The same goes for some laptops, other consumer electronics, customer queries and more. Basically, we’re not making things easy for the end user – instead, we’re pissing them off. Why?
To me that says, “We’re Company X and we think you’re too stupid to act for yourself. You will always need us around – get used to it.” How can that be good for business?
Look at the recent Zappos sale to Amazon. Zappos are known for having an amazing culture that makes everything easy, from employee satisfaction to customer sales and follow-up service. The result? A whopping $847 million purchase. Ease-of-use encourages success.
We’re smart people. We know when not to mess with things, but we also know what we’re capable of dealing with. If I can use a product, I should (mostly) be able to amend that product’s settings for my own personal use.
Otherwise, is there even any point to your product to start with?
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I generally agree with your point that customers should be allowed to adjust / customize their purchase. However, I don't think this is a "black and white" issue. In this litigious environment, where everyone is suing everyone else, I can understand not giving the customer to much ability to customize when any amount of customizing increases the risk of injury and or death of the customer.... like with your smoke detector.... regardless of how smart the customer is or thinks he is. Remember, not too long ago, McDonald's was successfully sued because their hot coffee was too hot!?!
.-= Darvin @ Best Ionic Air Purifiers´s most recent blog post ...HEPA Air Purifiers =-.
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