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Subject:Justifying Service Manuals From:Richard Inch <rinch -at- INFICON -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 13 Oct 1997 15:55:32 -0400
If I posted this twice, please forgive me. Lotus Notes and I are new to
each other.
I need to justify the hire of a writer to oversee the creation Service
Manuals. The audience for these Service Manuals are Field Service
Technicians working out of Service Centers located in forty-three sites
throughout the world, and may also include some of our larger customers who
have their own "Certified" Service Department.
I need to submit to my superiors a justification which indicates that
Service Manuals will (1) decrease customer downtime, (2) increase customer
satisfaction with our company and products, (3) allow Service Engineers to
focus on truly severe problems instead of being "information gophers" and,
(4) lower the cost of Customer Service.
And, yes, these Service Manuals can be in any format (paper, Multi-Media,
Expert System, available from web page, on CD-ROM, etc.). However, my first
step is to convince corporate staff that a Service "Manual" will have a
positive effect on our corporate bottom line while enhancing customer
satisfaction with our products.
Currently, we do not provide Service Manuals. Field Service Technicians
rely on factory training and their own intuition to effect the repair of
our instruments. If a Field Service Technician can not effect a repair,
they call Customer Service and speak with a Field Service Engineer who gets
the correct information out to them.
I and the Service Manager can talk until we are out-of-breath about the
need for standards, consistency, ease of information retrieval, keeping the
800 number open for customers, responsive service, etc. Without hard data
it is very difficult to justify Service Manuals to corporate staff. Does
anyone know of any research concerning that I may read and reference when
writing my justification?
Richard Inch
Technical Publications Manager
Leybold Inficon, East Syracuse, NY
rinch -at- inficon -dot- com
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