How does good technical documentation directly translate into more sales?

This won’t be a bible length post, since the answer to my question is actually pretty simple. I highly doubt any of you has managed without buying something made in China during the past 12 months. If you have succumbed, you probably noticed some funny explanations, instructions or statements on the side of the package (unless the marketing and documentation material was produced in a native English speaking country).

Yesterday at the store, I saw a product I had read about and really wanted to buy. A washing machine ball that replaces detergent and allows you to recycle washing machine water for garden use. (Volumes of laundry for my 2 year old twins and a watering ban on my garden made this product sound like a must-have.) On the side of the package, this $50 item proudly stated “Finally, you can catch 3 hens with one bean”. I stared and laughed and put the ball back down.

In less than five seconds, I was transformed from anxious waitlisted consumer to skeptical window shopper all because of a ridiculous, seemingly nonsensical phrase that should have said “You can kill two birds with one stone”. Instead, I was left trying to imagine and laughing about how to catch 3 hens with just one bean! And wondering whether the device would or could actually work—since their documentation was ridiculous.

Any company that translates text using “Google Translation” has clearly not done their homework. Nor do they understand that cultural references are important and have deeper marketing messages and subtexts. Marketing in a foreign country is hard work, and good documentation is needed both before and after translation—but the translation has to be done by a professional with recent experience in that country.

A number of years ago, we worked for a datacom start-up that had the chance to make the deal of a lifetime: a 25 million dollar sale to a very high profile customer. The first requirement from the RFP was for access to the entire product documentation suite because the potential customer would be attempting an initial installation at the lab. The product evaluation team from the potential customer very intelligently vetted every prospective vendor by doing a trial install and initial configuration using ONLY the documentation as a guide and refused help from product support staff. Their philosophy was that any company who took their documentation seriously, had to also have good product development methods and practices in place. They also realized that a company that invests seriously in documentation, already sees the big picture and realizes that good documentation saves everyone time and money.

Needless to say, our customer beat out all of the competition and got the deal. The important point here is that ALL of the 1000s of pages of detailed documentation that helped close this deal were created by two part-time writers. So let me be very clear. I am not saying to just throw money at documentation and it will be good. I am saying good documentation will help you make more sales and that translates into money for your business. There is an important distinction here. I am not saying don’t outsource, or don’t offshore, or don’t move to a new documentation content management system. I am saying, know what your customer needs and make sure he gets it with the right support documentation.

While your potential customers may not turn away from buying cheap $5 dollar gadgets (or even $50 dollar washing machine balls) with funny safety warnings and entertaining marketing messages—no one buys products that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars without wanting to run some sanity tests. When they do, they don’t just want to see the product, but they want to know how they will find out about new builds and features, what support will be available to them once the honeymoon period is over, and how easy it will be for their internal team to integrate the product into their existing system. Documentation is more than just a checkmark on a list of features. The quality and usability of your documentation can and will easily be the difference between your making or losing the sale.

I am not a proponent of big documentation teams. I am a proponent of smart documentation teams and smart documents. I am willing to guarantee that if you give your potential customers well organized, well written, purpose-driven documentation, you will make more sales and have more repeat business.

After all, successfully running any business is about a heck of a lot more than just counting your “beans”.