Hi Gariner, I produce training manuals for a company in Cambridge. I suggest that you try and organise some training sessions for the engineers themselves, based around your documentation (or perhaps create a special 'engineer-friendly' version which doesn't make them feel they're being talked down to). That way, they will have a really good idea of what's in the documentation, and where to find things, and will also be more inclined to pass this information onto the customer.
The company I work for actually makes every employee go on at least the level 1 training course - a sort of induction session. I think that's a really good idea. It might be that you can use the documentation as the basis for in- house training courses for the customer, which you can sell at a premium price. Hope this helps, Martin martin at em-dash dot com > Message: 3 > Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 16:43:25 +0530 (IST) > From: Garnier Garnier <garnier_framescript at yahoo.co.in> > Subject: Motivating end users to read the user manual > To: framers at lists.frameusers.com > Message-ID: <533624.30265.qm at web94602.mail.in2.yahoo.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 > > > Hi listers, > > I would like some feedback on this issue which I am sure most of us > face. Please write to me directly as most of the time the mails form > forums bounces and I do not receive them. Not sure about the reason. > > I put in a lot of effort to create an exhaustive training material. > It includes all information in detail and all the steps too are > documentented in simple English. The training material is very > technical and includes all the required details and instructions. > Still none of the engineers bother to read the contents and when > they are at the customer site for training they start complaining > that nothing is working. The engineers are familiar with the product > no doubt about it but there are certain "do's" that they ought to > know and which is documented in the training material which none > bother to read. > > I welcome suggestions for improvement in the document or otherwise > that will prompt the end user to read the training material contents > instead simply complaining "nothing is working". > > B/R > Garnier
