Custom Apparel Startups

Episode 74 – Your Most Costly Mistake – What 20 Years of Observation Taught Us

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Have you ever put together furniture from Ikea or Walmart? Not following the directions... and ended up having to take off 10 pieces because you missed a vital step? It's a classic human behavior... we DONT read instructions.

Subaru of America Inc. has been struggling with this problem since it noticed consumer complaints about vehicle quality beginning to rise a few years ago.

"We scratched our heads trying to figure out why," said Joseph Barstys, manager of customer relationships. "As we further explored why, we realized it wasn't so much that things didn't work but that customers didn't know how to work" their vehicle. In fact, it turned out, 1 in 5 calls to the Subaru call center involved a question answered in the owner's manual.

Tony Sweers, the product quality engineer for Canon Information Technology Services, noted: "It appears that when a lot of people see that an 800 number is available, they find it much easier to call than to sit down and read the manual."

A poll by Gadget Helpline, a tech support hotline discovered that a full sixty-four percent of men and twenty-four percent of women calling for tech support had not even bothered to read the manual.

So now that we know people are very unlike to read the manual, watch the videos or take the training.... we need to make a case on why it's so important.

  1. You can literally break your machine the first hour you have it
    • This is commercial grade equipment. They are all very powerful, very fast, very versatile.... when an embroidery machine is running at 900 stitches per minute, think of how fast that is... 15 stitches in a second.
      1. It will take you more time to "learn on your own"
        • Our training was designed with a user experience in mind. Teaching certain things first due to their importance in the process. We make sure you learn to ride a bike before trying to ride it w/o handlebars or popping a wheelie. If you try to do it on your own you can waste a ton of time by trying to learn things out of order. Imagine it like math courses... first, you learn basic bath, then algebra, then calculus... they build on each other, on purpose.
          1. It will cost you money
            • If you don't use equipment properly. You will ruin shirts, waste time and lose customers. It essentially happens all of the time. People who are ruining shirts and lose $$. You try to do something w/o reading instructions, you get frustrated, you waste time... and end up losing out.
              1. You are more likely to give up
                • It's an event that happens all the time in life. If you walk into a restaurant and they don't greet you for 3 minutes... your entire meal is tainted. You judge the server more harshly, you watch the clock on the service, you judge the food more harshly. Compared to having a very nice person greet you immediately... then you are more likely to forgive the chef for forgetting to put extra olives in your food.

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                  5. Blood pressure

                  • you are almost guaranteed to be frustrated and overwhelmed.

                    • Not getting trained can lead you to a bad start. It can lead you to frustration. It

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                    Custom Apparel StartupsBy Custom Apparel Startups
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