Tech Docs Are Not for Reading -- Docs are a presales tool

[lief-erickson]

Docs may not close deals very often, but bad docs can frustrate, costing degrees of a potential customer's confidence.

TODO: find the statistics that say that 60-78% of all enterprise software purchasers read the technical documentation before making a purchase. (I believe this stat comes from IBM; there may be other sources.) Tech docs are as much, if not more so, a part of the pre-sales process as the marketing material, because purchasers don't trust the marketing material in the same way they trust the documentation. With the marketing material they know they're being sold something. With the documentation the default position and assumption is: "just the facts, ma'am," which gives the documentation a fair amount of gravitas.

[briandominick]

I'd be really interested to see this. I've had enterprise sales people tell me how purchases use the docs, and no one has ever said a stakeholder has read the docs cover to cover. I can't imagine reading a technical manual cover to cover. I don't think I ever have.

[lief-erickson]

Oh, no, I'm not suggesting that the docs are read cover to cover, but rather the documentation is queried, poked, prodded, and used as part of the buying cycle. It's the rare duck that has read any technical manual cover to cover.

[briandominick]

Yeah I definitely would LOVE any ways to demonstrate the importance of docs in this sphere. That does jive with what sales ppl have told me, for sure. Yeah this area needs to be built up for sure. I'm not a great cheerleader or salesperson.