Gino,
Thanks for the great and informative post. I agree with almost all of it. I definitely agree that there has to be, needs to be an online manual. Jon mentioned revamping the site, which also needs to be done.
I sometimes wonder how much control Jon is willing to give up. I know when I have priced a professionally designed website, it could get up to the $1,000 to $3,000 range pretty quickly. I don't have a site, but that is just because I didn't want to do the cookie cutter ones (and I hope I don't offend anyone -- they are just fine to get a site up and running), but mainly because I couldn't come up with the content.
But, a website is basically your store now, and it needs to be very good. If I were Jon (and a lot of us start out our sentences that way -- obviously, if I were Jon, I would have the number one EMR)I would pay someone a lot of money to build a very good and cohesive site.
On that site, there needs to be a support section. Basically, on the side or wherever, it would say:
User Guide
Admin Manual
Knowledgebase
FAQ
User forum
Support:
By phone:
By email:
By chat:
The only place I would differ would be in who writes the manual. I think it would be logistically difficult to have a lot of users write the manual. The timing would be wrong, and the editing would probably just make it start over. Essentially, you would have 100 Wikis combined into one.
Someone from AC needs to write a manual. Maybe it would be one of the users who knows it well and works with an editor. Maybe the developers who know certain areas well. Of course, they don't use the program. Don't reinvent the wheel. Jon's a big time entrepreneur now. He should be able to pick up the phone and call a company like Backup Assist or Acronis or whatever and ask them how they did theirs. Find some really good online PDF manuals and talk to those who made them.
But, we who are using it, have pretty much figured it out. The new users will hopefully do so. As far as the new customers that will lead to doubling of the customer base, that is up to Jon. If he is smart (and of course he must be), he will step back and look at exactly what you are talking about.
Thanks Gino. Keep posting.
