People do not read the manual.

I seemed to be under the impression that maybe our customers were different. Sure, I don't read manuals, but someone must right? At a minimum for a reference? So when we put together the packaging for ChimSoft, the manual received high importance. Every page was protected by laminate (Chimney Sweeps get dirty) so it could be brought on to the job site. People ooh and aah'ed at the manuals when they see them in person. They liked how easily it explained things. Mission accomplished.

Or not. Most of the tech support calls we've received so far have involved issues that were covered in the manual. And I realized it's because manuals are one of those things that everyone means to take the time to read, but never get around too (including myself). Our goal was to make the easiest product for our customers to use, so if they can't figure something out, the way to figure this out should be straight forward. So we've started a new training site. Every feature of our software from the most basic to the most complex will be shown and explained using Wink videos.

In other news we released version 1.1 today, our first big update release. Most of the feedback that went into this release was gathered at the convention we attended in January. Now it's really crunch time to get all of the serious features implemented for the national convention at the end of March.