David Meerman Scott wrote an interesting piece called “When lawyers get in the way of PR”
In one organization I know very well, the legal beagles review every customer facing document. Not just press releases, but new product announcements, product literature, advertisements – everything… it is for our own protection. Don’t want to get into legal action, do you?
What if we marketing/management types just agreed to tone down the hype a bit? Would it prevent the legal beagles from knocking the teeth (and benefits statements) out of every attempt at customer facing communication? Could we restrain ourselves from making outrageous claims given a bit of training? Did you get coaching prior to your first on-the-record media interview?
Let’s take this to the next step – looking from the outside in… What if the Marketing team had to review every legal document (contracts, proposals, license agreements, etc) to remove all the unintelligible gobbledygook that some call legalese? Would straight talk, benefits-oriented legal documents be more clearly written? Better understood? Less likely to disagree? Lower chance of lawsuits? Would the teeth be pulled from that partnership agreement?
I’d love to hear from lawyer types what they think about this and also from the Marketing folks.
When gathering feedback for market requirements, as a product manager we all too often simply take out our handy ever-expanding excel spreadsheet (very few of us actually use a true tools application.) We look over the list, and add another tick next to the item we just heard.
The better product managers, as we all know, actually gather feedback from the market, and not simply let the development teams run the world. But, are even these better PMs listening to everything that is said? Or, are we still focused on market feedback for features?
So, where does ownership of the company’s product warranty process reside? I recently had an experience with a consumer good that failed after only one month of use. I called the toll-free phone number provided by the manufacturer only to be told that I had to pay $10 plus shipping to get a replacement product sent to me that had failed under normal use. While I do not have access to product failure data, and do not know how frequently it happens at this particular manufacturer (I do know that I was on customer service hold for several minutes), why would the customer be expected to pay extra to fix the company’s problem. Why wouldn’t the customer go to the local store (immediately gratified) and purchase a competitive product right away? Is it brand loyalty? Is it a need to make the company pay?
An outside in view might suggest that this particular company would be well served by listening to their customers. Many customers would be offended to fork over additional cash to replace an obviously defective product. How would you have handled it? Will it help you as a PM listen better?
