Cornered the market? Great, now keep your customers happy
In the past week, I have spent way too many hours trying to get industrial hardware from different vendors to talk to one another.
In my specific situation, we are using a nice little touch-screen display with plentiful digital IO. It has built-in Ethernet and can talk via a host of protocols. Unfortunately, one of those protocols is not the kind I need for my other device.
Such is the story of industrial hardware.
Every company wants you to stay in their ecosystem entirely and it’s only the realities of the market that have them begrudgingly support cross-platform communications.
Every company wants you to stay in their ecosystem entirely and it’s only the realities of the market that have them begrudgingly support cross-platform communications.
Every company wants you to stay in their ecosystem entirely and it’s only the realities of the market that have them begrudgingly support cross-platform communications.
Obviously we had made a mistake specifying the touch display and I went on the hunt for something that would be a better fit. However, I couldn’t find one! Sure, there are plenty of other HMI manufacturers out there but none offered the IO I needed with the form-factor and screen capabilities we had been counting on until this point.
“Best in Class”, in a Class of One
This isn’t meant to be a gripe about one manufacturer over another, but it gave me an interesting thought: when you have the market cornered and have carved out a great little niche for your products, you better be darn sure you keep your customers happy. Otherwise, the resentment your foster with inadequate products or services is going to similarly foster a breeding ground for a competitor.
when you have the market cornered and have carved out a great little niche for your products, you better be darn sure you keep your customers happy. Otherwise, the resentment your foster with inadequate products or services is going to similarly foster a breeding ground for a competitor.
when you have the market cornered and have carved out a great little niche for your products, you better be darn sure you keep your customers happy. Otherwise, the resentment your foster with inadequate products or services is going to similarly foster a breeding ground for a competitor.
In my own instance, I was frustrated that the manufacturer wasn’t able to support this common communication method. More so, I was frustrated that they didn’t have any solution to link the two devices over Ethernet, our preferred medium. Instead, we would have to implement a legacy solution with added installation cost and higher risk because of additional hardware.
If you had told me there was someone else out there with a similar product and maybe a few less bells and whistles I probably would have jumped on it just out of spite.
Build Up or Disrupt
While I am not about to go and start-up my own HMI hardware start-up, I know this is especially true in the software realm.
On the one hand, it’s this very principle that makes open source software such a success in some spaces. It capitalizes on people’s feelings that something can and should be improved. In theory, this is a way to build up software into something more successful and effective.
On the other hand, this principle can also make for some spectacular fireworks when one company comes in and eats another’s lunch. Looking at Friendster-MySpace-Facebook timeline alone, there is no shortage of examples of this in the startup world. There’s a whole conference that revolves around this idea.
Problems without Solutions
Not every problem a customer encounters has a ready solution. Yet, I think, in these instances you are able to further separate okay companies from great companies.
Obviously, in my situation, I wanted a piece of hardware that communicated the way I wanted it to. In lieu of that, I wanted the company to acknowledge their own shortcoming and have a solution available as an alternative. Unfortunately, I really got neither and that led to my frustration.
Customer service goes a long way in any industry. It can also be the thing that helps you have that non-technical advantage in addition to your existing market advantage. Don’t squander that opportunity and leave your customers wondering (if not, hoping) for a competitor to come around.
