“What should I plant here?” the frustrated young mother asked as we squinted into the 3 x 4.5 screen of here iPhone. I couldn’t quite tell if she was referring to the square foot area next to the gutter or the other spot 6 pixels away.
“Is there a way you can mail that image to me so I can print it off? It will make this a little easier.”
I ran to the office, downloaded the image, clicked ‘print’, and grabbed a marker. Somehow I inadvertently printed two copies of the photo and hurriedly attached them to a clip-board I’d found. I think I made it back to the poor woman just before she was about to give up and go home without a solution to her problem. “Here,” I said, gasping for air from the ¼ mile/minute run. “Where were you pointing?”
She regained her interest in getting her project finished as we used the pen to draw the plants over the image I had printed off. We walked through the greenhouse and picked out the plants I’d suggested in the drawing.
As I was loading the plants into her car, she asked if she could take the picture home for reference so she could remember where everything goes. I obliged and she left with the marked up photo. I was left in the parking lot holding the second image of the side of her house thinking, “There has to be a better way.”
I also imagined the number of times people have ::shudder:: left without buying something because they couldn’t visualize the benefits of our products.
So that was it: The world’s first instance of visual customer support. Kinda. OK, not at all. I knew, staring at the piece of paper, that this happens to tens of thousands of people across the US and hundreds of thousands of people around the world every day. I imagined the number of sales that I’ve lost because neither the customer nor myself could easily communicate our ideas. I also imagined the number of times people have ::shudder:: left without buying something because they couldn’t visualize the benefits of our products. Worse yet is thinking of how many times people have given up on their hobbies, design projects, or other household items altogether simply because no one had come up with a way to help them with their frustrations.
It took re-enacting that ritual of squint, print, and sprint over and over again to tell me that I had a problem that needed to be solved. I looked for a solution to this problem where every self respecting millennial would look: the internet. I came up with a bunch of solutions that were solving more general customer support problems like CRM (customer relationship management) software, support ticketing, and file-sharing systems like Dropbox and Google Drive. Each of them did a little of what I needed but they had to be cobbled together in a fashion that was no more efficient than an email and run to the printer. That’s when I decided to make it myself. Why not?
…it’s about keeping millions customers happy and coming back for more.
I’ll have to leave that part of the story for later because this blog is about why and not about how. So, to summarize, SnapScapes was built out of a frustration with an outdated process and a dissatisfaction with an inability to understand fellow human beings. But, in addition to that, it was also assembled with the mindset that helping others comes with rewards. And it does.
I still have that picture of the side of that taupe suburban house that reminds me of why I’m working on this project. SnapScapes is all about making life a little easier for the millions of sales associates around the world who must share specialized knowledge about their products with customers to make a sale. Perhaps more importantly, it’s about keeping millions customers happy and coming back for more.
Steve Ruprecht – SnapScapes Founder
SnapScapes is an image based customer support tool that allows retailers to share their knowledge and expertise in pictures.
