Compatibility Pointers

The good news first: Compatibility is becoming a non-issue!

Now, the bad news: There are more incompatible players being built every day.

Then why is the problem going away? - Compared to year ago, our calls from customers with compatibility problems have gone down tremendously. However, we ascribe the major cause of this dramatic change to education and not a sudden increase of compatible players on the market. The most popular page in our entire site is our Compatibility Page. Companies around the world link to us as an authority on this issue (based on the sheer number of discs we have created). As more of our customers pre-educate their customers on the compatibility issue, less of their customers are being surprised.

An ounce of prevention -- Be pro-active on this issue. Provide your customers with a list of good and bad players or ask them for their make and model. The worst situation to have is a customer who is excited to watch their new DVD and to have the DVD not work. Now you have an angry customer. They will probably keep the disc anyway, but they may see your lack of candor on the issue as a taint on your business ethic.

Don't let a bad player kill the sale - DVD is the way to go. If your customer is interested in DVD, they know this. Sell the 100 year lifespan, the features, the quality, etc. Anecdotally, out of the thousands of discs we have made, only one (1) person has taken us up on our money back guarantee and returned their disc. They will own many players during the life of that disc.

Offer the Guarantee - I remember a company that did DVDs for the wedding market a couple of years ago that quit doing it because of compatibility issues. They said that it just wasn't worth all of the hassles with incompatible players. They didn't offer a money back guarantee and essentially took the "tough luck" attitude to the problem. What this company needed was a little bit of sales savvy and a guarantee. A guarantee is like a security blanket for your customers. If their player isn't on the good or the bad list, they may be reticent to go for DVD because it may not work. But, keep in mind we know that regardless of whether the disc plays or not, once they have the disc in their possession it is unlikely they will return it. So sell the DVD and tell the customer that it is fully guaranteed if it doesn't work. The worst case is that they will ask for their money back from you, you will ask for yours back from us and we will both be out a bit of time and energy. But more than likely, they will keep the disc and you would have made the sale.

Always have them try the disc somewhere - If the customer's player is bad, make sure they go to Circuit City, Best Buy, or some other electronics store or a friend's house to try the disc before returning it. This will prove to them that it's their player and not the disc and they will see what they might be missing if they returned it.