Vogel's, a Global Leader in AV Mounting Solutions, Relies on INSTRKTIV and MadCap Software to Deliver Interactive Mobile-First User Manuals for Greater Customer Satisfaction and Sustainability

The Big Win

Vogel’s Products BV is one of the world’s leading companies in mounting solutions for televisions, video walls, mobile devices, and other AV equipment. To optimize worldwide customers’ experiences in installing and using its mounts, Vogel’s delivers easy-to-navigate online product manuals in 17 languages and printed “Quick Start” guides that are primarily visual.  

• Enhanced Customer Experience: The 33 mobile-first online user manuals based on MadCap Flare feature drop-down menus to help customers find the information they need in their language of choice. Links to Vogel’s DrillRight™ augmented reality app and YouTube instructional videos are embedded in online product pages using variables in MadCap Flare. Meanwhile, printed MadCap Flare-based Quick Start guides in product packaging let customers access the online user manuals by scanning a QR code or clicking on a web link. More than 80% of visits to user manuals on Vogel’s website are made on a mobile phone, and almost all mobile users land on the page via the QR code. 
• Streamlined Content Delivery: Using MadCap Flare to create the online user manuals and Quick Start guides, INSTRKTIV and Vogel’s have also been able to significantly streamline the process of creating and updating the documentation. Because Vogel’s products share features, new manual versions can be created by combining MadCap Flare snippets with the new pieces of content, significantly cutting project time while helping to ensure that customers have accurate, up-to-date information. 
• Faster Translations: INSTRKTIV uses MadCap Lingo to package the updated snippets and send them to the Vogel’s team for translation, so only the new content is translated. Once Vogel’s sends back the translations, INSTRKTIV uses MadCap Lingo to import the translations back into MadCap Flare. This process enables INSTRKTIV to publish new content in the original English version plus 16 translations in about 4 hours. 
• Sustainable Documentation Approach: Vogel’s no longer publishes paper-based versions of its full 20- to 35-page user manuals. Instead, each online user manual has a print-on-demand button created with MadCap Flare. The customer clicks the button to download or print a PDF of the user manual they want in the correct language version. To date, INSTRKTIV has designed 140-plus PDFs in different languages that are optimized for print, and Vogel’s has eliminated the paper consumption previously required to get documents into customers’ hands. 

Vogel's, a Global Leader in AV Mounting Solutions, Relies on INSTRKTIV and MadCap Software to Deliver Interactive Mobile-First User Manuals for Greater Customer Satisfaction and Sustainability 

Since its founding in 1973, Vogel’s Products BV, has grown to become one of the world’s leading companies in mounting solutions for televisions, video walls, mobile devices, and other audio visual (AV) equipment. The company now sells nearly 1 million products each year into the consumer and business markets. 

 Vogel's is not only recognized for its product innovations, future-proof designs, use of high-quality materials, and a focus on safety; the company is also known for providing ease of installation along with comprehensive service and support. To optimize worldwide customers’ experiences in installing and using its mounts, Vogel’s delivers easy-to-navigate online product manuals and printed “Quick Start” guides in 20 languages. 

 Today, Vogel’s user documentation is created by INSTRKTIV—an international agency specializing in state-of-the-art user manuals—using two products from MadCap Software: MadCap Flare for single-source, multi-channel content authoring and MadCap Lingo for computer-aided translation (CAT) management. 

Challenge: Meet Evolving Market Demands

For years, Vogel’s produced printed user manuals that contained all the information customers needed to install and use their mounts. However, as the business expanded and the global market evolved, these manuals could no longer effectively serve the needs of Vogel’s or its customers.

As Vogel’s added more product lines and expanded into new international markets, the company had to publish more user manuals with more languages. Producing all these variations in print was expensive and time-consuming, sometimes leaving customers with outdated or incorrect information.

“A mistake in a printed user manual was really time-consuming to correct. Often, they were printed in advance for large product batches. In the meantime, customers had to deal with unclear instructions, months after the error was corrected.” says Lian Moerenhout-Broekhuijsen, product group manager at Vogel’s.

Moreover, the increasingly complex print manuals were difficult for customers to navigate, and there was no way for Vogel’s to collect data about users’ experiences with the documentation.

Finally, both Vogel’s and its customers have become increasingly concerned about the environment, creating demand for a more sustainable alternative to the print manuals.

Navigating the Path to a New Approach 

To modernize its user manuals, Vogel’s turned to INSTRKTIV, which is based in Germany and serves businesses worldwide, to develop a new approach for delivering product information to customers.

“Before suggesting a new solution, we created a list of requirements that should be the starting point of a new experience,” noted Ferry Vermeulen, founder of INSTRKTIV. “They were based on the following questions: What does the company need? Who are Vogel’s customers? How are they served best?”. 

Next, INSTRKTIV moved to the brainstorm stage and started working on concept development. Concept approval was followed by choosing the best technical direction of the work. The agency proposed online manuals consisting of separate content blocks that allow for content reuse plus a summary of user and safety instructions that would be added in the packaging to meet legal requirements.

Delivering a Mobile-First Experience 

Documentation for Vogel’s mounts is now created in MadCap Flare and designed to optimize the experiences of customers who typically rely on their smartphones and mobile devices to access information. There are 33 online user manuals, which are designed for mobile first use. Additionally, a small printed Quick Start guide is included in each product package. This guide provides basic information and also lets customers access the full user manual on the Vogel’s website either by scanning the quick-response (QR) code provided or by clicking on the web link, https://manuals.vogels.com/.  

Because the MadCap Flare-based manuals are available on the Vogel’s website, the company can apply Google Analytics to understand user trends. Recent results validate the approach that Vogel’s and INSTRKTIV have taken to deliver information to customers. More than 80% of visits to user manuals on the website are made on a mobile phone, and almost all mobile users land on the page via the QR code. 

To help customers easily find the information they need with Vogel’s online manuals, INSTRKTIV has used MadCap Flare’s dropdown feature to create three different types of dropdowns: table of contents; language options; and solutions for different requirements, such as wall types. 

“The drop-down menus created with MadCap Flare are very nice. The user can expand and collapse the relevant menu corresponding to their wall type.” Ferry says. 

By using MadCap Flare to create the online user manuals and Quick Start guides, INSTRKTIV and Vogel’s have also been able to significantly streamline the process of creating and updating the documentation. Writers from both companies collaborate on content by taking an existing Google Doc and using track changes to identify any additions and changes. The content is then updated in MadCap Flare. Because Vogel’s products share features, new manual versions can be created by combining MadCap Flare snippets with the new pieces of content.  

“Vogel’s products are very similar, so I don’t have to re-import the manual each time. Instead, we have six big snippets for each type of manual where we use variables and conditional tags to add the changes in MadCap Flare for the different types of documentation,” explains Karen Miller, a technical writer with INSTRKTIV. 

Moreover, because the user manuals now reside online, the team can quickly make changes—often within minutes—ensuring that customers have access to accurate, up-to-date information.  

Lian notes, “Our customers don’t mount a TV every day. With INSTRKTIV and MadCap Flare, we’ve been able to provide them with all the instructions to make the installation a success. No matter what language they speak or which product they bought. The manuals are always up to date, and we no longer need stacks of paper.” 

Managing Multiple Languages

As Vogel’s expands into new markets, the company has to provide instructions in the language of the country where the products are sold. So, the drop-down menus in the online user manuals have paragraph tags for each country and language with flag icons to further assist customers in choosing their preferred language.

In the past, translations of new or updated documentation required significant manual effort. Now using MadCap Lingo to manage these translations, the process of adding translations to the user manuals and Quick Start guides is largely automated.

Basically, INSTRKTIV takes the new content contained in snippets, which is in English, and exports them from MadCap Flare to MadCap Lingo, which packages them up. These packages are then sent to the translation team, which completes the translations and then returns the translated content. INSTRKTIV then uses MadCap Lingo to import the translations back into MadCap Flare using a combination of conditional tags and variables to insert them into the appropriate places.

In the past, it could take a month to produce a new manual version in multiple languages. Now, using MadCap Lingo and Flare together, it only takes about four hours to publish new content in 17 languages—the original English version plus 16 translations." Karen observes.

Enabling a Multimedia Experience

“With our online manuals, we’re not limited by physical space in adding additional tips for product installation. We can send links to specific sections, and we can hide sections that are not relevant in specific cases. People can easily find the manual again when they want to level or remove their TV. Customers have complete and interactive documentation, in all stages of product use,” says Lian.

Having online user manuals also has enabled Vogel’s to deliver a much more interactive experience for customers. Notably, Vogel’s provides the DrillRight™ augmented reality (AR) app, which helps customers determine the location of the first holes to drill. The INSTRKTIV team added a button to the app on each product page of a user manual by using a MadCap Flare variable that links the DrillRight app to the online documentation.

Similarly, Vogel’s online manuals offer clear step-by-step video instructions to provide customers with visual explanations on how to set up their Vogel’s products. Relevant instructional YouTube videos are accessed from the middle button on corresponding product pages. Here again, variables in MadCap Flare connect the YouTube videos to the product pages. However, there is one more layer of complexity since the videos are provided in multiple languages.

“For example, for a French-language product page within an online manual, we might have a French version of the video,” Karen explains. “With MadCap Flare, I can just add that as a variable, and then when I get my translations back in MadCap Lingo, I can use the variable to change the YouTube link.”

Making Print a Cost-Effective, Sustainable Option 

A combination of government regulations and customers who still want printed materials has created the demand for print versions of the full user manuals. However, while Quick Start guides are packaged with products, Vogel’s no longer prints its full 30- to 35-page user manuals. Instead, the company has addressed this requirement by including a print-on-demand button with each online user manual. The customer clicks the button to download or print a PDF of the user manual they want in the correct language version.  

To date, INSTRKTIV has designed 140-plus PDFs in different languages that are optimized for print using a combination of cascading style sheets (CSS) and batch target functionality in MadCap Flare. The PDFs and online user manuals essentially present the same content stored in MadCap Flare in different formats—but without the interactive capabilities. So, any time the online manuals are updated, the PDFs are updated as well, ensuring consistency across these information sources.  

The most recent analytics show that only 1.5% of visitors to the online manuals click the print-on-demand-button. Yet, in the past, it would take a month to create a PDF in 20 language versions that relatively few customers were reading. Now using MadCap Flare, the process of offering PDFs on-demand from the Vogel’s online user manuals is largely automated. 

“All the time spent manually creating PDFs has been eliminated with MadCap Flare, which allows us to provide more cost-effective user manual solutions for Vogel’s,” Ferry noted. “Just as importantly, our ability to significantly cut physically printed documentation is serving the sustainability goals mutually shared by Vogel’s and our team here at INSTRKTIV. It is one more way, working with MadCap Software is delivering meaningful benefits every day.”