One of the biggest problems facing the information technology industry is the issue of “No Fault Found” or “NFF”. 

If you’ve never heard of this issue, then you’re probably not an OEM or a technology service provider.  But even if you've never heard of the NFF phenomena, NFF not only impacts you—it actually hurts you.  (Not the "ouch" kind of hurt; I'm talking about the kind of damage felt in your wallet—the kind of injury that doesn't heal so quickly...)

If you have heard of NFF, then you know it is a scary phenomenon in which 39% of everything you sell is comes back to you in the form of a product return when, in fact, there is NOTHING WRONG WITH YOUR PRODUCT.

Let me repeat: right now, industry-wide, four out of every ten products that go out a consumer product vendor’s door are eventually returned to that vendor under the guise that they are "defective" when, in fact, the products are NOT defective.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with these products.  They work.  They function as they should.  Yet, they are being being labeled “defective” and being returned at an alarming rate.

Now, a reasonable person might ask, “So what?  What does it matter if customers return things they buy?” 

The answer is simple—every time a product is returned, the vendor that sold the product incurs a cost.  The vendor then returns the product to the manufacturer, who also incurs a cost.  At the end of the day, who do you think pays those costs?  The manufacturer?  The vendor?  Or is it you—the consumer—who pay the costs?

Why is NFF Occurring?

Various pundits have offered opinions about why the NFF phenomena occurs.  Since this is my blog, I’m going to give you my opinion.  And you’re going to read it because (i) I’m right, (ii) I know what I’m talking about, and (iii) this is interesting stuff.

The NFF phenomena occurs for a few reasons which, in no particular order, are: (i) failure of the industry to manage customer expectations, (ii) failure of the industry to implement standards to detect and diagnose problems with electronic components, (iii) failure of product manufacturers to provide resellers with proper tools to detect and diagnose component problems, and (iv) lack of critical thinking and troubleshooting skills.  Let me break down each one of these for you….

Failure of the Industry to Manage Customer Expectations.

The words “plug and play” must mean different things to different people, because at least of the things that claim to be “plug and play” simply aren’t.  The same goes with phrases such as “works with” and “compatible with”—they must mean different things to manufacturers than they do to consumers.  If they don't, then I (and most of the purchasing public) am lost.   Until these terms become something more than marketing fluff, NFF will continue to occur.

Let’s play out a common scenario.  Consumer Curt goes to the store looking for a wireless Internet router, and spots one that is “plug and play” and “compatible with” every system configuration under the sun.  The packaging says that Curt could be up and running in “5 minutes”, and “everything needed to get started” is in the box.

Curt buys the router, rips the box open (is there any other way?), plugs the router into his network and, almost immediately, begins to experience RD (router dysfunction).  He installs the included disk, which can’t find his router, can’t find an IP address, and ultimately directs Curt to a troubleshooting manual  (which, like most consumers, Curt has absolutely no intention of reading).

Curt calls the 800 support line listed on the box, and is placed on hold.  (Actually, he is not so much “placed” on hold as he is cemented into a never-ending hold queue which irks him with each passing minute.)

After 30 minutes on hold, Curt packs the router up (in the ripped box), brings it back to the store where he bought it, and tells the store that the router “doesn’t work.”

In truth, the router probably works fine.  However, the combination of Curt’s operating system, memory configuration and other software components (including his anti-virus software, which is often the culprit in failed installations) prevented him from properly installing the router. 

But that is not the end of the story.  Here’s where NFF rears its ugly head.  Let’s follow the path of the lowly router:

-          The store from which Curt acquired the router has to hire an employee at $10/hour or more to take the so-called “defective” device back. 

-          Next, the store has to allocate part of its retail space to store the “defective” product. 

-          Then, the store has to pay another employee to log the “defective” router into the inventory system, and arrange to have it sent back to the manufacturer. 

-          The device is mailed back to the manufacturer (can you say, “FedEx costs”?), where the manufacturer has to hire a company to receive the “defective” device.  

-          The manufacturer has to hire a third party testing company to test the product to determine whether it is really defective.  (Bear in mind, the product is NOT defective, but the manufacturer doesn’t know this yet.)

-          Upon discovering the device isn’t defective, the manufacturer has a choice to make: repackage and re-sell the device at a discounted rate (because now it is technically “refurbished”), or trash the device. 

-          If the manufacturer resells the device, it incurs all of the normal costs it originally occurred, but makes a far smaller profit since the equipment must be labeled “refurbished.”  If it trashes the product, then the whole process is a total loss.

All of this occurred because some marketing executive thought it would be great to say on the box of the router that the equipment was “plug and play”, and that Curt would be “up and running in 5 minutes”. 

My point?   Vocabulary matters.  And misuse of vocabulary is killing the industry by setting consumer expectations artifically high.  When a product fails to live up to its advertised functionality, consumers assume that the product is faulty, and so begins the NFF lifescycle described above..... 

Stay tuned for my next posting, when I will talk about the second problem causing the NFF phenomena (namely, the failure of the industry to implement standards to detect and diagnose problems with electronic components). 

In the meantime, let me hear your thoughts…..