Technical Content: The New Goldmine March 13, 2014 Gerry McGovern JoAnn Hackos @gerrymcgovern @jthackos

Not so long ago in the land of Documentation … Technical Writers Engineers Jane Joe Tod Rod

Engineers Technical Writers Jane Joe Tod Rod Manager Customers Larry

Engineers Tod Rod Accountant Manager Larry George Technical Writers Jane Joe Tod Rod Accountant Manager Larry George

© 2011 - Customer Carewords Ltd 22 September 2018

According to the Maxymiser study, 22 percent of respondents are willing to wait no more than 3 seconds for pages and images to load on either their bank’s website or mobile site. Meanwhile, 46 percent are patient enough to wait up to 6 seconds. What’s most interesting about these findings is that what consumers say they want doesn’t match their actions. It is a widely known fact from research by Akamai and Forrester that two seconds is the threshold of acceptability for ecommerce web page response times. When the experience falters, lags and causes frustration, today’s consumers are more likely to abandon their online and mobile activities.

Only interested in positive feedback

Kohler Plumbing gives multiple resources to customers and vendors

TSIA, 2013

In the Land of Documentation In the Land of the Customer The customer is the engineer / internal The customer is the Customer / external Success is about how much you wrote Success is about how many customers you help Success is about how many people looked at your content Success is about how many customers SOLVED PROBLEMS with your content Success is about reducing costs / automating Success is about customer satisfaction / loyalty Launch and Leave: Publish and move on CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT of top customer tasks Customers only see your content after they’ve bought the product Many customers seek out your content BEFORE they make a purchase You are never with the customer You never stop being with the Customer You are measured based on INPUTS You are measured based on OUTCOMES You are a COST You are an ASSET You are a COAL MINER You are a GOLD MINER

The Age of the Customer

20% 2003 A PERSON LIKE YOURSELF Source: Elman PR "A person like me" is more trusted than doctors, academics and other such experts. In the U.S., trust in "a person like me" has shown a dramatic increase from just 20 percent in 2003 to 68 percent today. Source: Elman PR

From 5,000 to 1,000 pages (80% decrease) 70% increase in one-time donations 88% increase in monthly donors registered 164% increase in members registered 348% increase in incoming links 80% increase in visitors

45 to 6 5,000 to 1,000

Remove Conditional Formatting #1 Remove Pages from Site Remove Conditional Formatting Our original team agreement was to remove, or expire pages as a FIRST resort, so we looked at the traffic patterns and customer feedback to figure out what was happening. In this example: Many customer comments for the “Removing conditional formatting” article indicated that they weren’t really looking just for removing conditional formatting, but really needed to figure out to use the feature—how to apply it, how to remove it (yes), and how to change conditional formatting once it was applied—most likely this is what led them to search for how to remove it. Sometimes customers look for one thing, but really need something else, or something more.

Remove Conditional Formatting “Format text in a variety of ways based on conditions” Remove Conditional Formatting Talking points: The “Removing conditional formatting” article was attracting a lot of attention from customers who needed more than just the removal procedure—they really needed to understand how to get the conditional formatting feature to work for them. The “Format text in a variety of ways based on conditions” article had that comprehensive help they needed—it also provided the context for the removal procedure.

#2 Remove Links to Page Another strategy we used was removing links to pages—this includes See Also links and inline links from one page to another. For example…

Page views fell by over 77% Dissatisfaction fell by over 15%

Sum / add a number #3 Hide Pages from Search The Excel Function Reference was notorious for generating dissatisfaction—we couldn’t remove these pages because they are mapped to the UI. We started looking at customer feedback and realized that the wrong customers were finding these topics. For example…

Non-search entries include the help button in the application, links between topics within the function reference, and links from specific topics—these specific topics provide the context necessary for customers to successfully use the reference content.

Task Performance Task 5 – Cloning Critical Issues Does Microsoft support producing multiple copies of a Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 image, using cloning? Task Performance Critical Issues Median time on task (sec) = 162 TPI = 0 Target time on task (sec) = 30

And the answer is .... YES

Continuous Improvement @ Cisco Identify Top Tasks Measure Top Tasks Task Based Support 26

Tasks Pie Chart

Potential versus Current Customer Support is the new sales. Potential customers are taking Cisco for a ‘test drive’ by trying out what are classically understood as ‘support’ tasks, but are now in many cases ‘pre-sales’ tasks.

Task 13 performance = Minor Issues (50-59) Success/Failure Rates TPI = 59 November 2012 Password recovery: Pretend you have forgotten the password for the Cisco account and take whatever actions are required to log in. Success/Failure Rates Completion Time Good 0-2.25 x Target Minor Time Issue 2.25-3.25 x Target Major Time Issue 3.25-5.75 x Target Critical Time Issue Above 5.75 x Target * All Failure times treated as 300 seconds

Getting to the Goldmine

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Upcoming Events Webinars: http://comtech-serv.com/url/webinars Conferences: www.infomanagementcenter.com CMS/DITA North America in Seattle, WA: April 28-30, 2014 Best Practices in Stevenson, WA: September 22-24, 2014 DITA Europe in Munich, Germany: November 2014 Webinars: http://comtech-serv.com/url/webinars Following the Trends - Is Your Content Ready? Survey Results Presenter: JoAnn Hackos, Comtech Services, Inc. April 1, 2014 at 1pm to 2pm EST | 3pm GMT Managing Reusable Content in the Product-Development Life Cycle April 24, 2014 at 12pm to 1pm EST | 4pm GMT

Upcoming Events Workshops: http://comtech-serv.com Minimalism in Ottawa, Ontario: March 18-19, 2014 DITA Boot Camp in Wakefield, MA: March 24-28, 2014 Structured Authoring for DITA in Foster City, CA April 8-9, 2014 User and Task Analysis in Kongsberg, Norway: May 7-8, 2014 Minimalism in in Copenhagen, Denmark: May 19-20, 2014 Web and Mobile Strategies for DITA in Boulder: May 20-21, 2014 Structured Authoring for DITA in Copenhagen, Denmark: May 21-22, 2014 Learning and Training in Copenhagen, Denmark: May 23, 2014 Advanced Publishing for DITA in Wakefield, MA: June 10-12, 2014 Advanced Publishing for DITA in San Jose, CA: July 15-17 2014

Customer Carewords upcoming events Creating Better Customer Experiences Online: One day workshop with Gerry McGovern. Brussels March 27 http://www.itworks.be/event.php?id=CBEXPD2&se=speakers What employees want to do in the digital workplace? (Survey results) Free webinar: April 16 https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/329848834 Trends in navigation design for complex websites: Free webinar: May 21 https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/343235298 www.customercarewords.com info@customercarewords.com @gerrymcgovern