1. Technical Content: The New Goldmine
March 13, 2014
Gerry McGovern JoAnn Hackos

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

3. Engineers
Technical Writers
Jane
Joe
Tod
Rod
Manager
Customers
Larry

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

5. © 2011 - Customer Carewords Ltd
22 September 2018

6. 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.

7. Only interested in positive feedback

8. Kohler Plumbing gives multiple resources to customers and vendors

9. TSIA, 2013

10. 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

11. The Age of the Customer

12. 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

16. 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

17. 45 to 6
5,000 to 1,000

18. 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.

19. 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.

20. #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…

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

22. 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…

23. 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.

24. 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

25. And the answer is ....
YES

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

27. Tasks Pie Chart

28. 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.

29. 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
x Target
Minor Time Issue
x Target
Major Time Issue
x Target
Critical Time Issue
Above 5.75 x Target
* All Failure times treated as 300 seconds

31. Getting to the Goldmine

33. Run PILOTS

34. Visit Customers

36. Get video evidence of the problems your customers are facing

37. Spread the word! Get a senior management evangelist

38. Upcoming Events Webinars: http://comtech-serv.com/url/webinars
Conferences:
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:
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

39. 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

40. Customer Carewords upcoming events
Creating Better Customer Experiences Online: One day workshop with Gerry McGovern. Brussels March 27
What employees want to do in the digital workplace? (Survey results) Free webinar: April 16
Trends in navigation design for complex websites: Free webinar: May 21
@gerrymcgovern