1. Product/Category Best Practices
By JD Pahre

2. Where we are headed today
Do I use Products or Categories or both?
How many top level and subs do I use?
Could a question overlap several categories?
Number of Answers per each prod or cat
“Other” and “General”
Naming convention and Weight of prods/cats in searching
Questions

3. Products or Categories or Both?
My Motto : Less is Best
Most people are confused already
I am not good at making decisions
I am not super confident in my navigation abilities
I am not a risk taker
I do not spend all day on the internet
I am not comfortable with lots of choices
Just show me where to go
What did you say, I am confused already…
We can all make 1 good decision…but 2 in a row? 3?
What about Categories that change as a result of the product I select? Is this a good option?
I like some of my Categories..get rid of them?
I like some of my categories get rid of them? No change Product to “Topics” and add them in Topics….

4. How many should I use? Less is Best (Did you forget that already?)
If you can get 15 or less Good
If you can get 10 or less Great
If you can get 6 or less on level 1 PERFECT!
Then for Subs the same holds true
I know what you are thinking…There is no way. I have way too many products to ever get that few.

5. How many?..... Continued
Then….maybe you need to think higher up, think bigger, think more broadly
Software
Hardware
Phone
Remember, your customers are not as smart as you wish they were. Make it so simple and short, they cannot make a bad decision
If you have 3 levels of subs, let them know they can only go 1 deep if they need to. (Message Bases change)
Examples:

6. Overlap into several Categories
Most common problem with Categories I see
Customer has an issue, it can be categorized into many of the existing categories.
Examples:
Errors
Troubleshooting
Installation and Upgrades
Connection issues
Technical Support
Customer Service
Support
Billing, Account, Bill Pay
Technical Issues
Check incoming incidents for possible high level Topics
Use incoming Incidents to see if Prod/Cats are working
Check with colleagues, test around
If the customers are not

7. Examples of Overlap
Almost..got it

8. Good Examples http://hargray.custhelp.com http://uinet.custhelp.com

9. Others and General http://remington.custhelp.com
Above is about the only effective use I have seen
Try to avoid these if at all possible
There may be a case when you need it-be careful
Why would you choose General or Other?
What problems does this cause?
People always use it
Reporting is a mess
It loses it’s meaning
All answers have to be associated to one of these
It becomes your worst nightmare

10. How many Answers should I have?
We recommend at least 1 Answer for every Prod/Cat combination. (this is the bare minimum)
Your Keyword Searches Report will tell you the answer to this question.
Your agents should be telling you the answer
The number of incidents you get should tell you

11. Name of Prod/Cat does matter
The Prod and Cat names are included in the search
By default each word is worth 50 points!!
This is equal to the keywords box
Higher than the summary
20 more than the Question
12 times higher than the Answer itself
In many cases you may want to exclude the name of the Product or Category
You may also want to reduce the score of 50 to the minimum of 4
Smart Assistant also looks at this weighting

12. SRCH_PROD_WEIGHT

13. Best Practices Review 1 Menu 6 items or less level 1
1 Answer per Prod/Cat combination
Avoid Overlap
Avoid “General” “Others” if possible
Remember the weighting
Exclude if needed
Change weighting if needed
Check incoming incidents for Prod/Cat relevance