Customer Success = Documentation Success

Kimberly Lacerte @techwriterkim

Interchange New England March 2015

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A Few Facts About Kimberly

•  12 years technical writing experience

•  Undergraduate degree: English

•  Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (Windows NT 4.0 & Windows 2000)

•  MBA with Master’s Certificate in Computers

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Customer Success

Tech Support

Customer Lifetime

Documentation

User Community

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Business Background

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Tech Writer Job Perception

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Building Relationships with Documentation

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The Importance of Proving Our Value

Source: http://www.designinfographics.com/business-infographics/the-future-of-technical-writing

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Business Improvement A Historical View

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Change is a Constant

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Customer Lifecycle

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Benefits for Business

•  Happier customers

•  Repeat business

•  Referral business

•  Higher revenue

•  New revenue sources

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Business Improvement Methodologies

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Process Improvement

•  Looks at company as a whole

•  Looks at the situation with fresh eyes

•  Questions conventions

•  Brings the customer perspective to the table

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These are the skills we use everyday.

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Customer Success

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Seth Godin and the Customer Experience

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The Anti-Customer Service Experience

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Share a Customer Service Experience?

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Best Customer Service Experience

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The Customer Service Experience

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Documentation and Customer Service

XKCD.com/1343

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Broadening the Documentation Scope

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Capturing Good Customer Service •  Non-Official instructions

•  Customer product live demo

•  Examples

•  Simple = One Path

•  Tutorials

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One Employee – Help to Some

6 – 8 hours

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One Tutorial Video – Help To Everyone

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Leaning In

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Sheryl Sandberg’s Work on Leaning In

When you're more valuable, the people around you will do more to make it work. Sheryl Sandberg

I feel really grateful to the people who encouraged me and helped me develop. Nobody can succeed on their own. Sheryl Sandberg

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How do we Lean In?

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Harnessing Social Media & User Communities

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Social Media Influence

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Social Media Options

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Social Media Options

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Social Media Options

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Mr. Clean Commercial

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Proving the Business Value of Content

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Proving Value at IBM

. . . if we cannot connect (our) work to things like revenue streams and successful conversions, ultimately, our work is at risk.

Our community needs to tell a different and better story about content for a business audience – those who hold the purse strings.

. . . . Alyson Riley, Andrea L. Ames, Eileen Jones

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High Quality Technical Information is Viewed as Important or Very Important

. . . . Alyson Riley, Andrea L. Ames, Eileen Jones

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Customer Success Needs Documentation

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How Do We Do This?

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Questions?

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