The Profession of Content Experience Specialist

MindTouch CEO, Aaron Fulkerson@Roebot #LavaCon

A Little About Me

Aaron Fulkerson

● Co-Founder and CEO, MindTouch

● Customer self-service software

● Serving millions daily across high

tech, manufacturing, service, and

travel industries

@Roebot #LavaCon

True or False?Automation and Artificial

Intelligence will eliminate

content jobs.@Roebot #LavaCon

False, but...

● The ‘new’ versions of these jobs are nearly unrecognizable

● Evolve now, because old content jobs are quickly becoming obsolete

● Fortunately, the new content professional’s role is more important than

ever

@Roebot #LavaCon

An Exciting Time for Content Professionals

@Roebot #LavaCon

● A new role that affects every stage of the customer journey

○ OLD: Tech Writer, Documentation Manager, or Knowledge Manager

○ NEW: Content Experience Manager or Director of Content Experience

● No longer a cost-center, metric driven

● Impacts: 1,2,3

1. Customer renewal and upsell 2. Customer acquisition3. Brand engagement

Measure your impact on these metrics, or your job will be automated.

Content Experience Manager

Strategic and measurably impacts the organization

@Roebot #LavaCon

Hallmarks of the Content Experience Role

● Customer focused

● Metric driven

● Cross-departmental (spanning silos)

● Holistic thinking (customer journey)

@Roebot #LavaCon

Five Irreversible Trends

@Roebot #LavaCon

1. Customer preference

2. Disruption of indirect models

3. Success, not Support

4. New channels

5. AI and automation

Learn more:

http://mndt.ch/5-macro-trends

of buyers turn to search engines first when researching products.(CEB, HBR, Gartner)

of customers buy only from vendors that provide product content online.(Acquity Group)

of customers would rather use self-service than a human assisted support Channel. (Forrester)

33% said they would rather ”clean a toilet” than wait for Support.(Aspect CX Survey)

92%72%79%

1. Self-Service is Undeniably the Preference

Indirect vs. Direct Customer Engagement

Yahoo

Borders

Toys-R-Us

Sears

Blockbuster

General Motors, Ford

Blackberry, HTC, Nokia

Bally Fitness

Google

Amazon.com

Netflix

Tesla

Apple

Core Power Yoga

}

2. Companies With Indirect Engagement Will Be Disrupted

Survival requires programmatically learning from you customers

2. Direct engagement (self-service) is the

difference between life and death.

Companies without a subscription model will be

out of business in 5-8 years.

Which is most important?

Customer satisfaction score, first call resolution,

mean time to resolution.

Or...

Renewal and Upsell?

3. Success or Support, The Metrics That Matter90% of most business revenue is from current customers.

3. Content Analytics / Maps Drive All Key MetricsContent makes Customer Success Scalable

4. New Channels Demand New Content Approaches

● Google reports more than 60% of Internet searches are done

on mobile

● 20%, 25% searches are voice on Android, and Windows

taskbar respectively (Gartner)

● Conversational AI platforms (Chatbots) will be the next big

paradigm shift in interfaces (Gartner)

● By 2025, the Internet of Things could generate more than

$11 trillion a year in economic growth. (McKinsey)

● Augmented / Virtual Reality growing from $5.2B to $162B

over next five years (BoAML)

5. AI and Automation Will Replace Customer Support Jobs

● By 2020, 85% of customer support interactions will be automated (IBM)

● Self-Service innovations and new channels will replace human-assisted

support

● Break/fix (knowledge base) content can be automated from human

interactions

● Documentation, training, and best practice will require humans

● Coordinating departments will require humans (Marketing, Sales, Success)

Being the Content Experience Manager

@Roebot #LavaCon

● Be customer first

● Be metric driven

1. customer renewal and upsell

2. customer acquisition

3. brand engagement

● Be cross-departmental

● Be holistic in your thinking

Next Steps

@Roebot #LavaCon

● Put the customer needs and preferences first

○ Google’s AI is adjusting its algorithm to favor content that is best (and

quickest) to answer users questions

○ Ditch PDFs and cumbersome/dated delivery methods - instead think

micro-moments and customer journey

○ Data-driven content optimization

● Span silos

○ Functional team divisions should be imperceptible to customers

○ Tech Pubs + Training Team + Customer Success

Calls to Action

@Roebot #LavaCon

● Maturity Model

○ Free webinar: http://mndt.ch/2h7Qdqv

○ http://mindtouch.com/blog (additional articles and research)

● Be agents of change for better content experiences

○ How can you content impact the support channel? What do they need

to get your content to the customers?

○ Identify another dept to engage and “blend” content

○ Share your takeaways and wins with your peers

○ Post with #ContentX and #LavaCon so we can follow along

The Profession of Content Experience Specialist

MindTouch CEO, Aaron Fulkerson@Roebot #LavaCon