Take a peek at my latest presentation slide deck from Web Content: Going Mobile, held June 6-7, 2011 at Gleacher Center in Chicago. I was the closing presenter and ripped through 149 slides in 45 minutes. A personal best. What's Next? Socially-Enabled User Assistance, Interactive Documentation, and Location Aware Help View more presentations from Duo Consulting
by Cheryl Landes, Founder, Tabby Cat Communications The first WritersUA conference I attended was in 1996 in Seattle, when it was known as WinWriters. I was a guest, thanks to taking an advanced RoboHelp class from Neil Perlin in conjunction with the conference. Back then, the topics were on the cutting edge—with seemingly endless enthusiastic discussions about tips on using help authoring tools (HATs) and the future of online help. As a relatively novice help writer at the time, my head swam with information, but I learned a lot that Read the full article…
Join Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler, for a lively discussion with digital community advocate, Alan Porter about the changing face of customer support on the web. You’ll learn how innovative organizations are leveraging the power of collaborative authoring, user-generated content, social currency, feedback and ratings to improve customer service and support. You’ll discover the importance of collaborating with your customers to produce experiences that meet — even exceed — customer expectations. And, you’ll find out how collaborative support communities can help organizations create loyal customers, improve productivity, increase sales, and Read the full article…
By Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler and The Content Wrangler Community For the most part, I love AT&T. I love that they were smart enough to join forces with Apple in launching the iPhone—the most successful mobile phone deal in history—and I love that they’ve learned how to provide some convenient customer-focused services (e.g. paying your bill from your mobile phone, receiving bills via email, ordering services online without the help of a customer service agent). Unfortunately, my love affair with AT&T ends there. The Offer: Residential Phone Service Recently, Read the full article…
By Bobby Lee, special to The Content Wrangler A hesitant purchase Our office recently purchased an upgrade to Adobe Creative Suite 3. We had held off on purchasing—and then installing—this software package because we work with a number of variable data printers, each with different production software. Many of our print partners were unable to accommodate InDesign CS3 package builds and unfortunately, Adobe CS3 did not allow us create backwards-compatible files in the CS2 format our partners required. Because our partners were still working to upgrade their variable data setup Read the full article…
Ann Rockley answers the question, What is Customer-Centric Content Management?, in this December 2006 article in The Rockley Report. Other articles in the issue include: Who Wants What Your CM Puts Out?, by Bob Boiko Six (Sigma) Reasons to Embrace Enterprise Content Management, by Emma Hamer
There’s been a lot of focus lately on improving customer-facing content. Managing the processes that govern such information is the purview of those who preach the customer-centric content management gospel. These professionals are busy. Very busy. Why? Because customer support needs fixed. In most organizations today, support is an island to itself—an inefficient and expensive silo where useful information is often difficult to find, retrieve and use. Providing an easy and efficient way for support representatives to add content to the knowledge base is one challenge. Alerting technical writing and Read the full article…
37signals makes some really useful web-based software tools. I thought several of their products were so useful I took time to explore their website to learn more. They tempted me with cool, elegantly designed interfaces, and an offer to “get in touch”. I tried to take them up on their offer to chat via telephone. I sent them an email (actually three) requesting an appointment to discuss my needs. Each email garnered a reply— “we don’t provide any phone support, sales, etc. We’re entirely email based.” Then they encouraged me Read the full article…
Target.com is the online storefront for the popular discount brick-and-mortar retailer whose bullseye logo was recently deemed one of the most recognizable brands in the world. Unfortunately for online shoppers, finding a human being to assist you on the telephone at Target.com is next to impossible. A search of the “Help Center” for the term “customer service” yields less than desireable results. Advice to Target: Try making your toll-free customer support number available to your customers. Your customers “Expect More” and deserve it as well.
How does your web site rank among the top sites internationally? Would you like to find out? Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA) and The Association of Support Professionals (ASP) are collaborating to produce the first Year’s Ten Best International Web Support Sites Awards Program. When you (or one of your customers) enter a web site into the competition, independent experts will provide detailed feedback on how well the site supports customers worldwide and what could be improved. And, if your site is selected as one of the Best International Web Read the full article…
You can learn a lot about an industry by studying the marketing efforts of those attempting to sell products and services. That’s why I think the “2005 IT Marketing Trends Study” (conducted by BitPipe/Sam Whitmore Media) is an interesting source of information on IT trends. Read the survey Some interesting findings 49% of tech marketing budgets will be allocated for online advertising and online sales lead generation in 2005, an increase of nearly 5% over 2004 spending; online sales lead generation’s share of the budget will rise from 26% to Read the full article…
Are your tech support salaries in line with current industry standards? To help provide you with data to answer this critical question, the Association of Support Professionals (ASP) conducts an annual support salary survey that provides the industry’s most detailed look at support compensation trends. The ASP survey, to be published in February, supplies comparative salary benchmarks by job title (seven categories), company size, product price, and employee skill level. We invite you to help with this project by filling out this brief questionnaire. In return, we’ll send you a Read the full article…
One third of all computer users who seek technical support say they never find the solution to their computing snafus. A recent survey by Consumer Reports magazine puts IT technical support among the lowest-ranked services—even lower than the support offered by cell phone vendors! Common gripes include: poorly designed help systems, difficulty obtaining telephone support and technical support specialists who don’t know what they are talking about.
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