The tech-writer’s journal #4 — Documentation — An Integral Part of Customer Support
Hello Everyone!
We are going to address the importance of bridging the gap between customer support and documentation in this post. Technical documentation can inspire readers as well as frustrate them. It can either make them want to dive in or leave them perplexed. The quality content of the technical document dictates to which end the document belongs.
Along with documentation, customer support is the other wheel that helps run the customer loyalty vehicle smoothly. In other words, to guarantee a seamless service, documentation, and customer care must go hand-in-hand. Sadly, this is not the case with most companies. Both the documentarians and customer support specialists simply know that each other exist and nothing more than that. Here are a few reasons why it must be the other way round:
Address actual pain-points
Usually, as technical authors, we work with the engineers, the QAs, and the product managers. Such discussions allow one to get to know the product and the features in a better way. While displaying the data in a concise and easy-to-understand way is phenomenal, it is also important to fix the real concerns through documentation.
Often, we get carried away with simply communicating a complicated process in a simple yet intriguing fashion that we fail to consider where the users might get stuck. The solution to this is with the service specialists as they communicate directly with the clients on a day-to-day basis. They know where they face problems, and they can help us produce even more reliable documents.
Reduce support tickets
Ideally, the purpose of customer support is to aid end-users. Similarly, the objective of documentation is to assist support experts. Rich documents contribute to decreased support tickets, thus leading to improved customer loyalty.
Create reliable documents
Since the support specialists constantly deal with end-users they will know where the users get confused while going through the documentation. By getting feedback from the support specialists, we will know where we are falling short as effective communicators.
Collaborating with the support specialists
Find ways to collaborate
Bridging the gap between support and documentation is vital for customer satisfaction. So it is extremely important to find ways to collaborate with them. It can be through formal means such as email reports or scheduled meetings, or as simple as a coffee-table chat. The goal is to find customer pain-points.
Find ways to solve issues through documentation
Now that we have identified the pain-points, find ways to address them through documentation. It can be condensing the language, adding illustrations/flowcharts, or even adding short-how-to videos.
How to find out if it is working?
The success of every support session is usually measured by the time of the session. In other words, the shortest one with fewer to-and-fro messages/conversations/emails is more efficient. By calculating the duration of the support sessions and, of course, the number of tickets, we can assess the success of the document. The more helpful the document is, the shorter the session.
To conclude, if documents can help support experts improve their performance, that is when we succeed as documentarians.
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