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Creating and Managing Effective Self-Service Content
By W. Ladd Bodem, ServiceXRG

Overview
There are volumes of information and countless sources of knowledge that can be published to a support web site. Comprehensive coverage of issues is important, however, quantity of content cannot be a substitute for quality of content. A well defined editorial process combined with the skilled resources to develop and maintain quality content are essential elements to self-service success. This paper explores and identifies the various sources of content as well as the editorial processes necessary to effectively create and manage self-service content.

Why self-service is used
The primary reason customers use self-service is to find information and resources that can provide an answer to a specific question. Customers indicate that they successfully find useful information nearly half of the time (48.1%). A successful self-service transaction requires that customers can find and apply the information they find. Success is not simply the result of a successful search. Self-service success depends on the quality of the content.

The structure and relevance of the information found is paramount. Customers need to be able to identify that the information they find applies to their specific need. The determination of content relevance is often not an in-depth review of a multi-page document, but rather a cursory review of many possible relevant documents. Making the connection between what the customer finds and what the customer perceives as relevant requires that self-service content is structured in such a way as to convey the essence of the information.

Sources of Content
There are a variety of content sources for self-service applications both within and external to the Support organization. Throughout the product life-cycle new information is developed about the product, its capabilities, limitations and defects. Some information such as marketing materials, product documentation and help files are intended for customer use, while other types of information may need to be refined for public consumption.

The ability to generate content for self-service begins at the inception of a new product or release and continues throughout the entire product development life-cycle. The development team has a wealth of information about new products. Many support organizations can tap into this resource through formal “support readiness” processes that facilitate knowledge transfer to Support.

Figure 6 - Sources of Content Through the Product Life-Cycle

source: ServiceXRG

During the development and test phase of the product, Quality Assurance and Documentation groups produce valuable information about new and updated products including help files and product manuals as well as insight into product performance and limitations. These are all important resources to tap for support content development initiatives.

Marketing departments produce a wealth of information that is also designed to answer customer questions about new and updated products. Although most marketing material is available from product pages of the corporate web site, select items should be considered for inclusion in the support and service web site. Regardless of the source there must be well established editorial processes and guidelines to assure that information added for self-service is appropriate for distribution and is in a format that can be effectively used.

Table 5 - Content Sources by Department

Engineering

Product capabilities
Known limitations
Workarounds
Patch & Updates

Quality Assurance

Known bugs
Performance benchmarks
Compatibility issues

Marketing

Product positioning and differentiation
Features and benefits
Case studies
Whitepapers

Documentation

Product manuals
Help files
Tutorials

Support

Case / Call Tracking History
Frequently Asked Questions
Technical Notes

Education

Training and curriculum
Training classes, schedules and pre-requisites
Study guides
Certification standards
On-line training

Professional Services

Application tips
Work around
Templates
Best practices

Source: ServiceXRG

Content Management Processes
Content management processes provide a means to enhance the accuracy and ability of the customer to find and apply relevant information. Content management can be labor intensive, yet can it yield high returns by increasing the probability of a successful self-service transaction.

Figure 7- Content Management Flow

source: ServiceXRG

Comprehensive content management processes include the following elements:

Acquisition – Content management begins by identifying sources of content from within and external to the Support and Service organization. Acquisition involves establishing the data feed, frequency of updates and an agreement on how the data will be used.
Content Integration Review – As data flows into the content management process a review to determine whether the information is unique, a supplement to existing information, a replacement to exiting information or a duplicate.
Technical Verification – It is essential to verify the accuracy of the information before publication.
Clarity – Many of the sources of content may be informal notes such as case tracking records or bug reports and not written for public consumption. Grammatical review and spell checking are essential steps in the content management process. Review and editing for clarity may also involve the addition of definitions, expansion of ideas, and re-wording passages to make the information suitable to the intended audience.
Format – Disparate content sources may require conversion to a standard document format and require the creation of new data fields such as title, author, publication date, etc.
Categorization – Depending upon the search tools and self-service interface raw content may require classification such as relevant product, problem or solution categories and other defined taxonomies. This process may be manual or automated depending upon the content management and search tools used.
Linking – New and updated information may stand on its own as a unique document but may also be related to other information sources such as related articles or relevant downloadable files. The process of linking related documents enhances the probability of finding important information.
Access – Self-service offerings often service a number of constituencies that may have different levels of support entitlement. Partners or internal employees may have access to confidential information while the general public can access only published materials.
Release – The content management process requires a determination of when a document is ready for publication.
Refresh – The content management process does not end when a document is published. Periodic review is essential to assure that the published content is up to date and accurate. Periodic review of older documents is an important step in keeping information resources up to date and relevant.

Conclusion
The use and adoption of self-service is affected by many factors. Content is one of the key factors. The quality of the content directly affects not only the success of a self-service transaction but also whether the customer will use self-service again. If a customer has repeated success, then self-service will frequently be the first place a customer goes for information and problem resolution. Creating and managing quality content requires processes and resources to gather the knowledge from all the relevant sources and for editing and publishing the content. Current, consistent and complete content not only increases adoption rates, it increases customer satisfaction which is a win-win situation for all.

For More Information
Ladd Bodem has been involved in the planning and delivery of service excellence for over 25 years. This and other topics are explored in more detail within the 2004 ServiceXRG Users’ Perception Study. To download a free summary of this study please go to www.ServiceXRG.com. If you have questions about this topic or other service industry issues contact Ladd at 781-237-9614 or by email at lbodem@servicexrg.com.

About ServiceXRG
ServiceXRG's research provides a balanced perspective of the IT services industry with views from users, service professionals and suppliers to the IT Services industry. Service Excellence Research Group (ServiceXRG) focuses exclusively on research about the service industry, with an emphasis on Technical Support. ServiceXRG provides custom benchmarking, competitive analysis, customer satisfaction assessment, and a series of reports on industry trends and best practices, visit http://www.ServiceXRG.com.