A transatlantic plea for assistance. (via)

What does it take to achieve Best-in-Class status for online user assistance and support content? This post gathers together some key insights gleaned from a survey of recent research studies—with a focus on a (proprietary and pricey) Aberdeen Research Report—as well as professional experience.

But first, what does it mean to be Best-in-Class? Let’s define it here as scoring high, 90% or better, on key performance indicators like meeting project completion dates, staying within cost targets and keeping translation costs under control. Then add in factors like evaluative data from customer satisfaction surveys and results from content user testing for ease of use, relevance and comprehension to complete the scoring matrix.

So here’s what these Best-in-Class organizations have in common.

The two most significant trends linking B-in-C’s are publishing to multiple formats and supporting content customization. Studies show that today’s consumers are more likely to seek out and use support content that is not only provided in multiple electronic formats, but that is delivered over the web. Both enable content customization, which is becoming increasingly important when it come to meeting more and more precisely segmented customer needs. The winners are customizing support content to specific markets, specific customers, or even to specific product or service configurations.

Some other biggies related to multiple formats and customization—the leaders deliver support content for all configurations and variations of a product or service and they customize it with a fast, simple and easy user experience. Plus, they customize the support content “at the point of interaction.” Meaning, the user enters information identifying their specific configuration, their market segment and other relevant differentiators. Then the content management system generates the right content and publishes it online.

In addition, keep this B-in-C short list of other success factors in mind as you plan your support content:

* Provide an interactive support content experience. Success, and brand loyalty, often means enabling users to virtually interact with a representation of the product or service.

* Develop support content using enabling technologies that incorporate structured authoring and leverage embedded configuration logic so you can capture content for future re-use and re-purposing.

* Practice single source authoring to save time and money

* Strive to reduce text, embedding customized photography, graphics, rich media demonstrations, simulations and emulations, and multi-stage visualizations of processes and instructions.

* Research to understand users and identify key user needs, then use this understanding to work at reducing overall content volume by authoring precisely relevant and concise support content.

* Automate content management and publishing using captured logic and content management systems.