usability & expandability of (paper) manual for cust. serv. staff

["Zigo, Joy" <Joy -dot- Zigo -at- HARPERCOLLINS -dot- com>]

Dear Techwrlers--

I'm working with someone who is developing (in Word) a reference manual for
the use of support staff at a customer service center. The reference manual
covers web-based tools that customers will use on the internet. Customers
will call -- or, more often, email -- the support staff when they need help
with the tools.

I recommended some ways to make the manual usable, for example:
- using a wide left margin so there is plenty of room for taking notes
- starting each topic at the top of a page, rather than "flowing" the
content across page breaks
- printing on only one side of the pages(?)
- putting tabbed dividers between the sections of the manual
- using different colored paper for different sections
- producing the manual on 3-hole punched paper, in a binder, so that new or
updated pages can easily be added

But what kind of pagination would give the most flexibility in terms of
letting users pop new pages in as new features are added to the tools, or
new sets of FAQ's are collected? Does it make sense to paginate each section
separately, and let the support staff add new pages to the end of each
section? (And, in real life, will the company that provides the phone and
email support actually print out and 3-hole-punch and distribute such new
pages, anyway? They do want a paper manual to start with, not an online
reference. But is it realistic to think they would actually maintain each
copy of a paper manual through a series of updates?)

Does anyone have experience with producing such a manual and providing it to
an organization that will do the support?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions--
Joy
..................................................
Joy Zigo
Information Technology Dept.
HarperCollins Publishers

joy -dot- zigo -at- harpercollins -dot- com
tel: 212-207-7645
fax: 212-207-7735

Speaking strictly for myself, and not for HarperCollins.