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Subject:Re: AW: How do hiring companies view TW resumes? From:Chris Despopoulos <despopoulos_chriss -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Wed, 24 Mar 2010 04:50:31 -0700 (PDT)
The following is not true. Also useful would be the number of tech support calls -- more or less since the last doc version? Tech support is a quantifiable cost. Of course, if Tech Support generates revenue, then good documentation is quantitatively bad. I don't think we want to argue that case, though. You can measure support load via customer surveys, and also from the company's side as a count of Tech Support time over customer base. It probably makse sense to measure both if you can. And heck, Tech Support is a documentation customer. Include them in your survey. Get the Tech Support manager to indicate time saved because of the new docs, and turn that into a dollar figure.
The measure described below is as much a measure of the customer's purchase philosophy as it is the quality of the docs. By definition, writerly products would enjoy a bias over some ultra-geek products.
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A survey would be useful in quantifying the effect of documentation
only if the customers indicate how much of their buying decision is
based on documentation. If they tell you something like, 20% of their
decision to buy your product instead of a competitor's was because your
docs were better, then 20% of the purchase amount is to the credit of
the docs group.
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