Re: Resistance to allowing anonymous web access to online help?

[Robert Fekete <fekete77 -dot- robert -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Hi John,

I've seen this battle at our company as well. Some ideas that might come
handy:

 * You mentioned that you monitor how users use your docs. Depending on the
number of your users, you could try to estimate how many more would use it
if it was out in the open. For example, check if there is significant
results for "<yourproduct> documentation" (or other synonims) in google
trends. You could also check your website (not the doc part) search
analytics to see how many visitors try to find the docs on your site.
 * Talk to your support guys and check the support tickets to find out how
many tickets your users open about stuff that exists in the docs, they just
didn't find it. Try to run a survey (maybe embedded in your support system)
to find out if they actually tried to resolve the problem from the docs. If
there is significant amount of such tickets, it means that it costs your
company support time and personnel that the docs are not accessible.
 * Find out who is doing competitor monitoring/analysis at your company
(marketing/presales/whoever) and ask if they have the docs of your
competitors. If they do, and the docs of the competitors are not freely
available, then your company managed to get it somehow, meaning that it
would be foolish to assume that others don't have your docs. (Unless you
are taking pains to limit evaluation access/whatever to your product, which
means that you are probably losing business as well.)
 * Unless you are operating in a very niche market with very few or no
competitors, hiding the docs means that for anyone interested in finding
information about how to solve the problem your product would solve, is
much easier to find a solution somewhere else. Of course, if your product
is so much superior to your competitors that prospects wouldn't even
consider them, that's not a problem, but then you'd be a market leader, and
wouldn't make any sense hiding the docs.

Regards,
Robert

On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 12:29 AM, John G <john -at- garisons -dot- com> wrote:

> Our situation is somewhat similar to Sharon's in that we have an enterprise
> product that is highly technical and complex, and is in the health sciences
> area. Our customers can access our help when they use the product but it
> takes two clicks the way it is currently set up. While our help is pretty
> good, I know many people's first reaction is to use Google to search ...
> And honestly, I think Google might provide a better search experience than
> the one that comes with our help tool.
>
> We, too, use Google analytics to monitor our whole help system
> (many hundreds of pages if not more) and it is very helpful to us in seeing
> what people search for, and how they move though our system. But looking at
> the data indicates to me that if google were handling the searches, the
> results might be better. First and foremost, I think it would increase
> usage of our help.
>
> Not having a Googleable version to do a side-by-side comparison test with
> makes this hard to prove, but people are more familiar with how Google
> works, especially when crafting complicated Boolean searches
> with ANDs, ORs, and NOTs which our built-in search doesn't support. Not to
> mention that they have to actually get into our Help system before they can
> start to search whereas they can use Google without having to do that.
>
> Much of the resistance comes from the product owners. The company president
> has said he supports open system access to help, but has yet to issue
> instructions to everyone to do so. We are trying to approach the issue from
> as many fronts as possible, but my fear is that minds have been made up and
> a fiat may be the only way to get beyond the current stalemate. I
> appreciate the ideas everyone has put forward and we'll be trying them all
> out!
>
> Thanks,
>
> JG
>
>
>
> On Sunday, June 19, 2016, Sharon Burton <sharon -at- anthrobytes -dot- com> wrote:
>
> > I truly have no more technical details for you. This was handed to me and
> > it works so my priorities have been elsewhere. I'm sorry.
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> > 951-202-0813
> > I am available when online thru Skype at Sharon.v.burton.
> >
> > > On Jun 19, 2016, at 2:01 PM, Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com
> > <javascript:;>> wrote:
> > >
> > > What web server do you use?
> > >
> > >> On Sun, Jun 19, 2016 at 1:55 PM, Sharon Burton <
> sharon -at- anthrobytes -dot- com
> > <javascript:;>> wrote:
> > >> I don't know how it was set up as it was done before I started working
> > here.
> > >>
> > >> But when I started working here, the analytics only tracked a small
> > percentage of the total pages. Now, we track all help pages. It's a
> > gigantic source of information we're just starting to take action on.
> > >>
> > >> After implementing a CCMS and changing almost every process for
> > creating and releasing our post-sales docs.
> > >>
> > >> I'm speaking about what we did and how we're doing it  at lavacon in
> > the fall with my boss, if you're going to the conference and want to up
> > vote our presentations.
> > >>
> > >> Sent from my iPhone
> > >> 951-202-0813
> > >> I am available when online thru Skype at Sharon.v.burton.
> > >>
> > >>> On Jun 19, 2016, at 1:31 PM, Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com
> > <javascript:;>> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>> How do you use Google Analytics on a secure site? Some plugin to the
> > web server?
> > >>>
> > >>>> On Sun, Jun 19, 2016 at 1:04 PM, Sharon Burton <
> > sharon -at- anthrobytes -dot- com <javascript:;>> wrote:
> > >>>> ... we have a cloud based system and the help can't be seen until
> you
> > log in to use the system.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> But I also use google analytics to see how and how much my customers
> > use the help. The answer is a lot. A lot a lot.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> We're using that information to improve our help on many levels. ...
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