Re: Eliminating Need for Technical Support

[ckime <ckime -at- PEERLOGIC -dot- COM>]

     Matthew,
     I definitely think that good documentation can help *reduce* the need
     for technical support. Many months after I left one company, one of
     their employees called me. They started out with "Darn you" (I of
     course thought, oh nooo...) and then went on to say that the company
     had started charging for customer support and was contacting all their
     customers in attempt to enroll them in the new fee-based support
     program. Every customer she had contacted that was using the product I
     documented told her that they didn't need support cos the
     documentation had addressed whatever they needed to know. (BTW, it
     wasn't just my doing--the GUI and testing were super to make an all
     'round good, usable product.) At another company I monitored the
     issues that tech support was dealing with and, after beefing up the
     doc in the "problematic" subject areas, we saw a drastic reduction in
     related tech support calls.

     There will always be those who don't/won't/can't read the doc
     (personally guilty for products I use...), and there will be users who
     are trying to do "unanticipated" things in "unanticipated
     environments" who will need tech support cause it's unrealistic and
     undesirable to document every possible thing. But especially since
     most companies charge for support these days, I think users are apt to
     go to the doc (or co-worker, list, Internet, ...) to solve problems
     prior to contacting tech support, so we do have a chance to influence
     the support burden.

     I view tech support as one of our (writers) greatest allies as they
     can provide valuable insight to what your particular customers are
     having difficulty with so you can make continuous improvements to the
     doc. Sometimes it takes "educating" the support group 'til they
     understand your agenda, but I have found most tech supporters glad to
     work with writers in effort to eliminate the RTFM (read the frigging
     manual, for politeness) type of calls as there are plenty enough
     challenging ones to keep them in jobs.

     What I'm wondering is what other "non-traditional" (other than typical
     product manual and/or online help) ways can we help users help
     themselves? It seems that the popularity and acceptance of Internet
     access in the workplace opens even more avenues for making good info
     available to customers. Anybody publishing things such as knowledge
     bases or doing other types of non-traditional product information that
     you can share successes/failures about with us? Many companies have
     tech support sections on their Web site; are there writers working on
     those and, if so, how are you involved?

     Carol Kime
     Austin, TX


--------------------------
Matthew J Long <mjl100z -at- MAIL -dot- ODU -dot- EDU> at email_gw

In terms of technical writing, I am just a little wet behind the ears
(where does that stupid cliche come from anyhow?), so please forgive the
following. It may contain naivity and idealism!

Do you think that it is possible that the need for technical support for
software be eliminated or at least reduced if the documentation were
written well enough?
     <snip>

Anyhow, the point of my little story here is that I believe that it is
possible for *most* (not all) people to grasp the how-tos if it is
explained clearly enough in the documentation. What do you think?

Thoughts? Comments?
     --------------------------

 TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot-  Send commands
   to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
  Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/  or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html