This is Part XIII of a series of articles about invoking an enterprise content strategy to develop, publish and manage content for all of our audiences, begun with the — Hey! Where’s Our Content? — article

Ask a board member to define success for our business websites (marketing, extranet, intranet, self-help, etc.) and you might hear of the lofty goal to leverage knowledge as a strategic asset and capitalize on the wisdom distributed throughout the organization.

Typically, that strategic objective tends to lose traction as one engages operational staff. Our product and program managers tend to emphasize the commitment to serving the needs of each user as quickly and cost-effectively as possible. Walk the support center floor with the shift manager, and you will be told that she has her finger on the pulse of metrics focused on every aspect of each user’s problem solving experience. From the moment the support ticket is opened, the emphasis is to close it and have a satisfied user gratefully complete an innocuous survey.

Making clients happy one at a time sounds laudable, but it is hardly strategic; it’s much more akin to flipping Big Macs. If the definition of success is to solve the problem as quickly as possible so the rep can get to the next person in the queue, it stands to reason that our reps will pedal as fast as they can to shovel answers — when they aren't buffing up their resumes. This mindset squanders a golden opportunity:

It is unlikely that this is the first user to experience this problem, but we have a chance to ensure that s/he is the last

Consider:

• A user who contacts the support center is a potential fount of useful insights and has volunteered to share them at no cost.
• The support rep has a unique perspective, excellent communication skills and the tools to document the efficacy of the self-help resources.

Circumstances have brought these two together because the user was not able to solve the problem on his or her own.

Let’s consider what would happen if success were defined by engaging select users to determine why they were not able to locate what they sought. Together, the rep and the client have the potential to discover lurking problems, including:

• Confusing instructions
• Gaps in the knowledgebase
• Non-intuitive navigation
• A layman’s synonym for company terminology
• Out-of-date content
• Duplicate resources
• Contradictory content
• Malfunctions

Metrics aside, a strategic leader will recognize that there is a higher return on investment for a rep taking 20 minutes to identify and document a deficiency on the website than for 10 reps taking only two minutes each to solve the problem for 10 users. Of course, nuance is required. When the queue is full or the user is agitated, let’s not dally — solve the problem and move on. But when an articulate, patient user is asking for help and call volume permits — the universe is smiling upon us — let’s empower the rep to co-opt that user to discover and document the deficiency and solve it for all users. Then give the rep a bonus.

Tomorrow, you’ll have 10 more reps filling the QA pipeline.

Note: In case you missed it, this article offers the perspective that our support center metrics may be obstructing our ability to improve our websites.