{"id":78,"date":"2015-05-22T17:07:07","date_gmt":"2015-05-22T17:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shannon-leahy.com\/blog\/?p=78"},"modified":"2015-05-22T17:28:29","modified_gmt":"2015-05-22T17:28:29","slug":"sally-bagshaw-beyond-the-web-customer-service-center-content-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shannon-leahy.com\/blog\/sally-bagshaw-beyond-the-web-customer-service-center-content-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"Sally Bagshaw: Beyond the web &#8211; Customer service center content strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/snappysentences\" target=\"_blank\">Sally Bagshaw<\/a> explores why businesses and organizations should fold customer service into content strategy and how to do it.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>51% of US consumers switched service providers in the past year due to poor customer service experiences<\/li>\n<li>Top customer content frustrations: making it to hard to find\/understand info or take action!\n<ul>\n<li>Self-help sites and systems that can&#8217;t answer my questions<\/li>\n<li>Too much paperwork or online forms<\/li>\n<li>Not being able to understand the info provided to me<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>There&#8217;s been too much focus on the funnel<\/li>\n<li>We don&#8217;t reward existing customers enough\n<ul>\n<li>Need to instill confidence, earn their trust, help them get stuff done<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why We Should Pay More Attention to Customers<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 1.6471;\">Contact with the customer<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Everything is measured\n<ul>\n<li>Call centers, help desks &#8212; track all sorts of data<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Better for the bottom line\n<ul>\n<li>If customers are leaving, this costs the biz in the long run<\/li>\n<li>$6 trillion a year globally lost because of people switching from service provider to service provider<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Types of Customer Service Center Content<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Product guides<\/li>\n<li>Social media<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Forms<\/li>\n<li>Web content<\/li>\n<li>Intranet content<\/li>\n<li>Knowledge bases<\/li>\n<li>Instant chat<\/li>\n<li>Email and letters<\/li>\n<li>Scripts (lots of service centers moving away from this; too unnatural)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Silo Syndrome<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Customer service often gets forgotten when it comes to strategy<\/li>\n<li>Web content =\/= customer service content<\/li>\n<li>Content disparity = bad experience!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>How to Solve the Problem<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Improve the experience for both the customer and the operator<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Create Content with Empathy<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Use the appropriate tone<\/li>\n<li>Respect privacy and personal info<\/li>\n<li>Use clear, familiar language<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Optimize for the Operator<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Consider how the operator uses\/accesses\u00a0content and build that into strategy\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0Efficiency key<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Improve \u00a0internal search<\/li>\n<li>Tag content properly\n<ul>\n<li>Are tags in the language of the customer or internal lang.? are you making people learn 2 ways to reference things? why?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Use logical file names and URLs<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Design Better Forms<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Only ask for what you need<\/li>\n<li>Make instructions clear<\/li>\n<li>Group questions logically<\/li>\n<li>Focus on good flow<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Think about Format and Structure<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Know how content will be used\n<ul>\n<li>Will it be read on the phone? Then test it by reading aloud, see if you run out of breath, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Include heading and subheadings<\/li>\n<li>Design for scanning<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Plan the Right Workflow<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Include content in workflows<\/li>\n<li>Capture feedback and updates<\/li>\n<li>Create a maintenance plan\n<ul>\n<li>How are you going to keep quality high?<\/li>\n<li>How will things be updated?<\/li>\n<li>Is this plan\u00a0sustainable? Do they have the time\/people\/resources to keep it up?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Case Study: Legal Aid Queensland<\/h2>\n<h3>Background<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>16K client service officers<\/li>\n<li>Access legal info pages (web pages)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Considerations<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Legal terms vs. client terms<\/li>\n<li>Pages would be read out loud<\/li>\n<li>Vulnerable clients should seek legal advice<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Approach<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Call center visit<\/li>\n<li>Interviews, analytics<\/li>\n<li>Content inventory and qualitative audit<\/li>\n<li>New digital style guide\n<ul>\n<li>Bite-snack-meal model (h\/t Ginny Reddish)\n<ul>\n<li>Bite: lets people know they&#8217;re on the right page<\/li>\n<li>Snack: succinct summary<\/li>\n<li>Meal: more detailed info, inverted pyramid<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Case Study: Sunsuper<\/h2>\n<h3>Background<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Superannuation funds<\/li>\n<li>86 staff<\/li>\n<li>10k calls a week<\/li>\n<li>1.1 million member statement\/s year<\/li>\n<li>2.1 million email marketing per year<\/li>\n<li>2 million posted letters (welcome emails, follow-ups, etc.)<\/li>\n<li>500 templates<\/li>\n<li>75 customer service email templates<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Considerations<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Superannuation is complex and heavily regulated<\/li>\n<li>People care about different things at different life stages<\/li>\n<li>Wanted to encourage people to use Member Online<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Approach<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Existing template review against web content<\/li>\n<li>New template that structured emails consistently\n<ul>\n<li>Consistent structure<\/li>\n<li>Element\/writing tips\/example<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Tone of voice guidelines and standard calls to action<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sally Bagshaw explores why businesses and organizations should fold customer service into content strategy and how to do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-confabmn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shannon-leahy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shannon-leahy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shannon-leahy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shannon-leahy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shannon-leahy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.shannon-leahy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87,"href":"http:\/\/www.shannon-leahy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/87"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shannon-leahy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shannon-leahy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shannon-leahy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}