| Authors: | Nisha George & Elaine Tsai |
|---|---|
| Time: | 15:20 |
| Session: | http://docs.writethedocs.org/en/2013/conference/talks.html#nisha-george |
| Link: | @negeorge / @etsaii |
Work at Twilio, and most of the documentation is owned by the support team. Better support through better documentation. So why do customers write into support in the first place? To find out if your product does something, to get help with something, and to get something fixed. Your documentation can support all three of these modes of operation. It helps maintain a healthy relationship between you and your customers.
Why does it make sense to have support own part of the documentation? Support interacts with the customers directly, and writes docs that add to what engineers write. Engineers might wrap the helper libraries, technical docs, and feature overviews, and Support can write FAQs, sample code, etc. There isn’t a need to look for topics: almost every ticket that comes into support could be a help desk article.
So how does documentation and support support scalability? Better support docs help keep your support ticket growth rate below your customer growth rate (hopefully).
“Knowledge is another problem many companies face [as you scale the company].” Knowledge is diffuse between sales, support, etc. There should be one place for team members from around the company to refer to as the source of truth. This also helps with knowledge retention and institutional knowledge.
Finding support documentation needs to be easy, because the barrier for a customer writing into support (and taking up time) is very low. Your knowledge base needs to speak the same language as your users. The documentation should be structured and logical (within the context of the product). Twilio does this by starting general and then moving more in depth. The documentation should also be searchable, in case a customer comes along who is trying to enter at a point other than the starting point you’ve anticipated.
By transforming customer interactions into documentation for known issues and patters, you’re investing in the future of your product and support team. They’re able to spend their time supporting customers in addressing new issues or patterns that may arise. By implementing these principles you empower your customers.
How will you know you’re successful? Customers will trust you, they will feel self sufficient, and once they discover the docs, they’re more likely to return.