WEB DESIGN AND MARKETING SOLUTIONS FOR BUSINESS WEBSITES phần 7 doc

Fighting spam and banning troublesome members is a full-time gig, but the opportunity to communicate directly with customers and prospects andmine their thoughts for product enhancements

Marketing material only goes so far in selling goods Since it’s designed to persuade, people

are understandably wary; after all, no one wants to admit to being persuaded As with

pur-chasing a house, prospective buyers will rarely base a major financial decision on the agent’sbrochure—they want to explore the grounds, look in the closets, flush the toilets, tap on thewalls, and generally poke around the space to get a better feel for the investment

A public support area offers people the same opportunity to evaluate products and services

It allows them to get their questions of nuance answered—the tiny details that can affect thefinal decision It also enables people to see if the prospective vendor meets their expecta-tions for support itself, if there is interaction between customers and the host within the site(e.g., in a forum), and how the company treats suggestions, criticism, and praise

Support options

Over the years, different techniques and technologies for customer support have surfaced

Some of them are as old as the Web itself (e.g., the ubiquitous FAQ); others are a result ofnew technology opening up opportunities for service (such as interactive chat) As we dis-cussed in the beginning of the chapter, some companies will require minimal customersupport, and others will necessitate complex portals to meet client demands

The FAQ

The FAQ is an Internet standard When the list of topics is thorough and the answers aregood, a simple list of common queries can be extremely effective The vast majority ofpeople understand what a FAQ is, and because of this, many will try to answer their ques-tion there first—especially if the subject matter is fundamental Consider it the first line ofsupport

A FAQ can be as topically deep as a company wishes, but there is a fine line between toominimal an approach and overwhelming the visitor with content The goal of a FAQ should

be to address exactly what its name implies—questions that are common among users orprospects Riddling the section with minor technical details, esoteric scenarios, frivolousassumptions, and other distracting riffraff can be as detrimental as leaving out majoranswers

Usability is a key ingredient to the success of a FAQ The design should be clean and able, with an emphasis on categorization and scanning, all of which will help people findtheir question faster

read-Avoid the easy yes/no

In terms of content, questions should be phrased to avoid simple yes-or-no answers

Responses should be moderately detailed, but completely resolve the query Imaginebrowsing a FAQ for a fabric company Here is an example of a poorly structured inquiry:

Question: Do you offer custom patterns?

Answer: Yes.

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While this accurately answers the question, it provides no detail, and does not help the

reader find out how the company addresses custom patterns, much less the next step in

using those services FAQs can be leveraged as minor marketing vehicles If a prospect seeseverything they want in your product after consulting the FAQ, help them make contactwith your company to procure their business Here is an improved example:

Question: I’m interested in your fabric, but what if I need a custom pattern?

Answer: Acme Textiles is happy to address the unique needs of our customers by offering

a full range of custom pattern reproduction on all of our fabric options For pricing, please

see our detailed pricing chart, or call 1-800-555-8866 to speak with our knowledgeable

sales staff

Notice that the question could not be answered with a simple yes or no—it demands anexplanation In this example, the response is immediately affirmative while boasting aboutthe company’s great product line, and follows that up with two simple options for gettingmore information The response weaves a subtle marketing flavor into the text, whichworks well for FAQs addressing prospects For FAQs handling the problems of existing cus-tomers, much more straightforward language is appropriate Here’s an example:

Question: I was shipped the wrong color What do I do?

Answer: While we strive for accuracy in ordering, we occasionally make mistakes Please

call our support staff immediately at 1-800-555-8866 to receive instructions for returningthe incorrect order, and to confirm the details of the correct order so we can ship it with-out delay

This response admits that the company is at fault, and provides a means of immediate tification There is no attempt to market services or speak over the customer’s head—just

rec-a strrec-aightforwrec-ard reply to rec-a very rerec-al problem We’ll cover writing support content lrec-ater inthe chapter

Designing the FAQ

The architecture of a FAQ is clear-cut: there is a list of questions, and each one has ananswer If there are a substantial number of entries, the FAQ should have subheads tointelligently categorize the content The simplicity of the content opens the door for dif-ferent design options Listing the questions in a linear fashion can be complemented withsimple collapse/expand JavaScript functionality that dramatically shortens the initial pagelength and has more of a table-of-contents feel, as shown in Figure 10-2

For deeper FAQs, a slightly different architecture should be considered One popularoption is to keep the list of questions in the top half of the web page, and all of theanswers in the bottom half When people click a question from the leading list, they aretransported to the point of the web page where the answer starts This is accomplishedthrough simple inline anchor tags For instance, this might be the question at the top ofthe page:

<a href="#custompattern">I'm interested in your fabric, ➥

but what if I need a custom pattern?</a>

And this might be the answer further down:

<p id="custompattern">Acme Textiles is happy to address the unique ➥

needs of our customers by offering a full range of custom pattern ➥

reproduction on all of our fabric options For pricing, please ➥

see our <a href="/pricing.html">detailed pricing chart</a>, or ➥

call 1-800-555-8866 to speak with our knowledgeable sales staff.</p>

Figure 10-2 The example on the left shows frequently asked questions in a single, linear

format; the example on the right demonstrates how that same list can be shortened withsimple expand/collapse JavaScript functionality

This, like the earlier example, presents the questions like a table of contents, but can still

be used when JavaScript is disabled It also gives each FAQ entry a unique URL, such aswww.acmetextiles.com/faq.html#customfabric, so that they can be individually book-marked or referenced from another page

When a FAQ begins to expand, the section must branch out beyond a single web page

One central list of all questions can be maintained on one page, but each question links to

a separate, individual web page for the entry, so a user might arrive at a URL likewww.acmetextiles.com/faq/custom-color This flattened architecture allows for a morescalable system

Bear in mind that if a multi-page hierarchy becomes necessary, the content begins tostretch the fundamental definition of a FAQ, and we find ourselves reaching the next stopalong the knowledge management train ride: the knowledgebase

The Knowledgebase

A company’s knowledgebase (alternately written as two words—knowledge base—orabbreviated KB) is a very rich, content-oriented environment that houses everything thecorporation wants to share about their products or services For smaller or service-heavycompanies, a FAQ fulfills this need nicely For companies producing an array of products,

or whose technology touches many industries and third-party products, a knowledgebase

is essential for collecting, organizing, and presenting a nearly unlimited amount of mation

infor-10

Knowledgebases are extremely popular with software companies Microsoft’s Help andSupport center is one of the most well-known knowledgebases.2It contains thousands uponthousands of public articles that can be referenced by employees, consultants, IT profes-sionals, and the general troubleshooting public Other major software and technology com-panies such as Novell, Apple, Texas Instruments, and Corel retain similar environments.

Standardized format vs the library approach

The content of a knowledgebase typically takes two paths The first is a standardizedarticle format, where all content is presented in the same template, searchable within thesame section, and typically tagged with a unique ID number This is how Microsoftoperates—every article has a unique code (e.g., 907586) that gives the article a permanentidentity in the knowledgebase database This code is placed in a prominent position insidethe article’s web page so that users can note it for future reference

The second methodology treats the knowledgebase as a traditional library It becomes

a repository of a variety of document formats, with little or no design continuity betweenthem, tied together only by the fact that they somehow support the customer See Figure 10-3 for an example of a library-style approach

Figure 10-3 A knowledgebase can take on a library-like feel when it houses a variety

of document types

2 http://support.microsoft.com

Neither of these approaches is better than the other—it depends entirely on the internaldefinition of the knowledgebase A singular format is easier to maintain from a databasepoint of view as every document will follow the same template for content and metadata,but there is value in distributing generic help files, PDF documentation, whitepapers, andmore in their natural state.

Search: Don’t deploy without it

Because a knowledgebase is designed to contain a vast amount of content—quite possiblymore than any other part of the corporate website—it must be designed to help users findvery specific, targeted information Where a FAQ must be easy to browse, a knowledge-base must be easy to search In fact, providing the opportunity to browse is secondary inimportance; only a severe minority of users will even attempt to manually navigate aknowledgebase of any substantial size

A knowledgebase requires a dedicated search, and should not be lumped into the generalsite search Users should know before they enter a single word that the results will beexclusive to the knowledgebase

Designing search for a knowledgebase is a bit different than general site search Sincethere is typically a voluminous amount of information to sift through, it has to be treated

as more of a general web search, with the search box prominent and focused on ate use See Figure 10-4 for an example

immedi-Figure 10-4 The knowledgebase search should be simple and prominent.

As you can see from Figure 10-4, a knowledgebase-specific search should have the following:

A prominent presence in the page: The landing page for a knowledgebase should

have the search function highlighted, front and center, without any ambiguityabout its functionality and exclusivity

A long search field: Typical queries are two or three words long; for a

knowledge-base, this could easily be a much lengthier string For instance, users might searchMicrosoft’s Help and Support center for an entire error message—a precise stringthat could be a dozen or more words

An additional filter: This optional filter confines searches to certain products or

document types (whitepaper, documentation, third-party technical article), or anyother segregation that makes sense to the user If a filter is used, the default shouldalways be to search the entire knowledgebase

Lack of complexity: Do not ask users to only type in human-like questions, never

mention Boolean search phrases, and make the link to any advanced search ity small with the understanding that a minute percentage of users will actually use it

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How many times have you purchased a product, put it together, and promptly threw awaythe manual? How many times have you purchased software, got it installed, and misplacedthe documentation at exactly the same time the program crashes? Almost every product

comes with some documentation, from quick install guides to 500-page tomes These

printed materials are hard to replace once they’ve been lost, and companies rarely sell thedocumentation separately

The support section of a website is the perfect medium for delivering digital versions ofproduct documentation The good news is that this material almost never needs to beconverted to HTML PDF is ideal—most users will be looking for a replica of the actualprinted material, which can contain copious screenshots, illustrations, symbols, variations

in typography, and complex layouts designed to convey the information accurately

Best practices in long-format PDFs

Ordering a double tall nonfat latte at Starbucks requires more time than page layout grams such as Quark Xpress, Adobe InDesign, or even Microsoft Word need to convert amanual into a web-ready PDF Chapter 8 covered some important tips for rendering shortmarketing collateral as PDFs, including keeping the file size small, linking links, retainingthe integrity of text, and more All of these practices still apply However, product docu-mentation can be lengthy, and in order to keep file sizes manageable, apply these addi-tional practices:

pro-Squeeze the compression just a little more: In Chapter 8 we advocated using the

preset [Smallest File Size]when rendering a PDF If a document contains a lot ofimages, consider reducing the pixels per inchvariables even further—72 for colorimages and 200 for monochrome images

Build a table of contents: Acrobat enables users to craft a table of contents using

the Bookmarksfeature, which produces a list of page links in the left column sothat the audience can easily jump around the document without manually scrollingthrough every page linearly Some programs, such as Microsoft Word, automati-cally generate this list when rendering a PDF when the content is marked up withappropriate headers

Forums

At the time of this writing, the Web 2.0 fad/buzzword is sweeping the Internet like a virulentmist, clinging to and infecting hundreds of marketing roadmaps, software specs, and busi-ness plans as forward-thinking companies try to grab onto the next wave At the center ofthese new marketing channels is user-generated content—fan blogs, social networks, con-tent syndication, API mash-ups, and more It’s a great set of ideas, except that it’s largelybeen done before with simple, pedestrian forums

A forum can be a massive asset to a company’s support effort By acknowledging that theircustomers have a voice—and that many of them are just as smart as their own employees—companies can be confident that their forums will grow into sprawling repositories ofinformation If traditional knowledgebases are bonsai trees, carefully pruned and tended

by the corporation, forums are creeping ivy, expanding organically in all directions at once,fertilized by the constant tides of member activity

Both have their purpose, but over time, a forum can prove to be an irreplaceable source

of information to customers as well as provide three key assets to companies:

1.Community building: Over time, forums often become the central hub for

cus-tomers, because of the sense of common ground It’s where the topmost fraction

of corporate evangelists engage in flame wars with the bottom-most fraction ofdisgruntled customers, with oceans of lurkers, moderators, and curiosity seekers inbetween

2.Information repository: The most active forums have dozens of posts every hour In

time, the community’s knowledge becomes the definitive source of information,and searches through the forum’s archive can dwarf the searches in a company’sFAQ or knowledgebase The differentiating advantage for users is that the forummight contain the answer to a question so esoteric that the knowledgebase has norecord of it

3.Direct, constant access to the customer mindset: The value of this cannot be

understated Company moderators can read discussions in the deepest threads,introduce new threads with important announcements, perform searches on spe-cific products to see what people have said about them, and much more

Forums tend to grow at exponential rates Once enough users become part of the system,more users will hear of it, and then it will grow more, and then even more people will hearabout it, and then it will grow even larger The larger it gets, the richer the informationbecomes See Figure 10-5 for a forum that encapsulates this organic knowledge growth

Figure 10-5 Forum content grows organically as members slowly feed the

system posts over a long period of time

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IP.Board Formerly known as Invision Power Board, this rich forum software is ideal forenterprise-class installations Along with phone and e-mail support direct from the com-pany (IPS), the software has a bucket of features, including a detailed administrative area,customizable interface, and powerful moderation features There is also a focus on com-munity content, and socializing the forum experience IP.Board enables members to createbuddy lists, user ratings, detailed profiles, RSS feeds, and more.3

In addition to all the built-in features, IPS also provides a host of snap-on functionality,including IP.Gallery (photo management), IP.Blog (integrated blogs for forum members),and IP.Downloads (a file manager that users can employ for all types of downloadable con-tent) These deeply expand the IP.Board environment, and help create a unified social areafor members of a support forum

PhpBB This software has been around since 2000, and is one of the most feature-rich andstable forum packages available for free.4PhpBB (a snapshot of which can be seen inFigure 10-6) is completely open source, and runs on MySQL and PHP Its features are com-parable to other major platforms: comprehensive back-end and admin, full thread andmember management, a rich member profile section (including the ability to tag othermembers as “friends” or “foes”), and a well-designed search function

Since there is no formal company backing phpBB, support comes through the large andactive community (which can be found at the website’s own internal forum) and a detailedset of documentation There is no option for paid support, although you can buy a phpBBt-shirt to fund the development team

PunBB In the early 2000s, a new breed of alternative forum software packages beganturning up This generation focused on two things: a stripped-down feature set (meaningthat all the bells, whistles, and functionality bling in software like IP.Board is largely lost)and a stronger adherence to web standards (which means that the chunky, artery-clogging,table-based layouts of phpBB are replaced with light and zesty CSS-based layouts) PunBB

is part of this new generation.5What it fails to deliver in volume of features is made up for

in streamlined functionality, fast-loading pages, and much easier customization PunBB isalso free and open source, and actually has more platform options than its brother, phpBB.(The forum shown in Figure 10-5 is driven by PunBB.)

members and maybe a few dozen posts a day—a single person can sufficiently monitorthe activity For larger forums—those over 1,000 members—several moderators areneeded to keep discussions on track As you can see in Figure 10-6, a moderator has thepower to lock threads, delete posts, and ban users, but is also expected to contribute togood conversations, and even answer questions from members as needed.

Figure 10-6 This screen from phpBB shows how administrators can ban usernames, IP addresses,

and e-mail addresses

People expect to post whatever they want on a company-sponsored forum, even if itreflects negatively on the host Moderators have to be exceedingly judicial in how theywield their power Arbitrarily deleting content, from single posts to entire threads, willquickly cultivate a bad reputation, and users will be reluctant to discuss legitimate supportissues in a place that does not foster free discussion A “benevolent dictator” approachtends to work better than “overreacting jerk.”

That being said, there are always people who post off-topic spam or caustic and tive comments These are the threads that administrators have to watch for, and delete orlock ruthlessly Think of a forum as any traditional community People will congregatewhere they know there are like-minded fellows, especially when they sense that the envi-ronment is being tended by a considerate but firm-handed authority

destruc-On top of all that, administrators have to constantly weed out spam messages Each systemcomes with different levels of spam control, and many members of the community havecontributed plug-ins and system modifications that help stem the flow For instance, inphpBB, there is a modification file that allows URL posting from active members only, notguests In PunBB, there is the option to verify all registrations so that moderators canreview individual member sign-ups There is, unfortunately, no magic script that filters allspam Keeping the forum clean requires constant updating of spam-deterring methods, aswell as brute-force deletion of unwanted posts

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Running a forum inside a support portal is not a small undertaking The communityrequires constant attention Fighting spam and banning troublesome members is a full-time gig, but the opportunity to communicate directly with customers and prospects (andmine their thoughts for product enhancements and marketing ideas) more than makes upfor the less glamorous aspects of the job.

Dedicated support contact

Despite advances in technology, and despite the massive investments companies havemade in building rich support portals, the most effective way of maintaining high levels ofcustomer satisfaction is to provide a direct means of contact, and respond in a timelymanner

Logically—and realistically—the deepest knowledgebase and most active forums cannotpossibly address every issue a customer might have with your product or service Thesecan deter a large percentage of direct customer contact and save a company a wad ofcash, but at some point, a customer is going to contact you for one of two reasons:

1.They’ve looked for their answer elsewhere and cannot find it

2.They don’t want to look for their answer They just want someone to tell them

A search on Amazon.com for “customer service” returns more than 50,000 books Chancesare that most of them are probably pretty good, and their advice practical and actionablefor companies of all sizes in all industries Whether you read them or not, remember onething—when a customer contacts you through the support portal, they are asking for help.They are vulnerable They need you Nowhere else on your site is clear communicationand usability so important, and at no other time will a company be able to make such astrong statement about its integrity and dedication to good customer service as when itsmettle is tested

Instant messaging

While it’s not realistic to slap an AIM or MSN Messenger handle up on your support portal(unless you do it for each member of the support team), it is possible to implement aninternal, generic chat window that customers can use The functionality is not that differ-ent from a phone system People enter their name and wait in a queue for the next avail-able agent; once they come online, the agent and customer simply type back and forth inreal time

This technology does not even have to be custom developed There are plenty of vendorsthat specialize in enterprise-grade chatting systems Akeni, for instance, produces a range

of products for help desk applications, secure messaging, messaging within just a LAN, andmore.6For companies on a budget, there are smaller solutions with open source licenses

Phone number

The oldest of the support options, the eternal phone number for technical support is verymuch alive in an era of interactive technical triumphs This traditional medium is popular

6 www.akeni.com

precisely because it eschews the new wave of portal interfaces, downloads, search algorithms, knowledge management, and the rest of the buzzwords gumming up people’sability to get a clear answer Like an arrow fired over a field of wheat, a phone call bypassesthe chaff and gets right to the point.

However, phone calls can be just as frustrating as web-based support First, the phonenumber has to be in an obvious place on the website; making users search is only going tofurther upset them before they actually punch the digits, which just deepens the hole thecustomer service representative has to dig the company out of Publish the number boldly,

on every page of the support section Also publish the hours of operation (noting the timezone), and, if technically possible, how long the wait currently is

And for the record, there’s no good reason to put an image of a young, perfectly styled,headset-wearing, big-smile-with-dimples woman standing by to solve your problems Weall understand that call centers are not staffed with people who double as stock photog-raphy models (see Figure 10-7) Also, do not bother taking photos of your own supportpeople Visitors will not know the difference, and staff come and go

Figure 10-7 It is not necessary to put an image of a shiny woman next to your support number It

won’t fool anyone

In addition, make sure the number somehow goes to a person Designing call centerphone menus is far beyond the scope of this book, but keep in mind that at the end of theday, everyone just wants to talk to another human being about their problem Automatedmenus are not sympathetic, and rarely help Just facilitating an actual conversation can gogreat lengths in fostering a positive customer interaction

The support contact form

Without question, the contact form is one of the most important aspects of a company’scustomer service efforts This is the one constant that should be maintained in any supportsection Someone will always need help, and e-mail remains the lowest common denomi-nator of business and customer interaction

Building a good contact form requires more thought than simply throwing a few fields and

aSubmitbutton onto a web page To ensure that the contact form is useful and usable,

there are a few best practices for crafting a positive customer experience:

Keep the form short and usable: Ideally, the form should collect four pieces of

information: name, e-mail, description of the problem (facilitated by a large textarea), and categorization of the problem (e.g., via an area to enter the problemtype or product item number) While it is tempting to ask more questions aboutthe actual issue, forcing the user to define a problem that they don’t understandthrough a series of drop-downs or radio buttons can quickly lead to frustration

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Do not ask for unneeded information: This point ties in with the preceding

one Asking for someone’s mailing address, for instance, is not appropriate for asupport e-mail This and other supplementary information can always be collected

in a follow-up conversation

Make sure optional fields are clearly marked as such: Again, if additional fields are

appended to the core information, make sure the difference between a requiredand optional field is explicit (Chapter 3 discusses this in more depth.)

Provide detailed error messages: Keeping in line with good usability and

contin-gency design, write descriptive error messages in plain language Avoid cold,machine-like messages like “ERROR: TYPE 897WTF PLEASE RETYPE EVERYTHING,”when users click Submit; instead, provide humanized announcements like “You mayhave entered a bad e-mail address; please check the field and try again.”

Test the form: This may sound obvious, but there are plenty of documented cases

where contact forms have simply failed to work In one case, an e-mail sentthrough a national retailer’s support section was returned to the sender askingthem to not send e-mail directly, but to use the contact form in the support sec-

tion, which they had just used It is this type of mind-numbing mistake that can be

caught by one internal person actually testing the process

Provide confirmation: Actually, provide two forms of confirmation First, when the

user submits the form, immediately return a message on the same screen to firm it went through; second, have an automated e-mail sent to their address let-ting the subject know the e-mail was successfully received with an estimated time

con-of response Reassure the customer that the company is listening and intends torespond (see the next point)

Respond: There are few things more frustrating for a customer than sending a long,

detailed question only to have it completely ignored, so make sure someone is tening on the business end An auto-generated confirmation of delivery is a goodfirst step, but unless a human being actually addresses the query, everything else isirrelevant

lis-Remember that contact forms in the support area will be used when people need help, sothere is no point in complicating the process Streamlining the form itself, plus confirmingthat the message was received, will reduce the chance for errors, build confidence in theuser that you know what you’re doing, and help get their question answered faster

Providing a simple e-mail address

For small companies who are looking for a simpler solution and do not need to storeinformation from the contact form in a database (such as for support tickets), a simple e-mail address may work The major disadvantage of plain e-mail is that the content is notregulated—you cannot require users to submit certain pieces of information, such as theirname or the product they have a question about In this case, the best policy is to place apolite note next to the link describing what information will help get their questionanswered expeditiously, as shown in Figure 10-8

Also, the support e-mail address should be generic, like support@yourbiz.com, orhelp@yourbiz.com Publishing a specific person’s name is generally not advised becausethat person could leave, making the address obsolete Likewise, there is probably more

than one person in a support area, so highlighting a particular representative does notmake much sense.

Figure 10-8 This technical support screen represents several best practices Customers are

encouraged to review the online documentation before making contact, but if they choose tocontact the technical support, they are provided with phone numbers, the fax number, and two e-mail addresses based on geographic location There is also a small note next to the e-mail links

to remind customers to include their product model

Best practices in the support section

Although a company’s support effort might comprise different elements such as a forum,FAQ, or knowledgebase, there are several best practices that cover the gamut of a cus-tomer support section It cannot be overstated that providing helpful support at the time

of need with a great attitude, fast response times, and a passion for delivering the idealsolution is the absolute best means of delighting customers Following these best practicessimply helps make those goals a reality

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Provide direct and helpful content

There is absolutely no worse time to obtusely market to customers than when they’re inyour support area A website may use a proliferation of buzzwords like “organic IT” or

“pervasive interactions” to market the product on the rest of the site, but a company willhave more success selling ice to penguins than its product when that confusing jargon isinjected into supposedly helpful content Writing for a support portal needs to accomplishtwo things:

1.The content needs to help users find what they need: In a study by Forrester, 72

percent of those polled cited “Direct path to content I am looking for” when askedabout what constitutes a positive experience on a website.7This was the leading

answer, eclipsing good menu structure, site search, and personalized features.Users want to be pointed in the right direction, and rely on strong, clear messaging to help them

2.The content needs to help users solve their problems: Leading a camel to the

watering hole is just fine—as long as you don’t ask them to drink vinegar Actualhelp documents need to be penned in a clear, authoritative, knowledgeable voicethat helps readers

Many companies staff professional helpdesk writers to scribe this information, and mostare exceedingly good at their jobs This is one area where a permanent staff member whounderstands the product or service on the finest level of detail can deliver a surprisinglyhigh ROI Consider this excerpt from a document published in ESRI’s knowledgebase(shown earlier in Figure 10-3):

“Geographic data is represented on a map as a layer A layer might represent a particular

type of feature, such as highways, lakes, or wildlife habitats, or it might represent a

partic-ular type of data such as a satellite image, a CAD drawing, or a terrain elevation surface in

a triangulated irregular network (TIN) A layer defines how to display the geographic data

it references and where that data is located in your database.”8

The language is clear, concise, and descriptive The bold terms (styled this way by the ESRIwriters) are not found in everyday language, but are necessary to convey the informationeffectively In fact, each bold word is actually a hyperlink that takes the user to that spe-cific term’s entry inside the knowledgebase’s glossary At first glance, a user’s cerebral cor-tex might scramble in fear when they see a term like “triangulated irregularnetwork”—until they realize a definition is a mere click away

7 Charlene Li, “Creating Good Online Content Experiences: Usability Beats Unique Content,Hands Down,” Forrester, October 24, 2006 (www.forrester.com/Research/Document/

0,7211,39495,00.html)

8 ESRI, “Adding layers to a map” (http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.2/

index.cfm?TopicName=Adding_layers_to_a_map)

Microsoft, keeper of one of the deepest libraries of technical knowledge in the world,

publishes the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications,9a detailed tome that

describes ad nauseum the nuances of writing technical documents,10from using technicalterms consistently to accurately describing user actions as they navigate software

Adapt to customer needs

This is a difficult point to define sharply, but it can be summarized as updating the supportportal to address new technology, functionality, and content before customers even knowwhat they’re missing The goal is to silently refresh the support section to ride waves ofchange, not paddle desperately behind after your team has been swamped with inquiriesabout the latest new thing

This, admittedly, could mean a lot of things; each industry has its own particular curve thatneeds to be outdistanced in order to remain competitive and relative Customers expecttheir vendor’s website to remain at the forefront of their business—especially a supportportal that is (theoretically) built to cater to those who keep them in business

Keep content current

Too many companies focus on pushing out the latest product versions and disregardupdating documentation, but not supplying the most current product or service informa-tion in the support section can be detrimental When customers arrive, they are seekinginformation about the grand new thing being trumpeted about by the media, not obsoletedocuments detailing what was hot five years ago

Product announcements need to be accompanied by every relative piece of tion, from help files to new entries in the FAQ The curious will read these with avid inter-est; failing to provide them will turn red-hot interest into stone-cold apathy The world isfar too busy a place to warrant the company or its product a second thought

documenta-Embrace new technology (the rise of mobile access)

Every few years, a new technology enters the consumer market that forces companies torethink their marketing efforts Savvy marketers will see these coming long before they hitcritical mass with the general populace, but these paradigm-shifting events are happening

in much shorter intervals with an ever-shrinking adoption period For instance, telephonestook nearly 40 years to reach commercial saturation Websites took only a few, from thepublic announcement in 1991 to the realization in 1996 that a web presence was manda-tory for businesses to compete

Today, maintaining a corporate website is simply accepted—it’s just something companies

do But existing in the digital realm is not enough; it’s like building a headquarters andleaving it empty Smart marketers keep their eyes on the horizon, and the smartest arealready preparing for the next revolution—mobile access

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9 www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/6074.aspx

10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_nauseam Nothing like a little “proof by assertion.”

The mobile Web has been long heralded Before mobile phones became small enough tofit in a pocket, techies and gadget nerds predicted full media access, from commercial-free television to movies on demand to lightning-fast Internet access Today, these are allreal features of most devices But general acceptance has not been smooth In the case of

TV and film, licensing issues clogged the delivery; in the case of the Internet, the obscenelysmall screens of cell phones and PDAs have hindered the viewing of traditional websites,leading to very slow adoption.11

Designing for the mobile Web is different than traditional web design, but companies whosupport mobile access now—especially in their support portal, where legitimately usefulcontent is housed—will have a sharp competitive advantage as the trend reaches criticalmass in the consumer realm

Break through language barriers

Many companies spend a lot of their time translating their products to different languagesand dialects The software industry is intimately familiar with the process and costsinvolved, because entirely new, separate language files need to be compiled and thor-oughly checked before the product is released in a new market This language transfor-mation involves both of the following processes:

1.Internationalization: Often abbreviated as i18n, this is the preparation of products

to be subject to translation, such as making sure different types of currency ormeasurement are understood by the source code

2.Localization: Often abbreviated as L10n, this is the actual process of translating a

product to a specific country or region

A support portal’s language options should mirror the product itself If a company goesthrough the effort to move its product from German to English, or from English toSpanish, marketing to those dialects will be much easier if the supporting material is avail-able in the same language Foreseeing these customer needs and accommodating thembefore serious issues arise is necessary for retaining strong customer relationships acrossborders

11 The adoption is actually very slow in the United States, but fairly advanced in Japan andEuropean nations One study by Media-Screen (www.media-screen.com/pocketTOC.html)places US adoption at 5 percent; another by comScore (www.comscore.com/press/

release.asp?id=1041) says 19 percent and contrasts it with much higher European numbers

For many companies, the support section of their website is a primary destination forusers, not a secondary bucket of content perused by the casual browser People interactand scour support content with deliberate needs, looking for very specific answers

Because of this, the support portal—almost more than any other section of a website—

offers the opportunity for a business to show its true colors when it comes to customerservice, responsiveness, thoroughness of content, and general attitude toward helping cus-tomers and prospects get the most from their product A bad experience can substantiallydamage a customer relationship, while a good one can reaffirm the person’s decision tobuy your product to begin with

10

1 1 CONTINGENCY PLANNING

It’s only a matter of time before something goes wrong on a corporate website This is not

a hair-brained prediction made with a crystal ball, nor is it arbitrarily negative, empty portending It’s simply a fact The Web is not built on a foolproof architecture—eventually, something will happen that is not supposed to

glass-half-While the Web has proven to scale well, from a few dozen domains and a couple hundred

pages (when the most popular website was for the film Batman Forever) to billions of pages

across millions of domains, human error has proven to scale with equal efficiency Like avast living organism expanding at exponential speed, small pockets of cells fade away asdozens of new ones rush to fill the void

Incorrect internal and external links can lead to missing pages, deleted content can stillappear in search engine indexes, and coding errors can manifest in all the wrong places atall the wrong times Mix in the fact that individual websites continue to grow and theproblem only folds over several more times The more people editing a site, the more con-tent that will be created; the more content that is touched by more people, the greaterthe chance of holes appearing in the architecture

Contingency planning for a corporate website is a priority because it directly affects theperception of your business The better you can lead your visitors to the light after theystray off the main path, the more they will appreciate your consideration and willingness

to help them find the content they’re looking for When planning, designing, and ing your corporate site, consider the reasons why someone would need help on yourwebsite:

develop-They find something that is broken: This might be a bad incoming link (they arrived

from another site), a bad internal link, a misbehaving script (either on the server or

in the client with JavaScript), serious display issues (“Why does this site not lookright in Netscape 3?”), or outdated or incorrect content Pieces of a site that arebroken are a direct result of human error somewhere along the developmentline—at some point, someone screwed up

They can’t figure out what to do: Your links may be sound, your scripts

triple-checked, and your CSS optimized for browsers that never made it out of the ’90s,but for whatever reason, the user can’t figure out how to use your website This

is almost always a design, usability, or accessibility issue, and the web designer is

accountable

In either case, it’s the corporation’s responsibility to fix the problem Until the problem isresolved, however, plan for the unplanned and ensure that your site has effective failsafeoptions built into the architecture This chapter will cover several aspects of contingencymanagement, from building smart error pages and intelligible search results to properpage-printing techniques to making sure you have a doomsday page ready to go in thecase of a total domain meltdown

Redirects and error pages

To draw a rough analogy, a website is like a system of roads There are several main ways, some smaller bypasses and shortcuts, a bunch of sideshow attractions, and a forest