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Collaborating with Customers Virtually to Improve Content

Writers often are challenged to measure the effectiveness of their deliverables. Measurement is frequently difficult because the writer is expected to act as a reader advocate without direct customer or audience input. Fortunately, this trend is changing. Today, technical writers have a wealth of opportunities to seek input directly from the internal or external consumers of their deliverables. In today’s globally competitive marketplace, organizations constantly strive to deliver high-quality goods and services. Many companies are recognizing customers as a critical strategic partner in their product development and quality improvement programs. This recognition of customers as development and quality partners extends to documentation resources such as training materials, web-based help, support knowledge bases, user manuals, quick-reference guides and virtual tours and tutorials. More and more, the voice of the customer is becoming the most important consideration in product and process decisions, including the delivery of documentation. Collaborating with customers goes beyond fostering goodwill. Employing various methods to invite customer collaboration accelerates documentation development and significantly improves documentation quality. By considering strategic partner values, organizational culture, cost and complexity, and availability of resources, technical writers can develop customer feedback programs that increase customer retention and positively impact revenue. This chapter explores methods and processes that help to ensure successful virtual collaboration with customers. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-994-6.ch017