Presentation given by Larissa Flynn at Technical Communication UK 2011

1. CS Content team
On a mission to communicate!
Larissa Flynn
External Education & Content Manager, Skype
September 2011
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2. Agenda
What is ?
Where we began, and what we found
Initiatives for improvements & achievements
Continued efforts & Enablers to success
What next?
Questions
Click on the icons to jump to the topics
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3. What is ?
What you can do for FREE
Available on multiple platforms
Pay a little….
Use all these features
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4. Fast Facts!
Founded 2003, based in Luxembourg
~177 Million users each month, using
an average 100mins per month
~30m concurrent users at peak times
20% Global International Calls*
Available across the globe in 32 languages for Windows & 16 for Mac
In May 2011, Skype announced it had entered into a definitive agreement
with Microsoft for acquisition for $8.5bn
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5. Where we began…
The Enterprise Team & Skype Academy, 2009
Formed under Business Operations,
January 2010
Business Case and team expansion,
June 2010
Multiple Content Types
Localised into Eight languages
Operational Readiness given, aligned to Online Support RV
and moved to Customer Services, Summer 2011
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6. What we found…touch-points in the customer journey
New content
Localisation
Categorisation Maintenance
of content Search tuning Upsell
Home Page Search Content Pages
Agent Responses Configurable Form Contact Methods
New content Deflection Email
Localisation through content Chat
Maintenance
Upsell
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7. What we found… Barriers to success
Low Flexibility
Inability to support varying volumes of
requests
Limited Governance
Lack of Content Strategy, Service Level
Agreements, measurement & reporting Long Turnaround Times
Low agility of the authoring process, content
lifecycle difficult to manage
Out of Core Business
Support content authoring out of Low Transparency
Skype’s core business Hard to track real spending & distribution
between product lines & features
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8. Initiatives: Support Request Form (H2 2010)
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9. Initiatives: Support site redesign (2010-2011)
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10. New to Skype? Now with Video!
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11. Online content analytics insight
Online Support
FAQ Visitors
Analytics awareness:
Customer Service Operations • What are customers searching for?
Contacts - Email & Chat
• What content has the highest propensity for
customers to contact us after seeing it?
54 times the number of customers • What route through the site do customers take, and
who contact us visit the FAQs online what are the most popular routes for those who
eventually contact us?
• What content do we not have that we need to create?
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12. Achievements to date
Decrease propensity to contact through improved content
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Improved overall content on support website, deflected users by publishing FAQs in configurable form,
created user guides and published getting started videos. Reduced PTC by 49% for customers who
have viewed at least 1 piece of content
Localisation of PreDef content to improve agent efficiency
2 Closed PreDef content gaps by localisation of agent PreDefs into 7 supported languages, and retired
unused or duplicated content. Reduced the gap by 36% in 2010 (now 0%), aiding increased FCR.
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13. Achievements to date
Generate income from up-sell links in FAQs
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Identifying FAQs & Predefs suitable for up-sell opportunities, and adding trackable tags to identify the
content as either a contributor or the initiator of any sales. Almost 30,000 orders were placed in 2010
alone.
The FAQ, “How does Skype make money?” made a significant contribution to this.
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14. Achievements to date
4 Website FAQ re-categorisation
Adding new categorisation increased visibility of some of the Mobile content by 200%
Net Promoter Score (NPS) Survey Feedback
• Customer experiences with online help pages and Customer Services have a strong impact on NPS.
5 They are “moments of truth” that can lead to disappointment, but can also have a huge upside if
issues are resolved smoothly.
• Quarter on quarter increase of 6% in issue resolution (16% in some regions).
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15. Ongoing Improvements…
•Style guides (Editorial style guide and Content team guidelines)
•Content Engagement and lifecycle process documents (on
Confluence)
•Checklists (for perfect predefs and fabulous FAQs)
•Technical, SME and peer review processes
•Using top PTC FAQ report to drive improvement
•Using 404 report to fix broken links.
•Using customer feedback to drive improvement
FA3281 How do I add contacts? 1
28% (43) had problems with the FAQ “I can’t find the menu bar”
** we’ve already addressed this in the new user guide **
10% (15) needed CS help or had a “The Skype add contacts screen does not appear!! merely a
problem with product white blank page.”
“By making it a lot simpler”
63% (98) irrelevant comments “i dont like ur face ur look just like monkey”
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16. Enablers to Success
High Flexibility
Eliminated single points of failure
Increased Governance
New Service Level Agreements, measurement
& reporting Shorter Turnaround Times
Processes and Engagement Models, RACI
Model
More Transparency
Impact Statements, Customer Feedback etc.
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17. What next?
Ongoing Initiatives
•Proper meta-tagging of FAQs to enable regular targeted review
•Auto surfacing content dependent on Customer type and platform usage
•Work with skype.com teams to improve product page-to-FAQ linkage and ensure correct messaging
•Make improvements to the support request form to utilise different types of content and improve
information obtained to aid CS Agents with FCR
•Engage with forums - what are the common issues/trends?
•Increase video or interactive user guide (video snippets) usage
•Retire old content
•Add further languages to https://support.skype.com/
•Improve search tuning for non-English content
Continued struggles
•Supporting the Agile model
•A/B product testing
•Urgent localisation turnaround
•Manual upload of content to KMS
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18. Thank you!
Any Questions?
larissa.flynn@skype.net
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/larissaflynn
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19. Impact Statement Example
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20. Engagement Processes
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21. Content Example
Embedded graphics for search friendly content
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