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Since Ginny Redish received only one response to the following message
(posted to the 7 September list), I decided to send the message again in
hopes of generating more participation.
Liz Babcock
STC President
-----------------
Here's your chance to participate in STC's project on the value technical
communicators add to their work. Ginny Redish, who is not a participant on
TECHWR-L, has asked me to post the following message. If you decide to answer
directly to TECHWR-L, I will forward your messages to Ginny.
Liz Babcock
President, STC
- - - - - - - - - - -
> This message is from Ginny Redish.
> As part of the STC-funded project on > Measuring the value added by
professional > technical communicators, Judy Ramey and I > are writing a
booklet on how to use > reducing support calls and costs as a > measure of
value added.
> One important issue is how to categorize > support calls so as to isolate
problems in > documentation or problems that could be > ameliorated by better
documentation.
> We are interested in the categories and > definitions of those categories
that different > companies use.
> If your company has a group that fields > requests for help from users
(Tech Support, > Product Support, Customer Service, Help > Desk, whatever
they are called) and those > people track or log the calls, please help us >
by answering these questions:
> 1. Do they categorize the calls?
> 2. Is documentation a category?
> 3. If so, how is it defined, that is, what > types of problems go into the
category?
> 4. How does the Support person decide to > put a problem in that category?
(Does > the user have to mention that he or she > tried to use the document?)
> 5. What other categories do the Support > people use that you consider
related to > documentation? For example, one > company also uses the category
> tutorial, which they define as anytime > the user requests help on how to
perform > a procedure. Please include both the > name and definition of the
category.
> 6. Do the Support people ask users if they > tried to use the
documentation?
> Thank you very much for sharing information > with us. If we may mention
your company's > name, please let us know. Otherwise, we will > use the
information as anonymous examples.
> You may send responses directly to Ginny at > redish -at- quark -dot- umd -dot- edu > or
through the listserver.
