I’ve been providing content strategy, knowledge management, and training services to businesses in the Chicago area and throughout the US. My customers represent a variety of industries, including advertising, entertainment, financial, insurance, healthcare, pharmaceutical, and technological.
These services provide more than user manuals, training guides, or content strategy artifacts: they deliver solutions that solve business problems.
Story 1: Call Center Training Program
An internal Call Center for a Fortune 500 company provided support for 35 applications, and most of its associates were experts in only one or two of those applications. To provide more effective and efficient resource coverage, leadership decided to reorganize the team from a “specialist modelâ to a âgeneralist model.â My first project involved developing and organizing call center content in a system that could be used by any associate resolve an issue. In my subsequent project, I developed a training program and workbook for supervisors to use when training new associates. As a result of this project, both wait time and resolution time on calls was reduced, and the number of calls transferred to second-tier decreased.
Story 2: Walkthrough Patterns and Checklists
An animal healthcare organization developed a web-based application and decided to use walkthroughs to guide users through the system’s basic tasks. While the training team had a style guide, it did not have documented standards for coding and delivering the walkthroughs. Each team member followed his or her own process for creating a walkthrough’s steps, messaging, and error processing, which resulted in an inconsistent user journey.
I created a pattern library to address design patterns that repeat throughout the product in various contexts (including starting and ending walkthroughs, error-proofing steps, and opening external links). The pattern library ensures walkthrough content and behavior is usable and consistent. The document also includes a series of checklists for creating and updating walkthroughs with each release, as well as a checklist for performing an impact analysis when a change is requested for content or behavior.
As a result of establishing standard code, content, and rules, the time required to develop, test, and release walkthroughs decreased. In addition, using checklists reduced the number errors encountered during software releases.
Story 3: Content Strategy Implementation
An organization in the entertainment industry wanted to gather and publish its cloud team’s information about new product development in a way that would benefit other teams, including its support center. I developed the content plan and information architecture for the knowledge management system, then managed the project from design through pilot. Organizing and delivering content in a centralized system improved communication between the teams and increased awareness of the cloud team’s progress, resulting in a transparent and productive environment.
Let’s talk about the types of projects we can work on together!
