Determine Your Audience
Understand Who Needs Help
Knowledge is only truly powerful when the intended audience can leverage it for its intended purpose. The purpose or intent of knowledge is determined by the user searching for it and the associated goal or objective the user is trying to accomplish. Therefore, audience understanding is a critical component of a knowledge strategy that cannot be overlooked.
Categorize your users and main interaction channels for each. Consider channels where your users are looking for information even if you do not have knowledge content in that channel yet.
For example:
- Customers - Google, marketing website, product
- Distributors - Marketing website, partner portal
- Agents - CRM, intranet, knowledge base
Mapping the audience to intents and associated knowledge can be a meticulous process. When identifying who your are serving and what knowledge they need to access, consider all relevant groups.
Persona Examples
A method to identify and understand your groups is by specific subsets, or personas, so you can address their particular needs in addition to the wider audience.
End Users
- Prospect - does not currently own your product but is interested in learning more and potentially purchasing
- Customer - owns your product and needs help or is looking to learn about your other offerings
- Novice - recently acquired your product, needs to learn the basics such as how to use it, tips and tricks, or basic troubleshooting
- Intermediate - has been using your product for some time and needs information about more specific or granular topics
- Expert - has owned your product for a long time, is well-versed in your offering, and likely has specific questions about advanced topics
Company Support Team Roles
- Agent - Contact center agent actively handling tickets
- Level 1 - needs access to troubleshooting and internal content that most likely is not visible to prospects or clients
- Level 2+ - needs access to advanced troubleshooting or repair docs and may also be responsible for requesting field service technicians based on ticket escalation
- Field Service - needs access to onsite troubleshooting and repair docs
- Subject Matter Expert (SME) - needs in-depth information about specific topics
Internal Employees
- Employee - needs access to internal information relating to a process or service
- Human Resource Service Desk Agent - needs to store or access Human Resource policies and procedures to support employees
- Information Technology Service Desk Agent - needs to store or access IT Help Desk policies and procedures to support employees
Partners or Resellers
- Partners - need access to product documentation and related information in a similar capacity to a support agent but tailored for their needs or level of access
- Resellers - need access to similar information as partners but tailored for their needs or level of access
Action Item: Find your primary audiences and map each audience back to one or more business outcomes associated with the project. Mapping users will influence how you structure content, which then dictates what cornerstone content will be included to support these audiences.