7:05am
Jane receives her first call of the day from Steve, a frustrated customer. Jane learns that Steve has spent 2 fruitless hours trying to find the meaning of a new error message that appeared after he installed the latest OS patch.
The terrible tale of Jane the support agent
7:00am
Jane works for a firewall vendor who just released
an OS patch to plug a security hole.
7:07am
He’s not the only one. Support phones are ringing off the hook. The tension in the room rises dramatically.
7:08am
Jane has never heard of that error message. Neither have her colleagues.
7:10am
Jane starts searching on the error message in the multiple apps in the support team wiki, knowledge base of the helpdesk tool and product documentation.
She tells her customer she will call him back when she has an answer.
7:30am
No luck, but she was not confident she would find anything since the patch was just released.
7:33am
The tech support manager frantically calls engineering to find out what happened to the software.
7:47am
No one in software engineering has arrived to work yet since they were up late programming and testing the patch.
45 minutes and counting
8:00am
Someone finally contacts technical publications to find out if they’ve written anything for the software patch.
Meanwhile calls are flooding in with angry, upset customers. The customer support call system backlog jumps.
8:15am
One of the writers who just happens to have worked on the update replies and emails a copy of the revision document. The document is quickly forwarded to other support techs.
8:20am to noon
Support techs scan the document for error message information they need and begin to call and email their callers. The process takes all morning.
Well, at least tech support is now prepared for the next day and a half of high call load…
Definitely NOT Fluid.
What happened?
Although the firewall OS documentation is updated, batch publishing takes 2 days to complete, vital information is actually not available when the patch is released.
7:08am
Thanks to Fluid Topics, Jane sees where her caller, Steve, has been searching so she can quickly get up to speed on the problem.
7:09am
Jane searches on the error message with product and OS version number and receives five relevant topic results.
7:10am
Using the convenient inline reading feature, Jane quickly scans the streaming content.
7:12am
Steve missed it, but Jane finds the error message in the list and learns that he needs to set a parameter.
7:13am
One link click and Jane lands in the section that describes how to set the parameter. She sends the instructions to Steve and watches to see if he receives and opens it. Problem solved!
That’s the magic of dynamic publishing!
7:20am
Jane anticipates that many other clients will face the same issue. She decides to create a specific technical note.
Using the Personal Book feature, she creates a small guide combining existing related topics (error message, parameter description) with configuration update instructions. The Personal Book is made available in a snap.
7:30am
Some calls do come in related to the update, but it’s basically a quiet morning because many users found the information they needed online.
9:17am
Steve tweets how much he appreciates Jane’s company because customer support is so responsive. Jane smiles.
Definitely Fluid.
What Happens?
The updated OS documentation was pushed to Fluid Topics, immediately published online as the patch was released.