Set Your Sights on Your Support Site
by Citrix Online

There are many technical support managers who feel that having a support site – any support site – is good enough. Some even believe their support sites to be packed with helpful information for users. If you’re a support manager, can you say with certainty that you understand the user’s experience? By the time someone clicks on your organization’s support site, you can be sure that agitation and anxiety are already percolating. With that tension building, what does a user encounter on your site? Is information logically accessible and easy to understand or is it buried, confusing, or non-existent?

Don’t wait another day to critically evaluate your support site. Apply the same professional standards that you would to any pre-sales efforts. This may require an allocation of funds for the design and ongoing maintenance of your support site, but it’s worth every penny. This level of professionalism gives you more credibility with your customers, and inevitably makes it easier and more enjoyable for customers to use your support site.

Evaluate the type of information you provide on your support site. The information should, of course, be useful to your customers (e.g., product information, user’s guides, FAQs, contact numbers, etc.). You should also clearly delineate next steps for those seeking information or help beyond what’s provided on your support site. These instructions should be as brief and clear as possible so your customers can easily scan and absorb them. Using bullets, subheads, and bolding will also help make the information easier to read. Consider adding a search feature or index for additional ease of use. After all, the last thing you want is for your support site to confuse your customers further.

As you streamline your support site, regularly take the time to test usability by creating mock user scenarios that members of your organization must resolve. Have these in-house testers time themselves from start to finish and track the trajectory to resolution. And don’t overlook the benefit of gathering customer feedback to make improvements to your support site, for who better can inform you about the user’s experience than the users? Keeping the user’s experience at the forefront of your mind will help you build a site that’s useful, efficient, and intuitive. Moreover, your customers will feel valued and appreciated, which will positively impact customer loyalty and your organization’s bottom line.

About Citrix Online
Citrix Online, a division of Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS), offers the leading Web-based access, support and collaboration software and services. The division offers Citrix GoToMyPC®, the easiest-to-use solution for remote, secure and managed desktop PC access over the Web; and Citrix GoToAssist™, the most secure, reliable and powerful solution for Web-based technical support and customer collaboration. Citrix Online products are used by more than 4,000 companies worldwide, including Cisco Systems, Siemens, Intuit, Cablevision and Microsoft Business Solutions. The division is based in Santa Barbara, California, and is on the Web at www.gotomypc.com, www.gotoassist.com and www.citrix.com.