Field experiences and challenges in taking guided experiences for end-users to the next level

Tridion, with as many as six of its partners, convened recently in Stockholm for the Tridion partner summit to share their rich expertise and experience in enhancing guided experience. Eric Tengstrand from Etteplan was the moderator for the event and the panel included Ginika Ibeagha from RWS’ Tridion along with Tridion partner representatives: Toni Ressaire from Technically Write It, Bruno Fraissinede from Fluid Topics, Joe Girling from Congility, Wouter Maagdenberg from TXTOmedia, Vangelis Lympouridis, and Eren Aksu from Deloitte Digital.

The focus area for this summit was to learn how companies can move towards guided experience, including the journey involved in getting there. Some critical technologies used today for guided experience include XR, VR, AR, MR, and metaverse.

Eric summarized the agenda for the panel discussion:

1. Where are the customers today, what challenges are they facing in the content value/supply chain

2. What is the business case/value and the cost or investment needed, including the technologies involved?

3. What are the steps needed to implement guided experience?

Guided experience completely transforms the user experience in terms of the FAIR (findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability) principles discussed separately with Tridion partners. It not just adds efficiency to the process but delights the users in terms of their interaction with the business, leading to far better customer satisfaction.

He mentioned how Tridion is working with its partners to deliver the content smartly to improve accessibility for different end users so that they can work more efficiently. For example, he mentioned how content could be integrated and delivered to the spare parts team so that they know the configuration of the machine and spare parts needed to perform the job for a given repair job. He observed that most of the customers are moving in this direction.

Eric shared an infographic (below) that depicts businesses’ evolution from ad-hoc/unstructured content to reaching the ultimate guided experience. He requested the partner panel to share their expertise in terms of where most of their customers fit in this evolution.

He also shared the content value chain and requested the panel to comment on where they face significant challenges when interacting with their customers. For example, he mentioned a challenge where the same solution was implemented on a couple of sites; while one site liked it, the other didn’t like it.

Challenges

Some of the critical challenges that the panel discussed included:

• Lack of a clear and well-defined content/information management strategy to future-proof the content.
• To have content in the correct format so that end users can consume and benefit from it (Wouter), E.g., users nowadays prefer to consume content in the form of a video (say on YouTube) rather than on pdf – hence it is also required to write it in that way, which is more suitable for that format
• Challenges in terms of answers users need, which could also vary based on the location, e.g., in-office staff vs. on-field or on-site staff. E.g., on-site staff may require access to technical documents offline due to network unavailability or restrictions at the given site. This makes the format and UI extremely important and has to be customized per user groups’ preferences – installation and maintenance support is in most demand (Bruno)

Rewards and business values

Some of the benefits or rewards the panel discussed with their respective customers from guided experience include:

• Prompt delivery of information that employees and customers need to make decisions – to quantify the value, one customer reported a 66.7% reduction in the number of support tickets raised by users to help find the information they need
• Being more efficient for the people on the field, including for new members that need an onboarding
• Reducing the time of performing tasks: from intent/preparation to do a task (e.g., reading a document) to actually doing the task
• Reducing the use of print and paper to promote sustainability as well as save costs

Toni recommends that her customers build KPIs to measure the amount of time, effort, money, etc., each process consumes. This makes it easy to identify the strategies one needs to improve, thus driving concerted efforts to drive efficiency and reap cost savings. E.g., one of her clients was able to reduce customer support call center costs by 30% in just three months by using a chatbot that answered five customer queries.

Steps involved in reaping the benefits of guided experience

Key points discussed by the panel not necessarily exclusive include:

Strategy

Build a strategy by asking the right questions: how are you going to write content, how are you going to structure it, how do you want to manage and share knowledge, etc.? We need to build a strategy for not just today (which is what most companies do) but for the future as well. Key components include:

• Change management (want to understand what users at each level want and what is needed to get there so that they ultimately use the new system)
• Content management
• Information  management
• User adoption plan
• Maintenance plan (translation, training content, etc.)

Running pilots help identify and clear hurdles upfront so that the guided experience solution can be implemented seamlessly and effectively.

Comprehensive/extensive problem definition and detailing

While most companies do define the problem, it is not done comprehensively and in great depth. Often the interrelation between the problems is not well established or understood. E.g., defining problems from design, innovation, governance, etc. perspectives.

Executive sponsorship

The owner, champion and project sponsor should all be aligned with clearly defined objectives and appropriate budget in place to ensure smooth execution / avoid conflicts at a later stage and risk terminating the project in between.

Clearly defined KPIs which are aligned with business objectives

KPIs should not be tied to technologies but to objectives such as reducing asset downtime, increasing asset uptime, reducing inspection time, or reducing support. These KPIs must be defined right at the project’s onset, keeping the organization’s long-term vision in mind.

Discovery

This is phase 0 or phase 1 to create a roadmap, where you get all the stakeholders together, including the executives, users, and CX/UX designers. This helps build a clear roadmap for the project and aligns all stakeholders.

During this process, some critical things to inculcate include building trust, driving innovation, having the right proper and toolkits, and promoting discussions/ideas through hackathons.

Eric thanked everyone for their valuable time and input and opened the session for a Q&A discussion.

Please access the recording of this session to learn more and go through the details of these points.

And for the highlights: Content Strategy Planning , Content Language Strategy , Instructional Content Delivery