Client Type: Financial software for the consumer package goods industry
One employer was in the consumer package goods industry.
To summarize, CPGs are sold both directly from the manufacturers and through brokers in overlapping distribution channels, markets and brands. Tracking the compound discounts and pricing through multiple data systems and currencies is complicated.
The firm kept getting customer complaints that data was wrong. Tickets were always opening about erroneous financial data even though our developers insisted the software worked as designed.
Needless to say, during the sales cycle this made some business owners nervous.
What to do
I didn’t go to talk to the tech support team. I went to listen.
Product, brand and territory managers were the primary consumers of our reports. These were the three personas for whom the product had been built. However, accountants were also digging deep into our data for entirely different purposes. Buried deep inside our data was number that was a ‘mid calculation’ that would often go into the negative.
This number was also given a title that meant one thing to product, brand and territory managers and something totally different to accountants.
The solution
The short term solution was to rename this number clearly so that different audiences did not misinterpret it.
The number was clearly explained deep inside the hundreds of pages long user manual. The longer term solution was repacking the manual as shorter role-based best practice guides. Each was approximately a page and organized so that explanations could be tailored.
Accountants would look at the documents that interested them – and get the explanations relevant to them. I did the same for other roles.
Accountants would look at the documents that interested them – and get the explanations relevant to them. I did the same for other roles.
The Impact
The result was improved customer autonomy and a shorter tech support queue.