The Ultimate Value of Collecting Data on Effectiveness and Value

Using a consistent methodology to collect data on the effectiveness and value of our work offers benefits in the short and long run, as trainers have learned. Table 1 summarizes the four levels of this methodology and the tools used to collect the data. In the short run, adopting and following this four-level model will promote these good business practices among technical communicators:

• Defining tasks and business objectives as requirements for communication products
• Significantly increasing the assessment of reader satisfaction and usability
• Initiating measurement of the business value we add
• Emphasizing outstanding customer service

As the model goes into use, other technical communicators will likely refine it. These people might refine certain techniques of measurement, or find the need to add additional types of evaluation. That’s fine. Because ultimately, a refined evaluation system will lead to the types of business measurements even accountants can appreciate.

In the long run, an improved understanding of our effectiveness and of the value we add to our clients’ businesses will help us to:

• More effectively price communication products based on their value, not their printing cost. When companies price the manuals and online information they publish, they typically multiply the printing cost by a pre-determined factor. For example, if the printing of a manual costs $2.00, a company might multiply that number by 7 to get the sale price, $14.00. Such a pricing scheme is easy to administer, but hardly considers the value it provides the user. Consider this. If a do-it-yourself service manual helps someone avoid a $650 repair, should we only charge $14.00 for it or would a reader be willing to pay $35.00 for it?

Pricing would also consider user satisfaction with a communication product. For example, if users are only lukewarm about a web site they subscribe to, the client might consider reducing the subscription cost to better match the expectation level of users or increasing the quality of the service.

• More effectively price technical communication services to align prices with client’s perceptions of the value of the service. Although other market forces admittedly affect the price of our services, if a firm were to have an unusually high success rate meeting business objectives (and has documented evidence of that), the firm could more easily justify a higher hourly rate because it can reduce the risk inherent in this type of work.

Project Management | People Management | Business Management | Information Design Models, Processes, and Techniques | Home

(c) Copyright. 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002. Saul Carliner. All rights reserved.