All roads in Confluence lead to the Customer Experience. (Part 1)

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Business Case

Provide a Confluence-based Customer Experience portal so our visitors can learn more about our products, increase the level of engagement, access to up-to-date information and product documentation, continuous education, and learning path tracking.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Atlassian or any of the mentioned marketplace vendors. I wrote this article to share a user's perspective. These first part examples will be on Server/Data Center, but the concepts shared apply to the cloud version. Eventually, I will publish another article with examples from a cloud version.

Acknowledgment: Special thanks to @Matt Reiner _K15t_ ,  @Manish Gupta _EduBrite_ , @Simon Gatto and Daryl Karan from Comalatech for your assistance on this proof of concept.

Why now?

In February 2021, the Confluence team launched a marketing campaign focus on customer love, and I realized that I still have this unpublished article related to the customer experience journey while accessing our products documentation, onboarding, and continuous education.

The Customer Journey

Our customers will embark on an incremental journey and we need to be sure we provide the information needed according to their engagement. There is a difference between the standard commercial website and a customer experience portal: Collaboration and interaction. We want to provide information, but the actual value is the level of interaction we can reach with our community of users. And of course, the level of services and value-added proposition we can offer to them.

In this approach, I am considering multiple layers to dose the content distribution and engagement. The layers relate to the maturity of the relationship with our customers. 

Context

To align our terminology in the context of this article. 

• I am considering Customers to any individual consuming what you publish in Confluence. It can be internal or external. All of them deserve the same great experience.
• It is possible to enhance the Customer Experience in Confluence by adding marketplace apps and integrated tools, like a Learning Management System or product that allows the visitor to select the version of product-related documentation.

Five fundamental principles from in-person Tradeshows

Without a doubt, talking about an in-person trade show during the pandemic sounds weird, but there are some fundamental principles you need to master while you are managing a booth in any tradeshow. Such principles are also foundational and applicable to any development that will impact people's interaction in the digital virtual world.

So if you had the opportunity to "work" a booth, you would remember the pre-show preparation staff meetings and those things to remember while running the show. Well, as my daughter says, "guess what?" Most of them are also applicable to your online interaction. Let's review the common mistakes or pieces of advice (check this article about trade shows common mistakes)

1. Visitor Space: The importance of the flow, be sure the visitor can walk around and understand what you do without being harassed like in a car dealership, give them some cue, enough to get interested.
2. Do not crowd the booth: rotate. Nothing to do? Please don't do it here. The trade show team didn't design the booth for a nap or team gatherings.
3. Listen and provide a solution: be specific and guide the customer to the correct information or demonstration. Qualify the lead so you can follow up
4. Provide access to additional resources: usually, booths are more than swags. The visitor is looking for material to read and share with their colleagues.
5. A memorable experience: ask any exhibitor company, and you will find that their main focus is to be sure that any visitor has an unforgettable experience and a branding impact. As I always say, "There is just ONE opportunity to cause a good FIRST impression."

About this picture from Deiser. You will notice that each staf member is engaged with customers opening the space to maintain the flow. Those that are not directly involved with a customer maintain a distance and are alert of surroundings. This group understood the roles of a exhibitor, each piece or action has a purpose. Good job Deiser Team!

Connecting the dots

How is this list of recommendations related to our Confluence Customer Journey or experience?

Confluence and the Customer Experience (CX) Portal

Here are some points to consider in alignment with the in-person journey while designing a CX Portal using Confluence as a core.

1. Visitor Space: provide a layer of free access and generic content so the visitor can understand what you do and desire to move to the next level by creating an account, posting comments, and interacting with your team and other visitors.
2. Do not crowd the Portal: I know we love what we do and our products. We always have a lot to share, focus and narrow your message, don't overwhelm the visitor, show the path, and start their journey. 
3. Listen: track their point of interest. If the visitor plays a video or a microlearning piece, track it in your Learning Management System. In the future, if they decide to complete a related course, they don't need to revisit this content.
4. Additional Resources: how about continuous education, demonstrations, simulations. It is time for the "show how." However, we need to keep in mind that many visitors will need to gather proof of their learning. Provide to them the capability to have their Learning dashboard, print certificates, and participate in courses and programs. Identify and provide alternative learning paths. Understand their journey ahead.
5. A memorable experience: do not dump a lot of unstructured content with a low emphasis on appearance. Look and feel is essential. Provide a comfortable environment. Namaste.

The Customer Journey

An analogy with trade shows principles.

First layer:  An open, no commitment platform. Users can learn more about our products. If they are interested, they will create their account to "walk into your booth" and ask for more.

Second layer: now that the user is identified, they access our demonstration stations to obtain a high-level idea of the products, interact with our sales team and participate in a guided "product tour."

Third layer: let's learn more and schedule detailed demonstrations, access a sandbox for simulations and eventually purchase and implement our product. Provide detailed documentation and track the learning experience. Assist the customer on their journey, building a solid foundation

Fourth Layer: Training programs, microlearning, certificates, feature enhancement requests, and how about videos as an answer to my support tickets?

Fifth+ layers: Continuous education, on-demand training, and products upgrade. Up to date content about the latest release, e-learning based on Confluence content auto-updated every night.

Proposed Solution

Build a customer portal using Confluence as a core to develop and host the information, Jira Service Management to provide support, Comala Document Management and Publishing to assist content generation, Scroll ViewPort, and Versions in displaying versioned product content and EduBrite and Gilly as Learning Management System (LMS) to track content consumption, develop and host e-learning artifacts and to generate completion certificates and learning programs.

Is it possible to integrate tools to build this CX Portal?

Short Answer: Yes, and the value of your content will increase exponentially 

Core: Confluence as the main driver of this CXPortal

Integrated Learning Management System (LMS): Edubrite and Gilly enhance the experience. It tracks learning, provides certificates and a personal dashboard. Provide e-learning content auto-updated daily with content from Confluence without any additional effort. 

Look and feel - K15t - Scroll Versions and Scroll ViewPort - they will take care of the look and feel and the memorable experience.

The right Content - Comala Document Management and Comala publishing - Make your draft shine and publish the right verified and updated content.

All about service - Jira Service Management, as the customer service portal, also integrated with the LMS so an agent can recommend and track content from the LMS.

Let's build it!

In Part 2 I will go over the configuration details, integration, and key features used from each integrated tool.

[Guillermo _DEISER_]

Great guys the #DEISERTeam ha ha! 

[Bridget]

@Fabian A. Lopez (Community Leader - Argentina, Florida, California) amazing article! Good to have you back :) 

[Huwen Arnone [Deiser]]

We are looking forward to going back to this type of event already; thank you very much for the mention to our team, @Fabian A. Lopez (Community Leader - Argentina, Florida, California)!!

After reading this, we all got nostalgic about it at Microsoft Teams.