Jennifer Lambourne, Knowledge Management Lead at Monzo Bank joins us in this episode of Knowledgebase Ninjas to discuss her experience on the importance of customer documentation
Connect with Jennifer and Monzo Bank here:
Key Takeaways:
How did Jennifer get into technical writing?
Jennifer stumbled into technical writing after choosing the arts over software development when she chose to study English literature at the University Of Cardiff. Whilst at university, Jennifer became the science and technology editor at the student newspaper with a view to becoming a technology journalist.
Next Jennifer moved into PR after she was advised to do so by a lecturer, she then moved into content marketing and ended up writing documentation and technical white papers at a web development agency.
Jennifer then moved into working for the British Government where she lead a team of technical writers.
Jennifer’s documentation remit at Monzo is very broad
Jennifer is responsible for Monzo’s internal knowledgebase, software documentation and then also supporting the customer operations team with external customer documentation.
“Putting users first”
When asked about the important factors to consider when producing documentation, Jennifer shares that the single most important factor is to put your users first:
- Who are your users?
- What are they trying to achieve?
- What content format or style of content can help your user at this time?
Once this has been decided and the content has been created, Jennifer then also highlights the importance of benchmarking and measurement to make sure the content is actually helping people.
Documentation is a critical part of Monzo customer support strategy
Monzo is a bank… so clearly when people are reaching out to the support team, they may be stressed. Therefore it is vitally important that support reps are able to provide detailed and relevant support, often through documentation. Monzo are investing heavily in documentation with specific work streams and large teams specifically focussed on producing great documentation.
Measuring the ROI of documentation at Monzo Bank
Jennifer shares that the methods they use to measure the ROI on internal and external documentation differ greatly. For example, documents that have been written to detail a proposed technical change may be measured by ensuring the proposals are up to date or accurate.
Regarding external documentation, Monzo are currently undergoing a benchmarking exercise to understand how confident the customer operations team is in their external support documentation. This benchmark will enable Jennifer’s team to test and improve going forward.
Who has inspired Jennifer in technical writing?
- Rosalie Marshall – Lead Technology Advisor at Government Digital Service
Jennifer’s favourite documentation related resource:
- ReadMe Checklist – Daniel Beck
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