One of the services we provide as a litigation support professional is the role of User Support. We are inundated at times with telephone calls or e-mails from users asking for help. One type of question that we receive on a regular basis relates to software support. The user is trying to perform some steps in a software application and they either don't know how to perform the steps or they can't remember what the steps are.
If you are working on my team, I will periodically ask you to create a cheat sheet. My belief is that we should work as efficiently as possible and I also believe that sharing knowledge is a positive trait. By creating a cheat sheet for a repetitive user support question, we can easily provide the cheat sheet to the user when they call us or send an e-mail. The user will appreciate having the step-by-step guide and it will eliminate the need for the litigation support team to answer the same questions over and over again.
Below are some tips for creating end user cheat sheets.
1) A cheat sheet MUST include step-by-step screenshots.
2) All of the steps in the cheat sheet should be enumerated. This makes it easy to follow along with the user over the phone by referring to each step by number if they have a follow-up question or a step is not working correctly.
3) A cheat sheet should be 2 or 3 pages at the most.
4) All of the cheat sheets should be stored on a server in one location that is accessible by the entire litigation support team.
5) The cheat sheets can be stored on the firm's Intranet in a Resource area.
I have received push back in the past from team members who believe that it takes too much time to create a cheat sheet, especially when I state that it must include step-by-step screenshots. I am a big picture thinker. The time saved in user support hours once the cheat sheet has been created makes it well worth the effort to create it in the first place.
Another advantage to having end user cheat sheets is that when a new person joins the litigation support team, who may not be as familiar with the answers to the user support questions, they will be able to learn from the cheat sheets as they are forwarding them to the end users.
Do you believe in the benefits of creating end user cheat sheets?
5 Comments
I do indeed believe in creating end user cheat sheets! You can save so much time.
I am a firm believer in creating cheat sheets with step by step instructions and screenshots. A picture is worth a thousand words and the end user always appreciates having a look at what they are supposed to be seeing.
Yay!!!