by Kirk Puterbaugh & Stephen Lankton
January 12, 1998
It appears that business today is more complex than ever before. People in the work
place are interacting and conveying information at a pace never before imaginable.
However, the most valuable product that your company owns is still the same as it has
always been: It is knowledge.
The knowledge contained inside your company is how to manage, make, build, invest, market,
evaluate, and grow. Yet, the tools for managing that knowledge are usually unexamined and
unused.
The shape, form, and media interfaces used to transfer knowledge from one person to
another have been the enablers to build and retain customer satisfaction and to
conceptualize and improve organizational effectiveness, and more. To the extent that these
channels of knowledge flow are well engineered, superior outcomes are painlessly achieved.
Documents in the various forms they take, become the vehicles that evoke desired customer
and employee behavior, communicate vital knowledge to employees that stimulate appropriate
decisions and guide action.
Xerox Professional Document Services, in conjunction with Behavioral Science experts, have
developed a unique approach to engineering documents and document delivery systems. This
approach combines elements of behavioral science, design, and document processing to
improve knowledge communication throughout the enterprise. Improved knowledge
communication means that working-models of your business are more accurate and efficient.
This becomes true regardless of whether we look at those held by workers on the
shop floor or your customers on another continent. And that leads to improved revenues and
operating performance. The well engineered flow of knowledge results in effective
communication. People who experience effective communication are creative, focused,
and more efficient in their workplace. Satisfied customers continually return to
purchase more products and services.
What to look for in this Knowledge Brief
This Document Engineering Brief contains the following major sections.
Analyzing The Current And Desired Behaviors
Documents Evoke Behavior
Every document/interface evokes behavior. Many companies do not realize the
behaviors evoked by the current document interface(s). These include not only hard
copy documents, but also internet/intranet, and voice mail. Each of these are an interface
that transforms knowledge from one location where is has been useable to another so it
becomes useful.
To understand that document evoke behavior one only needs to look at the customer service
departments which contain a wealth of knowledge as it relates to current behaviors.
Customer service representatives have as much interaction with customers as anyone in the
company. The training of customer service representatives in proper handling of adverse
situations created by document interfaces is vital to customer satisfaction.
An analysis of behaviors evoked by documents can lead to an understanding of why people
call customer service, are late with bills and tax returns, and cancel their business and
go to the competition.
Behaviors That Often Are Discovered
Behaviors refer to the manner in which people behave or act to make personal experience
out of events stimulated by documents. Perhaps the most common example comes from the
observations that most people make use of visual (mental) pictures for understanding
complex information. But most documents continue to carry a legacy from having been
designed years ago when the cost and capability of producing visual ideograms to covey
knowledge was prohibitive. As a result, bland and mind-numbing verbal documents are often
used to convey complex information to employees and customers. No one thinks to address
this by any means other than the addition of some graphic arts enhancement. One need only
think about the common insurance policy in order to find a glaring example.
Other behavioral science processes are also crucial for redesign. This is especially
true for those factors which effect documents in general and have to do with how much
information a person can process effectively. For effective processing, information
must be noticed, framed, chunked, and ordered for mental manipulation, integration, and
assimilation.
Still other factors include whether or not the information appears to the user to be
personalized, palatable, and relevant. Other factors regarding the behavioral science
process of information exchange with a document include such things as feedback, classical
conditioning, perception and interest that will control information retention, motivation,
and recall.
Content concerns include the meaning that is conveyed by specific words, or conveyed by
the association of words in context, and the emotions which are evoked when the document
is used. Although it is difficult to convey correctly in words the importance of the
emotional factors, it is not a trivial matter that emotional reactions in document users
often result in undesired behavior.
The undesired behavior may come in the form of avoidance such as ignoring due dates,
delays in filing tax forms or paying billing statements, not signing contracts, and
procrastinating decisions. Other undesirable behaviors which result in corporate expense
come in the form of confusion, irritation, complaints, and even employee sabotage,
absenteeism and so on.
Everyone has had the experience of being confused or mildly irritated with a document they
needed to read or complete. As a result of this common experience one might think that it
is the nature of a document to be less than perfect. After all, don't we each experience
feelings of confusion and frustration each day with the documents we face? The creator of
a document can't know the state of mind of the document user.
As a result, the creator of the document can't afford the presence of noise (instead of
signal) in documents. It is more common than not that the document user will approach the
document with a good deal of emotional baggage from normal daily events. Many customers
have a heightened sensitivity that predisposes them to quickly be on the defense against
any increase in unpleasant emotions. If a form they receive in the mail introduces a small
amount of confusion, it is likely that these users will discard the document before
examining it. It doesn't matter that the document might be important legal matter because
emotional reactions more decisively drive behavior than does logical thought. And so it
goes for other relatively minor emotions such as those of anger, helplessness, anxiety,
worry, discouragement, bitterness, and more. When a document begins to elicit such
feelings, the document loses its value as a business tool.
Redesign v. Dependence on Graphic Art
This paper is not attempting to provide careful application of the methodology that would
allow companies to apply an analysis of behaviors in a document engineering effort.
Instead, this paper is positioned to provide awareness that is often missed in companies
today. It is overlooked for two reasons. Ironically, it is overlooked because it is so
common and so central to how business is done every minute of every day. And also, it is
overlooked because of the historical and pragmatic reliance upon the use of graphic
artists.
This is due to the fact that many companies have, for years, had a graphic art or
publishing department (usually within the span of control of the print shop or marketing)
that has focused on how the document looks from an artistic point of view. In fact, an
early awareness of the importance of the document interface - and how it needs to convey
knowledge appropriately, is what gave rise to the existence of the graphic arts department
in the first place.
The corporate Forms Department heavily depends upon the existing desktop publishing
equipment, as well as the corporate graphics standards manual. Often, these "in house
document designers" do not have sufficient training in understanding complex business
problems, or the understanding of human behavioral factors. In many cases, they are also
too close to the problem - as if they are so much a part of the picture that they cannot
step back and see the whole picture clearly.
It is little wonder then, that as we have a more sophisticated understanding of the
importance of the document interface and live in a world where knowledge exchange is more
intense than it has ever been before, the need for solutions that are more sophisticated
than graphic art has led to the service that we call Document Engineering.
The Nature of Desired Behavior in A Document Interface
Other Characteristics of a Well Designed Document Interface
A Document Engineering Case Study
Document Design vs. Document Engineering
The success that companies have in properly communicating the knowledge has a direct impact on:
Certain two-way documents, due to their very nature, provide greater possibility of
error. As such, they can effect corporate revenue in still other ways.
We have been suggesting that the way a company comes together with its customers is always
through interfaces. That is, telephone customer service systems act as an interface for
interactive clients. Marketing campaigns, both in print and in multi-media, are other
interfaces where the company meets the client or customer. Client billing statements and
Explanation of Benefits statements represent hard copy documents that serve as interfaces
for the company to communicate with its customer. In some cases, poorly designed
interfaces in one area of the company can result in huge economic losses or deficiency
logjams in other areas of the company. Such was the case in the following example:
A large, anonymous, health care insurance company was experiencing 30,000 customer service
phone calls per month associated with their Explanation of Benefits statement. While
conducting an "engineering" of their Explanation of Benefits statement, we were
able to determine that it was extremely important for customers to be reminded of the
reasons for receiving this document, and especially that the EOB was not a request for
them to pay money to the company. Previously failing to realize this, 1 policyholder in 50
sought further explanation by means of the customer service phone call interface.
The behavioral science redesign of the Explanation of Benefit statement resulted in a
decline in the logjam of phone calls into the customer service department. The
re-engineered Explanation of Benefit statements generated only 1 phone call in every 300
that were mailed. This is a gain of 600% (percent) efficiency.
This was accomplished by taking care to assess the policyholders' exact confusion by means
of focus groups, interviews, and Rapid Assessment and Prototype Image Development (RAPID)
Knowledge groups. Rather than simply using a graphics redesign approach to improve the
appearance of a document that was in error by virtue of its intrinsic construction,
knowledge engineering, behavioral science, and design expertise were all employed.
Specifically, the improved Explanation of Benefit statement now reminds the users of the
events that took place in order for them to have received the document interface.
Engineering Document Interfaces - The Business And Technical Needs
Business issues
Document design efforts that focus only on look and aesthetics fail to deliver much needed
business improvements. The Collective Corrective Modeling (CCM) process utilized during
Xerox Document Engineering projects assures that people who own the business (and
technical) issues associated with the document are represented during RAPID Knowledge
Group Sessions.
The CCM process allows individuals who may be responsible for one area of the document to
proactively share their insights on how current issues are being addressed. What may
appear to most as a simple topic, phone numbers, for example, could present business
problems within the document; Where to place phone numbers, how often to remind the reader
of the phone number, as well as the current client staffing to handle phone calls that are
sometimes over-encouraged. Other opportunities for business improvement include the
following.
Improvements in Customer Satisfaction
Every company employs personnel and programs aimed at improving customer satisfaction.
Improving customer satisfaction is certainly an element of the document that is addressed
directly by a Document Engineering project. During each project, a client is asked to
submit lists of frequently asked questions received by their customer support departments.
In addition, further research is usually acquired by monitoring customer service phone
calls. Detailed analysis is completed with these questions and observations and
attempts are made to resolve most, if not all, barriers to customer satisfaction through
the document itself. This is possible, since content value and communication effectiveness
is considered for all elements of information contained in the document. The result is
improvement in customer satisfaction levels due to a decrease in customer support calls
because customers can now quickly and easily understand the information they receive. For
clients such as banks, insurance companies, and state tax departments where documents
represent the primary product or service purchased, this can result in significant
increases in image, as well.
Financial Improvement
Cash Flow: Depending on the nature of the document being reengineered, Document
Engineering may also have implications for improvement in cash flow. For instance, if
billing statements are addressed, the elimination of confusing information or the addition
of clear instructions can result in a client's customer writing the check for payment
sooner, resulting in improvement in the client's cash flow. Other tools, such as highlight
color availability, may also be applied to the document to facilitate the timely payment
of a customer's obligations.
Postage Savings: All documents which have been reengineered thus far have been
mission critical or high-volume documents, such as insurance policies, bank statements,
billing statements, customer correspondence, etc. Most of these are multi-page documents.
Careful consideration of all postal savings opportunities are given to each document as it
is being reengineered. Many Document Engineering efforts have been cost justified based on
the postage savings expectation alone.
Productivity: Productivity gains will occur as a result of a Document
Engineering project. Since the entire process for producing the document is addressed and
streamlined wherever possible, as a part of a Document Engineering project, including work
process, software, printers, finishing equipment and mail room operations, it is easy to
see how productivity gains can be achieved.
Technical Issues
A Document Engineering project takes a "holistic" approach to documents,
including all technical aspects of document creation and production. The Document
Engineering process assures that the software, printers and finishing equipment chosen for
the final document will accommodate the engineered document, taking advantage of as many
productivity features of those technical elements as feasible. In addition, at the end of
a Document Engineering project, the client receives a detailed specification model of each
document. Having the detailed, highly realistic document models in hand before technical
implementation begins is considered a blueprint or road map for the next steps in
implementation. This has been a tremendous benefit for all clients.
Conclusion
Organizations must recognize the critical role of documents within their companies.
Effectively managing the knowledge and desired behaviors of documents within companies is
not just a "nice to have" feature, but a tremendous knowledge-sharing
profit-building benefit.
To the extent that companies deliver value through the document interfaces that are
produced today clients are also receiving value through increased customer satisfaction,
and decreased expenses. How well these elements perform ultimately determines such basic
measures as margin and profit. Superior business performance, by whatever means, can
usually be traced back through a company's products and services to a superior
communication interface. Similarly, inferior performance or failure usually has its roots
in one or more document processes in need of change.
Given the complex nature of communicating knowledge, companies who engineer, craft and
maintain superior document interfaces will have to possess the behavior, wisdom,
knowledge, skill, and discipline to comprehensively deal with the plethora of behavioral,
business, and technical issues that are critical elements of knowledge management.