I am currently working on contract at Sony USA in San Diego as a contract Technical Writer. It’s my task to write job aids and process guides for Customer Care agents. These are the front-line agents who receive phone calls from Sony customers, either to place orders or to deal with customer needs and complaints. Since the newly trained agents can’t be expected to know all aspects of the business, my documents will be available to them on an online knowledge base, which they can access during a phone call to find the procedures and answers they need to satisfy the customers.

The task involves using job aids that were created before, adapting them to the new software that will be used, and also interviewing the in-house subject matter experts, trying to take their hard-earned knowledge and put it on paper.

Because I’ve done technical writing for so many years, this is not a difficult task. Initially, the main concern was just getting published as much information as possible. Now, during the second phase, I will go back and concentrate on conceptualizing the documents, adding explanations about when certain processes are used, and the likely exceptions the agents will encounter. That’s the tougher job; I have to think like an agent and decipher what their needs might be and their thought processes under stress. Interesting and definitely the part of the task that I most enjoy.