Localizing the Support Funnel

In previous months, David has blogged about the Support Funnel. In short, users are directed to the Knowledge Base to get answers to their questions, and if their questions are not answered in the Knowledge Base, they are directed to the forum or Live Chat.

The transition from Knowledge Base to forum/Live Chat is done using a page titled “Ask a question“. You should see a link to the “Ask a question” page at the bottom of every Knowledge Base article and at the bottom of the search results page. In the “Ask a question” page there are links to post-Knowledge Base support options with descriptions.

When it comes to localizing the Support Funnel, simply translating the “Ask a question” page is not enough. The forum and Live Chat are currently only offered in English; so directing non-English users to those venues gives them little or no help. We need to make sure non-English users are being directed to the right places. It is important that Firefox Support localizers translate the Ask a question page, and direct users to a forum where the user will get support in their own language. Translating individual Knowledge Base articles can come after that.

For instance, the German version has links to the German support forum and the German support chat page. The Italian version has a link to the Mozilla Italia forums.

By doing this, we can ensure that non-English users are getting the help they need. It is also a great way to introduce users to Mozilla communities specific to their locale, which should result in more community participation.

One comment on “Localizing the Support Funnel”

  1. Tomer wrote on

    I think it would be better to show us how you expect us to translate this page. It looks that everyone is translating the page in a different way.

    And for the German people – why don’t you use Mibbit as an AJAX gateway to IRC instead of Java-based? We use it here – http://live.mozilla.org.il.