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I'm forever telling people that they should get a blog.

"You could use it to make announcements, publish procedures, respond to questions, share best practices…and it's easy to use."

"No, we don't have time to write that sort of stuff."

Maybe you do, maybe you don't. But if your job has a customer service component, you may be wasting your time if you're not blogging. You're also missing a great opportunity to share your advice with your target audience.

CSO Blog: A Case Study

Usually when I give examples, I use my own sites—or make believe sites—but today I'd like to talk about the CSO Blog: Blog of the Law School Career Services Office. I've been following this blog for several months and I think their blog exemplifies how a department can use blogging to support its customer service goals.

The CSO Blog publishes the following types of information:

• Job search advice covering everything from resume writing to social skills,
• Announcements regarding workshops, interview opportunities, deadlines and lectures,
• Insight into different fields of practice, from litigation to law, technology and the arts, and
• Practical tips on topics you might not have considered, were it not for the blog.

Whether you are a first year law student looking for a summer associate position, a third-year looking for a job after graduation, or a graduate looking to change fields or firms, this blog provides great ideas.

Sure they've got great info, but why is a blog better than e-mail or a regular Web site?

A blog works well for this kind of content because this department is offering a mix of timely and timeless information that can, and should be, archived by topic and date. Rather than having senders and recipients each come up with their own way to archive the relevant e-mail messages, the blog system automates the process, letting both reader and writer refer back to the entries through date archives, category archives or key word searches. It also allows the office to reach out beyond its own mailing list so that all visitors to the site can benefit from the information.

While a regular Web site could be designed to accommodate such archiving, it would be labor intensive to create the navigational features that are generated automatically by the blog system. It would also require the writers to have a thorough understanding of HTML and site architecture, while the blog system lets them spend their time writing posts rather than coding files.

Additionally the blog allows active job seekers to subscribe to entries via e-mail or news aggregator/RSS reader so they can read them on a timely basis.

Take the time to save time

Using a blog to enhance customer service is great for readers, but it is also good for you, the information provider. If your life is anything like mine, you get a lot of phone calls and e-mails asking, "How do I do X? Where do I find Y? Should I do A or B?," etc. Before I started blogging I had to answer these questions one by one, either by writing a long e-mail message, or by walking someone through a process—either on the phone or in person. Now I post answers to such questions on the blog. If I've already written about X, I don't have to write new instructions, I can just send the link to my existing entry. Granted I still get new questions, but these also give me ideas for new blog entries.

Blogging will never eliminate one-to-one contact, nor would I want it to, but it does free up some of the time I once spent answering questions, so I can devote more time to working on my other Web projects.

So does that mean I should convert my Web site to a blog site?

Probably not. As with any Web project, you should plan your site according to your goals. If you have customer service goals, a blog may work well for you. Last year, when I wrote To Blog or Not to Blog, I mentioned the possibility of adding a blog to your existing site. You could also create a separate blog site just for this purpose. A thorough examination of your goals will help you decide which format works best.

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