Effective communication is crucial in providing guidelines about a technical product or service. This is why companies in highly specialized fields should hire a technical writer.
With a business’ growth comes the need to document processes. Creating user manuals, technical guides, training resources, and the like becomes increasingly important, especially when selling to non-technical audiences. Selling technical services, processes, or products without a guide alienates consumers, especially those who don’t fully understand the product. Similarly, if someone without the proper expertise creates technical resources, it will confuse the audience even more.
A technical writer is a professional who simplifies scientific or technological concepts into digestible content for a general audience. Their work informs customers on how to use a product or service, which increases compliance and customer satisfaction.
Technical writers work closely with key people like founders, software developers, product managers, designers, Quality Assurance professionals, legal advisors, and marketing professionals. These collaborations allow them to gather accurate and holistic information for documentation. Let’s explore the role of a technical writer.
The Role of a Technical Writer
The primary role of a technical writer is to bridge the gap between a business and its end-users, simplifying every technical concept and ensuring that customers can effectively use a product or service. Other responsibilities include;
Studying your target audience and tailoring the content accordingly
A skilled technical writer knows it’s best to study the target audience before creating any document. This data helps them understand the audience’s level of technical knowledge, language proficiency, attitude, age, geography, and other specific needs.
Creating documents such as user guides, whitepapers, manuals, case studies, online help systems, etc.
A technical writer develops various documents, from user manuals to standard operating procedures and white papers. These documents are usually comprehensive and contain step-by-step instructions on how to use the product or service.
Ensuring all documents maintain your brand’s tone and message
It is essential that the technical writer maintains the same tone and message throughout the documentation. This doesn’t necessarily mean each document should have the same content but should be consistent with your established brand voice. Consistency helps a message stick better and strengthens the loyalty of your audience.
Technical writers are also experts at:
- Breaking down complex technical concepts into easy-to-understand and relatable chunks of information.
- Using clear and concise words that the audience is familiar with.
- Using diagrams and flowcharts to illustrate technical concepts and make the document engaging.
- Adapting the information to the audience’s needs.
- Ensuring technical documents are constantly revised and updated.
- Producing content that can be optimized for different digital platforms.
- Ensuring compliance with industry standards and regulations.
Why Hire a Technical Writer?
Hiring a technical writer can significantly improve a business’ documentation process, product usability, and customer satisfaction. Below are some reasons why a business should hire a technical writer;
1) Enhanced documentation and quality
Poorly written documents can lead to confusion, product inefficiency, and mistakes that could ultimately cost your audience loyalty. For example, a well-written user manual can improve user satisfaction and reduce customer service calls, while a well-written internal document can reduce mistakes and improve business efficiency. Technical writers ensure all documents adhere to industry standards and add to the business’s credibility.
2) Increased efficiency
Many businesses make the mistake of delegating documentation to the technical team that created a product. Doing this causes inefficiency because not all technical experts are skilled in communication. The primary role of a technical team is to design, develop, and maintain products and services. Help them become more productive by hiring a technical writer to help with documentation.
A company can significantly reduce the time and resources needed for training, support, and troubleshooting with the proper technical manuals.
3) Improved Communication
Businesses in technical or highly regulated industries usually need more communication between the technical team and non-technical stakeholders. A technical writer serves as the bridge between these two parties. They translate complex technical jargon into information easily understood by everyone in the company. They also help communicate complex processes to customers, which increases a company’s perceived reliability.
4) Compliance and Accuracy
Complying with various rules and regulations is mandatory in an industry with strict regulatory requirements, such as healthcare. Technical writers are well-versed in ISO standards and safety regulations, so they ensure your documents are compliant and accurate. They meticulously fact-check and verify all information, reducing the risks of product failures. Failure to do this can lead to costly fines, legal risks, or safety issues.
5) Business Scalability
Another reason to hire a technical writer is to accelerate business scalability. Technical writers can adapt their skills by creating documents for new products or markets to support business expansion. As a business grows, technical writers can quickly adapt and maintain a consistent flow of manuals, SOPs, and guides.
When to Consider When You Hire a Technical Writer
Knowing the right time to hire a technical writer can make a difference in your business. It also determines how well you maximize the specialized expertise of the technical writer. Below are some of the scenarios where it makes sense to hire a technical writer.
6) Growing Product Complexity
As a product, service, or process becomes more complex, the need for effective documents capturing your value increases. A product’s complexity shouldn’t overwhelm customers or the team working on it. A technical writer can break down the complex features of the product into easily digestible content for the users. On the other hand, they can also prepare internal documents that contain the processes involved in developing and designing the product for easy retrieval and future improvement. As such, both stakeholders receive proper guidance.
7) Regulatory and Compliance Needs
Industries such as healthcare and manufacturing place a premium on adherence to regulations and standards. Of course, this is understandable. What a company does or doesn’t can be the difference between safety and risk for the consumers. Technical writers help you navigate such regulatory needs, ensuring your documents comply with the standards and eliminating legal costs.
8) Scaling Operations
You should hire a technical writer when you want to scale, maybe by hiring more staff, adding new product lines or expanding to international markets. You will need internal documents to train and onboard the new hires, which standardises your recruitment process. If you are expanding product-wise, you will need more technical documents to cater for your new product lines, so you don’t lose your customers. If you want to expand internationally, a technical writer ensures your documents meets the industry needs of those countries. Also, they adapt the technical documents for the local languages and cultures in the regions you are expanding into.
9) Consolidate Internal Knowledge Management
It is crucial you keep records of all product design and development processes, because these enable you to maintain quality, replicate your successes and teach others. But you’d agree with us that it can be time and energy consuming trying to keep and update these records yourself. This is where a technical writer comes in. A technical writer can help you document the workflows, policies, internal processes, etc. to facilitate knowledge sharing and internal communication, while you focus on core business activities.
Want to Hire a Technical Writer In-House? Challenges to Note
While technical writers are assets to any business, hiring one comes with several challenges, from high costs to quality control issues. Here are the key challenges you deal with when hiring in-house technical writers.
10) Recruiting, training, and retaining costs
Employing in-house technical writers is cost-intensive and time-consuming. To find the best candidate, you must invest in job advertisements and allow some time for eligible candidates to apply. This might prove harder if you are in a highly specialized industry with a few talents to go around.
Hiring the right candidate doesn’t mean the expenses end. In addition to the cost of retaining good talent, business leaders must consider training costs. Technical writers must still familiarize themselves with a business’s processes and products, which consumes money and time.
11) Potential for inconsistent quality
All writers who pass a hiring process may be equally trained and skilled, but each has a unique tone and style that can affect how a company’s documents are presented. This inconsistency in quality can confuse customers and even technical teams. In addition, managing in-house writers might be more energy—and time-consuming.
Why Hire an Outsourced Technical Writer
By hiring an outsourced technical writer, you have access to specialized expertise without the long-term financial commitment of maintaining such talent. You also enjoy fresh perspectives, which can enhance your documentation process. Below are reasons you should hire an outsourced technical writer in more details.
12) Cost-effectiveness
Outsourcing technical writing tasks is more cost-effective than hiring an in-house team. Hiring freelance writers or technical writing agencies helps a business save on hiring, retention, and overhead. Getting a freelance technical writer also means paying per project, which can significantly reduce costs. These reductions free up money the business can use for expansion.
13) Expertise
Another advantage of outsourcing is gaining access to top talents with varying levels of expertise. Due to increasing competition, freelance technical writers and writing agencies strive to stay on top of their game, learning and gathering experience. They bring this knowledge and expertise to any project they work on. Business owners can also choose from a wide array of options and set specialized terms in their agreement. These privileges aren’t readily accessible in the local market.
14) Scalability
Scalability is critical to business growth. Whether a one-off project or an intensive, ongoing series of projects with continuous updates, outsourcing allows team leaders to meet their needs without hiring and maintaining an in-house team. As such, they can get better and quicker outputs during peak periods.
15) Flexibility
Outsourcing provides the flexibility to work with freelance writers on-demand or on a project-based engagement. Also, you can utilize specialized expertise to grow your business without being locked into long-term financial commitments.
16) Focus on core business
Outsourcing your technical writing tasks lets your in-house staff focus on core business activities such as product development and marketing. They can direct their energies and attention to other things that drive more productivity and revenue. It also frees you up to focus on the next big thing for your business.
Maximize Efficiency and Quality with Outsourced Technical Writing
Here at Wing Assistant, we have highly skilled technical writers who provide exceptional technical writing services.
24/7 Availability and Fast Turnaround Times
Whether you are dealing with tight deadlines or a last-minute request, we offer 24/7 availability that allows us to meet your needs at any time. We also take pride in fast turnaround times, ensuring we meet your deadlines without compromising quality. Our balance of speed and accuracy makes us stand out.
Customer-centric Approach
We are beyond a service provider; we see ourselves as your partner on your business growth journey. We prioritize your satisfaction at every point in the project, and our dedicated technical writers are always ready to listen to you. We also offer ongoing support to ensure your documentation is updated as and when due.
Tailored Solutions
We understand that every business is unique, even in the same industry. One of our greatest strengths is our ability to match your business with the right technical writers familiar with your industry practices. This ensures every document we produce is accurate and aligned with industry standards.
Expertise
Our results precede our name. We have a pool of expert technical writers who understand the intricacies of each sector. Also, they have worked on various projects over the years, garnering the necessary experience and credibility. This guarantees that no matter how technical your business is, Wing Assistant can help you create compliant and accurate documents with no hassle.
Why Wing Assistant is Your Go-to for Technical Writing Needs
Hiring a technical writer has numerous benefits, from improved communication to business scalability. When you outsource to Wing Assistant, you enjoy more benefits. With Wing, you get access to expert technical writers ready to listen to you and deliver your project in record time without compromising quality, all at a fraction of the cost of maintaining an in-house team. You can improve efficiency, reduce costs, and ensure high-quality documentation. Click here to start outsourcing!
Aya is Wing Assistant’s blog manager. When she’s not wrangling content briefs, editing article drafts and handling on-page SEO, she is crafting messages for Wing’s other communication materials. Aya writes about SaaS startups, marketing for startups, search engine optimization, and pop culture.
