What to consider when building a Resource Center

Hi there! My name is Ana Jones and I'm a Sr. Customer Success Manager at Pendo. Recently I've received a number of questions related to best practices for building a Resource Center. Below I've broken down my thought process in "who, what, what, when, where, why" fashion + additional thoughts.

I would love to hear additional thoughts on how you've built your Resource Center!

• First and foremost, consider the question "What type of resources would our user base benefit from having at their fingertips?" The Resource Center allows you to host announcements, guide walkthroughs, onboarding guides, and Knowledge Base/Live Chat. There is also a custom module that will allow you to build something more custom. Identify how your users access this type of content today and consider any associated pain points (i.e. hidden in the product/difficult to find, not accessible in-app, etc.) to kick off your RC strategy.
• Who are we targeting? Each RC module can be segmented so you can provide highly targeted content to the appropriate users. 
• What content and resources do we want to highlight and why? I would think about a business problem you're trying to solve. Are your users having a hard time learning your product early on? Are they not adopting key features? Are they unaware of new feature releases? Do they have a difficult time accessing your help resources and support team? The answers to these questions will drive how you prioritize the content to include in your RC.
• How will we launch the Resource Center to customers? Consider the RC a new feature in your product—it is not something your users are used to having and therefore need to be educated on its purpose and benefits. 
• When will we roll out the RC to customers and how often will we iterate? Pendo offers analytics on RC engagement to help you determine what is being used/not used so you can adjust your strategy over time.
• Thoughts on the Onboarding Module: This module gives your users the opportunity to learn your product at their own pace. The guide walkthroughs within should highlight the key features and flows they need to understand to be as successful as possible with your product. The purpose of this module can be to reduce time to value—the user can access it at any point in time without needing assistance from a human resource. Consider how this module could fold into how your business executes onboarding today.
• Thoughts on the Guides List Module: While the Onboarding Module focuses on the initial features/flows your users need to be aware of, the Guides List Module is a great opportunity to take that to the next level. For instance, if there are more advanced features/flows you want your users to be familiar with, you can host walkthroughs in the Guides List Module specifically for those features/flows. Going back to the "Who" bullet point above, you can also create highly targeted guides for specific types of users by highlighting the features/flow they are more likely to benefit from. Another way you can leverage this module is to walk users through particular features/flows that you know users are not adopting or are experiencing friction.