SWANA Knowledge Base

2020–2024

Tony MacFarlane built this knowledge base to provide customer support for Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) members. Initially, Tony set up a chat flow through HubSpot to help the SWANA Membership department manage customer contacts. Over time we noticed similar questions being asked in chat, so Tony built out a decision tree within the chatbot itself. A user opening the chatbot would see a set of common questions, which they could chose for an immediate answer. These questions linked to a knowledge base that Tony developed and curated.

• First, Tony audited content from FAQs scattered throughout SWANA.org.
• After revising these FAQs (sometimes with input from stakeholders), Tony created articles in the knowledge base structured according to the main website’s taxonomy.
• Tony then linked each chatbot branch to a relevant article, leaving an option for customers to continue to a live chat session with SWANA staff.
• Over time, Tony revised and elaborated each article’s content, sometimes adding graphics for clarity. Some articles went through several iterations from feedback provided by SWANA members and staff.

This content strategy resulted in significant relief from customer support, and less frustration from SWANA membership.

SWANA PFAS Microsite

2022

Tony collaborated with Arie Kremen to create the SWANA PFAS Microsite in 2022, when he was the chair of the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) Landfill Technical Division Landfill Leachate and Liquids Committee. Per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are becoming an increasing challenge to the solid waste industry, and his group needed to study it. We setup a Wiki platform for the committee.

Tony established a MediaWiki collaboration and documentation platform for the committee in March, 2022. Tony acted as administrator for the Wiki, managing user rights and curating content.

Later that year, Tony began migrating some of the Wiki content to SWANA.org to create a microsite on PFAS. Tony directed content strategy for the microsite, with regular updates as they came in. This included not only general information on PFAS, but also the latest news stories and legislation regarding this issue as it relates to solid waste management.

ARF Customer Nurture Campaign: Executive Summary Access

2019–2024

Tony MacFarlane led development of an ARF Customer Nurture Campaign to support the SWANA Applied Research Foundation. Tony developed a landing page template for their research report executive summaries, including a form that would redirect to a download page once submitted. Tony also designed the landing page and form, the download page, and response email templates.

Since SWANA Applied Research Foundation reports were membership-exclusive content, we decided in 2019 to make executive summaries of each report available to the general public. However, since we determined that these summaries were still a value proposition, we put each one behind a wall that could be accessed in exchange for personal information.

In addition, Tony developed a workflow in HubSpot to evaluate these form submissions. If the user was not a SWANA member, Tony created logic that would automatically send them an email to encourage membership in the association, so they could obtain the full report free of charge. If the user was a SWANA member, Tony included logic that would automatically send them an email to encourage becoming an subscriber to the foundation. Later, Tony also included these landing pages in remarketing campaigns targeted at people who viewed the page but did not download.

Tony also connected ARF Executive Summaries