Today’s software company, whether providing desktop or SAAS offerings, provides customer support in a number of different settings. For example, in our company we interact with our customers in five different ways:
- Email
- Forums
- Live on-line chat
- Twitter
- Telephone
All of these communication tools allow the person offering support to point customers to resources on the web that answer their questions. If your company has online help that is designed correctly then you will be able to leverage your materials in order to quickly answer customer questions.
Let’s look at five keys to making your online help documentation work for you when handling customer support requests.
1) Create short documents that demonstrate tasks
When you write your documentation you should show users how to perform tasks, not discuss features. For example, create a lesson that shows “How to configure an account” rather than “The account administration screen”. By creating short, task based documents you can point your customer directly to documentation that shows them how to do what they want to do. This removes the step translating the description of a feature into the necessary steps required to complete the task and reduces the amount of follow up questions.
Short, task-based lessons prove very helpful when providing support. When helping a customer in a support interaction you can string together multiple online help documents for the user to help them perform a larger task.
Look at the document titles in the image above. Notice how each title explains a task.
2) Make the URLs of each help document easily accessible
Whenever someone is viewing an article in your online help documentation they should be able to copy the URL from the browser address bar. If your online documentation delivery system uses frames that hide the actual URL or if you place multiple answers on a single page then you are making it more difficult to link to the content.
Customer support via Twitter pointing the user to specific document urls
3) Author content in a format that is easy to search
When looking for the relevant document to send to a customer you will probably need to search your documentation to get the URL. Make sure your documentation delivery system has search functionality that returns relevant results.
4) Use a publishing system that allows you to quickly add new content and update existing content
Documentation should be a process, not a project. Your documentation will need to be updated as new customer questions come in or your offering is updated. Whether or not your documentation keeps pace with these new needs will depend on how easy it is to update.
Make sure you use a publishing system that makes updating content as effortless as possible. If too much work is involved then your documentation will become stale as the more (seemingly) pressing matters of the day push documentation updates to the back of the line.
5) Create content in a format that is clear
It is important that you choose the proper format for your online help documentation. You don’t want your documentation to create more questions than it answers. Above all, your documentation needs to be easy to follow. We recommend using static screenshots and text as this provides the best balance of clarity, ability to search and ease with which you can keep your documentation up to date.
This documentation uses text and images to clearly outline the task to be performed
-
Your online help documentation can be a real asset for you regardless of which setting you are interacting with your customers in. By implementing these five keys to better online documentation you will get the most out of your documentation investment.
For an example of how we have implemented these keys in our own documentation take a look at our ScreenSteps manuals.
Webinar: Why Your Documentation is Useless and How to Fix It
Download the free webinar to learn why your documentation/knowledge base is ineffective and what simple steps you can take to improve it.
Read the rest of this entry »
Every once in a while we get an email in support asking whether or not a Linux version is planned. We’ve been going back and forth as to whether or not we want to support another platform.
Using a web knowledge base to answer customer questions can be a tremendous resource. They are easy to access and easy to update.
.
