From idea to kick starter launch: how we started our Help Center
Answering the same questions over and over again. There should be a more efficient way to handle this, while quality isn’t hurt. We came up with an extensive Help Center with over 170 informative articles to get you started. Read how we launched our knowledge base.
How to create an online exam?
I want to create a test. Can I do that with Easy LMS?
Can I create tests with this tool?
Three different questions, all about the same topic. Our first reflex was to answer these questions individually, although the answer was almost identical. This was very customer-friendly but also very time-consuming. To save us typing time and avoid repeating ourselves, we launched a Help Center, a collection of articles on how to use our product. These articles help our clients easily search for an answer, which reduces the number of support tickets we receive.
Previously, we had a collection of help articles in our Knowledge Center, but they were mixed up with other types of articles, which made it hard to find an answer.
How did we start our Help Center?
We started by taking note of frequently asked questions. Some of our most frequently asked questions were related to the setup of an exam. To get started on these help articles, we followed this procedure: we didn’t answer the client immediately, but we wrote an article that answered his question. We put the article online and sent the client a link to it.
It was worth it to spend more time on writing, even though it temporarily hurt our response time.
Sounds easy, right? Easier said than done. Why? Because the support team had to write these articles while the ticket queue grew faster than the grass on your lawn. We, as Support Owls, have the knowledge, but we lack time. The solution? The Support Owls got carte blanche to take time to write. Our product owner, Jeroen, realized that it was worth it to spend more time on writing even though it temporarily hurt our response time. Writing an answer as a support article meant that the answer would be more informative and extensive. The next time we got the same question, we could reuse the article, so the investment paid for itself. We also managed to transfer and update “old” help articles from our Knowledge Center to our new and improved Intercom Help Center.
What is our procedure now?
We have already covered the most frequently asked questions askedy our clients.
At the moment, we have more than 170 published articles in our Help Center, which are divided into 12 sections or folders. Now, our procedure is slightly different. We have already covered the most frequently asked questions asked by our clients. So, now we write an article whenever we see that there is something we haven’t talked about but is useful information. Still, most of the time it is question-based.
We can either find some time to write during our busy schedules or ask our colleagues to take care of the support queue while we write an article. We also included a review process. A support colleague reviews the article on the tone of voice and whether it’s informative or not. The same person also corrects grammar and spelling mistakes.
When new features are launched, one of our Support Owls updates existing articles and writes new ones explaining them to be ahead of questions.
The future of our Help Center
The whole purpose of our Help Center is, of course, to make us, the Support Owls, unnecessary. Our Help Center should make it possible to solve problems or explore the tool by yourself, without a live demo (although we love to guide you around too).
Our focus now is to add screenshots and videos to our articles to make it easier to visualize what we are trying to explain.
In order to accomplish this, we keep publishing new articles and updating existing articles. Our focus now is to add screenshots and videos to our articles to make it easier to visualize what we are trying to explain. At the moment, we are updating the screenshots to reflect the new design we just launched for Quizzes, Assessments, and Courses. We are also adjusting all of our articles to follow our style guide and therefore look more consistent.
We want to keep it up-to-date, even though that is a challenge because we are always adding cool stuff to our product. But we are up for the challenge 💪!