Did you know 89% of millennials use a search engine to find answers before calling customer service? Pretty impressive, right? It’s no secret that today, most SaaS users prefer to solve their issues independently.
Users search articles, tools, YouTube tutorials, or podcasts before contacting the customer support team to learn more about a SaaS product or service. According to the Social Media Today article, 91% of customers would use an online knowledge base if it were available and tailored to their needs.
Different tools and strategies provide your customers with the help they need to solve their issues independently. The most common of these are knowledge base systems and help articles.
SaaS companies can develop knowledge base systems in many ways to serve different purposes. For example, they may have articles and video tutorials for their customers and internal knowledge bases for employees to understand work-related tools and features. But, what’s more important is the quality of the information. Are the articles well written? Do they provide all the information? Are they clear? Today, we’ll talk about how to write knowledge base articles best, the importance of help articles in customer support, and more.
This article will cover:
- What are help articles?
- Tips on how to create the best help articles
- Benefits of having help articles
- Frequently asked questions
- How help articles can increase your customer satisfaction
Let’s dive in!
What are help articles?
Help articles are online documentation that answers frequently asked questions or explains how to fix a problem. A knowledge base comprises loads of information, primarily through help articles.
The most common help articles are informational, how-to guides, troubleshooting guides, and FAQs. These articles are super useful throughout the customer journey, as they provide all the information a user needs, especially during their onboarding process.
For those unsure about a knowledge base, it’s a technology that stores a computer system’s complex structured and unstructured information. The initial use of the term was in connection with expert systems, which were the first knowledge-based systems.
With so much information in one place, it may seem like a knowledge base requires a lot of work. However, there are 5 key tips to keep in mind to create a base that users won’t say no to!
Tips on how to create the best help articles
Help articles must be well written and solve real problems to solve the issues your users or employers might have. Are you ready to discover five tips for creating the best help articles? Let’s jump in!
1. Use the language your users/customers use
Always tailor your tone of voice to your customer base. For example, if you have a SaaS business and are writing articles to guide your new users through understanding your features, try to keep your voice assertive, positive, and concise. Try to avoid technicalities and complex wording sentences.
2. Be strategic when using links
You can direct customers to other details and instructions by including links in your help articles. But make sure you’re strategic. For example, ensure users have a complete reference of support by including links on related support articles. This will help the users to stay focused and will increase their attention.
Add Responsive landing pages
One way to provide helpful answers is to use a responsive landing page builder to create a dedicated help section for your website.
This way, you can easily add and update articles as needed, and ensure that the information is presented in a user-friendly format. What’s more, by using a responsive landing page builder, you can be sure that your help articles will look great on all devices, from smartphones to laptops.
3. Focus on your customers’ goals, not your product features
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes first. To do so, focus on the journey of desired actions and your customer’s goals rather than the features. For example, write an article on how to use them instead of just explaining why you should use them. It’s about the steps rather than the benefits.
4. Make your articles easy to scan
According to HubSpot, infographics are the fourth most used type of content marketing, and there’s a reason why. When help articles contain visual elements, such as screenshots, videos, bullet points, infographics, or illustrations, customers find them easier to read and understand.
5. Make data-driven decisions
Analyze your data to identify the most commonly asked questions or difficulties, the most commonly used features, and joint problems your users face. Invest your time there to provide the best possible customer support. For example, before writing a help article, look at your current data; where are customers getting stuck in your product? Which are the most common problems?
Benefits of having help articles
There are many benefits in implementing a knowledge base for your SaaS company full of help articles and other useful tools. Here are the most important ones:
Provide quick, 24/7 support for all time zones
The knowledge base is available whenever someone needs it. As it works as a “library”, it provides support 24/7 for all time zones, and users or employers can access it whenever they want or need it.
Single source of truth
Knowledge bases can store different information, providing a single source of truth. Your customer base knows where to find relevant and specific information about your product and features.
Lower cost for customer support
Your company can easily reduce customer support costs by having a knowledge base system. Implementing a unified source of information will boost agent productivity, reduce phone calls, and shorten onboarding time. As you probably know, all these parameters require spending money. Through a well-developed knowledge base, this money could be spent on other business areas, such as product development or marketing.
Get data from customers (FAQ creation)
One of the most common ways to offer independent support is through the use of FAQs. Today, most people know what an FAQ article is and how to use it. First, you’ll need to get the data from your customers, so it’s a good place to analyze your customer base, ask questions, and gather relevant information to adapt your product better.
Better customer satisfaction and retention
Providing a knowledge base will boost customer satisfaction and retention as users will be more satisfied with the product they’re using as they’ll have everything immediately. Also, they’ll know better how to use it and where to find the exact answers to their questions.
Frequently Asked Questions
As technology advances, people demand more information and resources, and it’s hard to retain your customers with all the competitors in the SaaS market. However, knowledge bases can be helpful. To attract today’s on-the-go consumers, you must provide a website that meets their exact needs, and that includes a FAQ page. But what exactly is a FAQ page?
Frequently Asked Questions, or FAQs, are a series of questions that are commonly asked by customers and cover topics including product or service usage, business hours, prices, and more. A knowledge base can help you set up the best FAQs, as analyzing what your users search on your knowledge base will help you determine what their main questions are. Here are some tips on how to create a good FAQ page:
- Provide easy access to FAQ pages
- Consider your customer’s point of view when writing questions
- Keep answers short and concise
- Answer the question fully, don’t just link to another page
- Use your customers’ tone of voice
How help articles can increase your customer satisfaction
Spending time writing good help articles is worth the investment. Think about it, the more your customers can access all the information they need from wherever they are, the more satisfied they will be with your product. A good support base will allow them to solve the problems themselves and learn more about your company or product in just a few clicks.
Help articles can educate your users about your product, answer the most commonly asked questions, and assist when troubleshooting specific problems. They’ll also lower your customer support costs, provide support for all time zones, get accurate data from your users and increase overall customer satisfaction and retention.
Are you interested in learning more? Check out our FROGED solutions or book a demo with us to learn more about how FROGED’s knowledge base and versatile self-serve support can help improve your customer support.