One of the strongest weapons in your customer support arsenal is a high-quality knowledge base. It helps your clients find the information they need regarding your products and services while taking a lot of the pressure off your support staff. It’s one of the most effective tools in a self-service portal. However, it’s only helpful if the content you provide is well-written and keeps your client’s needs in mind. If your articles are too dense, your client may gloss right over them without gaining any knowledge. If they’re too brief, you risk leaving out important information. That’s why we’ve put together a quick guide on what to include in your articles. Let’s get started.
Onboarding Information
It’s important to keep the onboarding process in mind when creating content. While it’s not crucial that every single article includes this information, at least some portion of your knowledge base should be dedicated to it. You’ll want to ask yourself what new users of your product need to know. Then, craft content that takes them through the process. It’s also important to include solutions to the issues new clients tend to have.
You should consider including articles geared towards your in-house reps. This content can help them understand the process of getting a new client started with your product or service. They can reference this material if they’ve been assigned to a new account.
Quality FAQs
Your clients access your self-service portal to find answers to questions. It stands to reason you should include frequently asked questions in your portal. But what questions should you answer? Before writing this content, have a look at the support tickets from the past few months. This will tell you what issues are popping up over and over. Implementing a client survey is another great way to generate topics for your FAQ pages.
When writing these articles, make sure you organize them well. Create FAQ pages geared towards certain aspects of your product. This way your client doesn’t have to sift through content to find what they need. You should also make sure your reps are aware these pages exist. They could come in handy when assisting clients directly.
Formatting Your Articles
When writing articles, it’s important to be straightforward. Remember that people prefer to scan content when reading online, so use short paragraphs. You should also try to use language you know your client base will understand. This may not be the best time for technical jargon. Make sure you employ lots of bullet points and subheadings in your articles. This will help the reader find exactly what they want. Bolding keywords is also a great way to direct the reader’s eye to specific topics. Finally, don’t be afraid to include graphs and imagery if it helps get the information across.
Take Your Knowledge Base the Next Level
If the content in your portal isn’t getting much attention, it may be time to refine it. Use the tips discussed above to ensure your articles are providing top-level support. PhaseWare implements B2B customer support software for businesses wanting to provide the very best customer experience. Contact us today to learn more.