Documentation / Knowledge base for clients

Thomas Hussenet
Thomas Hussenet Member Posts: 9 Contributor
edited July 2020 in CS Technology

Hello all

Large and key topic of knowledge base!!! (My question below is here on KB for client)

We are splitting the organisation and responsibility of knowledge into 5 categories. Each one is assigned to one or the other department:

1- Marketing content

2- UX doc (everything to ensure the interface is self-explanatory)

3- Technical doc (for dev)

4- Support doc

5- Education (e-learning... etc)

Client Success team is in charge of 4 and 5

Today we use Zendesk as general doc repository, but for Support (aim of this doc is to decrease involvement of support team) I'm thinking to 

either create a forum (we have already an internal forum, so that client one could be a selection of the internal forum or a new one)

either create a forum and get a also doc rep besides (Zendesk, Freshdesk...)

NB: We use Intercom for now as support tool and have successfully tested chat bot to push the right doc reference to our client without human interaction.

So question is how do you organise support doc on your side?

Thanks

Thomas

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Comments

  • Samma Hafeez
    Samma Hafeez Member Posts: 24 Expert
    Second Anniversary
    edited July 2020

    Hi Thomas! A few clarifying questions to make sure I understand the context you have provided. 1) Are you primarily using Zendesk as an internal knowledge base? Do you have a knowledge base housed on Intercom as well? If so, is that customer-facing? Could you explain the current interactions you have set up between the two systems (if any)? 

    I'm curious as to why you want to increase the number of point solutions used to manage your support/self-service content rather than consolidating on to a single solution or two. Do neither meet your business needs on their own?

    Are categories 1-5 all internal facing documentation that can or will be repurposed for customers as needed? What governance structures or policies are you implementing to expose or gate that content as required?

  • Thomas Hussenet
    Thomas Hussenet Member Posts: 9 Contributor
    edited July 2020

    Hello Samma

    Very good questions. Right in my mail I mixed the existing and the target organisation - so redundant systems and purposes

    For now 

    - Zendesk is the main documentation center for clients and internally. However, we initiated on top of this an internal forum to centralize all questions and answers. Those ones then enrich Zendesk doc once they reach a good rating level.

    - We do not use the Intercom doc extension, just as chat system for support 

    Tomorrow

    My goal would be to get one unique system for support and doc to be able to link easily questions to document (We are looking at Intercom, Zendesk and Freshdesk)

    However a forum (for clients) seems also a good solution. So I'm still assessing the best tech landscape to decrease human support needs!

    Cheers

  • Matt Vadala
    Matt Vadala Member Posts: 47 Expert
    edited July 2020

    Hi Thomas, 

    It sounds like your org has a great handle on Zendesk categorization. I've seen that fall a few times and make organizing quite difficult. A key to a successful implementation of KB is to have proper categories. This could be based on product features or segments. Perhaps try to line up how this is organized along with how the user guide is organized, if you were to have some sort of table of contents for your KB? This would give your customers a sense of continuity. I've seen that when customers are sent off to help themselves that they'll rely less on Support to do the KB finding for them if they have a leg up on navigating the KB in place. 

     

    I hope that helps!

     

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