Using Help Scout Support Documentation in your Online Store

You may have already heard of Help Scout. It is one of the leading customer support software-as-a-service (SAAS) products for websites with 5,000+ businesses using it.

First, why use customer support software at all? Can’t businesses handle customers on their own? Yes, but software like Help Scout can make a customer service team’s job easier, especially when your team receives a high volume of support requests. Good customer support software can also give a business insight on whether their approach to customer service is actually working.

One of the main features of Help Scout is the Help Desk. It allows businesses to provide a simple yet refined support ticket system. There are options to direct support requests to different service team members, send bulk yet personalized replies, and collaborate to answer questions. The many features of the Help Desk can make customer support faster and more effective.

Help Scout Help Desk

In addition to the Help Desk function, Help Scout offers a knowledge base documentation system.

A cornerstone of an effective customer service strategy is documentation. Good documentation is essential for saving time and money spent on customer support, as Forrester Research has shown.

Research from Forrester Research

Well-written, easy to navigate documentation allows your site visitors to find the answers they need when they need them. This involves planning what customers need to know before they ask. Customers are able to learn about a product and answer common questions they have 24/7. This leads to happier customers and happier customer service specialists.

The quicker a customer finds the answer they are looking for, the more likely they will have a good experience and return to your store.

Why We Use Help Scout for Documentation

At CreativeMinds, we use Help Scout to craft important documentation about our WordPress plugins. This helps our customers understand the ins and outs of the product they purchase.

CM plugins knowledge base

Here are some reasons we use Help Scout for this task:

• Simplicity

Creating an informative article in Help Scout is as easy as creating a WordPress post. Add images, videos, lists, tables, and colored sections to make docs visually appealing and useful. Docs can be used to easily add a support page to your WordPress site.

Doc articles for CM Anonymous User Posting

The simplicity of Help Scout Docs means it’s really easy for new users to learn, so little onboarding time for employees. Users can also receive free training from Help Scout.

• Customization

There are many ways documentation pages and articles can be customized for your site’s brand. This means you won’t have to sacrifice visual appeal for knowledge base functionality.

CreativeMinds knowledge base

• Security and Reliability

Security is extremely important with any customer service software. Help Scout takes security seriously to make sure data stored in their system is protected.

This makes Help Scout extremely reliable with a 99.99% uptime, so businesses can rest easy and know their sites can give customers answers 24/7. They constantly monitor the system to detect any issues and report this monitoring on their site.

Help Scout system monitoring

• Help Desk Integration

Docs can be integrated with the Help Desk function. This means if an answer to a customer’s request is already contained in a knowledge base article, a customer service member can cite that article without leaving the page. This cuts down on support time. It also introduces customers to information for future questions.

• Reporting

Statistics. Not everyone loves them, but most can agree they’re important. Help Scout gives many options for reporting statistics. This helps a customer service team know if the support they provide is resulting in happy customers (the Happiness Report).

Reports for documentation show what customers are looking for and whether they found an answer in the documentation. This information is invaluable for maintain or improving customer service.

Documentation reporting

The documentation report also shows most viewed articles, top categories, popular searches, and terms customers searched for but didn’t find. Again, this information will help you know if there are any holes in the documentation so you can fill them in.

More documentation reporting features

Integrating Help Scout Docs and WordPress

So you’re thinking about adding Help Scout Docs to your WordPress site. What is the best way to do this? One option is the CM Help Scout Docs Portal Plugin.

This CreativeMinds plugin makes adding a Help Scout knowledge base to your WordPress site easy. Help Scout documentation can be added to any page with a simple short code.

Documentation page example

In addition to adding a documentation page with all categories, specific categories can be added to pages. This results in customized documentation specific to a product page.

Shortcodes for CM HelpScout Docs Portal

The plugin uses a Help Scout docs API that allows your site to easily access documentation in your Help Scout account.

Conclusion

As noted earlier, self-service customer support through web documentation is the most cost-effective way for a customer to get answers. It can also be the easiest and fastest way to get information. With documentation, service doesn’t depend on a company’s support hours.

Simply having a documentation system for your WordPress site isn’t enough for an effective knowledge base. Crafting a strong knowledge base with thorough articles is key. Adding video documentation is one way to increase the effectiveness of your documentation. Reporting features can also attest to the strength of the knowledge base content.

Help Scout with the Docs capability is $25/month. This makes it an affordable service that can significantly cut down on customer support time while making it more effective.

This way you can get back to business and rest easy knowing your support documentation is in good hands.