Help Centre using Intercom – Building a Knowledge Base for SaaS Companies
Creating a Help Centre using Intercom for your SaaS product can drastically improve customer satisfaction, retention and advocacy. A Help Centre is a base of knowledge articles that offer customers tools and documentation to help them solve problems and get answers about product usage and beyond. Intercom is one such platform that allows SaaS businesses to develop a knowledge base for their customers.
Intercom Help Centre is a centralized knowledge base platform that enables SaaS organizations to oversee their customer support activities more efficiently. It offers customers self-service tools such as FAQs, product manuals, tutorials, and best practices. This offering is very much customisable and can be easily modified to match the unique demands of a SaaS business. Customers can access the Help Centre through the company’s website at any moment, without the need for help from a customer service professional.
Building a Help Centre using Intercom can assist SaaS organizations in a variety of ways. It has the potential to minimise the number of support tickets and queries, resulting in greater assistance. It can additionally increase customer retention by providing resources to help consumers address their problems swiftly and easily. Furthermore, a Help Centre can help a SaaS company’s brand by proving its dedication to offering excellent customer service.
What is a Knowledge Base for SaaS Companies?
A knowledge base for SaaS organizations is an inventory of information accessible to the company’s customers, staff, or partners. It includes documents, tutorials, FAQs, and other useful material to assist individuals to understand the product, fix their problems, and make the most of it. The knowledge base is usually accessible via a number of methods, including a self-service site, mobile app, chatbot, and email. It can be built with a variety of tools and technologies, such as Intercom, Zendesk, or Help Scout. This is an invaluable asset for SaaS companies, which helps them to minimize support team burden, boost customer satisfaction, and establish a feeling of community among users.
Why do SaaS Companies need Knowledge Base?
The purpose of an effective knowledge base is to give your customers a comprehensive understanding of your SaaS product so that they do not require external assistance when using it. But that isn’t all. This repository of help materials and instructional videos can also be of assistance to you as it:
1. Enhances Customer Self-Service:
A knowledge base provides customers with access to a variety of resources and material, including FAQs, product manuals, and tutorials, allowing them to handle difficulties and discover answers to their concerns without having to contact the support staff. This increases customer satisfaction by providing a self-service alternative that is readily available 24/7. Furthermore, it frees up time for the support team to concentrate on more complicated problems that call for human intervention.
2. Lowers Support Costs:
By giving customers accessibility to a knowledge base, SaaS companies can drastically reduce the number of support requests and inquiries their customer service staff receives. This is due to the fact customers can obtain solutions to their issues without engaging with your support staff members. This minimises support expenditures while also increasing support efficiency.
3. Increases Overall Productivity:
Since a knowledge base can be accessible by different departments, including sales, marketing, & support. This guarantees that everybody has the ability to access current and correct information, boosting the company’s productivity and efficiency. For instance, the sales team can utilise the knowledge base to address inquiries from prospects throughout the sales process, whereas the support staff can use it to swiftly and effectively handle the concerns of existing customers.
4. Promotes Continuous Learning:
A knowledge base fosters continuous learning by democratizing product manuals, tutorials, & best practices throughout the organization and outside it. Employees can remain up to speed on the newest product features and changes, which improves their knowledge and skills. This can also be utilised to onboard fresh employees by supplying them with an extensive guide to which they can turn while they learn about their new job.
5. Improves Customer Journey:
Knowledge bases can enhance the entire customer experience by giving them the ability to access the information they require at any time. As a result, issues are resolved more quickly, wait times are minimised, and customer satisfaction is higher. A knowledge base can also be utilised to keep customers aware & involved with the product by offering updates on new product features or upgrades.
6. Encourages Brand Loyalty:
By offering customers access to an extensive and user-friendly knowledge base, you can foster customer loyalty and confidence. This can end up in repeat business, favourable feedback, and greater revenue. You can also use this can to promote a feeling of community among customers by offering a forum for them to exchange best practices and learn from one another. This can further boost brand loyalty & customer involvement.
4 Best Knowledge-Based Software for SaaS Companies
There are various knowledge management platforms available that will help you to establish a knowledge base with all of the capabilities required to give an excellent customer experience. In this section, we will look at four of the most prevalent knowledge-based software.
1. Intercom
Create knowledge base content with ease by utilising Intercom’s professional editor, which includes a user-friendly interface for adding photos, videos, & buttons. You can additionally create distinct material for different user groups – for example, paying users are able to view a particular set of articles while non-subscribers see another set.
The knowledge base solution from Intercom is a component of a larger software package which comprises tools for lead creation, onboarding customers, and customer support.
Basic chat & messaging costs $39 per month for a single seat and $59 per month for a maximum of five seats. Advanced automation & messaging at a volume of up to ten seats begin at $499 per month and progresses to $999 per month including all the added features.
2. Zendesk
Zendesk helps you to set up an inside help desk to assist your support team. It, too, offers a whole array of features intended to make customer service easier. Zendesk has a CRM function that can assist you to close more deals.
It offers a popular UI that numerous customers have become familiar with. You can choose from a variety of professional-looking styles for your knowledge base using the programme.
Zendesk Guide is the company’s knowledge base solution. With their support package, they provide a limited free version. The guide begins at $15 a month per agent and goes up to $29 per month for professional use.
3. Document360
Document360 allows you to construct private as well as public knowledge bases, which means you can set up one for your team and another for your customers. Its enhanced search feature will show autocompletion recommendations to visitors while they type in the search box.
This is one of the simplest tools to use because it is designed just for the construction of knowledge bases. The emphasis on only knowledge bases additionally assists them to have the lowest pricing on the list.
Document 360 provides three levels of service: startup, business, & enterprise. The monthly charges for the plans are $49, $99, and $249, respectively.
4. Atlassian Confluence
Confluence interacts smoothly with Atlassian’s renowned Jira project management platform & Trello task management software because they are both created by Atlassian. There are also a plethora of different third-party apps available in their store.
Confluence will also give you a set of comprehensive, powerful, and user-friendly company-level security tools to protect your sensitive information from cyber-attacks.
For up to ten users, Confluence offers a free version with restricted functionality. Their basic plan is $5 each month per user, while its feature-rich premium subscription costs $10 each month per user.
How to Build a Knowledge Base for Your SaaS Company?
Creating a knowledge base for your SaaS company is not a difficult process. However, there are certain things that you need to consider and prepare before you publish your knowledge base. In this section, we will guide you through this process in just 6 simple steps –
1. Establish your knowledge base’s scope & objective:
Based on what your customers demand & your product offers, decide what subjects and information your knowledge base must cover. Before gathering these data, you also need to determine your knowledge base’s objectives, such as lowering support enquiries or increasing customer happiness.
2. Decide on a knowledge base tool:
Choose a tool that meets your requirements, taking into account capabilities like search functionality, customization choices, & analytics. Some popular platforms, as described above, are Intercom, Zendesk, & Document360, etc.
3. Create an overview:
Create a framework of categories as well as subcategories to lay out the foundation and organization of your knowledge base. This will assist your customers to discover the information they need more readily, boosting their overall satisfaction & experience. You can also chronologically organize your knowledge base. If you’re going to release a series of posts, arrange them in a manner that customers ought to read them. It will assist them in following along & comprehending the knowledge base’s information in a logical order.
4. Create your content in a variety of formats:
Create articles that are clear, simple, and useful, and that answer your customer’s most prevalent inquiries and concerns. To improve comprehension, use clear language and eliminate technical jargon, and incorporate visuals like screenshots or videos. Keep in consideration that not everybody learns in a similar way. While some favour written posts, others may benefit from watching a clip or adhering to an app walkthrough. As a result, in order to meet all learning demands, you must construct your knowledge base material in a variety of formats.
5. Organize and release your content:
We’ve covered some of the most effective knowledge-based practices. You are now ready to put out your knowledge base to render it available to your users. While releasing the knowledge base, make sure it is simple to use, appealing to the eye, and informative. Make sure your material is easy to find and access and think about adding tools like chatbots or auto-suggest to improve usability.
6. Maintain and expand your knowledge base on a regular basis:
Update and review your material on a regular basis to guarantee its quality and relevancy. You should also think about utilizing analytics to measure user interaction and comments. Solicit input from your customers as well as your staff to discover areas for development and to make sure your knowledge base continues to be a helpful resource over time.
Step-wise process of building a help centre using Intercom.
A help centre developed using Intercom can give customers accurate and current information about the company’s services, as well as assist them to quickly and effectively discover solutions to their queries and difficulties. Using Intercom to build a help centre can increase customer satisfaction and minimize the effort of customer support employees. Let’s look at a detailed step-by-step process by which you can create a help centre using Intercom
1. Mapping customer lifecycle stages:
The initial step is to outline the various stages of your customer’s lifecycle: persuade, activate, & retain. This requires understanding the various phases of the customer journey, as well as the issues and difficulties customers may confront at each point.
A. Persuade: The goal of this stage is to attract potential customers’ interest in your services and convert them into purchasers. Customers at this stage might have inquiries regarding the features, advantages, and price of your product.
B. Activate: After customers have registered for your service, the emphasis switches to assisting them in getting started & involved with it. Customers at this level might require assistance in creating their accounts, browsing the interface, and comprehending the crucial features.
C. Retain: Finally, you need to focus on keeping your customers invested in your services and provide ongoing assistance to help them reach their goals. Customers at this stage might have queries regarding how to make the utmost out of your services, as well as potential difficulties or obstacles.
2. Creating relevant content for each lifecycle:
After you’ve identified the various phases of your customer lifecycle, your next task is to develop content for each stage. This entails recognizing the most prevalent customer concerns and difficulties and then creating informative and useful content to solve them.
A. Persuade: To generate articles that address the “persuade” stage, begin by defining your target audience’s pain points, wants, and ambitions. Use this data to produce content that tackles these challenges while positioning your services as the answer. This could consist of articles that answer frequently asked questions regarding your service’s pricing, features, and additionally how it compares to other market solutions.
B. Activate: You should produce step-by-step guidelines or video tutorials to assist customers in getting acquainted with your services at this point. You can include guides that take customers through the process of setting up. You can also include recommendations and best practices for using key capabilities of your services. Try to utilize more visual aids like screenshots & videos in order to make your articles more interactive and simple to follow.
C. Retain: Focus on offering ongoing assistance & education to ensure that customers utilize your solution effectively while creating material for this stage. You can build FAQ sections that answer prevalent concerns and queries that customers may have. Data from customer engagement & help requests can be used to determine the main issues and pain points and then accordingly produce content around it.
D. User-generated material: Another great source of data for developing appropriate content is user-generated content. Motivate your customers to put forward their thoughts and experiences about your services on various social media platforms, review sites, and similar places. Utilise this feedback to discover opportunities for improvement and to generate content that tackles the problems and pain points of your customers.
3. Publishing content in Help Centre using Intercom:
After you have decided on the various types of content that you want to create for your target audience, go ahead and start publishing them through your Intercom account. Let’s discuss the various features that Intercom provides you with when you want to publish your content.
A. Utilize Intercom’s content management tool: Intercom provides a content management system for organizing and publishing your material. This system enables you to produce and publish articles, categories them, and simply modify them as required. This also makes it easier for your audience to browse through your knowledge base articles.
B. Create a publication calendar: To keep your content fresh and relevant, create a publishing schedule in Intercom that outlines when and how frequently you will post fresh content. This will assist you in being organized and consistent in your content development efforts.
C. Promote your content: Once you’ve published your content, you can advertise it through different platforms (such as social networks, email marketing, and so on) directly from Intercom. This will enhance exposure & traffic to your help centre.
D. Optimise for search engines: Use appropriate keywords & metadata to guarantee that your material is identifiable by search engines. This will aid in improving your search engine results and increasing exposure for your help centre.
4. Monitoring the impact of the help centre:
After you’ve developed and uploaded your material to the help centre, you must evaluate its effectiveness in offering assistance to your customers. Listed below are a few steps to track the efficacy of your help centre:
A. Utilise Intercom analytics: Intercom offers a variety of reporting and analytics features for tracking the efficiency of your help centre. Views, clicks, & interaction rates can be tracked to monitor how customers engage with your material.
B. Gather customer feedback: Collecting comments from your customers is another way to track the effectiveness of your help centre. Intercom’s feedback features can assist you in collecting customer inputs and recommendations, which will enable you to find areas for development.
C. Analyze customer support tickets: You can also analyse the different types of support requests received by your customer service staff to uncover frequent issues or inquiries. This can assist you in developing focused content that solves these concerns and minimizes the number of support tickets.
D. Constantly update and enhance material: Finally, depending on feedback as well as performance statistics, it is critical to constantly make improvements to your help centre content. This can assist you to remain ahead of your customer’s demands and give the best service possible.
However, building an effective knowledge base can require a lot of time and consistency. We can assist you in building your knowledge base by providing insights and recommendations on how to create and organize relevant content for different customer lifecycle stages. We can also suggest the best tools and techniques to use to publish and maintain the knowledge base and monitor its impact on customer satisfaction and retention.