How do you create effective support documentation?

Understanding the customer journey can also be effective in creating support documentations. Tailoring your material to your readers (what are their technical proclivities, how much explanation will go into 1 article,) can help you determine the best type of documentation - whether it be an article, a short how-to tutorial, or other format. It is also important to determine whether the material will also be able to be customer-facing or specifically proprietary education. Understanding the placement intended (such as channel or product type) will also help you determine the best delivery material format. All support documentation should be stored in a central location so the focus can be on learning, not locating the material.

Organizing information based on skill levels can prove highly beneficial, as not all customers possess identical technical expertise. For instance, establishing a dedicated section for developers can streamline the customer's experience, reducing the need for multiple searches and support inquiries.

The type of content can help determine your documentation structure. If there is a video, consider tagging or aggregating playlists for easy watching, or a glossary. GIFs are great for short demos, especially when paired with the common step-by-step article format. I'm personally a fan of allowing a live search while support teams are going about their day-to-day. The faster that the team is able to locate the educational material, the less impact it may have on a customer interaction.

Content that maintains a uniform structure, is concise, and incorporates elements like bullet points, videos, gifs, and images is advantageous for customers. In my experience, I've found the KCS (Knowledge Centered Service) article structure to be particularly beneficial in this regard.

Knowing the skill level of the teams digesting the material, or even shaping material for newly hired team members, will allow anyone to quickly understand the material. Using a standardized tone and article format or structure helps subtly convey what the team can expect and how they can leverage that standardization to find their desired answers quickly.

I have found "you" and "we" to very beneficial when writing support documentation - it is just one more way to build unity and confidence among the team. As I mentioned, standard brand tone and pertinent information should always be kept in the back of your mind when creating these knowledge centers. Just as we would show empathy to our customers, it is so important to reflect empathy in our team documentation and understanding that these concepts are likely not inherently understood. I always promote, "if you don't know, don't be afraid to ask" because there is no shame in learning!

The real-time updating of content by agents during customer interactions holds significant value in maintaining a healthy knowledge base.

Support documentation is only helpful if it is up-to-date. Creating workflows and processes to get the most recent training material is absolutely critical when building a Support Team. If not, the team will continue to operate in a silo or potentially be last to know any changes, where they likely need to be first, and prepared to address or answer questions customers). If the information is accurate, but no one knows it exists, it might as well not exist! Verifying material through team exercises, or individual training sessions is extremely valuable, and getting feedback on the new policy, article, placement, or their primary take-aways are a very important step to confirm relevancy and success of the content!