Switch to Intent-based help content for your customer

As technical writers, we often create topic-based content. This can be defined as a unit of information with a title and content that is short enough to be specific to a single subject. As popularly known, these units can be divided into three types of information type - task, concept and reference.?

The selling point of the topic-based content approach is structural consistency. These topics are also easier to be reused in multiple deliverables. However, content written in this approach, may not always offer customers exactly what they’re looking for. Hence arises the need to bridge this gap.

Focusing on intent-based content could be a well-thought approach. Intent-based content gives customers exactly what they’re looking for. This can be achieved through intent-based search, informative guides and tutorials.

Here are some of my takes on building intent-based help content to bridge the gap.

Identify the most asked customer questions

The foundation of intent-based help content lies in identifying the most asked questions by customers. Frequently asked customer questions can be turned into a content goldmine.?

• What is the action that a user would take to find the answer to the questions? — Tutorials/Training Or Guided Workflow Or How-to Guides.
• Find out the pattern of questions being asked — Whether the questions include more of “How” or “What” or Why”.

Segregate the customer queries

Classify the customer queries as Navigational content or Informational content.

Give a shape to the intent

Having segregated the customer queries, next lies the approach towards shaping the intent.

• Consider the target audience and their intent — Understand the customer persona behind the intent. Whether a how-to article would do justice or a training video?
• Consider the intent type — For example, if the intent is navigational, is the user looking for related topics? Have you identified them?
• Consider similar topics — ‘Password reset’ or ‘Forgot password’ may sound like two different questions but the content is mostly the same. Identify such similar topics.
• Consider the objective — Narrowing down customer search to the most accurate answer can be one of the main objectives to achieve. Identify means to improve the search mechanism of your tool.