Why your knowledge base helps the bottom line

Last week, Pete wrote an amazing and thorough argument for documentation, and it got me thinking about why SurveyGizmo decided to focus so much on great software documentation and even create HelpGizmo (now KnowledgeOwl) to accomplish it.

Over at SurveyGizmo, we are committed to serving four bottom lines: Great Service, Great Software, Great Finance, and Be Happy. And for what it’s worth, we do a pretty good job at each:

• Great Service: we have great customer service that our customers rave about.
• Great Software: we have an agile tool that helps people act on data.
• Great Finance: we have solid profits every month.
• Be Happy: we have perhaps the happiest bunch of employees you can find anywhere.

While a great knowledge base isn’t a bottom line, it definitely contributes to each in various ways.

• Great service is accomplished for customers who prefer to self-serve and can easily find what they want.
• Great finance is attained when we can prevent phone calls and tickets with good documentation, lowering our costs for support.
• Great software is supported when the documentation can help clarify and communicate the value of the software.
• Be Happy is achieved when documentation helps customers help themselves, reduces repetitive customer requests, and makes the software better (it can be seen as a feature!).

If we were to really stop and think about it, spending time creating a great documentation system – not just the documentation itself but a process that continually makes it easy-to-find and easy-to-use – just makes sense.

Great Service

We are 100% committed to giving the best customer service ever. And we do a pretty good job (if I do say so myself). The customers who interact with our support team are generally blown away by the level of service we offer. And that’s pretty awesome.

However, I was once told that the best support request was the one that didn’t have to happen, and while I love interacting with our customers and making them happy, I know this in my heart to be true. And we are lucky enough to sometimes get that feedback.

Customers need to contact support when things go wrong: they run into a problem, they can’t figure out how to do something, or they need more information. And these are our fault.

Great customer service is not just reacting well when problems arise; it’s about proactively preventing problems from arising in the first place. Micah Solomon, a customer service expert who writes for Forbes.com, says anticipatory service is the highest level of customer service.

And here’s one area where a great documentation system can definitely help. A great documentation system can help your customers help themselves, saving them the time, frustration, and sometimes embarrassment of having to ask someone else for help. It can help you provide anticipatory service as well, allowing you to serve even the unexpressed desires and needs of your customers.

Great Software

Take a look at your support requests. Outside of user testing, it is one of the best ways to understand how customers interact with your product. And if you really listen to the data, it will draw you a roadmap to better software.

While a great documentation system provides great service by helping the customer find answers faster, it can also be a key to providing great software. What are your customers searching for in your help system? What features or areas of your application cause the most confusion or trouble? By analyzing the data from your help system, you can not only create better documentation but also better software.

What areas of your product or service need improvement? Your customers will tell you. It’s in the search and support history.

Great Finance

No matter how good your customer service or how great your software, your business won’t last long without great finance. And let’s face it, customer support can get expensive quickly. Having amazing individuals to pick up phones and answer emails is all well and good, but it doesn’t necessarily scale well when you have people contacting you left and right about things they should have been able to do on their own.

In order to continue offering great customer service as your business grows, it needs to scale. This means that customers need to be able to use the product on their own without a lot of support. Great documentation can help the customers self-serve, but a great documentation system – one that also helps you improve your product or service – can help prevent the customers from needing to contact you in the first place. Spend less time answering questions about how to use the product or service, and spend more time acting on data to improve and scale your overall business.

Be Happy

No one ever said that the key to happiness was great documentation, but in a business sense, it might not be too far off. Everyone wants to be happy, from your customers to your staff to your executive staff. Great documentation systems support great service, great software, and great finance. Customers are happier when they can easily use your product or service. Happier customers makes for happier staff, who can focus on providing great customer service along with a great product they can easily support and believe in. What’s more, it lowers the cost of giving great customer service and supporting the product, allowing your company to grow and scale successfully. And this makes business owners happy (which is no small feat).

A great documentation system alone may not revolutionize your business, but incorporating one into your current support system can go a long way for both you and your customers.