Knowledge is power. I’ve heard that phrase thrown around a bunch. I’m sure it wasn’t intended to be used by some guy writing a blog about knowledge base articles, but strangely it applies.
Since we’ve populated our Mojo knowledge base with tons of articles I feel more powerful. Every time a customer calls, if I can’t solve the problem from memory, I instantly go to our knowledge base and do a quick search. More often than not, the right answer pops up, and I get to sound smart and most importantly, be helpful and solve the customer’s problem immediately. That’s power.
Our customers feel the power too. Instead of only having the option to call or create ticket and having to wait for us to reply, they can go straight to our knowledge base, type their issue in the search bar, and voila they’ll get instant answers to their questions and troubleshooting tips. This gives our customers independence…and power.
Today’s a great day to unleash this same power for yourself and your customers, so why not sit down and write some knowledge base articles? Here are a few quick tips to get you started:
1. Keep articles short. Articles should be short enough for users to quickly scan to see if the info they need is there. You don’t want to overwhelm users with too much information in one article. Break up long articles into shorter articles.
2. Write in your customer’s terms. Try to avoid jargon and define any terms that your customers might not know offhand.
3. Use clear titles. Users search for KB articles when they want to accomplish a task or solve a problem. Vague titles make it hard to users to know if the task they need is covered. Be as specific as possible. Phrasing the title in the from of your customer’s question can be a great approach.
4. Add keywords. Quite often keywords should be synonyms or abbreviations that your customers use to describe the same thing. If you are a Mojo Helpdesk customer, there is a special field where you can add keywords to articles to help users find them.
click ‘manage’ >> ‘Knowledge Base’ >> ‘+new article’ >> give it a ‘Title’ >> paste template in ‘Article content’ field >> set ‘Publishing status’ to unpublished >> click ‘save’.
Now when you create an article you can copy-paste from this template.
**Answer:** Put the answer in your customer terms.
* Step 1
* Step 2
* Step 3
* Step 4…
**Overview:** If necessary, add context, causes, links to other articles, alternative solutions, etc.
Knowledge is power. (Photo Credit: Wu Disciples Blog)