"The ability to create different levels of access is great - it means we can create public-facing content that we're happy for Google to index and for anyone to find, but we can also create hidden sections for internal staff only, and a section for our integration partners with partner-specific content. - Ryan Hughes, Product Marketing Manager"
We're looking to streamline our Support function by reducing the unnecessary support queries, and to improve the PoC process for prospective users by making sure they can self serve with their initial questions.
We also consider a proper Helpdesk to be an extension of our software product, and is equally as important as the core functionality. We previously had very limited helpdesk capability which reflects poorly on the rest of our software product, so we knew we had to create something public-facing that alleviated prospect's concerns about our support capability.
We had been using the Helpdesk add-on from Zendesk, but it still required users to create a Zendesk account to login and find it.
This lead to a poor user journey and also meant that Google couldn't index the content. The design/layout wasn't great, either, and it was difficult to customise.
The ability to create different levels of access is great - it means we can create public-facing content that we're happy for Google to index and for anyone to find, but we can also create hidden sections for internal staff only, and a section for our integration partners with partner-specific content. This feature means we can use one platform to address the various helpdesk/support needs of our customers, staff, and partners.
Our product is very feature-rich, which can be overwhelming for some new users, leading to the Support team receiving the same questions as Support tickets over and over again, which is a waste of time. The Solutions Engineering Team also have the same issue when running Proof of Concept systems for prospective customers.
We also have a number of integration partners who sell (and potentially roll out) our software; the teams at our integration partners often have a lot of similar questions.
We needed a self-serve portal for users/prospective users to be able to quickly search for their question and find the answers themselves, and a password-protected helpdesk area for integration partners to access for more in-depth technical questions.
We estimate this should reduce support enquiries by 20% or so - which is a massive deal when we have a small support team of 6 people!