Help desks are meant to deliver support for customers and convenience to agents, but these are only surface-level benefits. After all, they are much more than just helping hands; they can be used to track analytics, compile reports, and provide official documentation to your customers, which is exactly what we would like to discuss today.
Yes, it’s time we cover how you can set up a knowledge base using Freshdesk. Why? Because having a knowledge base will help your customers learn about your products/services and can be used internally to nurture future salesmen. Knowing how to set up and fill out a knowledge base is the basis for good customer support. Thus, let’s set up a Freshdesk knowledge base without further delay.
Related article: What is Freshdesk? Freshdesk review
Freshdesk Knowledge Base System In a Nutshell
Before we jump right into the process, let’s take a moment and see how the Freshdesk Knowledge Base module works. That way, it will be easier for you to learn what’s what, making some explanation work less tedious for us. So, long story short, the Freshdesk knowledge base system can be divided into three levels, namely:
- Categories where you can store a pack of related content
- Folders to keep each category
- Solution Articles as written text
This organizational system is handy since it allows you to segment your content based on the activity. For instance, you can place Order Status, Payment Options, and Delivery Method under the “Making an Order” category. This system is also great when you have a ton of products that come from different vendors.
How to Set Up
Now that you know how this system operates, it is time we set up one ourselves. And the first thing you want to do is log in to your Freshdesk account and head over to the Solutions tab to create a New Category.
Figure 1
Next, you’ll see a window where you’ll need to enter a name and description. Fill out all the required fields and then hit the Save button. Congrats, you just created your first Category, but this is far from over; let’s move on.
Figure 2
Now that we have a Category, our parent folder, it is time we make a regular folder where your articles will be stored. And to do so, head back to Solutions and pick the category you created.
Figure 3
Once you’ve opened your Category, you’ll see two buttons: New Folder and New Article. Hit on the New Folder, as seen in Figure 4. You'll have to fill out a bunch of fields and then just hit the Save button to proceed. Additionally, if you want to set up visibility for this Folder, you can do that by using the visibility field.
Figure 4
And the last part of this tutorial is creating an article. To do so, open your Category, then the Folder you’ve just created, and hit the New Article button. The editor will greet you with an MS Word-like interface.
After you’ve finished writing your tutorial, you can do two things, Save and Publish. The main difference between the two is that hitting save will not release your article to the Public but will just save a draft version. And as you might have guessed, hitting Publish will make the article visible to everyone.
Figure 5
We also highly suggest you use the Tags menu, which will make the search process easier for the customer. Additionally, you can fill out the Search Engine Optimization fields with relevant keywords and a working title for more Google visibility.
Final Notes
And that’s about it. Now you know how to set up your Freshdesk knowledge base. Pretty easy, wasn’t it? There’s not much left to discuss, so we hope this article will be helpful for you. If you need help moving your old knowledge base to a new platform, we are more than ready to help. But in the meantime, that’s all from us!
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, Freshdesk has a knowledge base where you can publish articles for all your agents and customers. You have the default folder, which is the External Knowledge Base. This folder should be visible to everyone.
A typical knowledge base may include manuals, runbooks, FAQs, troubleshooting guides, and other information your team may need. In addition, many knowledge bases are built on AI (artificial intelligence) that can respond to user input.
A knowledge base should provide answers to all typical questions to save customers time and confusion. In addition, it should answer common customer requests efficiently to save time.
In Freshdesk, solutions are articles published on the knowledge base. You can publish articles in one language or switch on multilingual support to have translated content. In addition, Freshdesk offers an option to create knowledge base articles visible to everybody or just to agents. There is no restriction on the number of articles or attachments in a single solution.
It’s a self-service portal that support teams manage so customers can find an answer to their questions. Users can search for knowledge-base articles from the self-service portal and use the tools to contact support or follow up on previous requests.
