Guide enables you to provide end users with a complete self-service support option that helps your agent help your customers. With Guide, you can create a help center that includes:
- A branded customer-facing support site
- A knowledge base, for publishing self-service content
- A customer portal, where customers submit tickets
This guide helps you evaluate Guide features to see how they'll work for you, and provides help finding more information. Follow the steps in this guide to get your trial account up and running.
Each task typically takes less than 10 minutes to complete.
This article contains the following process:
Step 1: Enable your help center
Before you can start creating articles for your new help center, you’ll need to set up a few things.
When you start building your knowledge base. your help center is in setup mode and end users can’t see it. This gives you a chance to make it look just how you want before you release it.
Try it out
If you completed the Guide task in the trial onboarding wizard, you’ve already enabled your help center. Otherwise, enable it now.
To enable Help Center in setup mode
- Sign in to Zendesk Support as an administrator.
- Click the Zendesk Products icon (
) in the top bar, then select Guide. - In the page that appears, click Build your knowledge base.
If you don’t see this option, but instead your help center opens, it means you have already enabled your help center.
Learn more
Step 2: Add agent roles and article access
Roles for users in Guide map to roles in Support by default. That is, any admins in your account automatically have admin privileges in Guide and likewise for agents and end users. You can easily change an agent's role to admin if an agent needs more management privileges in Guide.
Roles, however, do not determine article access in Guide and the help center. You can control editing, publishing, and viewing access to articles by creating user segments. You can then use user segments to build user permissions that are applied to articles to control access.
Plan it
Think about whether any of your agents will need to be Guide admins. Guide admins have full access to the theme, all settings, and all content. You might have some agents who will also be responsible for help center management and need full access.
Next, think about your content and consider which agents will need to edit or publish which content. You might have a group of agents who are responsible for all articles about shipping information, for example.
Finally, think about which content will need view restrictions. You can create an internal knowledge base, for example, by restricting access to a section of articles to internal staff only. The help center you created with your trial comes with an "Agents only" internal section that you can check out.
Try it out
For this trial, try creating one or two user segments that might make sense for your organization. Consider the groups you created in Support. One of your agent groups might also need to be a user segment that can be applied to content.
To create a user segment
- In Guide, click the User permissions icon (
) in the sidebar. - On the User Segments page, click Add new.
Learn more
Step 3: Create and publish sections and articles
Now that your help center is up and running, you'll want to start building your knowledge base.
Plan it
Before you start, take some time to think about the structure for your help center. A help center typically consists of:
- Categories: Top-level organizing containers, (example: Cars)
- Sections: A container for articles, (example: Ford Fiesta)
- Articles: Content items like help topics or tech notes, (example: Changing a headlight bulb on the Ford Fiesta)
Try it out
For this trial, your help center comes with some pre-built categories and sections. Try adding an article to one of the existing sections. When you’re ready, you can start replacing the sample categories and sections with the ones you’ll need for your business.
To add an article
- In the help center or Guide, click Add in the top menu bar, then select Article.
- Enter your article content.
Use the article editor's toolbar for formatting options or to add links, images, or tables.
Tip: You don’t have to type everything in. Feel free to copy things over from other documentation you might have before formatting it in the Guide article. - Configure the article settings on the right to determine who can manage and view the article and where the article should live.
- When you are finished working on your article, click Save. to save as a draft or click the drop-down arrow on the Save button, then select Publish.
- To see how your article will look in the help center, click the Preview or Published link.
Remember that your help center is still in setup mode and only you can see it. Once you've written a few articles, see Activating Help Center for help making your help center visible to everyone.
Step 4: Set up the Knowledge Capture app
The Knowledge Capture app helps you and agents get the most out of your help center with the following features:
- Search the help center without leaving the ticket
- Insert links to relevant help center articles in ticket comments
- Add inline feedback to existing articles that need updates
- Create new articles while answering tickets, using a predefined template
By using the app, agents have the information that customers need right at their fingertips along with the tools to keep your help center up-to-date and relevant.
Plan it
Think about your knowledge management workflow. Having agents search and link to articles in tickets is rather straightforward and an easy win. You’ll want to do some planning, though, about the process for agents to flag and create articles. Take a look at some of our best practices and read tips for how some other teams have set it out.
Try it out
In this example, try using the Knowledge Capture app to search for and link to an article without leaving Zendesk Support.
To search for and link to an article from the Knowledge Capture app
- In a new or existing ticket, click the Knowledge Capture app icon.
- In the search box, type the term or terms you want to search for, then press enter. In the example below, the search is for all articles containing the term “returns”.
- Choose the article you want to add a link to, then click Link article.
- Click the Knowledge Capture app icon again to close the Knowledge Capture app.
A link to the article is added to the ticket.
Learn more
Step 5: Customize your help center with branding
Guide provides tools to change the look and feel of your help center with no coding. For example, you can change the logo, colors, and fonts to match your company's branding.
Plan it
Take a look at the theme supplied with Guide named Copenhagen. This is a best practices theme that works great on both computers and mobile devices. You can use this theme as a base to create your own theme.
Think about the elements you want to change to best match your own company branding. If you want to go beyond the basic settings for more advanced customization, you can customize the code in your theme later.
Be sure to check out this Pinterest page of beautiful Help Centers for inspiration.
Additionally, you can find free and paid themes in the Zendesk Marketplace.
Try it out
For this trial, try changing some of the theme branding, such as the logo or header image.
To change branding settings
- In Guide Admin, click the Customize design (
) icon in the sidebar. - On the Themes page, choose the theme you want to change, then click Customize.
- In the Settings panel, click any of the sections to update those settings.
- When you are finished, click Save.
Step 6: Help customers help themselves with the Web Widget
- Search help center articles for immediate self-service.
- Submit a support request using a contact form.
- Request a callback, or view a phone number that they can call instead.
- Start a live chat with an agent.
This results in your customers solving their problems faster and you providing more effective service.
Plan it
Firstly, decide what capabilities you want to add to your Web Widget and where you want to embed the Web Widget for customer support. Also think about how you want the Web Widget to look. There are some basic branding settings you can easily control and there are more advanced customizations that require coding.
Take a look at Providing ominichannel support with the Web Widget to help you with your planning.
Try it out
In this example, start simple and try adding the Web Widget to every page of your existing help center. However, remember that you can add this to any web page you want. For details, see Adding the Web Widget to your website or Help Center.
To add the Web Widget to your Help Center
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Channels > Widget. - In the Customization tab, turn on any Zendesk channels you want to support in your Web Widget.
- Click the Setup tab.
- Click the Add to Help Center toggle.
The Web Widget now appears on all pages of your help center.
What's next?
Congratulations! You've completed your Guide trial set up. Here are some other things to consider:
-
You can set up other channels for your account, including Talk, Chat, and Support. For instructions, see Evaluating your Zendesk trial account and the Launch guide for Zendesk Support Suite products.
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