Strategy 2: Automatically deflect 10% of tickets with Help Center content

While your widget is the quickest way to automated support, your Help Center is an even more robust resource for customers. You can combine Help Center articles with all the same automations you’d find in the widget for an extremely helpful self-service experience. 

Use Article Recommendation Flows to answer chat questions with Help Center content

If your chat widget and Help Center are both hosted on Gorgias, they can work together to automatically suggest Help Center content when customers ask questions in the chat. 

Gorgias uses AI to scan every incoming live chat message. When a message could be answered by the content in your Help Center, Gorgias will serve the customer a link to that article, which they can read within the chat widget, before pinging your support agent. 

Just like Quick Response Flows, the automation is followed with a question: “Was this helpful?” If the customer says Yes, the interaction is successfully automated. If the customer says No, then a live chat ticket (or contact form, if you don’t have live chat enabled) is created.

“My preferred feature is Article Recommendations. When a customer buys a product for $3,000 on my website, they need to know everything about the product. They cannot wait for us to get these questions answered. Article Recommendations are the best for that. And actually, the accuracy of your Machine Learning is pretty scary 😂 it's so good!”

— Arda Onal, Founder of Ariel Rider

One important myth we’d like to clear up right away: You can use Article Recommendations, even if you don’t want to publish them. Gorgias Help Center on your website. 

Great news! Article Recommendations are available via email as well as live chat. 

Add Flows to your Help Center

Quick Response Flows, Order ManagementFlows , and interactive Flows are useful in the chat — plus, you can add them to the Help Center to give customers another path to automated resolutions.

Here’s an example of all three types of Flows in premium drinkware brand BrüMate’s Help Center:

Customers can track orders, report issues, use the Fit My Drink Flow to find the right product, or get returns information — all in an instant, without waiting on an agent. Here’s what interactive Flows look like in the Help Center:

While BrüMate doesn’t have them activated, you can also let customers request returns and cancellations in the Help Center, too. 

Check out these guides on adding Order Management Flows, Quick Response Flows, and interactive Flows to your Help Center.

Link your Help Center prominently

Your Help Center is only as effective as it is discoverable. Here’s a list of locations to link your Help Center to make sure customers can find it:

Top navigation

ALOHAS links its Help Center at the very top of the website to give customers a clear place to find answers and resolve issues.

Loop Earplugs also prominently links a Help Center in the top navigation:

Footer navigation

Sol De Janeiro links their Help Center in the footer of their website:

Support emails and order post-purchase emails 

In addition to your website, you can also link your help center in automated emails, like support emails or your post-purchase flows. Similarly, linking directly to your returns portal in order and delivery confirmations is a great way to funnel returns requests directly to an automated solution.

‍Princess Polly links their Help Center in automated emails that let customers know the team received the request.

Additional best practices for your Help Center

Link to specific order management processes

Above, we recommended linking your Help Center to your website header or footer. In addition, consider linking to your returns and order tracking portals to help customers find exactly what they need in as few clicks as possible.

The Bradery links to their returns portal and order tracking portal, as well as the general Help Center, in their website footer:

Use clear, succinct text when linking your Help Center

Don’t risk confusing customers with a clever name for your Help Center. Use a clear, short name when linking to your Help Center, such as:

• Need help?
• Help?
• Help Center
• FAQ

Here are some examples from Sol de Janeiro, Shinesty, and Nomad:

Activate your Help Center, even if you don’t have any articles

The most impactful Help Center articles are full of helpful content that customers can access directly, or via Article Recommendations in the chat widget. But even if you don’t have articles, you can activate your Help Center to let customers track and manage their orders. 

For example, LEUPP Watches has an active Help Center without any articles. They link the Help Center in their website’s main navigation to give customers an automated process to track orders and report issues.

Need help to launch your Help Center? Check out this guide. 

Use AI tools to create Help Center content

Populating a Help Center and Flows does take time, but not months like some merchants fear. And the time saved from self-service will quickly make up for the time it takes to build them. 

If you need some help, you can use Bing or Bard to speed up the process. 

Help me create a help center doc for [Brand name] about their [Category (e.g. returns & exchanges policy)], which includes answers to questions such as:

• Can I return/exchange items if I change my mind?
• Do you offer refunds?
• Can I return a sale item?
• How long should I wait to get a refund?
• What are the criteria to return an item?

Can you please tell the most common questions that customers ask ecommerce brands in [industry] for:

• Ordering
• Shipping
• Returns & exchanges
• Changes & cancellations
• Payment
• Gift cards
• Products
• Materials
• Care instructions
• Sizing
• Stock availability

Only use one Help Center

Multiple Help Centers, knowledge bases, and FAQ pages may confuse your customers when they’re trying to find an answer. It also means your customer service team has to keep multiple resources up to date. So, focus on one Help Center and funnel as much traffic as possible there.

Do you have an old Help Center or FAQ page from Zendesk, HelpDocs, Intercom, or Re:amaze? Here’s a step-by-step guide to migrating your old Help Center’s content to Gorgias.