SaaS Customer Service and Support Content: Everything You Need to Know

Back in 1999, Jerry Gregoire, former CIO of Dell, predicted that the customer experience would become the next competitive battleground.

Now, almost 25 years later, a Zippia survey finds that companies heeded his prophecy, with 89% of companies competing almost completely on positive customer experiences.

Clearly, ensuring customer satisfaction is no longer just a basic courtesy—it’s a bottom-line necessity in the fast-changing and highly competitive SaaS market.

Luckily, your content can directly impact how your customers feel about you.

After reading this guide, you’ll fully understand what SaaS support content entails and how to approach it, all while meeting and exceeding customer expectations.

Let’s see what it takes to deliver not just good but great customer service and make the lives of your support agents easier.

#1 What Is SaaS Customer Service Content?

In a nutshell, SaaS customer service content is any kind of content that helps customers effectively use a company’s products or services, solve customer problems, and have a better overall experience.

So, if you’ve ever looked up what happens after your new app’s free trial ends, you’ve seen customer service content in action.

There are countless types of customer service content, from knowledge bases to video tutorials.

While they differ in format, they all share a common goal: to provide assistance and support to the user.

#2 Is There a Difference Between Content for Customer Service, Customer Support, or Customer Success?

Although you can find subtle differences between customer service, support, and success, their core purpose is the same. It’s to help users in some way as well as deliver a great customer experience.

Customer service is commonly used as an umbrella term. Modern SaaS businesses foster close alignment and collaboration between service, support, and success teams or completely blur the lines.

This is a great way to gain a competitive advantage. However, don’t completely dismiss their distinct characteristics when planning content.

Understanding what each term means and what it entails can help you develop more targeted and relevant content to meet different segments’ needs.

#3 What’s the Role of Content in SaaS Customer Service and Support?

You can think of content in SaaS customer service and support as a bridge that connects your service with the customers. Depending on its purpose, the content educates and guides your users while also helping your customer service team do their job.

To see an example of how well-organized support and service content helps customers, check out the Netflix knowledge base below.

Say a Netflix user had a long flight ahead of them and wanted to know if they could watch their shows without internet access.

In that case, they could answer their own questions instead of taking the lengthy route of contacting the help center.

We’ve covered some additional beneficial roles of service and support content before, but here are the main ways content makes support and service easier:

Of course, to fully reap these benefits, you have to know how to approach content creation. A well-devised strategy is imperative, and we’ll now give you a brief overview of its key components.

#4 How Do You Create a Strategy for Customer Service and Support Content?

Your support content represents your company as a whole, and your approach to its creation should reflect that idea.

Developing an effective content strategy should therefore be a collaborative, company-wide effort that involves the following fundamental steps:

1. Defining goals: Clearly define the desired outcomes you want to achieve with your content. For instance, a goal can be to improve first-contact resolution rates or address the most common user questions.
2. Gathering cross-team input: Get input from all teams contributing to the customer experience, including anyone indirectly involved (for instance, finance could play a role in addressing billing concerns).
3. Building user personas: Develop detailed buyer and user personas with their pain points, desires, and specific needs.
4. Mapping user journeys: Map out user journeys with your product through interviews, surveys, and analytics.
5. Content planning: Strategically plan resources, content topics, themes, channels, and formats.
6. Establishing update cadence: Determine the frequency of updating content, either at regular intervals or based on evolving needs.
7. Selecting the right metrics: Choose metrics that align with your goals, such as user engagement, self-service adoption rates, or content effectiveness based on user feedback.

Regardless of whether you’re starting small or planning a large-scale support content operation, following these steps will ensure that your content is consistent and effective, keeping your customers happy and your bottom line thriving.

#5 What Topics Should Your Service and Support Content Cover?

The choice of content topics depends on your product and the customers who use it. In a way, it’s like picking the right toppings for pizza. It depends on what else you’re serving and who’s eating.

For instance, a video-streaming app won’t have the same support content structure as a digital wallet app because each caters to distinct user needs and features.

So, how do you choose the right toppings… sorry, the right topics for your service and support content?

You can start by combing through the product’s reviews. People are quick to complain about service issues, but you can turn that to your advantage and find areas for service improvement.

Poor service can turn a dissatisfied customer completely away from the product, like in the example below.

The review reveals that customer support teams didn’t have a unified view of information, leading to mismatched support responses.

The solution to this specific problem?

Cross-team collaboration and quality support content that serves as a single source of truth.

Keep in mind that reviews are just one possible way to collect customer service ideas. You can also:

• Check social media feedback
• Talk to product and customer-facing teams
• Keep up with industry trends
• Observe your competitors’ content

Whatever approach you choose, remember that your efforts should result in topics that help the customer succeed with your product.

 #6 What Content Types Work Well for SaaS Customer Service and Support?

All of them! Seriously, there’s no content type that you can’t use for customer service and support.

The only requirement is to adapt the type to the context and the platform where you plan to publish it.

For example, videos are particularly suitable for step-by-step tutorials, product demonstrations, or visual explanations. Customers love them, too.

On the other hand, presenting billing information through videos wouldn’t make much sense because the content may be better suited to a clear, written format.

So, depending on the message you want to communicate, you can choose between product pages, FAQs, knowledge bases, and many other customer service content types to provide information in the most suitable and user-friendly format.

The variety of options allows you to create a well-rounded support experience that addresses customer needs and enhances their interaction with your SaaS business.

#7 What Are Some Best Practices for Creating Good Customer Service and Support Content?

The best thing you can do for your service and support content is to make it clear, accessible, and easy to navigate.

Support content isn’t the right place to exercise your creative writing skills—customers want answers here and now so that they can carry on with their day.

In the words of Stoney deGeyter, director of digital marketing at Socket Mobile, Inc.:

“Your goal is to write content that makes your visitors think as little as possible, without talking down to them.”

Continuing with this principle, you should consider additional best practices to create content that truly serves your users:

• Prioritize self-service options
• Keep the customer journey in mind
• Craft compelling headlines
• Update the content regularly

To sum up, you don’t need a lengthy help center entry for each of your product’s features.

Instead, think of your content as a friendly neighbor who’s always ready to help, offering guidance without overwhelming details.

#8 How Do You Measure The Effectiveness of Your Customer Service and Support Content?

Measuring how effective your customer service and support content is involves a strategic approach that combines quantitative data and qualitative insights.

Quantitative metrics provide a numerical view of how your content is performing, while quantitative metrics offer a more nuanced understanding of user experiences. 

You can see some specific metrics for each category below.

Unlike brick-and-mortar stores, where you can immediately see if your service is successful, SaaS businesses operate in a digital world. That means you can rely on data rather than guesswork. 

Where and how you manage your content’s performance data depends on the tools you use. Data usually comes from your helpdesk or ticketing system, CRM, or CMS. 

You could also employ heatmapping or session recording tools. Audience surveys are also a great source for collecting qualitative data. 

#9 What Are Some Examples of Customer Service and Support Content From Other Tech Companies?

Now that you’re familiar with the theoretical aspects of customer service and support content, it’s time to examine real-world examples from various tech companies.

As you browse the best support content examples, you’ll notice that each of them selects the most suitable content types and formats that align with their respective products.

For instance, Mailchimp, a tool that boasts simple email campaigns, has an equally intuitive help center.

The center contains self-service options such as guides, tutorials, articles, videos, and webinars.

For customers who still need assistance, there’s an option to contact support. But Mailchimp takes multiple steps to redirect customers back to self-service whenever possible.

Now, we’re not saying that your support content should mirror that of Mailchimp or any other tech company you see.

Instead, these examples should inspire you to understand the diverse ways in which tech companies approach customer service and support content, empowering you to craft a strategy that aligns with your own product and audience.

#10 How Can You Improve Your Existing Customer Service Content?

Lastly, the big question is: how can you take your existing customer service content and elevate it to new heights?

The process should start with a thorough content audit in which professionals identify the content’s strengths and weaknesses.

After that, you’re facing an ongoing effort of monitoring customer feedback and making necessary adjustments. From design and formatting to vocabulary, there are many different things you can improve in your service and support content to better serve your customers.

So, you aren’t ever done with support content.

The SaaS world is always changing, and your users’ needs keep evolving, which means you have to keep on improving.

Embrace change, stay agile, and be prepared to adapt your content to ensure it remains a valuable resource for your new and existing customers.

Conclusion

And just like that, you now understand all the building blocks of effective customer service and support content.

We defined what this type of content is, what outcomes to expect, and some tips for creating helpful support pieces.

Word of mouth spreads like wildfire in the digital age. It’s time to dig deeper into content strategies and deliver an exceptional customer experience.

If you’re ready to level up your service content, we’ll be happy to provide expert guidance tailored to your unique needs.