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Support Feedback Loop

What

This is a strategy to adopt to help improve support documentation over time. Even (especially) internal engineering docs have support pages. A Support Feedback Loop means updating your docs to have answers to all questions you get asked.

Backstory

I supported a platform with 200 users for a couple years. After refactoring the documentation to align with my intentional documentation design, I iterated on my support documents. Whenever someone asked me a question, I followed the process outlined here.

Why

Following a support feedback loop helps to build a knowledge base over time which has numerous benefits both for your team and your users:

  • builds a consistent curated set of answers to questions
  • answers can be leveraged by support staff both new and experienced
  • builds trust in your team and your product
  • reduced support time as users begin to use your documentation instead of asking you over and over

How

A support feedback loop is illustrated in this diagram - the goal is to build a knowledge base.

Support Feedback Loop

When receiving a question:

  1. Check to see if the answer is in the documentation
    1. If it IS NOT present, then add the answer to the documentation
    2. If it IS present, check if it was easy to find: 1. If it IS NOT easy to find, then make it easier to find 2. If it IS easy to find, do not change the docs
  2. Provide an answer with:
    1. Gracious professionalism - thank you
    2. A brief or summarized answer to the question
    3. A link to the documentation
    4. If their question led you to update your documentation, make sure to thank them for that

Etiquette

When providing feedback, it’s critical not to be condescending. The tone of the message should be thankful and transparent. This helps build trust.