You're swamped in the queue, and you've just helped a user solve a problem you know they could have solved themselves if they'd just had the knowledge to do so.
What's worse is that you know they probably tried, because it's a common scenario that users write in about.
You've been meaning to write a help article about it. But you're swamped in the queue, so you don’t have time.
And it's a vicious cycle that just continues.
If this scenario makes your eye twitch, the good news is: This is a great use of ChatGPT.
ChatGPT is an excellent tool for customer support teams in general. It’s also well-suited to help you write help articles and technical documentation significantly faster, by automating and streamlining many aspects of the content creation process.
💡 Curious about other Zendesk-ChatGPT integrations? Check out our latest guide on the top Zendesk - ChatGPT integration apps to boost your customer support |
How ChatGPT can help you write better documentation
Here are just a few of the ways that ChatGPT can help customer support teams be more efficient and proactive about documentation, whether they're swamped, new to writing, or just looking to up their self-service game:
Generate entirely new content. You can give ChatGPT a specific topic or query and it will write an entire article from scratch. This is great for getting over writer's block (it's always easier to edit content than write it for the first time) and for expanding your knowledge base to include foundational resources.
Refine and expand existing content. You can give ChatGPT an existing article and ask it to improve the article's clarity, readability, and grammar. It can also suggest additional content or troubleshooting steps that would make the article more informative and comprehensive.
Adapt macros and other customer responses. You can give ChatGPT a response to a customer ticket and ask it to create a help article based on the response. Macros are great, but nothing beats answering a customer's question before they can ask it by providing self-service resources.
Review articles for consistency and quality. If you have a style guide, you can give it to ChatGPT. Then give it an article and ask ChatGPT to check for adherence to the guide, as well as for consistency in voice, tone, and formatting. This helps streamline content in your help center while freeing up your agents for creating new content.
Localize your help content. You can ask ChatGPT to translate an article into multiple languages. This would still require proofreading, but it significantly speeds up your localization efforts, allowing you to reach a wider audience more quickly.
Automate tagging, keyword generation, and SEO optimization. You can give ChatGPT an article and ask it to suggest relevant tags and keywords. This makes it easier for your customers to find the information they need, and optimizes your help center for search engines.
Tips to use ChatGPT effectively for documentation
These are a few tips to make the most of ChatGPT and save a little time in getting the best results:
Experiment and iterate to find the best prompts. While we’ve collected a lot of potential suggestions for prompts here, these are just to give you a starting point. You need to adapt these to your needs and in response to the results you’re getting.
Provide additional context in the prompt. If you know you'll be writing for a specific audience, or that you want content written in an informal tone, or that you have specific formatting requirements, these are details you'll have to explicitly give ChatGPT in order for it to give you the response you're looking for.
Adapt and review the documentation before publishing it. ChatGPT can't tell if the information it's giving you is correct, so you'll need to review any documentation to make sure it's factual. You know your customers best, so make sure troubleshooting steps are explained in ways that are accessible and helpful to your audience
10 prompts to generate content based on a topic
ChatGPT is often a great sparring partner.
Using it to generate content completely from scratch often gives you a good starting point for a help article, which you can adapt and edit to make it fit your audience.
![ChatGPT prompt: Provide best practices and tips for users working with [specific topic], highlighting common pitfalls to avoid](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/a70e86_19380a389a914ee9add471c78d97d1e6~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_60,h_32,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,blur_2,enc_auto/a70e86_19380a389a914ee9add471c78d97d1e6~mv2.png)
Create a help article about [specific topic], covering its key concepts, benefits, and common use cases.
Generate a step-by-step guide on [specific topic], starting with the basics and progressing to more advanced aspects.
Create a comparison guide between [specific topic] and alternative solutions, showcasing the advantages and disadvantages.
Provide best practices and tips for users working with [specific topic], highlighting common pitfalls to avoid.
Compile a glossary of common terminology related to [specific topic], providing clear definitions and explanations.
Generate real-world use case examples demonstrating how users can effectively utilize [specific topic] to achieve their goals.
Develop a troubleshooting guide for [specific topic], outlining common issues users may encounter and their solutions.
Write a set of frequently asked questions (FAQs) related to [specific topic], along with concise answers.
Write a guide on integrating [specific topic] with other relevant tools or systems, outlining the steps and potential benefits.
Detail the advanced features and capabilities of [specific topic], along with use cases where they are most valuable.
10 prompts to refine and expand existing content
The best help centers typically go one or two steps further than simply describing how a feature works or answering a specific question.
They also include educational content that helps your customers learn more about a topic or get more value out of your product.
These types of prompts can show you some ways of applying that in your help center.
Expand on the section of the documentation related to [specific topic]. Provide additional information, examples, and use cases.
Offer insights on how users can integrate [specific feature] into their existing workflows for a more comprehensive experience.
Rewrite any technical jargon or complex language in the documentation in a way that is clear and easily digestible for a non-technical audience.
Suggest some diagrams, screenshots, or visual aids that we could include to clarify complex concepts or steps in the documentation.
Incorporate real-life scenarios or case studies to illustrate how users can apply the information in the documentation to solve practical problems.
Incorporate user feedback and suggestions into the documentation to address common issues and concerns.
Enhance the explanations of key concepts in the documentation, ensuring that they are comprehensive and easy to understand.
Identify lengthy and complex sentences in the documentation and split them into shorter, more readable sentences.
Review the documentation for any grammatical errors or inconsistencies and provide corrected versions of problematic sentences.
Suggest ways to enhance the structure and organization of the documentation to improve user navigation and accessibility.
3 prompts to adapt macros and other customer responses
Most Support teams have an easier time establishing processes to keep macros up-to-date than help articles, because macros are one of the most powerful tools available to them.
Using macros for your help articles is a no-brainer. And ChatGPT can make that an almost instant process.
Create a help article based on our customer service macro titled [macro title]. Summarize the macro's content in a user-friendly format.
Develop an article that explains to customers how to reset their password based on the following macro, including step-by-step instructions and common scenarios.
Convert this ticket response regarding 'Account Security' into a comprehensive help article for customers concerned about their account safety.
5 prompts to review articles for consistency and quality
Consistency is a recurring challenge in writing great help documentation.
While there’s always a range of ways to tackle it, you can at least simplify the process significantly with these prompts.
Review this help article and ensure that the writing style and tone are consistent with our established guidelines and brand voice.
Check for consistent use of terminology and technical terms throughout the article. Highlight any instances of terminology inconsistency.
Improve the article's engagement level by identifying sections that may benefit from additional examples, visuals, or interactive elements.
Rewrite passive voice sentences into active voice to improve clarity and engagement in the documentation.
Adjust the tone of the documentation to be more user-friendly, ensuring it resonates well with our target audience.
8 prompts to localize your help content
Localizing your help center content is often an insanely time-consuming process.
ChatGPT can’t replace all of it automatically but it can go a long way in streamlining this and making it much less labor-intensive.
Translate this help article from English to [Target Language]. Ensure that the translation is accurate and natural.
Localize this article for [Target Language] readers, taking into account cultural nuances, idioms, and preferences.
Ensure that this article is culturally sensitive for readers in [Target Country/Culture]. Adjust content and examples as needed.
Customize this article to align with the preferences and cultural norms of our [Target Audience] readers.
Include local examples or case studies from [Target Country] to make the content more relatable to our audience there.
Optimize this article for local search engines in [Target Language/Country] by incorporating relevant keywords and phrases.
Ensure that this translated article maintains consistency in terminology, style, and formatting across all languages.
Create meta descriptions in [Target Language] for this article to improve search engine discoverability.
10 prompts to automate tagging, keyword generation, and SEO optimization
Having the best documentation available doesn’t have an impact if your customers don’t find it.
That’s where SEO comes in.
Provide a list of relevant keywords and phrases for this help article that would make it more discoverable to users searching for this topic.
Recommend long-tail keywords that can be incorporated into this article to capture specific search queries related to our topic.
Analyze competitor articles on the same topic and suggest keywords that can help us compete effectively in search results.
Provide a list of tags that can be used to categorize this article within our help center for better organization.
Recommend SEO-friendly tags that can improve the article's search engine ranking and visibility.
Offer on-page SEO recommendations, including meta titles, meta descriptions, header tags, and image alt text, to enhance the article's search engine optimization.
Analyze the article for keyword density and suggest adjustments to achieve an optimal keyword-to-content ratio.
Provide semantically related keywords and phrases that can be used to expand the article's relevance and improve its search engine ranking.
Suggest Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords to add depth to the article's content and enhance its search engine optimization.
Provide a comprehensive review of the entire article's SEO and suggest revisions or improvements to enhance its search engine optimization.
Make ChatGPT a member of your documentation team
Using ChatGPT to write, refine, and optimize your help documentation is like adding a new member to your documentation team – one that’s happy to take care of the repetitive, taxing, and difficult tasks that slow your team down and prevent them from doing what they do best: providing human, empathetic support to your customers.
And your improvements don’t have to stop there.
Swifteq offers a suite of tools to help you automate the management and localization for your help center, as well as easily understand how it’s performing. Many of our tools use ChatGPT as well, so you don’t need to manually copy and paste prompts or content across.