The Support Center: Where Customers Can Help Themselves

Hi and thanks for using Desk.com! Now that you’ve had a little more time to use Desk.com, we want to help make sure you’re getting the most out of it. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to set up your self-service Support Center,

create Knowledge Base Articles and manage your Questions and Answers.

Alex Hisaka is a Content Marketer at Desk.com Follow her on Twitter at @alexhisaka

Table of Contents

1. The Desk.com Support Center

2. Custom Branding: Match the Look and Feel of Your Website

3. Content Management: Never Wait for IT Again

4. Community Discussions: Let Customers Help Each Other

If you’re unclear about anything in this quick guide, be sure to check out support.desk.com to learn more. You can also get in touch with the team at support@desk.com.

We are here to help you with whatever questions you may have.

Desk.com comes with an out-of-the-box

support center where your customers

can find answers to their questions 24/7.

By dropping a few lines of code into

your website, you’ll have full control

over FAQs, Q&A and Community

Discussions on your site. From within

your Support Center, your customers

can browse through a collection of

Support Center: Help Customers Help Themselves

The Desk.com Support Center

Knowledge Base articles and find answers 24/7. Below are two examples of what your company’s Support

Center can look like. Let’s get started by customizing your Support Center!

Desk.com makes it easy for you to get support center up and running on your website in a heartbeat with

our easy editor. If you want a support center that looks and feels exactly like the rest of your website:

1. Go to Desk.com Admin 4 Channels 4 Support Center.

2. Click Add Template.

Custom branding: Match the look and feel of your website

Support Center: Help Customers Help Themselves

3. Name your template under Template Name.

TO WOW, you must:

4. On the “Look & Feel” tab, you can configure the colors and fonts on your page, as well as upload your logo

to display on your page. You can also can add a custom logo (favicon) to your browser tab.

Support Center: Help Customers Help Themselves

5. In the Integrations tab, you can enable Twitter or Get Satisfaction integrations.

6. In the Customize Content tab, you can change the default “Header” and “Contact Us” content.

You’re all set - you’ve just customized your Support Center! Now let’s create our first Knowledge Base article.

Support Center: Help Customers Help Themselves

Content Management: Never wait for IT again

The support center draws all of your content from Desk.com’s powerful content manager. It’s as easy as

using a wordprocessor or a blog editor. Your customer service team will be able to update your website’s

support content without having to turn to IT or your web designer. To create an Knowledge Base article:

1. Go to the Desk.com Admin 4 Content Management 4 Articles.

2. Click on Add Article.

3. Name your article under Subject so your customers can find it.

4. Write your article in the text box.

5. You can “Save as Draft” (save and not publish) or “Show in Support Center” (save and show in public forum).

6. Click Update to close window and save changes.

Congrats! You just created your first Knowledge Base article. Now let’s explore the Community Discussions.

Support Center: Help Customers Help Themselves

Community Discussions: Let customers help each other

Adding community discussions to your support center is a great way for enthusiastic customers to help each

other by answering questions. It’s easy to add Desk.com’s built-in community discussion to your website and

provide a forum for Q&A. All of the questions and answers get routed through your Agent Desktop so that

your support team will know when someone’s posted a question and can moderate and provide

authoritative answers.

Q&A are posted in the public forum and can be viewed in Questions. To toggle Q&A or a per topic basis:

1. Go to the Desk.com Admin 4 Content Management 4 Topics.

2. You’ll see a list of all the different topic categories you have. From here you can add new topics and edit

existing ones. To enable or disable a topic, click the Yes/No toggle under Show in Support Center.

Since Questions & Answers are posted in a public forum, you are given the ability to moderate and hide

inappropriate questions and comments. You are also given the ability to mark questions as “Featured” which

will highlight them in the Support Center.

There’s a lot more to the Desk.com system, but if you’ve managed to configure the components above, you

should be well on your way to using the system to it’s fullest. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate

to get in touch!

Support Center: Help Customers Help Themselves

Custom Fields: Add information unique to your business

Need to add more information about a case of a customer? Custom fields is a great way to add extra

information so you know all there is to know about your customers. Custom fields can include bits of

information like who the case was last saved by or what language does the customer speak.

Let’s go to the Agent Dashboard and open a case: On the left hand side is the case information that has three

tabs: Case, Customer and Company.

To add a custom field to your case tab:

1. Click on Case and select Custom Fields then click on the Add Field button.

2. Name your custom field, add a Key (a name without spaces) and a Data Type.

3. Click Update.

To add a custom field to your customer tab:

1. Click on Customer and select Custom Fields then click on the Add Field button.

2. Add a Name, a Key and a Data Type just like before.

3. Click Update.

Business Rules: Automate your support

Business rules automate how Desk.com treats cases and moves them towards resolution. Whether the rules

are simple — like assigning cases to a particular agent — or complex — like b’ccing your CEO on VIP cases —

business rules can help you provide more effective service to your customers.Rules only apply when an event

occurs. Here’s a list of rule events:

o Case Created

o Case Opened

o Case Re-opened

Support Center: Help Customers Help Themselves

o Case Updated

o Case Pending

o Case Resolved

o Case Closed

o Time Rule: not “event triggered” but is executed every 15 min.

One of the most powerful ways you can use Business Rules is to send an auto-reply to your customer letting

them know you received their request. Here are the simple steps to set up an auto-acknowledgments.

1. Log in to the Desk.com admin and click on Channels 4 Email 4 Auto-Acknowledgements.

2. Click on Add Template and name it “My Auto-Reply.” Then click Add.

3. To avoid the problem of sending your customer multiple emails during the day if they submit multiple

cases, you’ll need to write an Inbound Interaction Rule to do the work.

4. Set up your inbound interaction rule by going to Case Management 4 Rules 4 Inbound Interaction.

Then click Add Rule.

5. Now set up the conditions of your new rule. Activate the rule and you’re all set! Now let’s move on the

notifications for cases.

Your rule should look like this!

Notifications for cases: Real-time alerts for true speed

Notifications are a great way to know in real-time when changes occur in a case so you can quickly respond

to cases. The most common example of this action is to send an email notification to an agent when a new

case has been assigned. To create an email notification, follow these steps:

1) Login to Desk.com admin, click Case Management and click Notifications.

2) Click Add Template to create a new template.

3) Enter a name for the template and click the Add button.

4) On the left hand side click on Rules then click Case Updated. Click the Add Rule button.

5) Configure your rule like this:

Support Center: Help Customers Help Themselves

That’s it - you’ve created an email notification in Desk.com!

Congratulations! You’ve now learned about the Case Management system in Desk.com and all the awesome

features that can take your support to the next level.. If you want to learn how to create a self-service help

center check out our other guide “The Support Center: Where Customers Help Themselves” where you can

learn how to customize your support center, create Knowledge Base articles, and manage your Question and

Answers.