Creating an organized, intuitive, and user-friendly Help Center is critical for empowering customers to self-serve and ensuring your AI agent can provide accurate, helpful responses.
This guide outlines best practices for content taxonomy, structure, and AI optimization. By following these guidelines, you can build a Help Center that meets customer needs while maximizing the effectiveness of Fin AI Agent.
Best practices for article taxonomy
Use customer terminology:
Align article phrasing with customer language, especially for FAQs. This improves Fin’s ability to match content to customer queries.
Example: Use “How do I reset my password?” instead of “Password recovery steps.”
Analyze past conversations:
Review customer queries and conversations to identify common terms and phrasing.
Use Fin Insights to spot topic trends, gaps, and action improvements.
Job-To-Be-Done (JTBD) approach:
Focus on the problems customers are trying to solve.
Frame content based on tasks or goals rather than product terminology. For example, “How to schedule a meeting” vs. “Calendar integration setup.”
Restate questions in answers:
FAQs should include the question within the answer.
Example: “To reset your password, follow these steps...”
Best practices for article structure
Titles and descriptions:
Make titles descriptive to improve searchability and help customers select the relevant article as they browse your Help Center.
Titles help Fin match the right content with a customer's question.
An article description should clearly describe what the article covers and how it can help. Keep it short and to the point (140 character limit).
Headers:
Use headers (H1, H2, H3) to divide content into logical sections.
Helps customers and Fin quickly scan longer articles to find the information or section they need.
Step-by-step instructions:
Use numbered lists for clarity and easy scanning.
Helps customers and Fin follow processes correctly.
Callouts:
Highlight key information with bold text labeled “Note” or "Important" to flag information Fin should include in responses.
Use the color callout blocks to highlight these sections for customers to see important information when reading your articles.
Length:
Article length isn’t critical, but standalone articles are better for common queries or very detailed user guides.
Best practices for collection structure
Logical Information Architecture (IA):
Group articles into familiar categories that align with customer expectations.
Example Structure:
Overview: Pricing plans, company overview.
Getting Started: Onboarding and first steps.
Core Features: Articles grouped by product features (e.g., “[Feature] explained”, setup guides, best practices, troubleshooting, FAQs).
Security/Privacy: Policies and compliance.
Integrations: Guides for third-party tools.
User-centric design:
Use tools like Optimal Workshop to test your structure with teammates or customers.
Ensure collections feel intuitive based on user behavior and product structure.
Using AI for content creation and optimization
Repurpose internal content:
Quickly convert internal documents and product updates into customer-friendly Help Center articles.
Update existing content:
Quickly find articles in your help center that are impacted by a product change and see exactly what needs updating.
Review and rewrite:
Rephrase content to match customer language.
Ensure proper formatting (headers, bullet points, etc.).
Clarify ambiguous terms.
Using AI tools works really well if you create a style guide with the structure, formatting, tone of voice, and template you'd like AI to use when generating articles for your Help Center.
Your style guide can be uploaded as a PDF document alongside prompts such as:
New content creation:
You are an expert technical writer.
Goal: Transform the attached “[name of internal document]” into a polished, customer-friendly Help Center article that strictly follows the attached “[name of Style Guide]”.
The finished piece must be easy for humans to read and for AI systems to parse and extract structured information.
Use only facts present in the internal doc. Do not invent, infer, or omit critical details.
Apply every directive in the Style Guide (tone, capitalization, terminology, heading hierarchy, inclusive language, etc.).
Updating content impacted by product changes:
You are an expert technical writer.
Your job is to review ONLY the content available on this public URL source [your help center URL] and recommend updates based on the following product change:
[your product update]
Tasks:
List the page URLs which are impacted by this new functionality.
Under each page URL include which section needs updating and the customer-facing update or new text you would include to reflect this new functionality.
Important: Avoid duplicating content across several pages unnecessarily. Find the most appropriate place to include this information in the existing content.
Existing content optimization:
You are an expert technical writer.
Goal: Restructure the attached "[name of article]" into a customer-friendly Help Center article that strictly follows the attached “[name of Style Guide]”.
Do not add, omit, or modify any factual information—only restructure and reformat the existing content to meet high standards of clarity, consistency, and AI-readability.
By following these best practices, you’ll build a Help Center that’s not only clear and easy for customers to navigate, but also finely tuned for Fin. The result? A smoother, smarter, self-serve support experience that empowers your customers and boosts Fin's resolution rate 🚀
Download the Style Guide example below to get started 👇
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