Q: Can you tell us a little about Nodored, its history, and what you do for the company?

Nodored started in 2011 as a web design agency in Ecuador, was founded with the aim of differentiating the Web Design service that was offered in the region.

In 2013, Nodored acquires its first server and implements its first hosting plans focused on CMS Joomla, and thus begins its Web Hosting service line as a B2C approach.

In 2016, the company already had a fairly solid client base distributed in Ecuador, offering services of Web Hosting, Reseller Hosting, Web Design, Domain Registration and SSL Security. It is in this year that Nodored is established as Netgocios Cia. Ltda. Turning its service focus as a B2B company mainly and welcomes new commercial partners such as neGO (Digital Marketing Agency) and Yamburara (Another hosting company that was acquired in 2014).

Currently Nodored has diversified and specialized in Web Hosting services optimized for various CMS such as WordPress, Joomla, Prestashop, etc.

In addition to introducing various web security solutions. Nodored currently maintains administrative offices in Ecuador and Bolivia and has a growing client base throughout Latin America.

Q: What are the most typical questions your customers ask of your support team?

• How to create email accounts?
• How do I access cPanel?
• How do I access my service?
• How do I upgrade my service?
• How to validate my EV SSL Certificate?
• Where do I download my SSL Certificate?
• Validation options for my SSL

Q: Can you share some of the ways you tried to address your customers’ needs before you made the switch to Heroic KB?

We have tried various options such as direct response channels: Live Chat and Tickets. However, after a while they were repetitive, having to answer the same thing over and over again, even using predefined answers did not alleviate the workload that this caused.

We then implemented a knowledge base using an integrated system to our billing system (WHMCS) but found it too limited in terms of SEO, functionality and was unfriendly to our customers.

Q: How does a powerful knowledge base serve your customers better than your old system?

Our support staff is happy! We have implemented a support center with effective and growing documentation. The most important thing for us is the search engine since it allows our customers to find exactly what they are looking for without having to contact Support.

The first point of consultation for our clients today, is our documentation.

Q: What initially drew you to Heroic KB, and what excited you most when you first saw it?

I found Heroic Knowledge Base implemented in one of our largest and most trusted suppliers. I loved the layout, the search engine, the organization of the topics and above all, I asked myself: If I leave my feedback on this article, will they see it? (In our previous system we had the option of feedback in the articles, but we did not have any report or analysis in this regard).

I inspected the code of that website and finally found the plugin with which they did it, and so we reached the Heroic Knowledge Base. When I saw your plugin, the first thing that fascinated me was the complete analytics options, for us they are a powerful tool because we want to maintain an updated database of articles that really answers our clients' questions, so the statistics that Heroic KB offers are vital.

Q: What overall effect did implementing Heroic KB have on your workflow, and was it immediate?

Almost immediately, it really took us a few weeks to adapt and socialize with our customers about this new documentation. However, the impact was the impressive decrease of technical support tickets on repetitive topics such as: How can I change the password of my cPanel?

Q: How does Heroic KB make running a customer support website easier and more efficient?

It becomes the first actor and resource of help for all our clients. As long as we maintain an updated base of articles, we will obtain as a result that our clients can self-help with ease.

Q: What features of Heroic KB have you found most valuable when providing answers to customer queries?

For us the most important thing is the search engine and the statistics.

Q: In what ways has customer communication changed since you began using Heroic KB as a support system?

The communication as such does not change, we continue offering assistance via ticket, WhatsApp, etc. But if I decrease the flow of requests to these channels with human attention, to be replaced with the queries to the documentation. In addition, in many cases the tickets are answered with “Check the following article in our knowledge base:”

Q: How has Heroic KB helped Nodored better serve its customers, and do you track any metrics that you could share with us?

Yes, for example in last 7 days we had 1973 views, and just 3 ticket transfers, that's great!

Explore: 10 Customer Service Metrics to Track in 2026

Q: Can you share some advice for new users of Heroic KB, or for those considering it as an online customer support solution?

Based on our own experience we have found that sooner or later the flow of tickets will make the first response time is prolonged, hence having a well-established knowledge base in both software and content is the most important. Generating detailed, well-related documentation that really answers the doubts of our customers, will impact the performance of the technical team.

Conclusion

After moving to Heroic Knowledge Base, the Nodored team was able to streamline their customer support and work more effectively.

To learn more about how you can use HeroThemes' products to create an internal, or customer-facing, knowledge base, take a look at all of our products.

The post [Case Study] How Nodored streamlined their customer support with Heroic KB first appeared on HeroThemes.

Scribbr is a leading proofreading and editing service that is the 5th fastest-growing tech company in the Netherlands, according to Deloitte.

Before moving to KnowAll, Scribbr used a mish-mash of Google Drive, sticky notes, PDFs, and Asana tasks to manage their internal documentation. End result = “one big mess”.

Now, Scribbr uses KnowAll to document support procedures, train employees, and share important company details. This saves them time and leads to more productive employees.

Keep reading to learn more about Scribbr's experience with using KnowAll to build an internal knowledge base.

Q: Can you tell us a little about Scribbr, its history, and what you do for the company?

I’m Koen Driessen, the co-founder of Scribbr. We started in 2012 as simple proofreading company for students, with a team of three and one editor. From the beginning, we’ve focused on developing technology, delivering the highest-quality proofreading in the industry and offering the best possible customer support.
For the first few years, we handled the customer support ourselves: seven days per week, from 09:00 until 23:00. It was hard work, but we learned a lot from the experience.

Now, we are a strong, experienced, international team of 30 people at the office and more than freelance 400 editors working across the globe. We can call ourselves true thesis experts, and we are now the market leader in the Netherlands, Germany, France and Belgium.

In 2017, Deloitte named Scribbr the 5th fastest-growing tech company in the Netherlands and 94th in all of Europe.

I’m responsible for our growth, marketing and technology. I’m also the one who searches for new software that enables our team work more effectively. That’s how I found KnowAll.

What are the most typical questions your customers ask of your support team?

Since the beginning, we’ve offered a chat on our website. All kinds of questions and requests come through this channel, varying from students who need (free) advice on academic writing to our customers and freelance editors who need support. We answer most questions with existing content on our website.

When our support team receives difficult questions, they dive into our KnowAll support knowledge base, where we document all possible procedures and exceptions.

Q: Can you share some of the ways you tried to address your team’s needs before you made the switch to KnowAll?

From 2016 to 2017, our support team grew from 2 to 12 people. That’s when we realized that we needed to document our knowledge and use one single system for this purpose. We had previously used Google Drive, sticky notes, PDFs and Asana tasks. However, a lot of knowledge remained undocumented, so support often needed to ask senior team members to develop a solution. This was obviously one big mess.

Today, we use KnowAll as an internal knowledge base for documenting support procedures (e.g. complaint handling), training employees, onboarding and sharing company details (e.g. VAT numbers, phone numbers, etc.).

Q: How does a powerful knowledge base serve your team better than your old system?

All our employees have access to our KnowAll knowledge base. KnowAll is super easy to use, and everyone on our team actively uses it.

Adding everyone’s knowledge to a single database made our company way, way more scalable. New support staff can easily start working, and they all know where to find answers to complicated questions.

Q: What initially drew you to KnowAll, and what excited you most when you first saw it?

For most solutions, you have to pay per user, and that can get quite expensive. We were looking for a simple and affordable solution. Our main website runs on WordPress, and we are quite familiar with customizing it, so a WordPress solution seemed like the easiest for us to implement.

Since KnowAll seemed easy to install and offered a 14-day money-back guarantee, we had nothing to lose – so we installed it. I was amazed by how easy it was to set up and how well it worked out of the box. After working with KnowAll for an hour, I knew I could stop looking at other solutions.

Q: What overall effect did implementing KnowAll have on your workflow, and was it immediate?

Since everyone now has a KnowAll account and can easily create new articles, I’ve noticed a culture change within our company. The whole team documents their knowledge in KnowAll, which makes us less dependent on individuals; we are also able to more easily work with part-time employees.

Q: How does KnowAll make running a support website easier and more efficient?

When we used Google Drive, we always had trouble finding the right documents. KnowAll has a powerful search that always finds the right article. We also use the “Popular Articles” section quite often. In 80% of cases, the article we need is on that list.

Q: In what ways has customer communication changed since you began using KnowAll as a support system?

Since all our information and procedures have been documented, our support team can help our customers the right way. If they don’t exactly know how to solve a problem, they don’t have to ask a colleague; they can simply look for the solution in the knowledge base.

As a result, customers are getting their answers faster, and they receive the same answer from every customer support agent.

Q: How has KnowAll helped Scribbr better serve its customers, and do you track any metrics that you could share with us?

We have no recorded any metrics from before and after we introduced KnowAll. However, our customers have given us fantastic reviews.

Explore: 10 Customer Service Metrics That Matter

Can you share some advice for new users of KnowAll, or for those considering it as an online customer support solution?

This software simply works. It’s also easy to set up. If you think this solution might work for you, I recommend installing it and give it a chance. You will be amazed by how well it works.

If there’s one piece of advice you could give to those looking to go the extra mile for their customers, what would it be?

In our company, everyone has to do at least one support shift per week, whether you’re a co-founder, a developer or a marketer. This way, we all interact with customers and understand how we can make our customers happy through our day-to-day work.

When the whole company really understands the customer, you can build services that customers truly love.

Conclusion

After moving to KnowAll, the Scribbr team was able to work more effectively thanks to a more efficient method of sharing institutional knowledge and information. And they managed to do all this using a content management system they were already familiar with (WordPress) and at a flat price point that didn't change no matter how many employees they added.

To learn more about how you can use HeroThemes' products to create an internal, or customer-facing, knowledge base, take a look at all of our products.

The post [Case Study] How Scribbr boosted productivity with an internal knowledge base first appeared on HeroThemes.

WP Simple Pay is a Stripe payment integration that originally launched as a free WordPress plugin in early 2014. Since then, Phil released a Pro version and expanded the team to include a full-time developer.

Because WP Simple Pay is tied closely with Stripe, Phil’s team had to handle a number of questions about the Stripe integration, as well as specific use cases for small businesses.

In the beginning, WP Simple Pay relied on regular pages that served as basic documentation. That approach lacked organization and searchability, which is one of the reasons Phil and WP Simple Pay turned to KnowAll as their knowledge base solution.

Keep reading to learn how KnowAll helped WP Simple Pay implement a well-organized, searchable knowledge base that’s cut down on initial support requests and given them the analytics they need to further improve their help documentation.

Q: Can you tell us a little about WP Simple Pay, its history, and what you do for the company?

Phil: I’m the founder at of WP Simple Pay, a WordPress plugin that lets you start accepting one-time and recurring payments using Stripe without setting up a shopping cart.

WP Simple Pay started out as a standalone Stripe Checkout plugin available for free on wordpress.org in early 2014. Shortly after we built a pro version, which has now grown to include many more features while becoming easier to use. To this day it still serves the purpose of being easy to set up on WordPress without the need for setting up a separate eCommerce, form builder or membership plugin first.

A few of the Pro features include:

• An intuitive drag and drop payment form builder.
• Allow site visitors to enter an amount they want to pay.
• Allow coupon codes for an amount or percentage off.
• Add custom fields to payment forms.
• Allow your customers to sign up for recurring payments. Create installment plans, initial setup fees and trial periods as well.

As the founder I wear multiple hats, such as product lead, marketing and some development. Currently our team also consists of one other full-time developer, a part time marketer, and a part-time support team.

Q: What are the most typical questions your customers ask of your support team?

Phil: First off, we definitely get a lot of the same WordPress setup and installation questions that HeroThemes and many other WordPress plugin and theme companies get, such as how to install a plugin, conflicts with other plugins and themes, etc.

Since WP Simple Pay is fully tied to Stripe, we also get a lot of questions on how to do certain tasks in the Stripe dashboard.

After that, we get a wide variety of requests on how to use WP Simple Pay for very specific use cases for many types of small businesses.

Q: Can you share some of the ways you tried to address your customers’ needs before you made the switch to KnowAll?

Phil: In the very beginning we just had a few pages on our main site that served as our basic documentation. But it wasn’t pretty or great on mobile. Search didn’t function properly, and it was difficult to organize and navigate our docs by category.

Having built and sold other plugins before WP Simple Pay, we also used a help desk system (Help Scout) from day one. In addition, we have a contact form (using Gravity Forms) that sends directly to Help Scout. Today this form makes use of conditional logic to gather different points of data depending on the type of request (support issue, feature request, pre-sales question, etc).

Q: How does a powerful knowledge base serve your customers better than your old system?

Phil: When customers first arrive at the docs site, they aren’t distracted with too many options like they used to be. A simple search box is provided up front and center with a simple selection of categories below that. Neither of these were the case before setting up KnowAll.

We also used to stuff too much content into saved replies in our help desk system. Now we trim those down to just a couple sentences with links off to relevant articles on our docs site.

The search box auto-suggest feature is the biggest game changer. It just works! I also love how easy it is to order categories and articles, as well as how they are easy to navigate for site visitors.

The analytics are very useful in determining what articles need to be created or updated. Having our docs hosted on a separate WordPress site also makes it easy to include multiple editors without the distraction of seeing the rest of the separate marketing site.

Q: What initially drew you to KnowAll, and what excited you most when you first saw it?

Phil: I actually used your previous knowledge base theme KnowHow in the past for a different product. It worked great for it’s purpose, but KnowAll just takes it to the next level.

I love how HeroThemes is focused on building products focused on docs and KBs for WordPress. As I run a WordPress product business myself, I could see that by purchasing KnowAll I’d get frequent updates and customer support along with a quality product.

Finally, I prefer to use a self-hosted WordPress solution for our docs as opposed to a hosted service (like Help Scout Docs) because I know I won’t be restricted when I want to customize the user interface and functionality going forward.

Q: What overall effect did implementing KnowAll have on your workflow, and was it immediate?

Phil: The impact on our workflow was definitely immediate as soon as we started using KnowAll. Creating new articles was much quicker. Updating existing docs was much simpler and straightforward.

Only after a couple of weeks of having our new docs site live, the analytics section became very useful. We could see what visitors were searching for and not finding so we could add those keywords to our content. We could see how visitors navigated through the site and where more internal links would be useful (the Transfers section). And of course some of the helpful vs. unhelpful feedback was…well…helpful.

Q: How does KnowAll make running a customer support website easier and more efficient?

Phil: KnowAll makes it much easier for anyone on the team to add content whenever they feel it’ll be useful to most customers. Both our team and myself have become more proactive in adding content, which means that there’s never a huge looming “task” of updating documentation that we continually put off because we don’t want to do it.

KnowAll’s analytics also make sure we’re using our time wisely with the content we’re adding and the terms we’re using. And it means we’re less likely to clutter up the docs with articles no one is searching for.

Q: What features of KnowAll have you found most valuable when providing answers to customer queries?

Phil: I mentioned this earlier, but it's reassuring to know that most customers can get to the relevant articles they’re looking for in a second or two using the auto-complete search box.

Knowing popular search terms not getting hits from the analytics helps us edit and create relevant articles right away so customers aren’t left without results too often.

Q: In what ways has customer communication changed since you began using KnowAll as a support system?

Phil: It seems like the volume of initial customer support requests have been gradually going down since we’ve implemented KnowAll and have been consistently adding content.

In addition, we tend to have shorter replies as we simply use more and more links to articles on our docs site.

Q: How has KnowAll helped WP Simple Pay better serve its customers, and do you track any metrics that you could share with us?

Phil: We only have a little over two full months of data so far, but comparing our first month to the second month using KnowAll I can share this:

• Total searches went down 18%, while search effectiveness stayed around the same (75%).
• Article success (helpful to unhelpful votes) went from 43% to 62%.

Explore: 10 Customer Service Metrics to Track in 2026

Q: Can you share some advice for new users of KnowAll, or for those considering it as an online customer support solution?

Phil: Make sure everyone on your support team is thinking how they can reduce the length of their replies (canned responses or not) by adding or updating articles on your KnowAll site and linking them. The hope is that this becomes a habit for your team and it gradually becomes easier and faster to reply to support requests.

Make sure you plan, as best as possible, a logical category structure when starting your KnowAll docs site. You won’t want to litter up the home page with too many category choices otherwise your customers will get overwhelmed.

Q: If there’s one piece of advice you could give to those looking to go the extra mile for their customers, what would it be?

Phil: No matter how brief and quickly your team can respond to support questions, make sure that human touch of humor and empathy never goes away. The last thing your customers want is to feel like they’re just communicating with robots.

Conclusion

Creating an effective knowledge base is a constant process of improvement. Not only did KnowAll give the WP Simple Pay team a solid foundation to build their knowledge base on, but KnowAll also provides WP Simple Pay with the relevant analytics to further refine and improve its knowledge base.

The result? Fewer initial customer support requests and customers who are increasingly happy with WP Simple Pay’s support articles.

We’re thankful to Phil for sharing his KnowAll experience with the world. And if you’re interested in seeing how KnowAll can help you create a better knowledge base, we invite you to take a look at our knowledge base products.

The post [Case Study] How WP Simple Pay Increased Article Success 44% first appeared on HeroThemes.

Originally founded as a WordPress development shop, Barn2 Media has been increasingly transitioning into the WordPress plugin business over the past year. This transition has, naturally, increased the number of support requests from their growing group of plugin customers.

Barn2 Media’s original solution was a two-page setup for Documentation and Troubleshooting. But as those pages grew, Barn2 Media quickly found themselves dealing with unnecessary support requests because their customers couldn’t easily find answers to specific questions.

Keep reading to learn how Heroic Knowledge Base helped them create a more focused, searchable, and easily-updatable help system that cut down on redundant support requests.

Introducing Barn2Media

Q. Can you tell us a little about Barn2Media, it's history, and what you do for the company?

Katie: I'm co-founder and Operations Director at Barn2 Media, which I run with my husband Andy. We've been in business since late 2009, specialising in WordPress in 2010.

We quickly became one of the UK's leading WordPress agencies and built up a virtual team of WordPress experts around the UK.

In 2016, we started selling WordPress plugins and have scaled back on the number of websites we design for clients in order to focus on the plugin business.

We now have 2 free and 5 premium plugins, and it's going really well with the sales increasing each month.

Q. What are the most typical questions your customers ask of your support team?

Katie: The most popular support questions fall into 2 categories:

1. Minor questions about how to do something
2. Wider questions about whether a plugin is suitable for their specific use case.

Q. Can you share some of the ways you tried to address your customers' needs before you made the switch to Heroic Knowledge Base?

Katie: Before switching to Heroic Knowledge base, we had 2 pages on our website: Documentation & Troubleshooting.

These were very comprehensive but were getting longer and longer as we added more information, making it hard for customers to find the information they needed. This inevitably led to unnecessary support requests.

We then trialled several hosted knowledge base systems such as Help Scout (guide to Help Scout alternatives) and Zen Desk, but weren't happy with the results. These were very focused around ticketing systems (which we didn't need) and the knowledge base seemed to be an afterthought.

They didn't have the features we needed and the support request form was very basic and didn't collect the necessary information. We were also concerned that these knowledge bases were separate from our main website, which makes them less user-friendly, less professional and worse for SEO.

Q. How does a powerful knowledge base serve your customers better than your old system?

Katie: With Heroic Knowledge Base, customers can type their question into the search box and see an instant list of articles to answer their question. It caters for different types of people, as you can use the search box or navigate through the category structure.

The table of contents widget makes it easy for customers to jump to the section they need, and the ‘Request support' widget lets them contact us if they need to. This serves our customers much better than the previous solution.

Q. What initially drew you to Heroic Knowledge Base, and what excited you most when you first saw it?

Katie: I researched WordPress knowledge base plugins and immediately discovered Heroic Knowledge Base. I was impressed with the professionalism of the website which reassured me that it would be a high quality plugin, particularly the promotional video.

I tried a few of the free knowledge base plugins just in case, but they were very basic and didn't have the the features I needed such as the table of contents widget and in-built analytics. So I bought Heroic Knowledge Base and haven't looked back.

Q. What overall effect did implementing Heroic Knowledge Base have on your workflow, and was it immediate?

Katie: Before implementing Heroic Knowledge Base, all the documentation for each plugin was on one page. This meant that I had to think carefully about adding any new information, as the documentation was already very long for one page!

Heroic Knowledge Base has removed this barrier as it's incredibly easy to expand the knowledge base, adding new articles as often as I need to.

Whenever we receive a support request, I consider whether we can help other customers by adding the article to the knowledge base. If the answer is ‘Yes', then it just takes a couple of minutes to add the information to the knowledge base – it's as easy as adding any other type of post in WordPress!

Q. How does Heroic Knowledge Base make running a customer support website easier and more efficient?

Katie: I love the fact that whenever we're asked a question that has been asked before, we can quickly paste a link to the relevant article into an email and send it to the customer. This saves re-typing information and gently encourages customers to use the knowledge base instead of contacting us next time!

Q. What features of Heroic Knowledge Base have you found most valuable when providing answers to customer queries?

Katie: I find the table of contents widget hugely valuable in answering customer queries. The plugin creates the table of contents automatically based on the headings in the article, and you can copy the link to any section in an article. It's really easy to send these links to customers, which saves us time in manually typing the response, and saves them time as they can jump straight to the section they need.

Q. In what ways has customer communication changed since you began using Heroic Knowledge Base as a support system?

Katie: Previously, we would spend more time typing individual responses. Now, we can quickly signpost customers to an article in the knowledge base.

Customers often mention that they have already searched the knowledge base before contacting us, which reassures me that it's doing its job!

The built-in feedback system also helps us listen to our customers and continue improving the knowledge base to make it more useful for them.

Some Final Advice from Barn2Media

Q. Can you share some advice for new users of Heroic Knowledge Base, or for those considering it as an online customer support solution?

Katie: I would advise anyone using Heroic Knowledge Base to spend time planning the best possible structure for their knowledge base. Think of creating a knowledge base as an ongoing process.

Every time you receive a support request, think about whether it could have been prevented by improving the knowledge base. Look at the plugin analytics regularly and use the data to make ongoing improvements. This is the best way to reduce the number of support requests over time.

Q. If there's one piece of advice you could give to those looking to go the extra mile for their customers, what would it be?

Katie: I hate plugin companies who are defensive about support. It's fine to use a knowledge base plugin to reduce the need for customers to contact you. However, it's still important to provide great support when a customer does contact you.

Conclusion

Competition in the WordPress plugin business is fierce. So every second that Barn2 Media wasted on answering repetitive support questions meant less time that they could spend growing their business.

After trying out some of the competition, Barn2 Media settled on Heroic Knowledge Base as the best solution to support their customers. Now, their customers can quickly find relevant support articles with helpful features like live AJAX search and a table of contents. And Barn2 Media can easily expand the knowledge base with new articles as needed.

We’d like to thank Katie Keith once again for sharing her thoughts with us. And we invite you to take a look at our knowledge base products to see if they can help streamline your knowledge base just like they did Barn2 Media’s.

The post [Case Study] How Barn2Media uses Heroic Knowledge Base to support their customers as a small team first appeared on HeroThemes.

Zero BS CRM is a WordPress CRM plugin that gives users access to a powerful CRM right inside their WordPress dashboard, all without needing to jump into the expensive world of monthly payments.

Because a CRM is a complicated product by nature, Mike and his team found themselves dealing with a variety of customer support requests. Customers wanted to know more about the product and whether it could help them reach their goals, as well as how to use the product better.

Keep reading to learn how KnowAll helped Zero BS CRM create an easily-updatable knowledge base that helps customers get more from Zero BS CRM.

Introducing Zero BS CRM

Q. Can you tell us a little about Zero BS CRM, its history, and what you do for the company?

Mike: Hi there, I'm Mike and I'm the co-founder of Zero BS CRM (the Ultimate Entrepreneurs' CRM for WordPress).

Zero BS CRM is a WordPress CRM system (installed as a WordPress plugin) which gives you a customer relationship management system from your admin dashboard.

You control the data and you don't have to pay $S$ per user, per month to a Software as a Service business. You're self-hosting your own CRM.

The Core of the CRM is a simple, free to use CRM. If you wish to expand the power of the CRM there's a suite of extensions which you can purchase. These extensions can power up your CRM by doing things like

• Connect to your WooCommerce store and import your customers and orders
• Connect to your PayPal and bring in all your customers and transaction history
• Chart your sales and customer growth over time using Sales Dashboards
• Integrate with a number of popular front end forms
• Power up your business with online payment of invoices
• Plus much more

What I do for the Company is I'm the Lead Developer of a number of the extensions as well as marketer, blogger and support lead.

We are a team of 2 who have built the CRM out of a passion for WordPress and a frustration of not being able to find a simple to use CRM that doesn't shoot up in price the more you or your team use it.

We are just getting started and aim to grow Zero BS CRM into the only CRM that you'd consider using if you want control of your own data and not have costs that spiral out of control (compared to using a SaaS type solution like SalesForce, which can easily run up to $200+ a month)

Q. What are the most typical questions your customers ask of your support team?

Mike: Since we develop and market a WordPress product our customers are users of WordPress as well as users of our CRM plugin (and it's extensions).

The most typical questions we see when supporting a CRM are people asking whether it can be used to fully manage their business. A CRM is defined as

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a strategy for managing all your company's relationships and interactions with your customers and potential customers. It helps you improve your profitability.

Zero BS CRM does a lot of this out of the box, and even more with the extensions. However here's a sample of some of the support questions we've had in

• Does it have Project Management tools built in
• How can I do leave management (i.e. managing employees time off)
• Where's the Calendar booking system
• etc

Aside from the “my business does this, can your CRM be used to do that” and very specific requests, the other most typical questions are either User Experience based (i.e. they can't find out how to do something which the CRM can do) or effectively asking about a feature which doesn't exist (but they expected it to).

From time to time we also get bug reports through from users who have specific setups which cause issues.

Using the KnowAll Theme has really helped us to make the User Experience of our product easier for customers. It's also helped us to refine and stabilise the plugin so that future customers don't have the same pains as those who highlighted the issues in the first place.

Explore: How To Create a UX Research Repository

Of course, we can track how well our efforts are doing by looking in the KnowAll Analytics and tracking our “happiness” index over time.

Q. Can you share some of the ways you tried to address your customers’ needs before you made the switch to KnowAll?

Mike: First up, I did what a lot of people probably do. I ran it all out of my email, if you have any questions, read the documentation. If you still have questions send an email to ‘support@'…

I then “graduated” into using Help Desk software (trialling the use of software such as helpscout or groove). This kept all my “tickets” in one place and allowed shared inboxes.

But my documentation was still “static”, questions still came in which weren't answered in the documentation, and the way my documentation was written it wasn't easy to go back and edit it.

Q. How does a powerful knowledge base serve your customers better than your old system?

Mike: It just makes it easier. When questions come in which aren't on the knowledge base, I quickly add an article so that it kills that question coming in again from someone else (unless it's a random question like “how do I market my site”)

It's also more “alive” through being easier to use, having a comment system and also having a voting system on each article.

It means I can actively monitor what's going on, what articles are working, what's missing and how happy people are.

Through making the product easier to use through development, keeping it useful (through new features, when they reach enough requests) and making sure people know how to use it (knowledge) we are starting to see our time needed on support go down.

This means we can spend more time on working on the product, building cool new areas and marketing it more to new users.

Q. What initially drew you to KnowAll, and what excited you most when you first saw it?

Mike: What initially drew us to KnowAll was that we were looking to partner our WordPress based CRM software with Knowledge base themes.

Our Founder, Mike, met Chris (HeroThemes Founder) at WordCamp Paris and talked about how customers of Zero BS CRM should really be running a knowledge base, and how customers using the KnowAll Theme (or other knowledge base themes) should really be running a CRM.

Hint: using Zero BS CRM and KnowAll theme together is a perfect solution to managing support AND using customer insights to improve your sales processes (CRM).

Through working on how to integrate Zero BS CRM with the KnowAll Theme, the team at Zero BS CRM were so impressed with the theme that they moved their own knowledge base / documentation site onto the KnowAll Theme.

They've never looked back since.

Q. What overall effect did implementing KnowAll have on your workflow, and was it immediate?

Mike: The impact on the workflow through implementing KnowAll comes in two ways.

• First, the ease of use means you'll be refreshing and adding new content to your knowledge base. It's a joy to use from an admin perspective
• Second, since it's easy to use for your leads and customers too – it reduces support tickets into the help desk and saves you time in the long run

Now that KnowAll is up and running and we've combined it with Zero BS CRM we can keep track of who reaches out for support and when we come to reply to them, see all the information we'll need at our finger tips.

Did the customer mention in passing a few months ago that it was their birthday in August, you've made a note in your CRM, so when you reply you can wish them many happy returns.

When was the last time “support” remembered something about you? When running your own support desk, think of the impact on your customers that would have.

Through using both Zero BS CRM and KnowAll you can offer this special type of personalised support to your customers.

Q. How does KnowAll make running a customer support website easier and more efficient?

Mike: We touched on this a little earlier. It's easier to use so you add more useful content and it's also easier for customers to navigate so they find their answers easier (and not have to contact you for support).

Not only does it make your website better, being proactive and documenting any questions that come into your help desk with a knowledge base article will really help to improve your product too.

At Zero BS CRM we use the KnowAll theme to help support users of our product. Through this we are able to track in the CRM which questions are coming in to the support desk. On the back of those questions we can see where we need to improve the documentation.

In the past, if a feature didn't exist, our documentation would be silent on it, now, we've been adding articles like this, which funnel people into this page.

For example, if a customer has searched for “How do I add itemised invoice items” they'll be funnelled to requesting it as a feature request. Then that's where our CRM comes into play. They'll write to us asking about the Feature Request and we can track it in the CRM.

The tickets sent are all stored as ‘Customer Activity' in the CRM and with the new Advanced Search in Zero BS CRM we can search “itemised invoice” to see how many times it's cropped up from customers submitting tickets. We can also search “Feature Request” to see all the messages with that term.

This helps us understand what users of our product are trying to do and how many of them are trying to do it (therefore, we should probably consider adding it as a feature in the future).

Before the KnowAll Theme we just didn't have this information. We can compliment the CRM analysis with the KnowAll Analytics to see what people are searching for, and which articles they're visiting.

Q. What features of KnowAll have you found most valuable when providing answers to customer queries?

Mike: I do a quick search myself on the front end of the knowledge base. This brings up the articles I need quicker than hunting through (or searching the WordPress posts admin area).

I also like the analytics, I come from an Actuarial Science background so stats interest me. Inference from the statistics and using them to help improve the overall customer experience is really cool.

Q. In what ways has customer communication changed since you began using the KnowAll Theme as a support system?

Mike: It's not changed that significantly. Integrating the “submit a ticket” with Zero BS CRM and being able to track a customers tickets, when they sent them and what else they've done with the Company (i.e. have they purchased a single extension, have they bought a bundle) really helps us tailor our communications.

Apart from being able to quickly dig out and send them a knowledge base article link we've not really changed how we communicate with customers.

Q. How has KnowAll helped Zero BS CRM better serve its customers, and do you track any metrics that you could share with us?

Mike: We track support tickets over time, we've not been using KnowAll long enough to draw any real statistical conclusions but early indications from the help desk are that:

• We are getting less of the same question coming in from people
• The number of tickets divided by downloads is falling

The last metric is particularly useful because as our product grows we are getting more downloads and simply trying to count # tickets in before KnowAll vs # tickets in after KnowAll would be skewed by the fact our download count is increasing.

Explore: 10 Customer Service Metrics to Track in 2026

Some Final Advice from Zero BS CRM

Q. Can you share some advice for new users of KnowAll, or for those considering it as an online customer support solution?

Mike: Our biggest advice, and why we started using it ourselves, is combine it with a CRM.

Using KnowAll with a CRM really opens up the door to personalised support. When a new ticket comes in you can check the customer record and see all your notes, what they've asked before and when they've contacted you.

If you're using the CRM in conjunction with transactions you can also see exactly what they've purchased from you and their total value to your business.

Q. If there’s one piece of advice you could give to those looking to go the extra mile for their customers, what would it be?

Mike: Find out something that differentiates you to every other support desk out there.

What we'll do is if we can help someone towards success with running Zero BS CRM and we can convert them into a customer (and we have their address details) we'll send them a small token of appreciation 🙂 not to mention the fact we offer personalised support.

Another example is what CDbaby did, for all their customers who bought a CD off the website, they chucked in a free packet of Haribo. Sometimes it's the small things that matter.

Conclusion

Because CRMs are, by their nature, fairly complicated (even those with zero BS!), creating a helpful knowledge base is essential to helping users get the most from the CRM.

KnowAll helped Zero BS CRM create such a knowledge base by setting them up with a living, breathing knowledge base that Mike and the team can quickly update based on new questions and/or analytics data.

As Mike discussed, you can also go further and hook up KnowAll with Zero BS CRM to create an even more analytical knowledge base.

Once again, we’d like to thank Mike for taking the time to speak with us. And if you want to see what KnowAll can do for you, we invite you to take a look at the full feature list and demo.

The post [Case Study] Why Zero BS CRM moved their entire documentation to KnowAll first appeared on HeroThemes.

Ultimately, there are a number of challenges involved in managing hourly employees, such as keeping track of their schedules. Of course, there are plenty of products and solutions available that can be adapted to the task, but When I Work is a purpose-built solution. It enables you to create, edit, and save time schedules online, then share them with your hourly employees simultaneously or selectively.

When I Work currently serves over 50,000 workplaces, and to streamline their support channels they've chosen our KnowAll WordPress theme to develop their online knowledge base. It's a move prompted by the need to save time and improve communications.

To find out how they've improve their customer support, let's delve into When I Work's experience with KnowAll, starting with their background!

Introducing When I Work

Q: Can you share a little about the history of When I Work, and your role in the company?

David: The story begins when our founder and CEO Chad Halvorson had a job working at a grocery store in rural Minnesota. Back then he had to physically go to the store to check the schedule, sometimes on his day off! That’s when he realized it would be great if everyone could check their schedule online. He decided to register wheniwork.com in 1998, but the market wasn’t quite ready yet.

Once smartphone technology developed a decade later, Chad decided it was time to try again. When I Work officially launched in 2010.

As for me, I’m responsible for the Help Center at When I Work, including content, the documentation strategy, and overall development. When I joined the company in January 2016, my first priority was replacing our previous Help Center with something better. After exhaustive research, I decided that the KnowAll theme was the best solution for our needs.

I currently split my time between writing content and leading the effort to add Help Center features.

Q: What sort of customer typically comes your way, and what do they look for in their scheduling software?

David: Our customers are typically owners of small and medium sized business who are looking for a simple way to build a schedule and get it to their employees. As small business owners, they’re focused on day-to-day tasks and keeping things running smoothly.

To put it another way, they’re entrepreneurs with problems that need solving, not technologists. In fact, a majority of our customers used Excel before they switched to When I Work.

Q: What makes a powerful knowledge base so important to your work?

David: Hundreds of thousands of people use our platform to discover their schedules every month, and we’re continuing to grow. It would be impossible to scale up our Customer Care team to answer every question that comes up.

Giving our customers the tools they need to find answers to their questions is the only way a company of our size can support a customer base this large.

When I Work’s Support Workflow Before KnowAll

Q: Tell us a little about your pre-KnowAll support cycle. What impact did it have on your customer relationships, and what made you want to seek a better solution?

David: We were using a competing product before we switched to a customized version of KnowAll. The lack of flexibility in our previous solution was impacting our customers’ experiences, and my experience as an author – so we decided to evaluate other options.

Our previous solution's limited hierarchy and categorization options made it hard for customers to find what they were looking for.

Our apps run on three platforms (web, iOS, and Android) and offer four levels of user privileges, which means our content needs to serve 12 different user/platform combinations. It was very difficult for users to find content that applied to them on a site with only two levels of hierarchy and no other means of categorization.

Q: What is it about KnowAll that ‘spoke’ to you initially, and what were you excited by when you first saw it?

David: When I first saw KnowAll, I thought: “This is exactly what I would build if we were going to create a Help Center theme from scratch”. I was immediately impressed by the responsive design, table of contents, and sensible hierarchy.

The Relationship Between KnowAll and When I Work

Q: How does using KnowAll make your customer support better than it was previously?

David: KnowAll enabled us to tailor our Help Center to meet our customers’ needs without creating a completely new solution from the ground up. One of the best examples of how customization reduces friction is our custom taxonomies.

For example, we added taxonomies for our platforms and user roles so that every article clearly identifies who and what it applies to. Users can also filter by those taxonomies when they’re searching our content. Our mobile apps also use custom taxonomies to display relevant content to the user and filter out everything else.

Q: What features of KnowAll are most useful, both to your day-to-day workflow and your business as a whole?

David: The elegance of KnowAll, combined with the power and customizability of WordPress! As for specific KnowAll features, the fully responsive design is a huge deal. Most of our hourly workforce gets their schedule via their smartphone, and about 40% of the traffic to our Help Center comes from mobile devices.

As an author, I also really like simple things such as controlling category and article order. Features like that are often ignored.

Q: In what ways has KnowAll helped you improve and grow When I Work?

David: I’m the only technical writer at When I Work, and I’m able to manage our Help Center content without any assistance. This has remained true even though our customer base and engineering teams are growing each month.

Q: How has customer communication changed since implementing KnowAll for your knowledge base?

David: We’ve been able to launch documentation for new features almost immediately. We’ve also embedded our documentation into our apps so that customers can consume it without switching contexts.

Q: What advice can you give for those considering a solution like KnowAll, and for new users of the platform who want to maximize their support channels?

David: Simply think about who you’re trying to reach and the problems they need to solve before you jump into implementing your Help Center site.

I initially planned to structure our content architecture around roles and platforms, which would have required users to explicitly select their role and platform before browsing the content. However, we were able to structure our top-level categories around user goals after we realized we could solve the user/platform problem with custom taxonomies.

This realization greatly reduced the friction users face when they browse our Help Center.

Explore: Knowledge Base Information Architecture: 3 Easy Ways to Use It

And Finally,

Q: If there’s one piece of advice you could give to those looking to go the extra mile for their customers post-sale, what would it be?

David: Don’t forget that the job isn’t done when you close the sale. In the Software as a Service (SaaS) world, customers can switch to a competitor at a month’s notice.

Every interaction customers have with your support team, documentation, and product contributes to their satisfaction with your company. It only takes one bad experience to make a customer think about looking elsewhere.

Conclusion

When I Work exists to help you keep track of your hourly workers’ schedules, and fills a gap that wasn't adequately represented. In order to maximize the customer support they offer, their online Help Center was developed using our KnowAll WordPress knowledge base theme.

They've found the flexibility of KnowAll to be a huge boon during the development process, and the theme's simplicity means that When I Work have been able to streamline their overall support process and dedicate more time to other areas of their business.

We’d like to thank David Braasch for taking the time to share his thoughts with us, and the entire When I Work Help Center team for their continued support of HeroTheme's products!

The post [Case Study] How When I Work supports a growing customer base with limited resources first appeared on HeroThemes.