Knowledge base modernization project

OpenTable uses Salesforce Knowledge to manage its library of support articles across both its diner and restaurant support websites. Prior to my hiring, the primary authors of content were marketing writers, who uploaded press releases, and senior support agents, who would correct inconsistencies as information became outdated. My task was to set and implement new standards for support content.

Background / Goals

  • These websites are the first destination for OpenTable’s millions of diners and more than 50,000 restaurants when they need support.

  • I had two primary goals:

    • Make the websites’ support content better at providing self-service by reducing how often visitors need to contact support agents

    • Reduce the time internal teams need to spend updating and checking the accuracy of information

  • I collaborated with many groups, including Support leadership, Product Marketing, Brand, Localization, and many other departments at OpenTable.

Strategy / Execution

  • I began by gathering insights to inform a style guide.

    • I met with the Brand team to understand OpenTable’s voice and tone.

    • I met with Support leadership to learn the expectations they had for agents who would update support content.

    • I met with support agents to gauge their comfort level with updating written content.

    • I met SEO and automation experts to identify best practices when formatting support content.

    • I met with instructional designers who provided guidance on how to visually display information.

  • I used these insights, my journalism training, and experience writing for Apple to draft the style guide.

    • It outlines essential information, such as: the layout of a support article, when to use a paragraph vs a numbered list, how images should be used, and many other nuances of effective technical writing.

    • I presented this guide across multiple meetings, created cheat-sheet resources, and audited work to ensure it was being followed.

  • With this standard set, I reviewed website traffic and support case statistics to identify the highest priority articles.

    • I then personally updated this set of articles.

    • I became proficient with Adobe Photoshop, and regularly met with the Instructional Design team to improve the helpfulness of screenshots and other media within support articles.

  • I simultaneously met with Product Operations and Product Marketing teams to understand their release schedules.

  • I collaborated with these groups to define an SLA that enables my team to publish accompanying support articles whenever a new feature is released.

    • I also worked with the Localization team to guarantee that localized versions are available.

Challenges / Results

  • The primary challenge of this project was the volume of existing articles at the outset. There were nearly 300 separate support articles when the project began, and it quickly became impractical to update them all at once. I instead set up a system of prioritization that allowed the most critical articles to be updated quickly.

  • The project was ultimately successful.

    • The frequency at which website visitors needed to contact a support agent fell by 40%.

    • Support leadership was able to reassign agents who had needed to spend a significant amount of their time updating outdated content. Internal requests for article updates fell dramatically.

Example articles