Structure a help center around the job the customer is trying to finish, not around your product's internal names. In Intercom, that means collections a customer would pick unprompted, article titles that match search queries, and a weekly habit of turning reopens and DSAT remarks into new or updated articles.
Examples of help centers that do this well: best help center examples. Documentation types: types of support team documentation.
Help-center gaps show up first as repeats and negative ratings, not as a traffic chart. Supportman routes Terrible Intercom ratings to Slack so you can see which missing article the customer hit before you wait on a monthly CSAT dip.
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Jobs, not product names
Customers search “cancel my workspace,” “export contacts,” “why was I charged.” They do not search your Jira epic name. If a collection is called “Platform” or “V2 billing module,” they bounce to Intercom.
| Internal name | Customer job | Collection / title to use |
|---|---|---|
| Seat management | Add or remove people who can log in | Team access / “Add or remove teammates” |
| Entitlements | What their plan includes | Plans and billing / “What is included in each plan” |
| Data pipeline | Get a CSV out | Exports / “Export contacts or conversations” |
| Fin / Resolution bot | Talk to a person | Getting help / “How to reach a human” |
Cap top-level collections at about seven. More than that and Messenger search plus the collection list both fail. Nest one level of articles under each collection, not a tree of trees.
Collections and article titles
- Title the article as the query: “How to export contacts,” not “Exports.”
- First sentence is the answer. Steps come next. Fin and humans both quote the opening.
- One job per article. A 3,000-word “Billing overview” that covers invoices, seats, and cancellation is four articles wearing a trench coat.
- Link sibling jobs at the bottom (“Need to cancel instead?”). That is cheaper than stuffing three jobs into one page.
Intercom Articles are what Fin cites. A vague title produces a vague Fin answer, which then becomes a human ticket. QA Fin against the article it should have used: how to QA Intercom Fin.
What belongs in an article
- The outcome in one sentence.
- Who it applies to (plan, role, region) if the steps differ.
- Numbered steps with the UI labels the customer actually sees.
- What success looks like (“You should see the CSV download start”).
- The exception (“If the export is greyed out, you are not an admin”).
Screenshots go stale. Prefer UI labels in bold over a gallery. If you screenshot, date it in alt text and replace it when the path changes.
Keep internal-only policy in an internal source, not in the public help center. Public articles that say “ask support” for a step you could document are how FCR falls. See first contact resolution.
Weekly loop from the inbox
The IA is wrong when the same question hits Intercom twice. Use the Friday review:
- Top reopen intents and DSAT remarks that mention “I couldn't find” or paste a help URL.
- Search queries in Intercom with no click or an immediate conversation.
- Fin answers that humans had to undo.
Each week, ship one of: a new article, a rewritten title, a split of a bloated page, or a redirect from an old slug. That is the whole program. A quarterly “help center redesign” is how the IA rots between projects.
Put help-center owners next to CSAT, not next to marketing content. The inbox is the editorial calendar. Weekly report template.
Frequently asked questions
How should a help center be structured?
Group articles into a small set of collections named for customer jobs, one job per article, titles that match search queries, and an answer in the first sentence. Rebuild from inbox repeats, not from an org chart.
How many help center categories should I have?
About five to seven top-level collections. If you need more, your names are still internal. Split articles before you add another collection.
Should help center articles be long or short?
Short enough to finish one job. If a reader has to skip a billing section to reach cancellation, split the page.
How do I know the help center structure is working?
Contact rate on how-to intents falls, Fin cites the right article, and reopen/DSAT comments stop mentioning missing docs. Pageviews alone are not the test.