"Helpjuice statistics show that it saved us the expense of more than 1.5 FTE during the length of our project, effectively increasing our support staff by 50% - Don Combs, Project Director"
Overall, our knowledge base is to ensure that our clients can effectively, and simply find rental housing without the software putting up roadblocks.. HousingLink services are web-based and our customers (i.e. rental housing searchers, landlords, researchers, etc.) seek out our services during off hours. We provide officer hour phone support, but as a nonprofit, we don’t have the revenue to support, 24/7 phone support.
As mentioned, we had a static web page for a glossary of terms and a limited phone support line. Other software solutions we investigated included ZenDesk, Freshdesk, and HelpScout.
We chose Helpjuice over other options because it was user-friendly, simple to use, and could easily be integrated into our existing processes and suite of applications.
Helpjuice is perfect! We can integrate it to the degree we want with our various sites. The backend is well-organized and easy to use and the available metrics are extensive. Swifty provides a nice front-and-center integration where needed. Also, Helpjuice tech support assisted us in getting our site up and running, making startup almost invisible. As a result, we were able to just login and go.
We have several features we like. The various page structures/functions such as decision-tree and according features that give us options for how to organize the help pages. The site is also easy to tag and organize. The available metrics are also useful in understanding how our clients are engaging with the support and what additional support topics we can develop in the future.
Until Helpjuice, our rental housing search service had a static customer help page that only included a glossary of terms. We were in the midst of planning for significant changes to this service and identified that our customers would need something more comprehensive and dynamic and we would need a better avenue to track issues within the service.
At a similar time, HousingLink was awarded a MN CARES act project that included the registration and application software, data management and reporting, and technical support. The project sponsor estimated more than 100,000 software users who would be in search of housing payment assistance. With this influx of users, we knew we needed a tool that would provide 24x7 support. We also knew that the software would change frequently throughout the project and we needed a very adaptable support software that would allow us to notify users of changes.
Over the course of the MN CARES project, August 2020 to February 2021, HousingLink had a dedicated support staff of 3 full-time persons, who handled about 2000 calls directed to them from United Way 211, as well as direct support calls from 83 agencies contracted to distribute the assistance. Helpjuice was a critical addition to this support, being used to inform and train applicants and agencies of changes to the software that were ongoing during the project.
Through the course of the project, there were just under 80,000 article views in Helpjuice, and more than 7,500 searches indicated as resolving an inquiry. In addition to handling over 3 times the number of inquiries of the support staff, Helpjuice statistics show that it saved us the expense of more than 1.5 FTE during the length of our project, effectively increasing our support staff by 50%, and providing 24x7 coverage.
