hubspot.com Blog – Service

26 Jun 2025, 11:30 am

The 16 Best Totally Free Online Survey Makers, Tools & Services 

Surveys are one of the best ways to gather customer feedback. But I can tell you from experience that crafting a survey from scratch can be a pain. That’s why I set out to find the best free survey maker by testing 16 feature-rich, zero-cost options.

With the right free survey tool, you can produce high-quality surveys with beautiful formatting and a rich variety of question types. Read on to discover my top picks for easy-to-use, free survey makers that generate actionable insights for your brand.

Table of Contents

• Best Free Online Survey Tools
• What makes a good survey maker?
• How I Chose the Best Free Survey Tools
• Best Survey Services

What makes a good survey maker?

In my opinion, there’s no such thing as the perfect survey tool. It comes down to personal preference, goals, and how you want it to integrate with your workflows. When I needed to create a sign-up form for my band’s street team, I turned to Google Forms because I only needed to collect email addresses and the answers to a few basic questions. It made sense since I already used Gmail for the business.

A good survey maker is one that meets your needs. So, check out this article, take a couple of tools for a spin, and you’ll find the best free survey maker for your team in no time.

How I Chose the Best Free Survey Tools

I evaluated this collection of free survey tools based on various criteria and features. Given my background as a former HubSpot support rep, I have high expectations for free software. Any free survey tool that I consider “the best” needs to be intuitive, attractive, and not lacking in any features like question types or templates.

Free Plan Features

If a tool says it’s free, I expect it to remain that way. The last thing I want is a “free” survey tool that asks me to upgrade to publish my survey.

The free survey makers on my list are free through and through, so don’t worry about hidden charges or crucial features locked behind paywalls.

Pro tip: Be thorough when evaluating the limitations of free plans. You might see a platform offering unlimited survey questions, but I’ve seen some sneaky limitations on exports, responses, and integrations. Be sure to verify all the features you need before committing.

UX and Ease of Use

The last thing I want to deal with is a glitchy interface that’s a pain to deal with. More importantly, I don’t want it to be a royal pain for clients or research participants to use. Getting the best data relies heavily on making it easy for respondents to respond. With that in mind, I focused on questions like:

• Is this tool easy for me to use as a researcher and survey creator?
• Is it easy for respondents to fill out the survey?
• Does it load quickly and reliably?
• Can people access the link and use it easily without jumping through hoops?

Pro tip: Remember to test your tool’s UX from the customer’s perspective. Fill out some sample surveys to ensure that it is easy for respondents to use and free of frustrations.

Tool Design

I value software's aesthetics. If a free survey maker looks and feels pleasant, I’m more likely to use it and get value from it. In today’s software landscape, there is no excuse for ugly or poorly designed tools. The free survey makers on this list look as good as they function.

Pro tip: Choose a tool that lets you customize the colors and fonts of your surveys to match your brand’s style. This small touch makes your surveys feel clean and professional.

Available Templates

In my opinion, pre-made templates are an essential feature of a good survey design tool. They allow me to get started quickly and customize an already field-tested template instead of worrying about building a survey from scratch.

Pro tip: A Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey is essential for measuring customer satisfaction and loyalty, and I expect any free survey maker to include an NPS template out of the box.

AI Survey Creation

Every software on the market is hopping on the AI hype train in one way or another. Free survey makers are no exception, but I don’t think it’s hype. AI can be super helpful in brainstorming survey questions that support your goals.

Not every free survey maker I included on this list has AI survey creation features, but some do, and I think it’s a valuable feature that can save time and help you uncover new questions and perspectives that you may not have thought to explore otherwise.

Pro tip: Use AI to generate intelligent follow-up questions based on initial responses.

Question Types and Logic

Free survey makers should allow multiple question types, such as:

• Multiple choice
• Yes/no
• Open-ended
• Rating scale
• Likert scale

And much more.

Free survey makers that allow a variety of questions make it easier to get the data you want by asking the right questions.

In addition, I love when free tools include skip logic and branching so you can intelligently send respondents to different survey questions based on their responses.

1. HubSpot Free Online Form Builder

• Best for: Conversions
• Number of Survey/Form Questions: Unlimited
• Number of Responses Allowed: Unlimited Responses (up to a million CRM contacts allowed)

Features and Compatibilities

HubSpot’s Form Builder is available as part of its free CRM. With this tool, you can create surveys that automatically transfer customer data directly into your CRM.

You can customize form questions using the drag-and-drop editor and choose from over a dozen question types. After the form is submitted, the survey can trigger notification emails that either follow up with customers or alert your team to new leads. You can either integrate the form into your site or snag a link to send to your audience.

HubSpot’s free form builder also provides:

• Analytics to help you learn more about how your audience is using your forms.
• The ability to keep individual form data separate.
• Customizable CTAs.
• Simple editor.
• Direct integrations with Salesforce and HubSpot CRM tools.
• Multiple template formats that you can quickly customize.

What I Like

I love the versatility of HubSpot’s form builder and the fact that you can use it for a variety of goals that include:

• Newsletter sign-ups.
• Event registrations.
• Gated content downloads.
• Contact us submissions.

The other huge highlight for me is that you get access to many robust features without upgrading to the paid plans. If you decide to use the marketing hub, you can get some additional personalization features and automation. However, the platform on its own is enough for most survey needs.

Paid Plans

Though HubSpot’s Free Form Builder is already powerful, more advanced versions that include additional customization options and automation are available through HubSpot’s paid Marketing Hub plans. Keep in mind that all paid Marketing Hub plans have the same advanced survey features.

Pricing:

• Marketing Hub Starter — $15 per user/month.
• Marketing Hub Professional — $800/month (includes three seats).
• Marketing Hub Enterprise — $3,600/month (includes five seats).

2. SurveyMonkey

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• Best for: Simple surveys
• Number of Survey/Form Questions: 10
• Number of Responses Allowed: 25

Features and Compatibilities

SurveyMonkey is a good option for smaller businesses with fewer clients, as the free version only allows each survey to include 10 questions and collect 25 responses. I found it simple and intuitive to create surveys using this tool, and I liked how I could quickly share them via link or embed them into my website with an easy-to-access embed code.

Despite the limitations on the number of questions and responses, SurveyMonkey allows your team to create unlimited surveys.

SurveyMonkey features a library of hundreds of high-quality templates, including NPS surveys, customer service feedback surveys, employee engagement surveys, and more.

Having used SurveyMonkey many times, I can personally attest to its easy-to-use interface and intuitive workflows. In addition, the platform’s widespread recognition makes it a good choice for building trust with respondents unfamiliar with your organization.

What I Like

SurveyMonkey’s Genius AI is really cool.

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It helps you build professional surveys in minutes. All you have to do is describe the goal of your survey and the type of feedback you desire, and SurveyMonkey’s AI will generate a unique survey explicitly crafted to your needs. Here’s an example of a prompt you might enter:

I want to get customer feedback and a testimonial based on their experience with our company. First, we’ll include some open-ended high-level questions about the experience. Then, if they say “Yes” to a question about being willing to provide a review, we’ll provide a series of prompts they can use to write one and links where they can post the review. If they say no, we’ll thank them for their time.

I really liked the AI feature — even though it didn’t quite structure the logic the way I would have, it was easy to dive in and adjust it. (Since I’m still on a free trial, I had access to conditional logic. However, that’s a feature not typically included in the always-free “Basic” plan.) I also love that SurveyMonkey AI features sentiment analysis, which instantly analyzes the overall sentiment of feedback from your customers.

Paid Plans

In addition to its free basic plan, SurveyMonkey offers various paid plans for individuals and teams. Individual plans offer unlimited questions per survey, increased survey responses, data exports, customization, and more.

Team plans offer similar features as the Individual plans but with added collaboration features like survey sharing with controlled access, shared asset libraries, and integration with collaboration apps like Slack.

Pricing:

Individual Plans

• Advantage — $39/month
• Standard — $99/month
• Premier — $139/month

Team Plans

• Team Advantage — $30 per user/month (includes three users).
• Team Premier — $92 per user/month (includes three users).
• Enterprise — Custom pricing.

3. ProProfs Survey Maker

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• Best for: Startups and microbusinesses
• Number of Survey/Form Questions: Unspecified
• Number of Responses Allowed: 50/month

Features and Compatibilities

ProProfs Survey Maker offers a free plan that lets you create unlimited surveys. However, the catch is that you are capped at 50 monthly responses. If you have a small business and are only looking to run some small surveys here and there, these limitations shouldn’t be an issue.

ProProfs comes with over 100 ready-to-use templates and supports every question type you could ever need (multiple-choice, Likert scale, open-ended, etc.). In addition, ProProfs has advanced logic and branching features to dynamically serve different questions based on respondents’ previous answers.

To top it all off, ProProfs integrates with popular apps and offers advanced reporting features at the free tier.

Here’s a round-up of the features you have access to with ProProfs’ free plan:

• 100+ ready-to-use templates.
• 20+ question types, including ratings and buttons.
• Sidebar forms.
• Branching and skip logic.
• Multiple share options.
• Integrations.
• Email notifications.
• Reporting and analytics.

What I Like

I love that ProProfs’ free plan has virtually every feature found in premium plans. The catch is that you only have 50 responses. If you are running small surveys, then that’s perfect. Otherwise, you’ll likely need to upgrade at some point in the future.

However, if you’re looking for an always-free plan with higher/no limits, then I suggest continuing your search.

Paid Plans

To get more than 50 responses, you’ll need to sign up for one of ProProfs’ paid plans. I like that every ProProfs plan is all-inclusive, and you don’t need to pay extra for multiple users. Each plan features unlimited responses.

Pricing:

• Essentials — $19.99/month
• Business — $49.99/month
• Enterprise — $149.99/month

4. Jotform Survey Maker

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• Best for: Accessibility and conditional logic functionality, freelancer payments, and document signings.
• Number of Forms: 5
• Number of Survey/Form Questions: 100
• Number of Responses Allowed: 100/month

Features and Compatibilities

While I hadn’t personally used the backend of JotForm Survey Maker before writing this, I’ve certainly taken surveys created with JotForm, and the experience has been pleasant overall.

The free survey maker plan is reasonably robust and allows you to easily create, distribute, and analyze your surveys. You can drag and drop questions into your desired format, and the platform supports a wide range of question types, including multiple-choice, drop-down, slider, open-ended, and more.

Jotform surveys are customizable with branding elements such as logos and colors (at paid tiers) and include conditional logic and form calculations, meaning every survey can be unique to the person taking it.

It also provides robust data analysis tools that present results in real-time with graphs and dashboards. The integration and template libraries are extensive, and powerful automation features are available.

What I Like

When I tried Jotform, I loved that it showed me some of the most popular templates right off the bat and allowed me to search for others or start from scratch.

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My favorite two features of the free plan are perfect for freelancers and small businesses starting out who need a contracting and payment solution:

1. You can accept up to 10 payment submissions using common payment processors like Stripe, Square, and PayPal.
2. You can have up to 10 signed documents each month.

However, I was blown away by how simple it was to create a form, customize the design and layout, and share it. This will be at the top of my list the next time I look for a new free survey maker.

Lastly, I liked that because JotForm is a subscription, you can upgrade or downgrade whenever you like. If you need more forms or responses, you can increase your subscription to handle and adjust the surge afterward.

Paid Plans

The free starter plan offers all features, excluding HIPAA-friendly surveys.

Consider a paid plan if you need to collect more responses or send out more surveys. Jotform offers a 50% discount for educational organizations and nonprofits, and annual plans can also save you up to 20%.

Pricing:

• Bronze — $34/month
• Silver — $39/month
• Gold — $99/month
• Enterprise — Custom pricing

5. Delighted

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• Best for: Large companies
• Number of Responses Allowed: 25/month
• Number of Surveys & Projects: One project with unlimited surveys

Features and Compatibilities

Delighted is an easy-to-use yet surprisingly robust survey solution. I tested out the free survey maker and was very impressed with the clean UI and intuitive workflow. I created an NPS survey with the click of a button and deployed it via link within seconds.

Delighted is a Qualtrics company, which means that as your company grows, you can migrate seamlessly to a full-stack enterprise experience management solution.

The free plan allows you to:

• Use any templates.
• Customize your branding.
• Deliver the survey on a platform of your choice.
• Remind your audience to take the survey.
• Use conditional logic.
• Get AI recommendations for questions — and more.

What I Like

I liked the AI-powered question recommendation engine, which analyzes the previous questions in your survey and offers follow-up options. Just for fun, I made a little survey about pizza, and here are some of the AI-recommended questions it suggested to me:

Delighted is an attractive and easy-to-use free survey maker. Unfortunately, with a cap of 25 survey responses per month, it is unlikely to be a long-term solution if you expect to grow your survey responses. If I were surveying a one-off project, I would consider Delighted for its ease of use and attractive, powerful surveys.

Paid Plans

Delighted offers several paid plans with additional features and higher response limits. In my opinion, even at the paid tiers, Delighted is still a bit stingy with their response limits. For example, the Starter plan is limited to 50, a limit that other options on this list offer for free.

The Premium plan is capped at 500 responses per month, which seems low for enterprises looking to survey a large customer base. Delighted’s lack of generosity in limiting responses, however, is counterbalanced by the quality of its software.

Pricing:

• Starter — $17/month
• Growth — $35/month
• Advanced — $134/month
• Premium — $224/month

6. Survicate

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• Best for: Short-term surveys
• Number of Survey/Form Questions: Unlimited
• Number of Responses Allowed: 25/month; cumulative 300 max responses per survey
• Number of Surveys Allowed: 1 active survey at a time

Features and Compatibilities

Survicate offers a feature-rich free survey maker with AI functionality and hundreds of templates, including ones for common survey types like NPS, Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), and Customer Effort Score (CES).

While Survicate allows you to create many types of advanced surveys in the free tier, you are limited to 25 responses per month, and more importantly, you can only have one survey active at a time. In addition, Survicate will only retain your data for one month at the free tier.

Survicate’s free plan will suit you well if you want to create a one-and-done survey. However, if you want an ongoing solution to create multiple surveys and collect many responses, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid tier or look elsewhere.

What I Like

I like that Survicate lets you run feedback surveys directly within your mobile app. You can trigger surveys to appear on specific screens, at certain points of the user journey, or based on traits like device type and OS.

Of course, I had to check out Survicate’s AI, and it performed well.

I took their prompt for “Overall Customer Satisfaction”:

Generate a survey centered on assessing the general satisfaction levels of our customers, touching on product quality, customer service interactions, and overall brand perception.

And then, I added the same text used on another free survey maker with AI capabilities:

I want to get customer feedback and a testimonial based on their experience with our company. First, we’ll include some open-ended high-level questions about the experience. Then, if they say “Yes” to a question about being willing to provide a review, we’ll provide a series of prompts they can use to write one and links where they can post the review. If they say no, we’ll thank them for their time.

I was pleased with the types of questions their AI solution generated. Although I’d probably adjust some of the questions based on personal preferences, I love that you don’t have to create everything from scratch.

Overall, I was impressed with Survicate’s interface and loved how easy it was to preview my surveys from the audience’s perspective.

Paid Plans

Survicate’s free plan will help you create a high-quality survey with ease. However, if you want multiple surveys running at once or need more than 25 responses per month, you’ll have to pony up some cash.

Pricing:

• Growth — $49/month
• Starter — $79/month
• Volume — from $299/month
• Pro — from $299/month
• Enterprise — from $499/month

7. SurveySparrow

• Best for: Beautifully designed surveys
• Number of Survey/Form Questions: 10 per survey
• Number of Responses Allowed: 50/month
• Number of Surveys Allowed: 3 in free plan

Features and Compatibilities

SurveySparrow’s free plan allows you to create up to three active surveys, each containing up to 10 questions with a maximum of 50 monthly responses. SurveySparrow surveys let you pick from over 30 question types, including more unique options like file upload questions.

SurveySparrow claims to offer “conversational surveys,” which, to be honest, I don’t understand. It has all the competitive features you expect, like AI-assisted survey generation and analytics, but the conversational survey claim seems like marketing mumbo jumbo to me.

That said, I think what sets SurveySparrow apart is its emphasis on creating beautiful-looking surveys. Here’s a shot of its survey editor, which was easy to use and reminded me of the design assets available on Canva.

What I Like

I like that SurveySparrow’s templates are fun and design-oriented. Many other free survey tools let you create surveys quickly, but they are often bland-looking and text-based. SurveySparrow comes loaded with templates that are colorful and engaging, like so:

Paid Plans

In addition to its free basic plan, SurveySparrow offers a variety of paid plans tailored for individuals and teams. Individual plans provide features such as unlimited questions per survey, increased survey responses, and advanced reporting tools.

Team plans include all the features of the Individual plans while adding collaboration capabilities. Teams can easily share surveys, control editing permissions, and integrate with other collaboration applications.

Pricing:

Individual Plans

• Basic — $19/month
• Starter — $30/month

Team Plans

• Business — $60/month for three users
• Professional — $249/month for five users
• Enterprise — Custom pricing

8. forms.app

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• Best for: Intuitive surveys & closed feedback loop.
• Number of Survey/Form Questions: 50
• Number of Responses Allowed: 1,000
• Number of Surveys Allowed: 25

Features and Compatibilities

forms.app is an all-around survey tool that allows you to quickly create surveys, forms, and questionnaires within an intuitive interface. You can customize your surveys to your brand style by changing the fonts and colors, and you can even access custom CSS for advanced customization.

Along with some features that make your survey more intuitive — such as conditional questions, recall answers, and personalized email notifications — forms.app also offers a closed-loop feedback feature, so you can contact people directly within the app about their feedback and get additional details or simply let them know you appreciate their input.

forms.app offers various templates, such as market research surveys, marketing surveys, feedback surveys, CSAT surveys, and CES surveys. You can collect data for your business, analyze the responses with advanced statistics, and gain further insights with AI.

Additionally, forms.app provides numerous native integrations with popular tools such as Google Analytics, Mailchimp, and Slack, as well as third-party integrations through Zapier to optimize your workflow.

The free plan allows you to:

• Use AI to create surveys.
• Choose from 5,000 ready-made templates.
• Connect with your business tools.
• Get AI insights.
• Enable saving and continuing later for long surveys.
• Embed your form as a pop-up.
• Create forms on mobile.

What I Like

I liked forms.app’s efficiency in terms of price and performance the most. You can access almost all advanced features on the free plan. You can use AI to create better surveys, personalize your questions, send email notifications, and share or embed your survey in different ways.

It’s a nifty tool for most types of surveys, and it has some nice surprises, such as save and continue later (it’s a lifesaver for long surveys), multi-page surveys, question groups, a custom domain, and messaging.

I especially like the messaging feature, which lets you contact specific respondents to discuss their feedback.

Paid Plans

forms.app has a very generous free plan compared to most options on this list. With limits like 25 forms and 1,000 responses per month, you could easily stick with forms.app’s free plan forever if you had to. However, forms.app does offer upgraded packages that unlock higher response thresholds and additional features.

Pricing:

• Basic — $15/month
• Pro — $25/month
• Premium — $59/month

9. QuestionPro

• Best for: Small studies requiring surveys with somewhat advanced features.
• Number of Survey/Form Questions: 10
• Number of Responses Allowed: 200 per survey
• Number of Users/Projects Allowed: 1

Features and Compatibilities

QuestionPro is known for its robustness. The platform offers various features, from different question types to advanced logic and integrations. Its free license, Essentials, provides access to several advanced features, allowing you to conduct highly professional studies without spending a dime.

Distribution and customization options are significant strengths. For distribution, you can reach your target audience via email, live survey URLs, social media, and even access their pool of survey respondents.

The free plan allows you to use fairly advanced design features without extra cost. You can customize any pre-designed themes with your brand’s colors, insert your logo, use images, audio, and video, and even personalize the thank-you page, among other functionalities.

What I Like

My favorite part about QuestionPro is that its free license includes features that could be considered advanced, such as 30 question types, integration with Google Sheets, and branching logic, which are often paid options on similar platforms.

Additionally, its extensive template gallery is a strong point. They’ve also started experimenting with AI, allowing you to create surveys using their QxBot. This is particularly helpful if you find it challenging to formulate questions or structure a questionnaire.

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Their paid plans offer functionalities that I highly recommend. For instance, the customization options are excellent, enabling you to align surveys closely with your brand. If you’re a more advanced user, you can utilize their CSS editor to take personalization to the next level.

All these features make this platform robust and highly adaptable to any project.

Paid Plans

QuestionPro offers various paid plans to unlock its full potential and eliminate many limitations of the free license. With the Essentials license, you can access multiple question types, logic, and integrations. Upgrading to higher-tier plans like the Advanced License or Team Edition provides additional features such as advanced logic, enhanced customization options, multi-user collaboration, and advanced integrations with platforms like HubSpot.

Pricing:

• Advanced — $99 per user/month
• Team — $83 per user/month
• Research Suite — Custom pricing

10. Sogolytics

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• Best for: In-depth surveys for individuals, small teams, and enterprises.
• Number of Survey/Form Questions: Unlimited
• Number of Responses Allowed: 100 per survey/year with a maximum of 200 responses/year.
• Number of Surveys Allowed: Unlimited

Features and Compatibilities

Sogolytics is a comprehensive survey platform with a competitive free plan. I like that it features unlimited surveys and questions. However, the main limitation is that you get 100 responses per survey, with a cap of 200 responses total per year.

Sogolytics has expected features like AI survey creation, multi-lingual support, and advanced reporting tools. AI survey creation is even available at the free tier — a significant advantage for this free survey maker.

Sogolytics is a comprehensive survey platform with use cases ranging from customer service to market research and legal/compliance.

What I Like

I love that their free trial mentions that it outperforms Google Forms. I wouldn’t have thought to compare the two, but as I tested the platform, I realized that it felt like Google Forms’ more beautiful step-sister.

The UX for the audience is great, too. While it appears to have a similar overall layout as Google Forms, it’s more user-friendly, less clunky, and more modern.

Because I love testing AI features, I dove into creating AI-assisted surveys with Sogolytics. Note that the free plan limits usage to 10 AI prompts per day.

I took their prompt for “Overall Customer Satisfaction”:

Generate a survey to evaluate satisfaction with support services offered to small businesses, including financial advising, marketing support, and regulatory guidance.

Then I added the same text I used for the other free survey makers with AI capabilities:

I want to get customer feedback and a testimonial based on their experience with our company. First, we’ll include some open-ended, high-level questions about the experience. If they say “Yes” to a question about being willing to provide a review, we’ll provide a series of prompts they can use to write one and links where they can post the review. If they say no, we’ll thank them for their time.

While logic isn’t a feature in the free plan, Sogolytics AI created the structure that would best support my needs for the testimonial request feature, with three pages to support the conditional logic.

Paid Plans

Beyond the extensive feature set of the free plan, Sogolytics paid plans offer access to several cutting-edge features, including advanced logic and design flows, in-depth analytics and integrations, and even complete customer and employee experience management solutions.

Pricing:

• Plus — $25/month
• Pro — $66/month
• Premium — $99/month
• Enterprise — Custom pricing

11. Typeform

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• Best for: Engaging surveys with a design-forward look and feel.
• Number of Survey/Form Questions: 10
• Number of Responses Allowed: 10/month

Features and Compatibilities

I love Typeform surveys. As a respondent, I’ve found Typeform surveys to be a joy to fill out. They are beautiful and intuitive, and something about clicking the buttons is satisfying and pleasant.

So, what is Typeform? It’s a free survey maker that lets you customize your survey’s design to take the aesthetic up a notch, leading to an incredible customer experience with custom surveys.

Some features on their free plan include:

• Flexible design with templates.
• Logic that includes branching, calculations, scores, and variables.
• Hidden fields.
• AI survey creation
• Custom endings (which can be great for quizzes).
• Follow-up messages and the ability to download results.
• The ability to import surveys from Google Forms.

There are also over 70 integrations, including Dropbox, Google Sheets, Square, Notion, and Slack. Some integrations are only available with a paid subscription, but you can check this inside the free account by clicking “Connect” to any survey you create.

Better yet, the Typeform and HubSpot integration can help you unlock the full potential of your surveys by streamlining your data collection and customer relationships.

What I Like

My favorite thing about Typeform is how easy and intuitive it is to create beautiful-looking surveys. By clicking the “design” button in the survey editor, I could choose from various included themes to make my surveys look professional and well-thought-out.

Typeform also allows you to create and save a brand kit theme so that you can have a consistent design across all of your surveys that matches your brand’s style. Unfortunately, this feature is only available for paid tiers.

Using Typeform, I created an NPS survey with a single click of a button, and it looks great.

Overall, I found Typeform a sleek, modern survey solution that made it easy to create attractive surveys that respondents will want to fill out. Their AI survey creation tool is powerful, and their survey editor is robust yet not overwhelming.

Unfortunately, Typeform’s free plan only allows 10 responses, so you’ll likely need to upgrade to get the most out of the tool. However, if I only needed to create a one-off survey with limited respondents, Typeform would be one of my first choices.

Paid Plans

In addition to everything included in the free plan, Typeform’s paid plans include increased monthly response allowances, unlimited questions per survey, access to dropoff rates, video questions and answers, and more. They offer a Basic plan for individuals and various team plans for larger businesses and marketing teams.

Pricing:

• Basic — $25/month
• Plus — $50/month
• Business — $83/month
• Growth Essentials — $166/month
• Growth Pro — $291/month
• Enterprise — Custom pricing

12. SurveyPlanet

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• Best for: Creating unlimited surveys with a user-friendly interface.
• Number of Survey/Form Questions: Unlimited
• Number of Responses Allowed: Unlimited
• Number of Surveys Allowed: Unlimited

Features and Compatibilities

SurveyPlanet offers a free survey maker without limitations. Throughout my testing of survey tools, I typically found that free plans imposed some restrictions on the number of responses or surveys that make upgrading necessary for growth. SurveyPlanet separates itself from the pack with unlimited surveys and responses at the free tier. If I needed to produce many basic surveys, SurveyPlanet would be my top choice.

That being said, SurveyPlanet does hide some more advanced features behind a paywall. For example, AI-assisted survey generation is only available in the Pro tier, a feature available in other free survey makers on this list. In my opinion, AI survey creation is nice to have but not crucial. If your priority is crafting many free surveys without limitations, I’d say it’s a worthwhile tradeoff.

Here are some of the features available at the free tier:

• Welcome and success messages.
• Two survey player types.
• Anonymous surveys.
• Single-click survey duplication.
• Multiple share options.
• Over 90 pre-written surveys.
• Support for over 30 languages.

What I Like

SurveyPlanet has a no-nonsense interface. It’s clean, minimal, and easy to use. Using SurveyPlanet, I was able to craft a survey with just a few clicks, and previewing it from the audience perspective was a breeze:

My favorite thing about SurveyPlanet is its value. It’s free to create unlimited surveys without limits on how many responses you can collect. That’s something I can’t say about most free survey makers on this list. Of course, this comes as a tradeoff with certain more advanced features restricted to paid tiers, but if you only have basic survey needs, SurveyPlanet is a no-brainer.

Paid Plans

SurveyPlanet offers two paid tiers that unlock key features missing from the free plan — notably AI survey creation, question branching, and custom themes.

Pricing:

• Pro — $20/month
• Enterprise — $350/year

13. Usersnap

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• Best for: Visual feedback, bug tracking, and website feedback surveys.
• Number of Survey/Form Questions: Unlimited
• Number of Responses Allowed: 20 responses with the free trial

Features and Compatibilities

Usersnap is a platform designed to collect, organize, and manage user feedback. While other traditional survey platforms focus primarily on creating surveys to gather user opinions and feedback, Usersnap has a more specific use case, mainly allowing users to submit highly contextual, visual feedback directly within applications.

For example, Usersnap allows customers to report issues with annotated screenshots, providing support and development teams with much-needed context to squash bugs. Accordingly, Usersnap is better suited to product development and bug tracking than NPS and other customer satisfaction surveys.

The platform also seamlessly integrates with various project management tools, ensuring a smooth workflow for development teams using Jira or Azure DevOps.

Paid Plans

Usersnap offers a free trial with a limit of 20 responses. After that, you’ll have to pay up! Paid tiers include various features, such as micro surveys, pop-ups, feedback widgets, browser extensions, and smart logic-based surveys.

Pricing:

• Starter — $39/month
• Growth — $89/month
• Professional — $159/month
• Premium — $319/month

14. Google Forms

• Best for: Creating unlimited simple surveys with seamless integration into the Google ecosystem.
• Number of Survey/Form Questions: Unlimited
• Number of Responses Allowed: Unlimited
• Number of Surveys: Unlimited

Features and Compatibilities

Google Forms is an entirely free survey-building application that enables users to create unlimited surveys, quizzes, and forms within a familiar, intuitive interface.

With Google Forms, it’s easy to export data as it automatically syncs with Google Sheets.

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With the ability to incorporate free skip logic, add photos and videos, and include collaborators, Google Forms is a sure pick for smaller businesses and individuals who want a complete range of features within a simple interface.

What I Like

Google Forms is one of my favorite free survey platforms on this list. It is free with no limits and comes packed with advanced features, including AI survey creation using Google’s Gemini.

I used the AI-assisted survey generation feature to create a street team sign-up form for my band, and honestly, I was blown away.

I had created a similar form from scratch a few years ago (before AI survey creation was a thing), and the AI-generated version I received today was nearly identical and much faster to set up.

My only qualm with Google Forms is that the surveys you create will always look like Google Forms. This is not necessarily bad since Google is such a well-known and respected brand; respondents won’t be surprised to see a Google Form. However, if you want a more customizable, professional, and branded-looking survey, I suggest looking at other tools like HubSpot or Typeform.

Paid Plans

Technically, Google Forms doesn’t have a paid plan. However, while the entire Google ecosystem tends to be free for personal use (with an email address ending in @gmail.com), you’ll need to pay for a business account to unlock additional features, support, and a custom email domain.

15. Zoho Survey

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• Best for: Survey template options.
• Number of Survey/Form Questions: 10
• Number of Responses Allowed: 100/survey
• Number of Surveys Allowed: Unlimited, with up to 3 active at a time

Features and Compatibilities

Zoho’s free survey maker has everything you need to create effective surveys. While their free plan allows you to create unlimited surveys, each is capped at 10 questions and 100 responses. This is a pretty solid deal in the grand scheme of free survey tools I have researched. Zoho Survey is a good option for smaller businesses that need to create quick, short surveys without many extras. Some notable features include:

• In-mail surveys.
• Pop-up surveys.
• Embeddable surveys.
• Real-time responses.

In addition to native integration with Zoho platforms, Zoho Survey integrates with Google Sheets, Salesforce, and Zapier, making it easy to integrate into existing workflows.

Regarding features, I noticed that Zoho did not mention AI-assisted survey creation or any other AI features. I was surprised by this, given that everyone and their mother are offering AI features these days. That said, I don’t think it’s a deal breaker, and the modest pricing (I’ll get to that below) more than makes up for it.

What I Like

Although I had a bit of a tough time finding the survey template I wanted because there were so many to sort through, once I found one, it was easy to get started and edit the questions.

Once you like a survey (and a format), it’s easy to duplicate. Publishing your survey is simple, and distributing it is as easy as sharing a link.

While it’s not the most intuitive or beautiful option, I do like the simplicity of this free survey maker. It offers a good balance of features and limitations for individuals and small businesses looking to create multiple surveys.

Paid Plans

Paid versions of Zoho Survey offer many valuable features, including multilingual surveys, offline surveys, integrations, advanced reporting, and more. I’ve found Zoho an affordable option compared to other survey makers on this list — prices below.

Pricing:

• Basic — $9/month
• Plus — $35/month
• Pro — $49/month
• Enterprise — $109/month

16. Zonka Feedback

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• Best for: Omnichannel feedback management with customer support capabilities.
• Number of Survey/Form Questions: Unlimited
• Number of Responses Allowed: 50/month
• Number of Surveys Allowed: Unlimited

Features and Compatibilities

Zonka Feedback is a comprehensive survey and customer experience platform designed to create, distribute, and analyze surveys across multiple touchpoints. It features AI-powered survey creation and AI insights, automated workflows, and advanced user segmentation for survey targeting.

In the free version, you can measure NPS, CSAT, and CES metrics via microsurveys and web embeds like feedback buttons and pop-up surveys. You can also distribute your surveys across multiple channels like email, SMS, website, in-app SDKs, QR codes, kiosks, survey apps, and more in its paid plans.

What I Like

Zonka Feedback is a robust AI-powered CX management software that allows you to collect feedback across every touchpoint in the customer journey. With this tool, you can control how and when to send surveys, automate distribution, and get intelligent insights, all in a single platform.

One feature I like is the AI-driven response inbox, which combines survey response collection with customer support features in a centralized collaborative inbox. With the response inbox, you can quickly raise a support ticket based on customer feedback and realize valuable insights into the customer experience.

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Paid Plans

In addition to their free plan, Zonka Feedback has multiple paid tiers with advanced features like randomization, piping, offline/on-premise survey capabilities, survey distribution across numerous channels, integration with other apps, and complete CX management and automation.

Price:

• Starter — $49/month
• Professional — $99/month
• Growth — $199/month
• Enterprise — Custom pricing

Best Survey Services

As much as I love free survey-making software, outsourcing your survey operations to a market research company can save you much time and effort. If you have the budget, you can let experts handle everything from building, managing, and analyzing survey results. That way, you can focus on acting on the insights.

Survey services can be beneficial for:

• Marketers. Marketers can use insights from these survey services to fine-tune their marketing strategies by measuring how consumers respond to products, messaging, and campaigns.
• Researchers. Researchers can use survey services to gather targeted data for studies, reports, and client projects.

Survey companies offer brands various services, including mail surveys, online surveys, in-depth research, participant interviews, and detailed analytics reports. Let’s check out a few of the top survey service providers below.

Toluna

Best for: Midsize to enterprise-level businesses.

Toluna is a market research company offering an easy-to-use survey platform, focus groups, and in-person interviewing services. The company boasts a global panel of over 43M participants across 70 countries, ensuring a global audience ready to answer surveys and provide insights. Given its reach, it’s no surprise that Toluna counts Sony, Amazon, and Kellogg’s as clients.

Quest Mindshare

Best for: Midsize to enterprise-level businesses.

Like Toluna, Quest Mindshare offers everything from online surveys to focus groups. They provide over 1M panelists from over 20 industries in 30+ countries. Given its reach, Quest Mindshare is an excellent option for those running a global brand requiring deep insights. B2B research is their specialty, accounting for 65% of the company’s transaction volume. Notable clients include CBS, Chevron, and Comscore.

Askia

Best for: Midsize to enterprise-level businesses.

Market Research group Askia has the edge of being run by a team of self-described “geeks, researchers, product testers, statisticians, fanatical client support specialists, usability experts, and quantitative research enthusiasts.”

As a result, clients get to lean on Askia’s expertise and leverage its cutting-edge AI technology to automate gathering consumer insights. The app platform makes it easy to create a variety of questionnaires for the web, in-person, or by phone. These surveys can then be easily modified live without any downtime on this mobile-first platform.

Begin Using Free Online Survey Makers and Tools

In my experience, surveying customers is just one piece of building a feedback system that continually refines your customer experience efforts. Now that you have some tools to collect responses, you can gain valuable insights that drive customer satisfaction and boost your bottom line.

Editor's note: This article was originally published in February 2025 and has since been updated for comprehensiveness.

25 Jun 2025, 11:30 am

How to perfect the search function of your knowledge base 

Your company’s knowledge base is the informational lifeblood of customer self-service and internal efficiency. You could have hundreds of top-quality articles in your knowledge base, but if your knowledge base isn’t searchable? They might as well be invisible.

I’ve seen how knowledge base search functionality is the difference between a static, underutilized pile of help docs and an interactive self-service portal that meets customer needs and lightens the load on support teams.

In this post, I’ll break down seven best practices for creating a searchable knowledge base that delivers relevant, easy-to-find answers for your customers and your team.

1. Use keywords in your titles and page copy.

I like to say that optimizing your knowledge base for search is just like tuning up your website’s SEO.

When crafting an article in your knowledge base software, think about the keywords that best summarize its core topic. I like to consider the phrases your customers would use when searching for help on a specific subject, and intentionally weave them into the title and copy of your post.

Want an example? Just scroll up. In the intro to this post, I used phrases like “searchable knowledge base” and “knowledge base search.” That was no accident. Using consistent, descriptive keywords optimizes your help docs so they show up reliably when people search for those terms (and similar ones).

Pro tip: Add your primary keywords to the alt text of any images in your article. Search engines index that alt text, giving your content an extra search boost, even if users never see it (unless they inspect… see below).

2. Leverage long-tail keywords.

Long-tail keywords are specific phrases, often composed of multiple words or even entire sentences. They are searched less frequently than broad keywords but deliver better matches by aligning your knowledge base content with precisely what people are looking for.

Incorporate long-tail keywords in your content to ensure that the right articles surface at the right time.

Pro tip: Analyze your support tickets and chatbot conversations to discover long-tail keywords. Use these insights to identify the phrases customers use when seeking help on specific topics, and incorporate them into your content.

3. Improve the visibility of your search bar.

Don’t be shy — display your knowledge base search bar front and center. If your search bar is too small or tucked away in a corner, customers are likely to miss it and assume your knowledge base isn’t searchable.

Pro tip: Make your search bar big, bold, and inviting. I like how HubSpot’s search bar is prominently placed at the top of the page with a clear CTA: “Search the Knowledge Base.”

4. Optimize for mobile users.

Mobile devices account for over 60% of global web traffic. It’s safe to assume users will visit your knowledge base from their phones, and I know it’s critical to create a mobile-friendly experience for them.

If your knowledge base isn’t fully responsive and your search bar isn’t easy to tap on mobile, you risk heightened customer frustration, higher support ticket volume, and ultimately, lost revenue.

Pro tip: Test your knowledge base on your phone to ensure maximum compatibility. Curious about how your knowledge base search works on other mobile devices? You can preview multiple screen sizes and device types using your browser's developer tools.

5. Connect related pages with topic clusters.

A topic cluster is a group of related articles connected through internal links. Instead of relying solely on knowledge base search, users can navigate between related articles, provided they are connected via topic clusters.

For example, HubSpot’s Knowledge Base has dozens of articles on the “knowledge base” topic (meta, I know). Luckily, every article is linked together via a topic cluster for the term “knowledge base,” which you’ll find at the end of this post.

Here’s a screenshot in case you don’t make it that far. As you can see, there is a Topics tag with a clickable link that compiles every article on the subject.

I find that using topic clusters helps customers find what they need more quickly by enhancing the relevance of your search results.

Pro tip: For further improved internal linking, include a “related articles” section at the end of each post that displays 3-5 closely connected articles.

6. Format articles for skimmability.

Even if your knowledge base is perfectly optimized for search with keyword-rich articles and a big, bold search bar, poorly formatted posts can still drive customers away and toward your phone lines.

I can’t remember the last time I read something thoroughly online. Everyone skims these days. I search for what I want, click on a seemingly related article, and scan until I find the section or paragraph that answers my specific question. If you think about it, skimming is like the modern human brain’s search functionality, quickly parsing through content to find what matters.

Make your knowledge base articles skim-friendly by doing the following:

• Use a linked table of contents at the top so users can jump right to the section they care about.
• Break content into digestible paragraphs (the smaller the better).
• Clearly label sections with H2 and H3 subheadings.
• Bold important keywords and phrases to draw the eye.
• Use bullet points and lists to make step-by-step guides easier to follow.

The faster users can skim your help docs to find what they need, the less likely they are to call support or bug your poor AI chatbot (he’s been through enough).

Pro tip: I recommend asking a colleague to do a “skim test” before publishing. Give them a specific question and see if they can spot the answer quickly without reading every word.

7. Leverage AI-powered search.

Modern knowledge base platforms are evolving beyond traditional keyword-based search results. With AI-powered search, users can describe issues in natural language and receive accurate, contextually relevant results.

Tools like HubSpot’s AI-powered knowledge base can automatically analyze support ticket data to identify common search queries and gaps. You can use those insights to hunt for keywords and brainstorm new articles, or just let AI generate the content for you.

HubSpot’s Breeze Knowledge Base Agent lets users search for articles in their preferred language and receive accurate results every time, both on mobile and desktop.

Build a knowledge base that customers can use.

Creating a searchable knowledge base is more than just adding a search bar, although that is a crucial step. It takes thoughtful organization and planning so the right content is surfaced with every knowledge base search.

Ready to level up your self-service even more? Check out HubSpot’s Self-Service Customer Support Templates to get started with knowledge base articles, training video scripts, and chatbot response templates.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in September 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

18 Jun 2025, 11:30 am

18 KCS resources to bookmark ASAP 

When I worked in HubSpot Support, the real superstars weren’t just the reps who could crush fifty cases a day. The ones I admired most were the team members who built deep expertise and product knowledge, and that’s what knowledge-centered support (KCS) is all about.

Knowledge-centered support is a methodology focused on capturing, structuring, sharing, and improving the support/service team knowledge. In my experience, it leads to higher-performing reps and better customer experiences. When every customer interaction becomes an opportunity to learn and improve, there’s only one direction your support team can go: up and to the right.

In this post, I’ll explore knowledge-centered support, its benefits and challenges, and how to implement it within your organization.

In this article:

• Knowledge-Centered Service vs. Knowledge-Centered Support
• What is knowledge-centered service (KCS)?
• How Knowledge-Centered Service Works
• Benefits of KCS
• Challenges of KCS
• KCS in the AI Era
• KCS Training and Resources

Knowledge-Centered Service vs. Knowledge-Centered Support

Before we get down to business, I’ve got to define some terms. If you’re familiar with KCS or have been researching it, you may have noticed that the terms knowledge-centered support and knowledge-centered service are often used interchangeably.

I used knowledge-centered support in the intro above because that’s how I first encountered the methodology as a support rep at HubSpot. And until recently, that was the most common term. KCS originated in the support team context, after all.

As more organizations began applying KCS principles across other service arms, such as customer success, ITSM, and even product, the term evolved into “knowledge-centered service” to reflect its broader scope.

For the remainder of this article, I will refer to it as knowledge-centered service, or simply KCS.

Now that I've got that out of the way, let’s talk about what KCS is.

What is knowledge-centered service (KCS)?

Knowledge-centered service (KSC) is the process of capturing, maintaining, and integrating knowledge from service interactions to improve the effectiveness of customer-facing teams. In KCS, knowledge isn’t just the responsibility of a few subject-matter experts. It is owned by everyone, especially service team members who work directly with customers.

So what does that look like in practice?

Let’s say I solve a customer issue and discover a new use case or workaround. Under KCS, I’d capture that knowledge and contribute it to a shared knowledge base so the next rep (and the team as a whole) can benefit from it.

Here’s another way I’d sum it up:

• Knowledge-centered service reframes the responsibilities of customer-facing teams. Providing real-time support remains the top priority, but so does creating and maintaining documentation alongside it.
• KCS treats the knowledge and skills of service teams as valuable business assets. It focuses on keeping that knowledge up to date, improving it over time, and using it to improve customer support and help teams work better.

How Knowledge-Centered Service Works

So, how does KCS work in practice? It’s a straightforward process that involves capturing knowledge during a service interaction, structuring it so it's easy to find, and then reusing and improving it at the organizational level.

The original KCS framework breaks this process into two “loops” (Solve and Evolve), but I think it’s a bit too academic and jargon-heavy for my taste. You can learn more about the KCS double loop process here, but I’ve distilled it into five easy steps for this article.

1. Capture

As a support rep, when I encounter a new issue, learn a workaround, or discover a customer insight, I don’t just solve the case and move on. I jot down the knowledge I’ve uncovered, intending to contribute it to our knowledge base.

Pro tip: Don’t stress about writing a perfect knowledge base article at this stage. Just write down all the key details while they’re fresh and clean them up later.

2. Structure

Here’s where I’ll take my raw case notes and polish them into usable, searchable knowledge content. Structuring the knowledge could be my responsibility as a rep, or it could fall to a dedicated editor. Either way, the goal is to create a knowledge article your team can find and use later. For discoverability, use search tags and headings containing relevant keywords.

Pro tip: Use a standardized template for knowledge articles so every team member can confidently contribute. Looking for a place to start? Here are five free self-service customer support templates your team can start using today.

3. Reuse

The whole point of KCS is creating a knowledge repository that team members can actually use. So, before writing a new article, it’s my responsibility to search the knowledge base to see if someone else has already documented a solution to the problem I’m facing. If I discover an article that is slightly off or outdated, I’ll make changes on the spot.

Pro tip: Encourage service reps to include links to relevant knowledge base articles in case notes and follow-ups. It provides helpful insights to customers and team members and maintains visibility of applicable knowledge content.

4. Improve

KCS is a living, breathing process. At some point, the pace of new article creation will slow down, especially once you’ve documented the most common issues.

However, that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. As a rep, every time I use a knowledge article, it’s my responsibility to evaluate it for accuracy, relevance, and clarity. If an article needs updates, I’ll edit or flag it for review.

Pro tip: Set up a quarterly review process to audit and refresh your most-used articles.

5. Reward

The success of your KCS system depends on consistent buy-in. That means encouraging reps and service team members to treat knowledge documentation as a core job responsibility.

One of the best ways to do that is by giving team members dedicated time to work on articles and celebrating contributions publicly. When reps see that their KCS work is making a real impact, they’re far more likely to take ownership.

Pro tip: Send a monthly “Editor’s Picks” email highlighting top-performing knowledge articles. Be sure to shout out the authors; a little recognition goes a long way.

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In summary: Knowledge-centered service is a methodology that helps organizations create a centralized knowledge base, supported by a loop of continuous capture, reuse, structuring, and improvement of knowledge.

If you’re looking for the perfect platform for starting your KCS journey, check out HubSpot’s Knowledge Base Software. It can help you:

• Quickly create knowledge articles.
• Improve your content and fill gaps with powerful insights and analytics.
• Organize knowledge base articles by topic.

Benefits of KCS

Knowledge-centered support has the power to transform your service team into a bastion of efficiency, continuous improvement, and customer satisfaction. Here are the key benefits of implementing KCS.

Improved Resolution Times

When KCS works as intended, support reps can easily access the knowledge documentation they need to resolve customer issues quickly. In my experience as a support rep, proper knowledge documentation is the difference between confidently solving problems and putting customers on hold while you scramble to troubleshoot or ping a colleague for help.

According to the Consortium for Service Innovation, KCS can improve resolution times by 25-50% within the first 3-9 months of implementation.

Faster Onboarding and Smarter Reps

When I joined the HubSpot Support team, I relied heavily on internal and external knowledge documentation to supplement my training. I can confidently say that I wouldn't have reached proficiency nearly as fast without knowledge articles and the KCS framework that supported them.

The benefits don’t stop at training, though. I relied on knowledge documentation daily to troubleshoot cases, and knowing it was consistently maintained gave me peace of mind when helping customers under pressure.

According to Atlassian, KCS can reduce the time it takes for new reps to reach proficiency by 70%, making onboarding more efficient and setting reps up for long-term success.

Improved Self-Service and Customer Satisfaction

As a customer myself, I’d rather not pick up the phone if I don’t have to. I’d much rather find the answer to my problem online and move on. KCS supports this process by documenting the knowledge from every solved issue to create a continuously improving knowledge base or help center.

When I can find the answers I need via knowledge documentation, I feel empowered and much more satisfied having saved myself the time required to call in. The result? Reduced friction and improved customer satisfaction.

Don’t just take it from me, though. 88% of customers expect access to self-service resources, and KCS helps you meet and exceed those expectations.

Challenges of KCS

Implementing KCS can improve your service organization, but it’s not without its challenges.

Implementing a Cultural Shift

Proper KCS requires complete buy-in from your service or support teams to treat documentation as a core part of the job. That can be a difficult cultural shift, especially if reps aren’t used to prioritizing and relying on knowledge documentation in their daily work.

Getting complete buy-in requires a heavy lift from leadership to reinforce the idea that knowledge documentation is a core part of delivering excellent service.

It’s also important to give team members extra time to incorporate knowledge capture into their workflows. Tacking on additional responsibilities to your already busy team members isn’t likely to be a popular initiative if they are not compensated accordingly or afforded extra time.

Quality Control

The “too many cooks in the kitchen” effect is a risk when every team member contributes to your knowledge base simultaneously. Unchecked, knowledge articles could vary widely in tone, formatting, and depth, making for a chaotic and unhelpful knowledge base experience.

However, strong review processes and clear article templates can keep your knowledge documentation accurate and consistent. If your team is large, consider a dedicated editorial role for distilling raw knowledge into consistent, polished documentation.

Ongoing Maintenance

Your knowledge documentation must keep pace with product updates, new features, and policy changes. Without regular maintenance, your knowledge base can quickly become outdated, eroding trust among your team and customers.

KCS is only effective when your knowledge is accurate and relevant. So, you’ll need to build in time for article reviews and updates alongside the knowledge capture process.

KCS in the AI Era

AI isn’t here to replace customer service agents and make knowledge-centered service obsolete. Quite the opposite, in my opinion.

AI has the potential to supercharge KCS efforts and help reps create efficient, personalized customer experiences. In fact, one study found that AI-enabled customer service teams resolve customer issues 44% faster and experience a 35% increase in the quality and consistency of support.

In the KCS world, AI can streamline knowledge capture and enable teams to create high-functioning help centers in record time.

If I had access to these tools back when I was working at HubSpot Support, I would have saved hours each week capturing and formatting documentation. Instead of manually turning case notes into polished articles, you can submit your knowledge to AI with formatting guidelines and instructions and receive a first draft instantly. Then, all you have to do is focus on reviewing for clarity and accuracy instead of taking the time to write a whole post from scratch.

AI tools can also analyze case history and chat logs at scale to identify recurring issues and knowledge gaps that previously would have gone unnoticed. It can even monitor your knowledge base and automatically flag outdated articles for review.

Bottom line, I’m bullish on the role of AI in knowledge-centered service and customer support in general. The key is not to replace the human element with AI but to use it to optimize the process.

Excellent documentation will always require human context and judgment, but with AI handling the busywork, reps can focus on what matters: solving for the customer.

Pro tip: If you're looking for knowledge-base software to run your KCS system, check out Service Hub’s knowledge base software.

KCS Training and Resources

Certification and Training

If you’re looking for formal training, the KCS v6 Fundamentals certification is a training certification targeted explicitly towards teams that use KCS to solve customer problems.

This paid, entry-level certification helps organizations develop a basic understanding of KCS. If you‘re interested, the KCS Academy includes a reading list that covers the course’s principles, core concepts, and practices.

Resources From the Consortium for Service Innovation

If you‘re interested in adopting KCS for your business, check out the resources I’ve gathered below. The Consortium for Service Innovation offers many resources to help you learn more about KCS. Here are some to bookmark.

1. KCS Principles and Core Concepts

This document offers a foundation for the KCS methodology. It also covers the four principles and ten core concepts crucial to KCS.

2. KCS v6 Practices Guide

This guide describes the basic practices and techniques incorporated into the KCS methodology and provides a more in-depth look into the Solve and Evolve Loops.

3. KCS v6 Adoption Guide

This guide covers a step-by-step process for adopting KCS into your organization. It offers tips on successfully incorporating the methodology, including getting your team to embrace procedural changes.

4. Frequently Asked Questions about KSC v6

These FAQs cover topics like how KCS was developed, who owns the methodology, and how to use and share KCS data legally. This will help your team avoid any legal trouble when using KCS.

5. Glossary of KCS Terms

Some KCS terminologies are confusing. This appendix provides essential definitions you'll need to know when educating yourself or others on KCS.

6. Metrics Matrix

This appendix lists the KCS metrics that your organization can use to analyze your performance. You'll need this to measure how effective your new support system is.

7. Article Quality Quick Reference Guide

This great tool helps your team structure your knowledge base articles. This guide covers everything from layout to style tips that you can use to optimize customer experience.

8. Stakeholder Engagement Matrix

This matrix offers techniques for building and maintaining stakeholder engagement through every phase of your adoption process. You can use this resource to explain to stakeholders why KCS is a good move for your company.

9. Measurement Matters

This document provides an in-depth look at the short and long-term benefits that KCS can offer. It is essential for convincing employees and other stakeholders that KCS will benefit the business.

10. New vs. Known Methodology

This paper introduces the New vs. Known study that assesses the health and effectiveness of an organization's KCS practices. You can compare your business to the ones in this study to see if you can improve any function in your KCS system.

Case Studies

The following case studies discuss the experiences of different organizations that have adopted the KCS methodology.

11. Quest

Quest set a goal of publishing 90% of its solutions to its knowledge base before the support case is closed. Now, 70% of its support cases are solved using a knowledge base article.

12. HP Enterprise

HP used KCS to build a customer-centric knowledge base. Since its creation, HP has observed a 400% increase in customer self-service solutions. That means that more customers at HP are finding their solutions without reaching out to a service rep.

13. Omgeo

Omgeo focused on embracing the activities in the “Evolve Loop.” They analyzed groups of articles to see if there were any patterns in usage, traffic, or navigation. From its research, Omgeo highlighted more opportunities to improve the customer experience.

14. MathWorks

Mathworks used KCS to create a knowledge base to centralize customer information. By adding this resource, customers began engaging with the company more than they had. Mathworks saw a 50% boost in customer comments after the installation of its knowledge base. This gives the company more chances to interact with users, including opportunities to upsell and cross-sell.

Other Learning Resources

There are also great KCS resources that were created outside the KCS Academy and the Consortium for Service Innovation. We listed a few below.

15. What is Knowledge Centered Service? KCS Explained

This blog post covers the definition, history, loops, benefits, and uses of KCS. This is an excellent post for someone who wants to gain all the information in the resources above, but in a more concise format.

16. What is KCS and Why Does it Matter?

This blog post briefly describes KCS and how it can be evolved and used in the future. It is a good read for employees looking for a quick explanation of KCS.

17. Do you know about Knowledge-Centered Service?

This LinkedIn article covers KCS's goals, key concepts, and additional management resources. It is a great way to understand its basic fundamentals.

18. IT Jargon Explained: Knowledge Management

Find out how the ITIL Knowledge Management process is used by organizations to collect organizational knowledge, improve accessibility, and eliminate redundancies.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in December 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

17 Jun 2025, 11:30 am

How to create a survey in Excel, Word, Google, Facebook, & SurveyMonkey 

If you want to learn how to build a survey, the most important thing to know is that an excellent survey respects your time. It should be succinct, ask the right questions, and provide valuable insights. As a respondent, I’m quick to bail if a survey is too long, confusing, and repetitive.

If you want people to complete your survey and give you meaningful feedback, it needs to be purpose built, easy to understand, and quick to finish.

In this post, I’ll walk you through how to create a survey in a few easy steps, plus I’ll show you how to create surveys using popular platforms like Google, Facebook, SurveyMonkey, and more.

Table of Contents

• How to Create a Survey in 15 Steps
• How to Make a Survey in Microsoft Forms
• How to Make a Survey in Microsoft Word
• How to Make a Google Survey
• How to Create a Survey on Facebook
• How to Make a Poll on Facebook
• How to Create a Survey on SurveyMonkey
• Create a Survey People Will Want to Take

In a few straightforward steps, you can create a survey that provides your team with the information it needs while keeping your respondents engaged throughout the entire survey.

1. Define your survey objectives.

What do you want to learn from your survey?

Surveys can serve a range of goals, including gauging customer satisfaction, gathering feedback on a new product or feature, discovering customer pain points, and much more. Be specific when crafting the objective of your survey so you can create the most relevant questions.

Example:

I play bass in a touring band, and I want to survey our fans (customers) to learn what songs they want to hear live, what kind of merch they are into, and what cities we should hit on our next tour.

My objectives are to:

• Pinpoint fan-favorite songs for our live set.
• Gather feedback on merch ideas before ordering inventory.
• Prioritize tour stops based on demand.

2. Research your target audience.

Knowing your survey audience helps you ask better questions and get more helpful answers.

Before you write your first question, learn more about your audience — including demographics like age, gender, education level, and geographic location. The most important traits for your survey will depend on your brand and goals, but knowing them helps you connect with your audience and get better answers.

Example:

Based on Spotify data, our fans are pretty evenly split between males and females, with 53% of listeners falling between the ages 25-34, followed by 24% between 18-24. The overwhelming majority of listeners are based in the US, with our top cities being New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

With this information in mind, I’ll write the survey using a casual, Millennial/Gen-Z friendly tone, keeping the questions short and ensuring everything is mobile optimized. Since most of our fans live in major cities, I’ll prioritize these locations in questions about tour stops while providing an open response field for fans to suggest smaller markets.

3. Determine the best distribution method.

Now that you know your audience, you’ve got to figure out how to reach them.

Where do they spend time? Do they frequent social media, or are they more likely to respond to a survey via email? Luckily, your demographic information will inform many of these questions. The proper distribution method can make or break your survey, so meeting your audience where they are is critical.

Example:

My first instinct is to distribute my survey through social media. Most of our fans are Millennials and Gen Z, so it’s a safe bet to assume they are social natives. Instagram is our most active channel, so starting there is natural.

We also maintain an email list of fans who have bought merch and signed up for updates, so I’ll send the survey straight to their inboxes. To reach people at shows, I’ll display a physical QR at our merch table that links directly to the survey.

Since 60% of surveys today are submitted on mobile devices, I'll make sure mine is easy to read, scroll, and submit on a phone.

4. Plan your survey timeline.

A good survey isn’t one you just cook up out of nowhere. It should be planned and launched with intention. Planning a clear timeline with a start and end date helps you stay organized and gives your respondents a sense of urgency, which is especially relevant if you offer a juicy incentive.

Survey responses tend to peak mid-week, so a Wednesday or Thursday launch date is a solid move.

Example:

I plan to launch my band’s survey midweek ahead of our upcoming tour. On launch day, I’ll send an email and post to social media, and I'll keep survey responses open for the duration of our tour (usually about one month). That gives fans plenty of time to give feedback online or at a show.

5. Choose the right platform.

Before you craft the first question, you’ve got to figure out where your survey will live. These days, there are plenty of survey platforms to choose from, and the right choice depends on your goals.

If you need detailed customer feedback data with powerful reporting and analysis, something like HubSpot’s Customer Feedback Software is a sound choice. However, you can create lighter-weight surveys using Microsoft Forms or Google Forms.

Pro tip: Google Forms and Microsoft Forms can export results to CSV if you’d like to analyze survey data in Excel. You can also let Google’s Gemini AI create a form based on a quick prompt.

Example:

I don’t need to analyze customer feedback or do any serious reporting on my fan survey results, so I’ll plan to use Google Forms to build a quick survey from scratch and share the link via email and social media.

6. Keep it short.

Keep your survey short and sweet. The risk of survey drop-off increases as you add more questions, so think about what information you actually need to make decisions and hit your survey goals.

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Pro tip: Aim for no more than 10-12 questions. These days, 11 questions is the sweet spot. If your survey is longer, be upfront about it. Here’s a familiar example:

I got this email from Venmo the other day, and I’ll be honest: Ten minutes is a significant ask for my time and attention online. However, I appreciate that Venmo gave me a heads-up about the time investment. And the gamble of a free $500? Feels like a fair trade for 10 minutes I’ll never get back.

7. Avoid “Yes” or “No” questions.

Yes/No questions don’t give you much to work with. People tend to click “yes” out of habit, and these kinds of questions usually lack the context necessary for drawing valuable insights.

Let’s say you are a candy maker trying to understand how people feel about jelly beans. The following question won’t give you very useful feedback:

Instead, pose the question as a multiple choice or checkbox. That way, you’ll get a clearer contextual understanding of how jelly beans stack up against your other offerings:

8. Use survey logic to create personalized paths.

Survey logic, also known as skip logic or conditional branching, lets you adapt your survey based on a respondent’s answers. Taking advantage of survey logic allows you to deliver more personalized and engaging questions and cuts down on fluff that isn’t relevant to a particular respondent.

Example:

I’d use skip logic in my band's survey to hide questions about our live shows if a fan says they haven’t been to one yet. Instead, they would jump to the next section about merchandise items or streaming habits.

9. Randomize your answer options.

Just like with yes/no questions, survey respondents are likely to pick the first option of a multiple-choice question without thinking. This is called the first-choice bias or primacy bias, and it can skew your data.

Randomizing your answer options helps combat this phenomenon. Most survey options let you randomize multi-choice answers while anchoring “All of the above” or “Other” at the bottom.

Example:

If I ask fans which song they want to hear us play as an encore, I’ll randomize the order so the same track doesn’t get picked too often just because it’s listed first.

Pro tip: There are certain times when you shouldn’t randomize answers. For example, ordinal scale questions (Very Dissatisfied → Very Satisfied) or questions where respondents expect answers in a particular order (numerical or alphabetical).

10. Offer an incentive for completing the survey.

Asking for people’s time and attention can be a hard sell. Personally, I almost never fill out a voluntary survey unless there’s something in it for me.

Offer your respondents an incentive to fill out your survey.

It doesn’t have to be anything crazy. A small discount, early access to product drops, or a giveaway entry will do. What’s important is that the incentive is relevant to your audience and proportional to the time and effort necessary to complete the survey.

Pro tip: Lead with your incentive. Highlight it in emails, on landing pages, and in social posts to boost visibility and drive responses. Here’s an example:

The $500 incentive in the subject line hooked me. I investigated, and I took the survey. Proof that leading with your offer works.

11. Keep your tone neutral.

The way you phrase your questions significantly impacts responses. The goal of your survey should be to gather honest, unbiased feedback, and using leading questions or a biased tone compromises this.

Use a neutral tone and ask unbiased questions that don’t assume a particular opinion or experience from your respondents.

Example:

If I’m asking fans for their opinion on my band's latest single, here’s a leading vs. neutral question:

Leading: “Wouldn’t you agree that our new single is our best song yet?”

Neutral: “On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate our newest single?”

The leading question is biased and makes fans feel pressured to agree with me and answer the question accordingly. The second option encourages people to answer honestly, and that feedback is much more valuable.

Pro tip: Ask someone outside of your team to read your survey after you’ve written it. It’s hard to spot your own bias when you’re deep in the process. Sometimes, watching someone read it over their shoulder is enough to make those mistakes light up like a neon sign.

12. Use matrix questions judiciously.

Matrix response questions can be great for gathering a large amount of detailed feedback in one question. However, you should resist the urge to overuse them. Matrix questions require a little more attention than other question types, and you don’t want to risk overwhelming respondents and causing them to abandon your survey.

In addition, you should limit the number of rows and columns in your matrix questions to avoid scaring people away with a visually daunting table.

Here’s an example of a manageable matrix response question:

This one, on the other hand, is intimidating:

Pro tip: If your matrix question is beginning to look too dense, consider breaking it into two or three simpler questions.

13. Try out a template.

There’s no need to start from scratch. I like using a survey template to get an idea of where to start. It makes the whole process less daunting and reminds me how a well-structured survey should flow.

Whether you’re measuring customer satisfaction or gathering feedback on a new product, templates provide a solid framework that you can tweak to fit your needs.

Check out HubSpot’s 21 Best Survey Templates to help you get started.

Pro tip: Customizing your survey template is key to success. It should be a starting point you customize to match your brand voice, audience expectations, and survey goals.

14. Include a “red herring” question to weed out inattentive respondents.

Sometimes, people don’t pay attention when filling out a survey. Perhaps they are zoned out or breezing through the survey to score that juicy incentive you laid out (guilty as charged). Either way, it’s a recipe for junk data.

A red herring is a question you can use to weed out those low-effort responses. Here’s how it works:

Ask a simple demographic question at the start of your survey and the same question again at the very end. If a person's responses to these identical questions are inconsistent, that warrants investigation.

Example:

In my band survey, I could ask a simple question like:

“What country do you live in?”

Then, I’d repeat the same question later but with the drop-down list items in alphabetical order instead of putting the U.S. at the top.

If someone answers a different country the second time, they’re either a dual citizen or not paying attention. I think the latter is more likely.

Pro tip: Don’t automatically toss a response over one red herring slip-up. People make honest mistakes. Use it as a flag, not a verdict. If they contradict themselves and give a bunch of low-effort answers, then it might be time to toss it.

15. Test your survey before launching.

Before sending your survey to your entire audience, test it with a small group of people. You’d be surprised how easy it is to miss little mistakes when building a survey yourself. Sharing it with others will ensure you spot unclear questions, logical inconsistencies, or technical issues.

Do your best to share it with some friends or family members who approximate your target audience and ask them for feedback. Did any questions not make sense? Did the survey feel too long? Did you want to abandon the survey at any point?

Example:

Before launching my band survey, I’d have my bandmates review it for inconsistencies. Then, I’d share it with friends and a few superfans who are always down to help. If possible, I’d try to sit with someone as they take it to get a feel for any areas that seem clunky or unclear.

Pro tip: Test out your survey on your phone. Over half of survey completions occur on mobile, so it needs to look clean and scroll smoothly on the little screen.

Microsoft Forms is the dark horse of free survey platforms. My first instinct is to reach for Google Forms when I need to generate a quick survey. However, I was impressed with how easy Microsoft Forms was to use. I found it simple to create new questions and choose from various question types, and I was impressed by their selection of attractive, usable templates.

1. Log in to your Microsoft Office 365 account.

The first step is logging in.

I already have a Microsoft Office 365 account (now called Microsoft 365 Copilot) for additional storage on OneDrive, so logging in and getting started was a breeze. All you have to do is select the Forms app, and you’re in.

Source

You can also navigate directly to forms.office.com to skip the extra clicks.

2. Start a new form.

Click the “New Form” Button in the upper left-hand corner, and you’re off to the races. You can also start from a template (more on that later).

3. Name your form and add your first question.

Right away, I was greeted with the opportunity to name my form, add a short description, and insert my first question. Microsoft Forms lets you “quick start” with a question type of your choice, and I was satisfied with all the available types, including more detailed ones like NPS and Likert scale questions.

Pro tip: If you’re unsure where to start, click the lightning bolt icon (in the upper right) to open up Microsoft’s AI-powered question suggestions. I thought it was convenient that it immediately suggested fields for basic information like Name and Email. It’s a small detail, but it saves time.

4. Style your form.

Before I started filling out the rest of my survey questions, I took a moment to explore the style and layout options. Click the “Style” icon in the top toolbar to select from multiple attractive layout and style options. You can even add background music that plays as your respondents fill out the form (not sure if I recommend it, though).

This is also a great time to check out Microsoft’s pre-made templates by clicking the button on the left-hand side:

Microsoft Forms offers a variety of pre-built templates that are great for common survey goals like measuring customer satisfaction or performing market research. Each template is stylized and comes packed with relevant questions, all of which are customizable.

5. Add questions and preview your form.

Here comes the fun part: fleshing out your survey. If you’ve done your homework before starting your survey, filling out your questions should be quick and easy. Adding and editing questions is as simple as clicking the “Add new question” button or selecting and tweaking them from the AI-recommended smart list.

Once I finished filling in all my questions, I clicked the “Preview” button above to see how my survey looked from the respondents' POV. I liked that I could toggle between desktop and mobile view and fill in my responses.

6. Share your survey and present the results.

Once you’ve completed your survey, you can share far and wide using the “Collect responses” button on the top toolbar.

I liked that Microsoft Forms provided me with an easily shareable link and other sharing options like email, a website embed code, social media, and even a QR code for scanning.

Once you’ve collected your responses, you can easily share results with your team by clicking the “Present” button. I like that Microsoft Forms provides a link and QR code so team members can join your presentation from their screens anywhere.

Now all that’s left is turning your insights into smart business decisions. Easy!

Word isn’t my first pick for survey building. Turning a Word document into a fillable form requires a little finagling, especially compared to dedicated form-building tools. You can only do it on the desktop version of Word, not the web-based version, which is free through Office 365.

That said, creating a survey in Microsoft Word can be a good idea if you are a Word power user and want to make something easily printable with visuals, detailed instructions, and customized formatting.

1. Start with a blank document or search for “Form” in the templates gallery.

Open Microsoft Word and decide whether to start with a blank document or search for a “Form” template in the templates gallery. I tried both, and starting with a template was much easier for my needs. If you’re looking to create a common form, such as a customer satisfaction survey, templates are the way to go.

Speaking of customer satisfaction surveys, if you’re looking for inspiration, I’ve got five free customer satisfaction survey templates that are a great starting point.

2. Enable the developer tab.

The developer tab is the key to creating the features that take your survey from a text doc to an actual form with fillable text fields, drop-down lists, checkboxes, and more. I know it sounds a little intimidating, but all you are doing is adding another tab to your top toolbar ribbon alongside “File,” “Edit,” “View,” etc.

Once you’ve enabled the developer tab, you can access Content Controls, which allow you to add text fields and checkboxes.

Here’s a great video I found that walks you through enabling the developer tab and using content control options to build a form in Word:

Here’s how to enable the developer tab:

On PC, click File > Options > Customize Ribbon > Main Tabs > Developer > OK.

On Mac, click Word > Preferences > Authoring and Proofing Tools > View > Show developer tab.

3. Fill out your survey and add form fields.

Once I enabled the developer tab, I could locate content control options, as seen above.

At this point, I typed up my survey questions and used the content control options to add the appropriate form field I needed based on each question.

Form fields included in the developer tab include:

• Text fields for short answers
• Checkboxes for multi-select questions
• Drop-down menus (Combo Box) for multiple choice
• Rich text fields for longer responses

4. Input instructional text or drop-down menu options.

For questions where I've chosen the “Combo Box” control, I input the list of answer options that respondents can choose from in the drop-down menu. This ensures that they select from a predefined set of answers.

5. Click the “Review” tab, then “Protect,” and select “Protect Document.”

To prevent recipients from accidentally editing the survey questions while still allowing them to fill in their answers, I click on the “Review” tab, then “Protect,” and select “Protect Document.” This locks the survey content while keeping the answer fields accessible.

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6. Share your form with recipients.

Now that my Word-based survey is ready to go, the final step is to share it. I can share it as an email attachment, print it out, or drop it in Slack. Or, if you’re so deep in the Microsoft ecosystem that you’re using Word to create surveys, you can share it on Teams.

Pro tip: Word surveys are best for small groups, like internal teams. If you are sending out to a big audience featuring customers and prospects, I recommend using Google Forms or Microsoft Forms for ease of use and clean analytics.

Google Forms has been my go-to survey creation tool since the beginning. It’s easy to use, free, and connects seamlessly with the rest of the Google ecosystem. Since it’s linked with my Gmail, I can add survey recipients with a simple click and start sharing within minutes.

[Video: How to Create a Survey Using Google Forms]

1. Locate Google Forms.

There are multiple ways to locate Google Forms. Sometimes, I’ll just Google “Google Forms,” but I usually open up my Gmail, click the Apps button in the top right next to my profile image, and click on Forms.

2. Select a blank form or use a template from the gallery.

The next step is to start a new form from scratch or use one of Google’s many templates. I like to get started using a template so I can hit the ground running, and I can always customize it later.

3. Name your survey and add a description.

The first thing you’ll be prompted to do upon creating a new survey is give it a name and a brief description.

At this point, I like to add a little flair to my survey. Click the style icon in the top toolbar to customize fonts and colors and add a header image.

4. Add questions.

Now it’s time for me to start adding questions. It’s easy; just click the ‘Add question’ button shown below:

You can change the question type by selecting from the drop-down box seen above. I found the available question types to be extensive and valuable.

Pro tip: If you’re feeling stuck, you can use Google’s AI-powered survey helper to create a survey for you based on a prompt. I like to use this feature to get the ball rolling, and then I’ll customize the survey further.

Check it out.

Click the “Help me build a survey” button and input a prompt. Here’s the prompt I gave it:

And here’s what I got in return:

There are more questions that aren’t visible in my screenshot, but I was pleasantly surprised that Google’s AI-generated survey featured all the questions I was planning to include and then some. It’s a great starting point, I like to think of as a template customized to my needs.

5. Use the sidebar menu to add multimedia elements, sections, or unique formatting options.

Use the sidebar menu to add multimedia elements like images, customize text, or even insert videos. I like adding dividers to separate my forms into sections to make them more digestible.

6. Adjust the form settings.

Within form settings, I can manage a few key aspects of the survey, like collecting email addresses, showing a progress bar, and turning the survey into a quiz.

7. Send the survey to your recipients.

Sending out your survey is simple. Click the “Publish” button in the upper right-hand corner to make your survey live and send it out via link, or click the “Manage” button to add email addresses directly.

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Facebook offers two options for creating surveys: a simple poll or the Survey app. The poll option only allows you to ask one question, whereas the Survey app allows you to customize and expand your survey to include multiple types of questions. Read below for instructions for creating both:

1. Enter “ Survey ” in your Facebook search bar.

I start by typing “Survey” into the Facebook search bar. When the search results appear, I look under the “All results” section and select the first option, "Survey,” which takes me to the app's Facebook page.

2. Select the “Use app” button on the Facebook page.

On the app's Facebook page, I locate the “Use App” button at the top and click on it to begin using the Survey app.

3. Give the survey permission to use your profile information.

Before I can start creating my survey, I need to grant the app access to my Facebook profile information. I carefully review the permissions and click “Allow,” knowing that the app won't post anything on my behalf without my instruction.

4. Name your survey.

With the app permissions granted, I name my survey. I choose a clear and concise title that reflects the purpose of my survey. I keep in mind that I can always edit the name later if needed.

5. Customize your survey question and answer options.

I dive into creating my survey questions, taking advantage of the various question types available in Facebook's survey app. I use the rich-text field to bulk import my answer options for multiple-choice questions, saving time and effort.

6. Preview your survey.

After completing my survey questions, I take a moment to preview the entire survey. This allows me to see how it will appear to my respondents and make any necessary adjustments before publishing.

7. Publish your survey on your profile or business page.

Once I'm satisfied with my survey, I move on to the final step: publishing it on my Facebook profile or business page.

I consider my options, such as creating a unique post for the survey, sharing it via a URL, or inviting individual followers to complete it. I select the method that best suits my needs and publish the survey, making it live for my audience to access and complete.

Sometimes, a survey may be too much of a hassle to collect the data you're looking for. Opt for a Facebook Poll instead. With Polls, you can solicit feedback from your Page followers and fans on simple topics.

With the click of a button, respondents can weigh in on any topic you choose to discuss. Plus, they‘ll get to see an aggregate of the responses to know whether they’re in the majority or minority opinion.

1. Enter “Poll” in your Facebook search bar.

I begin by typing “Poll” into the Facebook search bar. In the “All results” section, I click on the first option, "Poll,” which directs me to the app's Facebook page.

2. Select the “Use App” button on the Facebook page.

I locate and click the “Use App” button on the Poll app's Facebook page to start using the application.

3. Give the poll permission to use your profile information.

Before I can create my poll, I need to grant the app permission to access my Facebook profile information. I review the permissions carefully and click “Allow,” understanding that the app will not post anything on my behalf without my explicit instruction.

4. Name your poll.

With the app permissions granted, I give my poll a name. I choose a clear and concise title that reflects the topic or question I want to ask my followers.

5. Customize your poll question and answer options.

I start creating my poll by filling out the question and customizing the answer options. The Poll app provides various question types, allowing me to choose the one that best fits my needs.

6. Preview your poll.

After completing the poll question and answer options, I take a moment to preview the poll. This allows me to see how it will appear to my followers and make any necessary adjustments before publishing.

7. Publish your poll on your page.

Once I am satisfied with my poll, I move on to the final step: publishing it on my Facebook page. I consider the available options, such as creating a unique post for the poll, sharing it via a link, or inviting individuals to participate. I choose the method that best aligns with my goals and publish the poll, making it live for my followers to engage with and provide their opinions.

For longer surveys with more functionality and data analytics, try SurveyMonkey. You can choose from a variety of question and response options, making this survey platform applicable for virtually any type of research.

1. Select the type of survey you want to create.

I start by signing up for a SurveyMonkey account, choosing between a free or paid option depending on my needs. Once I'm logged in, I select the option to build my survey from scratch.

2. Name your survey.

After deciding on the type of survey I want to create, I give it a clear and descriptive name that reflects its purpose. I also assign the survey to a relevant category to keep my surveys organized.

3. Add or choose survey questions.

I begin building my survey by either typing in my own questions or selecting from the suggested questions provided by SurveyMonkey based on the type of survey I've chosen. I carefully consider each question to ensure it aligns with my research goals.

4. Send your survey to respondents.

When my survey is complete, I explore the various options SurveyMonkey offers for distributing my survey to respondents. I can share the survey link myself, embed it on a website, or even purchase responses from a broader pool of participants provided by SurveyMonkey.

Once I‘ve selected the most appropriate distribution method for my needs, I’m ready to send out my survey and start gathering feedback from my target audience.

Create a Survey People Will Want to Take

After exploring various survey tools, I’ve remained steadfast in my preference for Google Forms. It’s simple, free, and easy to use. I also like that it integrates with the rest of Google’s tools that I’m already familiar with, like Gmail for sharing and Google Sheets for viewing my results in spreadsheet form.

That said, I was pleasantly surprised by Microsoft Forms. It’s a strong alternative to Google Forms and offers the same level of simplicity and powerful features with a different look and feel. If I were embedded in the Microsoft ecosystem the way I am with Google, Microsoft Forms would be an easy choice.

For me, survey creation is primarily casual. Once in a while, I’ll make a survey to check in on fans or gather sign-ups for my band’s street team to help promote shows. However, if I needed professional customer satisfaction surveys with advanced reporting features, HubSpot’s customer feedback software would be my choice, especially with the free CRM.

As much as I love checking out new tools and passing judgment on cloud-based software, writing this article reminded me that the success of a form isn’t just about what platform you use. Sure, picking the right platform can make my life easier and provide valuable insights, but no software can define your goals and write thoughtful, purposeful questions for you.

At least, not yet.

Try out these survey tools to see what insights you uncover about your audience.

Editor's note: This article was originally published in April 2018 and has since been updated for comprehensiveness.

16 Jun 2025, 6:04 pm

The SEO-friendly knowledge base — Why making your help pages searchable matters 

An SEO knowledge base does everything a typical knowledge base does and more. It supports customers, ranks in Google, brings new traffic to your site, and builds your E-E-A-T.

It’s tempting to de-index knowledge bases because they interfere with SEO, complicating keyword maps, impacting rankings, and causing cannibalization. But, done right, they’re a powerful SEO asset.

I make knowledge bases part of my SEO strategy. With an indexed SEO knowledge base, I get even more data in Google Search Console and G4, showing what people are searching for and the problems they’re trying to solve. These insights help me support my audiences better, identify new content opportunities, and prioritize what to write next. I share this data across marketing, sales, and customer service, too.

In this article, I’m sharing everything I know about SEO knowledge bases, from what they are to how to gather and utilize data, and tips for incorporating an SEO knowledge base into your website.

In this article:

• Why is SEO important for knowledge bases?
• How to Create an SEO-Friendly Knowledge Base
• How to Use Internal Search Data to Choose Topics
• Tips for Adding SEO to Your Knowledge Base

Why is SEO important for knowledge bases?

SEO increases views and traffic to your knowledge base.

If your knowledge base isn’t indexed, you’re losing out on traffic.

An optimized knowledge base will rank in Google and receive clicks from keywords your target audience is searching for.

While your knowledge base naturally covers topics specific to your product, it can also rank for broader subjects, capturing potential buyers during the awareness or consideration stages of the marketing funnel.

Beyond serving customers, your SEO knowledge base can also:

• Support prospective buyers.
• Introduce new audiences to your brand.
• Funnel them to your money-generating pages.

Here’s an example from HubSpot’s knowledge base.

Source

The page ranks for “link redirect,” a keyword with 1,000 monthly searches, according to Semrush. A significant bonus, considering the knowledge base is primarily designed to assist HubSpot’s users.

I’ve annotated the screenshot above so you can see two opportunities to support buyers and potentially upsell to them.

1. HubSpot includes subscriptions on their knowledge base pages, showcasing where the feature (redirects, in this example) is available. If an existing HubSpot user cannot do what they need to, they might consider upgrading. Or, perhaps someone using different software is experiencing the redirect problem, and can now see that HubSpot is a potential solution.
2. HubSpot’s knowledge base includes get-started guides to push existing customers to self-serve, alleviating calls for customer support.

SEO knowledge bases bring data.

If your knowledge base is indexed, then it’s an opportunity to strengthen your SEO and build a trove of data in Google Search Console.

Here’s a peek at one of my client’s Google Search Console graphs for an SEO knowledge base.

The knowledge graph has received 3,370 clicks, and I can dig into specific queries to see what people are looking for when they find our knowledge base. In the next section, I share a step-by-step guide on how to find questions and inspiration for additional topics.

Rank for specific, long-tail keywords.

Many keywords ranking on a knowledge base will be specific, long-tail keyword opportunities.

Because these queries are so specific, they often come with lower competition, making it easier to rank.

By indexing your knowledge base articles, you can capture traffic from hundreds (or even thousands) of these long-tail searches, bringing in users who are highly motivated and already problem-aware, often just one or two clicks away from becoming customers.

Discover common challenges.

When your knowledge base is indexed and generating traffic, it provides a direct insight into the real questions and frustrations your users face.

These insights can:

• Highlight areas where your UX might need improvement.
• Help you improve your product overall.
• Surface confusing features.
• Inform marketing campaign or messaging that helps users.

Instead of guessing your audience’s struggles, you get real data.

Next, let’s look at how you can discover this data.

How to Create an SEO-Friendly Knowledge Base

Creating an SEO–friendly knowledge base is primarily achieved through the preparation and planning of the knowledge base. Here are some key steps.

1. Plan the structure.

The structure of the SEO knowledge base will depend mainly on your wider content strategy, so it’s difficult to say exactly how you should plan the structure. However, there are a few things that I’d almost recommend.

• Use a subfolder, such as /knowledge-base/, to easily manage tracking and research. I’ve provided a step-by-step guide on how to identify knowledge base topics using Google Search Console below. It highlights why this step is so important.
• Think about categories and subcategories similarly to how you’d manage a blog. Your categories and subcategories will help Google understand how topics are related and can also help with internal linking; relevant knowledge base articles should link to one another.
• Use URL parameters to identify how people are using the knowledge base search bar. The value of this is detailed in the section below, where I provide a step-by-step guide on using G4 to identify topics.

Pro tip: If you use URL parameters on an indexed knowledge base, it is essential that you correctly canonicalize your pages. Parameters generate many variations of the same page, and canonicalization avoids duplicate content. Here’s an article on URL canonicalization.

2. Do keyword research and mapping.

For the purpose of this article, I’ve provided some brief recommendations for managing keywords and your SEO knowledge base. There are also great articles on how to do keyword research here and keyword mapping here. I recommend reading both of these to get the details on how to do keyword research for your SEO knowledge base.

• Do keyword research using Google Search Console (GSC) as well as third-party tools. GSC will have a trove of data, including long-tail keywords and questions your audience is already asking.
• Map keywords to pages on your knowledge base. Use a central database, such as Google Sheets, to map articles and their associated keywords. This prevents keyword overlap across your site.
• Include SERP analysis when mapping and planning keywords. This will help you determine elements that will be included in the SEO knowledge base.

Pro tip: Managing your knowledge base keyword research ensures that keywords on the knowledge base do not interfere with your wider SEO plan. You don’t want your knowledge base and blog to cannibalize each other.

3. Do a schema markup.

Once you know all the elements likely to appear on your SEO knowledge base, you can plan which schema you might use.

The schema included will vary, and you should conduct your own research to determine what can be included. However, here are some common structured data elements that might be used on an SEO knowledge base.

• Breadcrumbs to enforce the hierarchy.
• FAQs, if you’re listing questions and answers.
• Author, if the knowledge base information requires specialist information, or author credibility can help the article.
• Article or TechArticle can add article context.

Pro tip: You can use schema.org to explore schema options.

4. Allow SEO to inform the design of the SEO knowledge base.

Once you know what you’re doing with SEO, use this information to inspire design. Too often, design comes first, and then SEO is left without the necessary modules or page elements to succeed.

For example, if SEO performs a SERP analysis and finds that videos are prioritized, it helps the page to have the functionality to embed videos. If this element is included in the design, then developers know how to build the functionality.

How to Use Internal Search Data to Choose Topics

There are two primary ways to utilize internal tools to gather data on what your audience is searching for. With this information, you can choose topics to write next.

Use Google Search Console

First, let’s look at finding queries using Google Search Console. For this to work, your knowledge base must be indexed.

Step 1: Open Google Search Console.

First, load Google Search Console, then head to Performance > Search Results report. This report shows all the pages ranking and how many clicks and impressions they’re receiving from Google.

Step 2: Filter the report.

Within the performance report, you can filter the report by

• Queries
• Dates
• Pages
• Countries
• Devices
• Search appearance (review snippet, translated results, product snippet)
• Search type (web, image, video)

For this exercise, filter by pages.

If your knowledge base lives in a subfolder, such as /knowledge-base/, this becomes super easy. Just filter by pages containing that subfolder, and you’ll only see data for your knowledge base pages.

Pro tip: Want to see what questions people are asking to find your knowledge base? Try adding a regex filter to show only queries with words like “how,” “what,” “why,” or “can.” It’s a quick way to surface question-based, long-tail keywords that could inspire new content.

Here’s the filter I use:

Who|what|when|where|why|how|is|are|can|does|do|should|could|would|will|did|was|were

And here’s where to add it in GSC.

1. When you’re in the Search Results report, you should see “+ Add Filter.” Click that.
2. Choose “Custom (regex)” and “Matches regex” from the drop-downs.
3. Paste the filter I use into the text box.
4. Click apply.

Once done, the graph will change to reflect keywords containing those words, and the queries below the graph will be question queries.

Step 3: Export the data to Google Sheets.

If you prefer, you can analyze the data within the table in Google Search Console, but I prefer to export the report to Google Sheets because it allows for more detailed filtering.

I add filters to columns or use conditional formatting to highlight words or phrases.

Step 4: Analyze the data.

It’s tricky to tell you exactly what to analyze, as it will depend on your site and what people are searching, but here are some things I might look for:

• Question keywords: You can use conditional formatting and the question keywords if you didn’t filter them in the step above.
• High-impression, low-click keywords are an indicator that your ranking for a keyword could be improved.
• Knowledge base pages with zero clicks may uncover some SEO opportunities.
• Seasonal trends may reveal particular products or challenges that arise seasonally. If you are aware of seasonal trends, you can plan to address customer challenges through marketing proactively.

Use Google Analytics.

This next tip will work if you

1. Have search functionality on your knowledge base.
2. Search creates parameter URLs containing keywords.

Let’s walk through using GA4 to find data about topics.

Step 1: Go to G4 and explore.

On G4, you can create a free-form exploration that allows you to track URL parameters containing specific keywords, provided your SEO knowledge base is set up to include them.

Navigate to “Explore” in the left side menu and click “Free-Form.”

Step 2: Set up the free-form.

To set up the form, you need to add “Page path + query string” dimensions.

Then, you need to add the metrics that are most meaningful to you. One metric you will certainly want to add is views.

Step 3: Filter using your search URL.

To view specific URLs, filter the data to URLs containing only the search parameter.

For this demonstration, I’m using HubSpot’s parameter as an example. Let me show you what I mean.

When you go to HubSpot’s knowledge base and use the search bar, the page changes, and the URL includes a parameter. See screenshot below.

This is really helpful because every search contains the formula search.

In the screenshot below, I’ve filtered by ‘search?’ and then the keyword. You might use it if you set up your SEO knowledge base in the same way HubSpot’s knowledge base works.

If you know your URL parameter structure, you can configure your free-from exploration to see all URLs containing “search?”. Then, you can filter the URLs by the most viewed URLs to determine what people are searching for the most.

If you know what users are searching for, you can create topics within your SEO knowledge base to answer commonly asked queries or keywords.

Pro tip: HubSpot’s Knowledge Base does this, so if you’re in the early stages of building a knowledge base, check it out.

Tips for Adding SEO to Your Knowledge Base

SEO skills are very transferable to creating an SEO-friendly knowledge base. Many of the rules and tactics apply. Let’s review some of the most important ones here.

Follow good SEO practices.

Ranking your knowledge base requires traditional SEO practices such as

• Using a hierarchical heading structure.
• Any images should be accompanied by descriptive alt text.
• Write your title tags and meta description for SEO, but also to encourage a click.
• Use your keywords smartly and in key placements (covered in the next section).
• And so much more.

Let keyword research guide you.

Keyword research for your knowledge base should be largely the same as keyword research for your website.

For a knowledge base, I begin by discussing with sales and customer service to determine the types of content or queries they would like the knowledge base to cover. It is of utmost importance that your knowledge base is useful and allows users to self-serve their challenges, and therefore alleviating pressure on sales and customer service teams.

Based on internal insights, I conduct keyword research using tools like Semrush, Keywords Everywhere, or your Google Search Console (GSC).

Important note: When it comes to the knowledge base, worry less about keyword volumes and difficulty. You know that the keywords are relevant because your customers or prospects are searching for them. Sometimes, niche keywords or topics appear to have zero search volume in tools, but actually have a significant amount of search traffic. This is a major perk of an SEO knowledge base; you’ll see what people are actually searching in your GSC, and so you don’t have to rely entirely on tools that are not perfect.

Your chosen keyword for the page should be placed where natural, but some of the key places to put it include:

• The URL
• Headings, especially for H1 and H2, where natural.
• Within Alt text (and the image file name)
• Within the content, where natural.
• Title tag and meta description

Consider search intent and SERP analysis.

Although your knowledge base has a purpose (to serve users looking for information), you need to conduct some SERP analysis to make the most of your SEO knowledge base.

SERP analysis is the exercise of reviewing pages ranking on Search Engine Results Pages to identify the type of content ranking for a particular keyword.

If you know what’s ranking, you can determine

1. Whether or not your knowledge base is the best place to put the content.
2. What to include within the knowledge base to give it the best chance of ranking.

For example, if you identify that ranking pages include videos, then your knowledge base page will likely benefit from having a video included.

Use internal links.

Internal links are a powerhouse for SEO. Unsurprisingly, your SEO knowledge base is no different.

You should use internal links within your SEO knowledge base to:

• Link to other related pieces on the knowledge base.
• Link to related products or services across the site.
• Link to the knowledge base pieces from other pages on the site.

Keep the links relevant and useful to the user, and include keywords that are clustered to the page you’re linking to within the anchor.

Keep the content up to date.

Any good content strategy has space for edits. Keep your content up to date. There’s no rule on how often a piece of content should be updated; it should be updated as and when needed.

Add the pages to your sitemap.

Your sitemap should include every indexed page on your website. Your SEO knowledge base is no exception. Make sure it’s included in your sitemap.

An SEO Knowledge Base is Superior

For me, the benefits of indexing and optimizing a knowledge base outweigh the cons. With some careful keyword mapping, you can have a knowledge base that helps your customers, provides insights about your audience’s needs, and ranks in Google.

11 Jun 2025, 11:30 am

12 reasons to build a customer education program 

Customers today want more than just products. We’re looking for solutions that work and experiences that are easy. And once we have the product, we want to get good at using it — quickly. This isn’t just a hunch of mine: an impressive 81% of customers try to solve issues themselves before they even think about calling for help.

Modern customers like to do things themselves. For instance, I prefer to manage my buying and learning journey independently. Calling support? That’s usually what I do when I’m really stuck. In fact, 67% of customers will choose self-service options over talking to an agent.

So, how do you help your users win from day one and make it easy for them to succeed? The clear answer: Set up a strong customer education program. I’ll explain what customer education programs look like, why you should have one, and share some great examples.

Table of Contents

• What is a customer education program?
• Tips for Starting a Great Customer Education Program
• 12 Reasons to Build a Customer Education Program
• Real-World Customer Education Examples You Can Use

To build a program that works, I recommend focusing on these key parts:

• Interactive tutorials. Make tutorials that clearly show your product in action.
• Help with tricky features. Offer simple, step-by-step instructions for the more complicated parts of your product.
• Real-world examples. Show the different ways your product can solve everyday problems, helping customers see how it meets their needs.
• Good support materials. Offer a helpful library with core components like FAQs, detailed knowledge bases, how-to videos, audio guides, organized courses, and maybe even official certifications.

I like to think of a good customer education program as the best, most interactive user guide you can offer. It’s designed to answer most questions before they even get asked, from when a user first starts to when they’re using advanced features.

This doesn’t just make customers happy — it helps your business too. In fact, companies with a customer education program saw their revenue increase by up to 18%. Basically, a program like this makes things better for everyone and helps your bottom line.

If you’re looking for tools to help with this, check out our list of top customer onboarding tools.

12 Reasons to Build a Customer Education Program

Putting effort into customer education isn’t just another cost; it’s a smart way to grow your business for the long haul. The benefits are clear and can solve many common problems, especially for startups.

Here’s how I’ve found a dedicated customer education program can make a difference:

1. Get people using your product faster and more.

When customers understand your product, they use more of its features, more often. This is key for them to see its full worth. The numbers show that customer education programs typically boost product use by a strong 38%.

2. Keep more customers and build strong loyalty.

When you help customers learn and succeed, they stick around. Companies using customer education programs have seen customer retention go up by as much as 56%.

3. Lower support costs and help your team do more.

When customers can find their own answers, you get fewer of the same basic questions. Companies that invest in customer education programs can see up to a 40% drop in support ticket volume. This lets your expert support staff focus on the tougher problems.

4. Make customer onboarding faster and easier to scale.

Good education makes your onboarding process smoother and the same for everyone. This is really important as you get more users. Your new customers will understand things much faster.

5. Increase customer lifetime value (CLTV).

When customers stay longer and use your product more, their lifetime value goes up. Educated, happy customers are more likely to stick with you and buy more or upgrade. This directly affects CLTV.

6. Make customers happier and get better feedback scores (NPS/CSAT).

Users who feel good about using your product will give you better ratings. On average, companies see a 26% increase in customer satisfaction after starting a customer education program. And remember, 80% of customers say the experience a company gives is just as important as what it sells.

7. Get an edge over competitors.

A good customer education program can make you stand out. It shows you care about customer success and can set your business apart.

8. Grow naturally and get more word-of-mouth.

Customers who really know your product often become your biggest supporters. They’ll tell others and help build a positive user community. Think about this — according to a Salesforce study, 75% of customers have recommended a company for its excellent customer service. Focus on the customer experience, and the referrals will come.

9. Help marketing and sales work better together.

Your learning materials are great for your sales team. And what you learn from your customer education program can help your marketing team do a better job, making sure everyone’s sending the same message and delivering what was promised.

10. Help customers realize value faster (Time-to-Value or TTV).

Good education helps customers see results and your product’s value more quickly. This is super important for keeping them from leaving early and making sure they stay engaged.

11. Find new ways to make money and create upsell opportunities.

As customers get good with your main product, your education program can show them the value of extra features or services. In fact, 83% of business leaders look to customer education programs to help increase upselling and cross-selling opportunities.

12. Create smarter, more engaged users.

When customers understand why your product features work the way they do, not just how, they use it better. They provide more helpful feedback and become stronger parts of your user community.

Real-World Customer Education Examples You Can Use

Many top companies use customer education to make things better for users, to get them using their products more, and to grow their business.

I’ll share a few good customer education examples out there today, and what your business can learn from them

1. HubSpot Academy: Using education to grow.

HubSpot is a big deal in CRM, and the HubSpot Academy is a top-notch free online learning resource. There are tons of courses and certifications, not just on the HubSpot suite, but also on important business stuff like marketing, sales, and customer service. By early 2024, HubSpot had certified over 200,000 people. This focus on learning is a big reason HubSpot made $2.17 billion in 2023 and has such a loyal following.

I have personally taken courses through HubSpot Academy, and I appreciate the combination of video lessons, quizzes, and the rich resources and links shared with each lesson.

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What you can learn: HubSpot Academy shows how giving away really valuable free education can bring in leads, make you look like an expert, and build a strong group of skilled users. I think this approach proves that customer education should be a key part of your marketing and growth plans.

2. Canva Design School: Making education part of the experience.

Canva made design easy for everyone. A big reason for this is Canva Design School, which offers free courses, helpful tutorials, and lots of resources. These help users make professional-looking designs fast, even if they’re not designers. I was impressed by the results — by February 2024, over 60 million students and educators were using Canva, twice as many as the year before.

As a Canva user myself, I know their tutorials have helped me discover and leverage features I might have missed otherwise.

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What you can learn: Canva is great at showing how to build education right into the user experience. By focusing on quick, easy wins and helping users who might be new to design, they give people an immediate feeling of success. This makes them want to keep using the product and learn more.

3. Google Skillshop (prev. Digital Garage): Broader skills to build authority.

Google’s Skillshop aims to help people everywhere get better at digital skills. It offers free online courses and certifications in important areas like digital marketing and online business. Since it began in 2015, the Skillshop has trained hundreds of thousands in digital marketing, career skills, and data basics.

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What you can learn: I’d encourage you to think about teaching your audience skills that go along with your product, not just about your specific product itself. This can bring in a much larger audience and help your company become more known as an expert. Google Skillshop also shows how working with partners can help you reach more people and have a bigger impact.

4. Airtable Academy: Customizing learning for different user needs.

Airtable is a flexible tool for building apps and managing data. To help users make the most of it, they have Airtable Academy. This free learning program has learning paths for different roles, full courses, quick guides, and certifications. The active Airtable community often shares tips, which shows users are involved in their academy and solving problems.

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What you can learn: If your tool can be used by different kinds of people for different things, I find offering specific learning paths for those roles is a smart idea. Making all your learning materials free and easy to get to, like Airtable does, makes it much easier for people to start using your product and find the help they need, quickly.

Building a customer education program that really works takes good planning and steady effort. Here are my five straightforward tips to get you on the right track.

1. Know why you’re doing it (clear business goals).

Don’t just create learning content because it seems like a good idea. Connect your program’s goals directly to what your business wants to achieve. Are you trying to keep more customers, get people to use certain features more, or cut down on common support questions? Decide what success looks like with numbers you can check.

2. Really understand your learners.

Make detailed descriptions of your typical users. What are their jobs, what do they already know, what are their biggest challenges, and how do they like to learn (videos, articles, interactive lessons, webinars)? Make your content and how you share it fit their needs. Knowing your different customer groups is key to making education work well.

3. Focus your content and pick smart ways to share it.

You don’t have to build everything all at once. I suggest starting with the basics that solve the most common problems. This usually means “getting started” guides, a good, easy-to-search knowledge base, or a few short, helpful how-to videos.

Think seriously about using in-app messages for help right when and where users need it. Looking forward, 47% of education teams plan to use microlearning — which means short, easy-to-digest content.

4. Work together across teams.

Your customer education program will be much better if it’s a group effort. Get your sales, marketing, product, and support teams involved in planning and creating content. I guarantee their different ideas will make your learning materials more useful and complete. Plus, they can help tell your customers about these great resources.

5. Keep checking, learning, and improving.

Launching your program is just the start. Always get feedback from users and keep a close eye on key numbers like how many people finish courses, if support tickets for topics you covered go down, and if people are using your product more.

Use this information to keep making your content, your methods, and your whole program better. Trust me, it’s worth the effort — 96% of companies say they’ve gotten their money back from investing in customer education.

Customer education is key to business success.

As you can see, there are many ways you can implement customer education, from an academy of dedicated courses to microlearnings in app. In my opinion, the important thing is that you provide some sort of customer education, so that means your choice will depend on your offering, your customers, and your business goals.

Putting effort into customer education directly contributes to building a stronger, more lasting, and more successful business. And in today’s world, where 88% of customers said that great service is more important than ever, I believe helping them learn is one of the smartest things you can do.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in October 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

10 Jun 2025, 11:30 am

I tested FAQ software — here are my favorites 

I’ve learned firsthand how essential effective FAQ software is for smooth business operations. I was working with a classic VC-funded startup, Dapper Labs, and we were expanding rapidly. Our product evolved daily, and our excellent support team was overwhelmed.

The cause? The same recurring questions: “How do I navigate this feature?” “When is the next product release?” We had the answers, but they were dispersed across various locations — internal wikis, docs, and old blog posts. Locating the correct information quickly became a difficult and time-consuming search for everyone.

This inefficiency underscored a vital lesson — merely having information is not sufficient. You need an intelligent method to manage and deliver it. That’s where the right FAQ tools come in.

I now have years of direct, hands-on implementation of FAQ software, analyzing what is effective (and what is not), and understanding how different FAQ tools suit businesses of all scales. The evolution of FAQ software has been innovative, and selecting the right one can fundamentally improve your entire support operation.

Let’s examine what these tools offer and which have consistently earned my confidence.

Table of Contents

• What is FAQ software?
• Key Features for Top FAQ Tools
• The Best FAQ Software and Tools I Recommend
• Why the Right FAQ Software Matters

It’s a 24/7 digital support center, empowering users to find solutions quickly and independently. This capacity for immediate resolution, particularly outside business hours, is invaluable.

In my experience, one thing is for certain — the main objective is to empower users and reduce friction. Good FAQ tools are central to this. Modern FAQ software is not just a static Q&A page, it’s also a dynamic knowledge resource featuring intelligent search, smart categorization, multimedia support, and actionable analytics.

For B2B SaaS companies, where product complexity can be high and user uptime critical, a top-notch FAQ setup is an indispensable component of a winning customer support strategy as it:

• Empowers users by improving product adoption and reducing frustration.
• Frees human agents for complex issues.
• Genuinely reduces operational costs by deflecting a significant volume of repetitive inquiries.

Key Features for Top FAQ Tools

When I evaluate FAQ software, drawing on experience across a variety of sectors, several capabilities are always on my critical checklist. It’s about how these features translate into real-world benefits for both customers and internal operations.

Here are the features I recommend you look out for.

User-Friendly Content Management

Your team — often support agents or product specialists, not developers — needs to easily create, edit, format, and categorize articles.

WYSIWYG or Markdown options are essential for formatting while robust version control is key in the fast-paced SaaS world where outdated content quickly becomes a liability. A cumbersome CMS is a barrier to a healthy knowledge base.

Intelligent Search

AI-powered search that understands natural language, synonyms (e.g., “login issues” vs. “can’t sign in”), and handles typos is crucial.

If users can’t find answers quickly with their first or second attempt, self-service adoption plummets. My experience building AI chatbots has reinforced that effective search is paramount.

Logical Organization and Intuitive Navigation

Clear categories, subcategories, consistent tagging, and an intuitive navigation structure (like breadcrumbs or a clear sidebar) are essential, especially for complex products or multiple product lines.

Good structure allows users to browse effectively and discover information even if they don’t know the exact search terms, preventing the FAQ from becoming an overwhelming data repository.

Branding and Customization That Aligns for Business Identity

The FAQ portal should feel like a natural extension of your brand, not a generic third-party site. Robust options to customize logos, match corporate color palettes, use specific brand fonts, and control the overall layout are expected. This type of consistency builds user trust. It also just looks better.

Multimedia Support for Different Learning Types

The ability to easily embed images, annotated screenshots, concise how-to videos, or interactive guides significantly aids comprehension, especially for visual learners or when explaining complex multi-step procedures. I find a short video can often replace pages of text.

Actionable Analytics and Reporting for Continuous Improvement

I love digging into data — what users are searching for, which articles are most viewed and best rated, which are performing poorly, where knowledge gaps exist (those “zero results” search reports are invaluable for this), and the overall ticket deflection rate. This data drives content strategy and demonstrates ROI.

Seamless Integrations to Avoid Information Silos

Your FAQ software must connect smoothly with your CRM (like HubSpot or Salesforce), help desk software (Zendesk, Freshdesk), and internal collaboration tools (Slack, Teams). Agents must be able to quickly share FAQ links within tickets.

For many, an integrated platform like HubSpot’s Service Hub, which includes a powerful knowledge base tool, offers significant advantages by unifying customer interactions and knowledge.

Advanced AI Capabilities Beyond Better Search

Look for AI that can analyze support tickets to suggest new FAQ topics (some can even draft them), assist in refining existing content, or power conversational AI chatbots that draw answers directly from the knowledge base.

Mobile Responsiveness

The portal must deliver an excellent, intuitive user experience on all devices — desktops, tablets, and smartphones. A poor mobile experience is a major deterrent to self-service.

Scalability and Robust Security Features

The FAQ software needs to handle increasing content volume and user traffic as your business grows. For enterprises, or any company handling sensitive data, robust security features like granular role-based access control (RBAC), single sign-on (SSO), and adherence to compliance certifications (SOC 2, GDPR, etc.) are essential.

Prioritizing these features will steer you to FAQ tools that genuinely enhance your customer support and empower your users.

The Best FAQ Software and Tools I Recommend

Based on my personal use, ongoing research, feature analysis, and user feedback, here are the FAQ software options that consistently impress. This mix serves various needs, from agile startups to large enterprises.

1. HubSpot Service Hub

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Given we’re discussing top-tier FAQ tools, HubSpot’s Service Hub certainly warrants a special mention for its intelligent approach to knowledge management. While HubSpot is widely renowned for its powerful CRM and comprehensive marketing automation, its Service Hub includes a deeply integrated and thoughtfully designed knowledge base tool.

What I’ve consistently found uniquely compelling about HubSpot’s offering — especially since I come from the world of customer support — is that seamless, data-rich connection to the HubSpot CRM.

When your knowledge base isn’t just a standalone repository but actually knows your customer — their detailed interaction history, their product usage, their past support issues — you can deliver truly personalized and highly effective self-service experiences that resonate much more strongly.

This is about moving from generic help to predictive and tailored assistance.

HubSpot’s knowledge base boasts:

• Easy article creation with rich text and multimedia.
• Logical categorization.
• Full branding control to ensure it aligns perfectly with your site.
• Optimized for search engines out-of-the-box.
• Designed for mobile responsiveness.
• Clear analytics on article views, common search terms, and direct customer feedback.

Because it’s an integral part of Service Hub (and thus the unified CRM), it integrates seamlessly with HubSpot’s ticketing system, live chat, and automation tools. This allows you to leverage valuable CRM insights to proactively suggest relevant articles or identify content gaps based on customer data and behavior.

I find that the entire philosophy is geared towards creating a single, cohesive customer experience where self-service feels like an intelligent and helpful extension of your overall support strategy.

What I like: The profound and native integration with the HubSpot CRM is a genuine game-changer for creating personalized and context-aware self-service moments. The analytics are robust, and it’s designed to work seamlessly with all other HubSpot tools, promoting efficiency and a truly unified customer view — essential for breaking down departmental silos.

Best for: Businesses of all sizes, but especially those that are already using or are seriously considering adopting the HubSpot CRM platform. If you want FAQ software that truly leverages your customer data to make self-service smarter, more effective, and more personalized, this is a fantastic and strategically strong choice.

Price: Starter - $20 per seat/month; Professional - $100 per seat/month; Enterprise - $150 per seat/month.

2. Document360

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Document360 is a robust, AI-powered knowledge base platform, particularly strong for SaaS companies needing to manage everything from FAQ software to complex API documentation.

Their “Ask Eddy” AI significantly enhances search and assists in content generation (glossaries, summaries, initial drafts). It offers both Markdown and WYSIWYG editors, strong version control, and solid analytics. The integrations are handled via some native, built-in options and Zapier.

Some of the key strengths I noticed included private knowledge base support and granular versioning, something important for content integrity with frequently updated products. In my opinion, this FAQ software is designed for teams that view documentation as a strategic asset.

What I like: I’m a big fan of a good chatbot. The “Ask Eddy” AI for both search and content creation is very helpful. Its capability to serve as a single, unified source for internal and external documentation offers great efficiency for tech companies. I found that the detailed analytics dashboards are genuinely useful for continuous optimization.

Best for: Mid-market to enterprise-level B2B SaaS companies that require a dedicated, feature-rich knowledge base with strong AI capabilities, robust enough to handle sophisticated and often complex documentation requirements.

Price: Custom pricing for their three plans.

3. Helpjuice

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Helpjuice focuses heavily on AI to help companies “save on customer support,” making it well-suited for rapidly growing companies. It offers:

• AI search for contextual understanding.
• Helpbar and chatbot, “Swifty AI.”
• AI content generation aids like meta descriptions and tag management.
• Advanced analytics designed to identify missing content.

One thing I absolutely love is that all features are available on all plans, offering a very welcome transparency. Their multi-language FAQ software (over 50 languages) is impressive for global reach. They also have collaborative features for multiple authors, making it great for cross-collaboration.

What I like: The breadth of practical AI features aimed at both enhancing user search and streamlining content creation workflows. The “all features on all plans” model simplifies decision-making. Their strong focus on analytics for content improvement is also key.

Best for: B2B SaaS companies (especially mid-market to enterprise, scaling quickly with a global customer base) prioritizing a premium, AI-first knowledge base with extensive customization options and deep, actionable insights.

Price: $200/month for 16 users; $289/month for 60 users; $659/month for unlimited users.

4. Zendesk Guide

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Zendesk Guide is the integrated knowledge base for the wider Zendesk customer service platform, making it a natural choice for existing Zendesk users due to its seamless ecosystem integration. The FAQ software allows businesses to build fully branded help centers, comprehensive question sets, and community forum topics. Other features include:

• Answer Bot, its AI, provides instant responses and suggests articles to agents.
• “Content Cues” helps identify knowledge gaps.
• WYSIWYG editing.
• Reusable “Content Blocks” for consistency and ease.
• Extensive customization via the vast Zendesk Marketplace.

They also have detailed user segmentation for content access and pretty robust content workflow management (with author, reviewer, and publisher roles), which is strong for larger teams.

What I like: I’ve used Zendesk extensively, and they have very tight integration within their suite of products, making it a cohesive solution with ticketing and other channels. The useful AI features like Answer Bot and Content Cues genuinely enhance the efficiency. I also like the comprehensive reporting included, making it easy to optimize as needed.

Best for: Businesses of all sizes already using or strongly considering the Zendesk platform for their overall customer service operations. Be mindful that many advanced knowledge base and AI features can be tied to higher-tier plans or come as add-ons, so budget accordingly.

Price: Support Team - $19 per agent/month; Suite Team - $55 per agent/month; Suite Professional - $115 per agent/month; Suite Enterprise - custom pricing. Prices for plans billed annually.

5. Help Scout Docs

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Help Scout Docs, part of the Help Scout customer communication platform, is admired for its simplicity and exceptional user-friendliness, making it one of the great FAQ tools for SMBs and many mid-market companies.

It was actually one of the first platforms I used early in my startup career. A major draw is that its platform-wide AI tools are included in all plans, even their free offering. The AI tools can assist with drafting replies, summarizing conversations, and delivering self-serve answers via Docs.

“Beacon,” an embeddable widget, places Docs articles and chat access directly within your site or app, proving excellent for contextual, in-the-moment help. There’s some other practical touches like easy restriction of collections to specific audiences and default SSL for all Docs sites.

What I like: I remember when I was first starting in support, I appreciated the exceptional ease-of-use. New team members can get productive with the FAQ software very quickly and the “Beacon” widget works surprisingly well as an in-app self-service solution. I really like the practical AI assistance across all plans, including the free one — always a game-changer for smaller businesses. Their own customer support is also famously good.

Best for: SMB and mid-market B2B SaaS companies wanting a user-friendly, integrated help desk and knowledge base solution without a steep learning curve or a hefty price tag. Their focus on customer delight is evident.

Price: At least one Doc site included on all Help Scout plans. More can be added for $20/month per site.

6. Knowmax

Source

Knowmax positions itself as an “AI-guided knowledge management platform,” and from what I’ve seen, it’s particularly aimed at mid-market to enterprise clients, especially those grappling with complex products or operating in regulated industries.

What catches my eye here is its strong support for diverse interactive content. In my time supporting gaming systems at Skybound or explaining NFT mechanics at Dapper Labs, I quickly learned that static text often falls short.

Knowmax leans into dynamic Cognitive Decision Trees — which, impressively, can be built with no code by subject matter experts — and rich, visual how-to guides. These are far more effective for guiding users through intricate processes than simple FAQ articles.

Their AI is deeply embedded, assisting with intelligent search, content creation, translation, data migration, proactive content suggestions, and auto-curation. Having AI chatbots at Dapper Labs that relied heavily on well-structured backend knowledge, I can appreciate the value of AI that’s integral, not just bolted on.

Plus, their ready APIs for deep CRM and helpdesk integration, along with a Chrome extension that brings knowledge directly into an agent’s workflow, are practical touches that can significantly boost team efficiency.

What I like: The strong focus on interactive content like no-code decision trees and sophisticated visual guides. When you need to ensure precise, compliant steps are followed, this is invaluable. The AI is thoughtfully integrated across the platform, and the omnichannel distribution helps keep a consistent knowledge delivery.

Best for: Mid-market and enterprise B2B SaaS companies, or any organization supporting complex products or services where guided, step-by-step assistance can dramatically boost efficiency, ensure compliance, and significantly improve customer self-service success rates.

Price: Contact for pricing.

7. Stonly

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Stonly really changes the game by focusing on creating interactive step-by-step guides, decision trees, and AI-powered answers, moving well beyond traditional static FAQ software. Their “AI Answers” feature, which generates responses directly from your knowledge base content, is a smart application of AI.

Three key strengths I see in Stonly are:

• Contextual delivery. Stonly allows guides to be embedded as widgets directly within an application or website, targeted to specific user segments, or even triggered by particular user behaviors. This ensures help is there when and where it’s needed, minimizing friction — a principle I champion when optimizing self-service capabilities.
• Robust analytics. Their analytics track content consumption and user paths through guides, identifying drop-off points, which is invaluable for the kind of iterative improvement and data-driven strategy I’ve always implemented.
• No-code builder. Providing a no-code builder for these interactive guides empowers teams to create and deploy solutions with greater agility, without relying heavily on engineering resources.

What I like: The highly interactive, step-by-step guidance approach is certainly a standout. The ability to deliver this help contextually within an application, right at the point of need, is incredibly powerful for user success. I also really like the UI and design — very clean and minimal.

Best for: B2B SaaS companies of any size that need to guide users effectively through onboarding, complex processes, product tours, feature explanations, or troubleshooting steps — especially if static documentation is proving insufficient to reduce confusion or support tickets.

Price: 14-day free trial. Plans for Small Business and Enterprise. Contact for pricing.

8. HappyFox

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HappyFox offers a full customer support suite, and its knowledge base module is a powerful and highly customizable component within that ecosystem. It’s designed to cater to businesses of all sizes, which I appreciate, having worked with varying scales of operations.

The HappyFox AI is integrated across their suite, and this is where it gets interesting for someone like me who has built AI solutions. It assists with knowledge base article drafting directly from tickets — a huge time saver — provides contextual suggestions to agents, and powers chatbots and generative AI for broader customer service functions.

Other notable features this well-designed FAQ software offers:

• It conveniently combines ticket tracking for users, community forums for peer-to-peer support, and direct knowledge base access into a single, unified user destination.
• Their strong and reliable CRM integrations with platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot help maintain that comprehensive customer picture.

What I like: It provides a comprehensive all-in-one platform where ticketing, knowledge base, chat, AI, and workflows are well-integrated. This kind of unification can streamline tech stacks significantly. The AI capabilities seem practically applied to solve real support challenges rather than being mere buzzwords. The customizability of the self-service portal also allows for strong brand alignment, which is important for customer trust.

Best for: B2B SaaS companies looking for a unified support suite that includes robust FAQ tools, strong AI features for both self-service and agent assistance, and good, dependable integration within their existing CRM systems.

Price: Basic - $21 per agent/month; Team - $39 per agent/month; Pro - $89 per agent/month; Enterprise Pro - contact sales.

9. Slab

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Slab is a modern knowledge hub and wiki, and it’s extremely popular with tech-focused teams for internal documentation, onboarding materials, and product specifications. While it’s often an internal champion, its clean design makes it adaptable as an external FAQ software, too.

What I’ve always found impressive in tools used by engineering and product teams is a focus on efficiency and distraction-free work. Slab delivers this with a clean WYSIWYG editor and excellent real-time collaboration for team-maintained docs.

• Unified Search. This is the standout feature for me. You can query Slab content plus integrated tools like Slack, Google Drive, and GitHub from a single interface. This is a massive productivity win, especially for internal teams who are constantly referencing information across different systems. I’ve personally struggled with how much time-wasting can occur from context-switching.
• AI features such as “AI Autofix” for clarity and “AI Ask” for querying the knowledge base are available on higher-tier plans, adding another layer of intelligence.
• “Admin Insights” offers analytics on content popularity and unanswered questions, which helps in curating valuable internal knowledge.

What I like: The exceptionally clean UI and the powerful “Unified Search” are major highlights, especially for internal knowledge sharing and productivity. The real-time collaboration features are excellent for keeping documentation up-to-date with minimal friction, which is critical for fast-moving product teams.

Best for: B2B SaaS companies — particularly startups and tech-savvy teams (engineering, product, operations) — who need a simple, elegant, and highly effective internal knowledge base or wiki. While Slab is adaptable for external use, its core strengths really shine for internal collaboration.

Price: Free; Startup - $6.67 per user/month billed annually; Business - $12.50 per user/month billed annually; Enterprise - custom pricing.

10. SupportBee

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SupportBee is primarily a user-friendly and affordable shared inbox and ticketing system, and it’s clearly designed with the needs and budgets of small businesses and startups in mind.

Having worked in environments that needed to scale support quickly and efficiently, sometimes starting with lean FAQ tools, I appreciate solutions that focus on core functionality without unnecessary complexity. SupportBee includes an integrated knowledge base feature as part of its core offering, which allows you to:

• Create “knowledge base snippets” (i.e., articles).
• Support multiple public or private knowledge bases.
• Use a standard rich text editor.
• Embed multimedia.

While it may lack the extensive AI features or deep analytics of more specialized platforms that I might leverage for enterprise-level reporting, its strength lies in its simplicity and its tight, straightforward integration with its primary ticketing system. It gets the fundamental job done.

What I like: Its straightforwardness and affordability are the key attractions for small teams. For those just starting with organized support and wanting basic self-service options without significant investment or a steep learning curve, it covers the essentials well.

Best for: B2B SaaS startups and small businesses that primarily need a simple, easy-to-use shared inbox solution for managing customer emails and would also benefit from basic, integrated knowledge base capabilities at a budget-friendly price point.

Price: Startup - $13 per user/month billed annually; Enterprise - $17 per user/month billed annually.

11. Freshworks Customer Service Suite (Formerly Freshdesk)

Source

Freshworks (which now incorporates the well-established Freshdesk capabilities) provides a comprehensive omnichannel customer support platform. Matter of fact, I currently use Freshworks at Skybound Entertainment. While we were already using it upon my arrival, I appreciate platforms designed to scale effectively from SMBs all the way up to large enterprises. Freshworks fits this bill.

It has a solid and feature-rich knowledge base as a core component of their offering, plus:

• A rich text editor to create, manage, and categorize articles.
• A versioning feature to track changes (especially important with multiple contributors).
• SEO optimization for public articles.
• Multilingual content for global reach.

Their AI is quite mature and powers functionalities like chatbots, provides real-time assistance to agents in their workflows, and can suggest relevant articles from the knowledge base. One of the advantages I have noticed, especially for smaller and growing teams, is that their free plan includes functional knowledge base capabilities, lowering the barrier to entry.

What I like: The robust omnichannel approach ensures that your knowledge base is an integral part of a cohesive customer service strategy, not an afterthought. Their AI is well-developed and the availability of accessible free and low-cost entry plans makes it a very attractive option for businesses just building out their support stack and those looking for a strong FAQ software.

Best for: B2B SaaS companies of all sizes that are looking for a unified omnichannel solution which includes a well-integrated, genuinely AI-enhanced knowledge base. The platform’s scalability from free to enterprise plans is a key benefit for growing companies.

Price: Growth - $15 per agent/month; Pro - $49 per agent/month; Enterprise - $79 per agent/month. All plans billed annually.

12. Zoho Desk

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Zoho Desk is well-regarded for offering a feature-rich, context-aware help desk solution that provides excellent value for your money — a factor I always consider, especially when advocating for budget to executive leadership. Its integrated knowledge base component fully lives up to this reputation. While it’s part of the extensive Zoho suite of business applications, it also stands as a strong and competitive offering on its own merits.

The knowledge base supports:

• Articles.
• FAQs.
• How-to guides.
• Multi-brand help centers.
• A rich text editor.
• Categorization.
• Versioning.

“Zia,” Zoho’s AI assistant, intelligently suggests articles to customers and agents, can analyze ticket sentiment, and aids with tagging for better organization. Like Freshworks, Zoho Desk is known for its excellent value, with a very capable free plan that includes knowledge base functionality.

What I like: The outstanding value for money, especially considering the rich feature set included in the free and lower-tier paid plans, is hard to beat. The Zia AI assistant adds a useful layer of intelligence and automation across the platform, and the multi-brand help center support is a practical benefit for many businesses managing diverse offerings.

Best for: SMB and mid-market SaaS companies that are looking for an affordable yet feature-packed FAQ software that comes complete with a solid, reliable, and AI-enhanced knowledge base.

Price: Contact for pricing.

Why the Right FAQ Software Matters

Reflecting on those early startup days, the contrast between information chaos and the calm efficiency of well-implemented FAQ software is vivid. My experience across different industries consistently shows that investing in the right FAQ tools is fundamental. It’s about empowering customers, freeing support teams for complex issues, and building a scalable, user-friendly support operation.

The best FAQ software today is intelligent, integrated, and increasingly personalized — acting as your customer-facing knowledge hub. Choosing the right platform that fits your company’s needs and budget is a strategic business move in better customer relationships and a foundation for growth.

The landscape of FAQ tools is rich — do your homework and select the one that will elevate your information delivery.

9 Jun 2025, 11:30 am

Internal knowledge base: What it is and how to implement it 

This might be a strange personality quirk, but I love systems and processes — especially when they’re stored in a well-organized internal knowledge base. I've created training documents, where there were previously none, for my replacement when I was leaving several jobs. You can imagine how excited I was to join a company like HubSpot, which has an internal knowledge base where standardized systems and processes are kept.

When your employees need to find information, collaborate with other teams, or are in training, an internal knowledge base can be extremely helpful.

In this post, let‘s review what an internal knowledge base is and the best software to implement one. I’ll cover:

• What is an internal knowledge base?
• Internal Knowledge Base Software
• Benefits of Internal Knowledge Bases
• How to Create an Internal Knowledge Base

With an internal knowledge base, you can store policies, handbooks, guidelines, and share information and findings cross-departmentally. Whether you‘re sharing short- or long-form documents, an internal knowledge base acts as a Wikipedia for your company. It’s an internal help center where employees can get information quickly.

Benefits of Internal Knowledge Bases

Save Employees Time

When your employees need to find information, they don't need to wait for an email response or spend hours trying to figure it out themselves. They can easily search your internal knowledge base to find information they need, boosting productivity.

Efficient Way to Disperse Information

Sending emails to your entire company isn't the most efficient way to disseminate information that employees will need to continue referencing. When you want to share information like employee benefits, holiday schedules, or FAQs, an internal knowledge base is the way to go.

Team Collaboration

It can be hard to communicate what all departments are up to. With an internal knowledge base, teams can share their experiments and findings with the entire company. For instance, your support staff could share information about support tickets with each other and other departments that want to review customer pain points.

Centralized Information

Finally, one place to find everything you might need. Having a single source of truth for information is important for companies that want to streamline, scale, and grow.

Assists With Onboarding

An internal knowledge base helps onboard new employees so they can review documentation and policies.

As a customer service team, you might store customer FAQs and troubleshooting guides on an internal knowledge base. With these types of articles, your support staff can bookmark and continue referencing them during their calls.

How to Create an Internal Knowledge Base

Building an internal knowledge base isn’t just about storing documents — it’s about creating a system your team actually wants to use. It should feel like a helpful colleague, not a cluttered file cabinet.

Here’s a simple framework to help you create one that’s useful, organized, and easy to maintain.

1. Identify what internal knowledge needs to be shared.

Start by figuring out what types of information your team needs most. Think: onboarding guides, IT help, HR policies, process checklists, tool walkthroughs — any piece of knowledge that lives in someone’s head or a hidden folder.

You’re not starting from scratch — you’re centralizing what already exists across emails, Google Docs, Slack threads, and people’s brains. A good internal knowledge base makes this tribal knowledge accessible to everyone, not just the tenured few.

You can:

• Interview team leads to surface frequently asked questions.
• Review recurring internal support tickets or Slack threads.
• Ask new hires what information they wish they had on day one.
• Review the recent or most viewed documents in your Google Workspace.
• Analyze where work is delayed or blocked due to missing info.

This step ensures your knowledge base solves real internal problems from the start — not hypothetical ones. It also helps you prioritize what to document first based on demand and impact.

2. Choose the right platform for your team.

The right software makes or breaks adoption. For internal teams, choose a tool that’s intuitive, integrates with your daily tools (like Slack or your CRM), and supports permissioning so you can control access by department or role.

You want something your team won’t resist using. If it feels clunky, they’ll go back to asking in Slack. The ideal platform is one that fades into the background and simply works — available when you need it, invisible when you don’t.

If you’re already using HubSpot, our Knowledge Base Software is a no-brainer — it’s tightly integrated with your support tools and lets you manage everything in one place. Plus, you get reporting tools to see what people are searching for, what’s helping, and what needs improvement.

3. Structure it like a library.

Group your content into clear categories: think “HR,” “IT,” “Customer Success,” “Sales Enablement,” etc. Then use tags or filters to help people drill down quickly.

Don’t overcomplicate the structure at first — aim for clarity, not perfection. You can always expand as your library grows. What matters most is consistency. If your HR policies are in four different folders with four different naming conventions, no one will ever find them.

Pro tip: Mirror how your org already talks about things. If your sales team calls it “battle cards,” don’t label that section “competitive intel.” Naming conventions matter more than you think. A familiar name is the fastest shortcut to findability.

4. Write articles that are clear, brief, and actionable.

Internal knowledge doesn’t have to read like legal copy. Use plain language, bullet points, and screenshots or video walkthroughs when helpful. The goal is to make it skimmable and useful in the moment someone needs it.

Every article should solve a specific problem or answer a clear question. Think one task, one page. The shorter and more direct the content, the more likely it’ll be used.

Include:

• A clear title that describes the task or question.
• Step-by-step instructions with formatting.
• Last updated date (so people trust the info).
• Owner or contact for follow-up questions.

It’s also helpful to include common “gotchas” or mistakes at the bottom of each article — things like “Be sure to click Save before exiting” or “This only works in Chrome.”

5. Set access and editing permissions.

Not all knowledge is meant for everyone. Set clear access rules — especially for documents that involve finance, HR, or leadership decisions.

You’ll also want to protect your content from unintentional edits. Choose who can view, edit, and approve updates. Version control is your friend here — you don’t want to lose a well-written article to a rushed copy/paste.

Also decide: Who can edit articles? Is there an approval process? Version control? Even basic permissioning helps you avoid the “everyone edits everything” chaos.

It’s worth creating a short internal style guide or contributor checklist to maintain consistency and quality across articles, especially as more people get involved.

6. Train your team to use it (and contribute).

Don’t assume people will just “find it.” During onboarding and team meetings, show how to use the knowledge base. Make it part of daily workflows by linking to it often and encouraging questions to be answered there first.

This isn’t a one-time announcement. You need ongoing visibility and gentle nudges. Reinforce the habit by pointing people to relevant articles when they ask questions — and recognizing when they contribute updates.

You could even:

• Create a #knowledge-base Slack channel for updates.
• Recognize top contributors each quarter.
• Link to articles in everyday comms (like onboarding checklists).
• Assign content champions in each department to keep docs relevant.

The more your team contributes, the more accurate, complete, and helpful your knowledge base becomes.

7. Keep it updated and useful.

A dead knowledge base is worse than none at all. Set up recurring check-ins (monthly or quarterly) to review outdated content, flag missing articles, and archive irrelevant docs.

Treat your knowledge base like a product — it needs a roadmap, ownership, and regular iterations. Otherwise, it becomes the digital junk drawer everyone avoids.

Some platforms (like Tettra or Guru) even remind you when articles haven’t been updated in a while — a great failsafe to keep content fresh.

You can also use data to drive updates: look at search terms with no results, articles with low ratings, or common feedback to see where improvements are needed.

There are a lot of tools that say they can help you build an internal knowledge base — but only a few that actually make it easy for your team to find and share knowledge without a headache.

I’ve explored, tested, and used plenty of them, and these are the five I’d actually recommend.

Each one solves a different kind of problem — some are great for fast onboarding, others for real-time collaboration, and a few for making sure your documentation doesn’t collect dust.

Whether you are starting from scratch or upgrading a messy wiki, these tools are worth a serious look. Below is a list of the top internal knowledge base software to use.

1. HubSpot Knowledge Base Software

Best for: Teams already using HubSpot — or ready to scale fast

If you want an internal knowledge base that looks clean, works seamlessly, and ties into your CRM, support desk, and reporting without any duct tape — HubSpot is the one.

What impressed me most when I started using it was how simple it was to create polished articles with zero friction, all while having built-in analytics to see what people were actually searching for.

Plus, you can categorize content, customize the design, and track what articles are most helpful. That means you’re not just storing information — you’re learning from it and improving team workflows over time.

Why I recommend it:

• Fully integrated with your CRM, chat, and help desk.
• Beginner-friendly without sacrificing power.
• Insightful analytics to continuously improve content.
• Ideal for both internal and customer-facing knowledge bases.

2. Guru

Best for: Enabling teams directly inside Slack, Chrome, or Teams

Guru is like having a smart assistant that knows where everything lives — without having to leave your workspace. It uses AI to surface answers right when and where you need them. I’ve seen sales reps get real-time talk tracks and objection-handling docs in Slack threads or on calls, without even asking.

Guru doesn’t require employees to go “look something up” in a separate system. It brings the knowledge to them. It is the right option for teams of all sizes looking for an internal knowledge base that will boost productivity without a complicated setup process.

Why I recommend it:

• Contextual AI suggestions in Slack, Chrome, and beyond.
• Easy to set up and adopt — no steep learning curve.
• Great for real-time enablement across sales, support, and ops.

3. Confluence

Best for: Structured documentation in technical or cross-functional teams

Confluence, by Atlassian, is a workhorse. If your teams are used to Jira, or if you run lots of cross-functional projects that need structured documentation, Confluence keeps everything organized and searchable. It is a software where you can create an online team workspace. It makes collaboration in your internal knowledge base easy with its focus on social interaction.

The thing I appreciate about Confluence is its depth — you can go lightweight with sample pages or get really technical with layered permissions, embedded Jira tickets, and templates for things like retrospectives or meeting notes.

There are both free and paid versions of this tool for both small and large businesses.

Why I recommend it:

• Strong integration with other Atlassian tools (Jira, Trello).
• Ideal for teams with complex workflows.
• Endless flexibility for documentation style and depth.

4. Tettra

Best for: Fast-growing teams who need to keep knowledge fresh

Tettra is clean, fast, and purpose-built for internal documentation. Tettra is an internal knowledge base and company wiki software. If you’ve ever had a team wiki go stale (and who hasn’t?), Tettra is a breath of fresh air. It gently prompts you when content is outdated, missing, or redundant, so your internal knowledge base doesn’t rot over time.

It also plays really well with Slack. You can ask a question in Slack, and Tettra will suggest relevant pages. I’ve found it’s perfect for growing startups that don’t have time for heavy admin work but still want to build reliable documentation.

Again, this tool can be used by any-sized business as there are free and paid options.

Why I recommend it:

• Smart nudges to update or archive outdated content.
• Tight Slack integration for real-time answers.
• Clean UI that doesn’t intimidate new users.

5. Iorad

Best for: creating step-by-step tutorials with zero design skills.

Iorad is your go-to tool when you need to show someone how to do something, especially if it involves multiple steps or tools. It records your screen as you click around, then turns that into a polished, interactive tutorial with text instructions.

I’ve used Iorad for onboarding guides, software walkthroughs, and internal training docs. And because it integrates directly with HubSpot, you can embed those tutorials inside your knowledge base for even faster adoption.

With an integration of HubSpot's Knowledge base and Iorad, you can create onboarding and training systems within minutes.

Why I recommend it:

• Auto-generates step-by-step guides from screen recordings.
• Great for onboarding, support, and training documentation.
• Pairs perfectly with HubSpot Knowledge Base for rich content.

Build and Rebuild Your Knowledge Base

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from building (and rebuilding) internal systems over the years, it’s this: The best internal knowledge base isn’t the one with the most articles — it’s the one your team actually uses.

And honestly, it’s not about perfection. You don’t need to have every document in place before launching. Start small. Focus on the questions people ask every week, the how-tos you keep repeating, or the policies buried three clicks too deep in someone’s Drive folder. That’s your foundation.

From there, choose a platform that fits the way your team already works. If you’re using HubSpot, the Knowledge Base Software is a solid choice — it’s integrated, easy to manage, and comes with the kind of reporting and permissions features that make scaling feel simple. But even if you go with a different tool, the most important thing is that your team trusts it, finds it useful, and sees it as a go-to resource.

At the end of the day, creating an internal knowledge base is one of the highest-leverage things you can do to support your team. The sooner you start, the sooner your future self (and your entire company) will thank you.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in August 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

6 Jun 2025, 11:30 am

The 15 best demographic examples & questions to use in your next survey 

Demographic questions might seem personal, but they’re essential if you want to truly understand your customers. Asking about things like age, location, gender, ethnicity, or job status helps you segment your audience and tailor your message to what matters most.

Gathering this information is a little tricky. I’m not lining up to tell brands my life story. That’s why the best demographic survey questions get the job done quickly without being a chore to answer.

In this post, I’ll cover everything you need to know about demographic questions and how to ask them well. I’ve also compiled 15 examples you can steal for your next survey.

Table of Contents

• Examples of Demographic Survey Questions
• What is a demographic?
• Challenges With Getting and Using Demographics
• Benefits of Demographic Questions in Surveys
• The Power of Demographics

What is a demographic?

A demographic is a measurable characteristic that describes a person or group. Common demographics include:

• Age
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Household Income
• Religion
• Location
• Education Level

Demographic data is essential for understanding your customer base. By piecing together many demographic (and behavioral) data points, you can segment your customer base into meaningful groups.

Understanding the traits and qualities of your customer base helps you create a clearer picture of the types of customers you serve. That way, you can personalize messaging and offer products and services that genuinely meet their needs.

This insight is gold for your marketing, product, sales, and service teams. But gathering data that’s valuable doesn’t come without challenges.

Challenges With Getting and Using Demographics

Collecting demographic information sounds simple, but it's a sensitive practice that raises privacy concerns and requires walking a fine line between inquiring about personal details and being invasive.

I wouldn’t walk up to a stranger on the street and say, “Hey, what ethnicity are you?” So, what makes it okay to do that in a survey? Well, that’s the tricky part. Asking demographic questions requires respect and transparency, but the results are invaluable when done right.

Navigating Expectations of Privacy

Data privacy is a deal-breaker for many people, and it’s only getting more important over time. I reviewed our 2024 Consumer Trends Report, and the following privacy stats jumped out at me:

• 75% of respondents believe that data privacy is a basic human right.
• 76% of respondents are concerned about how companies use their data.
• 71% of respondents say trust in a company determines whether they’ll share information.
• 3 out of 4 respondents believe they should have complete control over their data use.

I don’t even like giving out my phone number or email unless I have to, and I’m sure I’m not alone in that sentiment. If I’m going to give away my demographic data to a brand, they must earn my trust first.

Avoiding Stereotypes

Demographics are facts. They are the measurable characteristics of a person or group that help you segment your customer base and craft personalized messaging. Stereotypes, on the other hand, are overgeneralized traits assigned to groups, often rooted in bias, not data.

Here’s the difference:

• Demographic: 35% of our customers are Gen Z.
• Stereotype: Gen Z doesn’t want to work.

It’s easy to blur the line between demographics and stereotypes. That’s why it’s important to ask respectful questions and avoid making unfair assumptions when interpreting the data.

Using Demographics for Targeted Messaging

Demographics help you understand your customers’ needs based on real facts, not generalizations. That means you can craft marketing messaging that actually resonates.

For example, I run a musical instrument backline rental company, which means I rent amps, guitars, and drums for artists who perform in my city. At first, I thought I would craft my messaging towards the players, so I hyped up the technical specs, tonal quality, and vintage lore.

However, I quickly realized that the players weren’t the ones finding my website and making rental requests. It was the managers. And, they couldn't care less about vintage tubes and nitrocellulose finishes. They just wanted to know about reliability, availability, brand names, and if I could deliver on time.

This insight completely changed how I approached my marketing messaging. After rewriting the copy on my site to highlight logistics, flexibility, and fast service, I’ve seen an uptick in rental requests.

Unlike stereotypes, which rely on lazy assumptions, using demographics well requires effort. You’ve got to ask the right questions, analyze the data, and use it to build a buyer persona that reflects the people who are interacting with your business.

Pro tip: Want an easier way to crunch the numbers on your survey responses? Check out HubSpot’s Reporting Dashboard to create custom dashboards and turn your data into actionable insights.

Building Trust to Collect Demographic Information

I’m pretty skeptical about giving away my personal information. I’ll only share it with brands I know and trust, and I believe that a company's treatment of my personal data indicates how they view me as a customer. As it turns out, 81% of people agree with me.

The risks of sharing personal data online are very real. Plenty of bad actors are willing to sell your data without your consent, and all it takes is one breach. It’s happened to me, and if you’ve ever received a spam call or robocall, it’s probably happened to you, too.

Recently, I received an email from Ring, the doorbell camera company, thanking me for signing up for an account and asking me to verify my email address. The thing is, I don’t own a Ring doorbell, and I definitely didn’t sign up for an account. I promptly contacted their support line, and days later, I still haven’t heard back.

Now, this probably isn’t Ring’s fault. Someone probably pulled my email off some dark web list and tried to use it to make an account. Why? I don’t know. But Ring's lack of responsiveness and transparency killed my confidence. I won’t willingly give them my personal data anytime soon, let alone buy a doorbell cam.

That’s why asking for demographic information isn’t something you can rush. You’ve got to earn trust with your customers over time, but I believe it's worth the effort. Done right, you will forge strong customer relationships and gain insights that lead to better products, messaging, and customer experience overall.

Want to learn more about demographics and market research? Grab our free Market Research Templates kit to map your audience like a pro.

Using demographic questions can help you better understand your audience, improve communication strategies, and maximize the effectiveness of your marketing budget. Below, I’ll review common demographic questions, their importance, and how to ask them.

1. Gender

Gender is a fundamental demographic, but asking about it requires careful handling. While this information is valuable, it shouldn‘t come at the expense of your customers’ comfort.

Avoid using the word “sex,” and always include inclusive options and a “prefer not to say” option.

Example: “What gender do you identify as?”

1. Male
2. Female
3. Non-Binary
4. _________ (short answer space)
5. Prefer not to say

2. Age

Age is a standard demographic question that should be included in every demographic survey. Knowing your audience’s age reveals many characteristics that can aid your targeting and segmentation.

The best way to ask this question is in a multiple-choice format that uses age ranges for each answer. Some customers may feel uncomfortable revealing their exact age, so this structure allows them to participate while protecting their personal information.

Example: “How old are you?”

1. Under 18
2. 18-24
3. 25-34
4. 35-44
5. 45-54
6. 55-64
7. 65+
8. Prefer not to say

Pro tip: Age data reveals which generations your respondents belong to, which may be of particular interest to your marketing and strategy teams.

3. Ethnicity

Understanding your audience’s ethnicity helps paint a picture of their cultural backgrounds, social influences, and values. This information is valuable in targeting, but it’s essential to approach this demographic question with sensitivity and inclusivity in mind.

Example: “How would you describe your ethnicity? (Select all that apply.)”

1. White/Caucasian
2. Black or African-American
3. Hispanic or Latino
4. Asian
5. Middle Eastern
6. Native American or Alaska Native
7. Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
8. Other: ________
9. Prefer not to say

Pro tip: Ensure this is a multi-select question, not just a multiple-choice question where respondents can only pick one option. This includes bi- and mixed-race people and will enrich your data.

4. Location

Audience location data is a core demographic question that reveals regional trends and attitudes and can help you identify market expansion opportunities. The level of locational granularity you require will depend on your business. Local businesses will want to know the cities and towns people are from, while global companies are more likely to be concerned with the country and/or state of residence.

Example: “Where is your current place of residence?”

1. North America
2. South America
3. Europe
4. Africa
5. Asia
6. Australia
7. Middle East
8. Other: ______
9. Prefer not to say

5. Education Level

Your audience’s educational background can reveal insights about how they think, make decisions, and the types of products and services they value. Understanding their highest level of education helps build a comprehensive buyer persona.

Include options for trades and apprenticeships. Some of your customers may have chosen a different career path outside of traditional academia, and it's essential to be inclusive of those people.

Example: “What is the highest level of education you have completed?”

1. Some High School
2. High School Graduate or GED
3. Some College
4. Bachelor’s Degree
5. Master's Degree
6. Doctorate (Ph.D., Ed.D., etc.)
7. Trade or Vocational School
8. Prefer not to say

6. Marital Status

Marital status is an informative demographic question that can reveal much about your respondent's priorities and needs. It’s beneficial for targeting if your product is related to family life or might require joint decision-making based on budgeting or shared experiences.

Example: “What is your marital status?”

1. Single
2. In a domestic partnership
3. Married
4. Divorced
5. Widowed
6. Prefer not to say

7. Family and Dependents

Asking about marital status reveals a lot about your respondents, but supplementing that with information about family and dependents paints a fuller picture of their needs, behaviors, pain points, and values.

Example: “How many children or dependents do you have?”

1. None
2. 1
3. 2
4. 3
5. 4+
6. Prefer not to say

8. Living Status

Your customers’ living situations can tell you a lot about their mobility, lifestyle, and spending priorities. For example, homeowners are typically more settled and have longer-term needs compared to renters.

Example: “Which of the following describes your living situation?”

1. Homeowner
2. Renter
3. Living with parents/family
4. Temporary housing
5. Prefer not to say

9. Annual Household Income

Annual household income helps you understand your customers’ buying power. This figure is a sum of the combined earnings of everyone living in a single residence, like spouses and family members.

For many, income can be a sensitive topic, so I recommend including a “Prefer not to say” option to respect privacy.

Example: “What is your annual household income?”

1. Less than $25,000
2. $25,000 - $49,999
3. $50,000 - $99,999
4. $100,000 - $199,999
5. $200,000 or more
6. Prefer not to say

Pro tip: Test out different income ranges depending on your target market. If the range is too wide, the data isn’t as valuable, and too narrow an income range can feel a little intrusive.

10. Employment Status

Employment status contextualizes your audience's financial situation, lifestyle, and needs. Paired with income data, it can reveal more information about purchasing power and help you personalize your messaging.

For example, I’m a self-employed individual with special needs for software and tax services. Apparently, online advertisers are intimately aware of this (I’m getting a lot of TurboTax Ads).

Example: “What is your current employment status?”

1. Full-time
2. Part-time
3. Contract or temporary
4. Self-employed
5. Retired
6. Unemployed
7. Unable to work
8. Prefer not to say

11. Voting Status

Asking about your customers’ voter registration status can give you a sense of their level of civic engagement. People who are registered to vote are more likely to be engaged in their communities and be responsive to political or social messaging.

This is a sensitive topic, so I recommend treading carefully and omitting it unless you stand to gain invaluable insights that directly support your goals.

Example: “Are you registered to vote in ____?”

1. Yes
2. No
3. Prefer not to say

12. Political Views

Political affiliation is one of the most sensitive demographic questions you can ask. However, it can reveal much about your audience's values and greatly inform your messaging strategy.

If your brand touches on social issues and cause-based marketing, this question can be valuable for crafting messages that resonate with your customers. If not, I recommend handling this question with care and always making it optional.

Example: “Which of the following groups do your political views align with?”

1. Democrat
2. Republican
3. Independent
4. Other: _______
5. Don’t know
6. Prefer not to say

13. Language

Language is an essential demographic question for obvious reasons. You can’t speak to your customers if there’s a language barrier.

Beyond that, understanding your audiences’ language(s) reveals important cultural details that can indicate values, preferences, and communication preferences.

Example: “Which languages do you speak fluently? (Check all that apply)”

1. English
2. Spanish
3. Portuguese
4. French
5. Mandarin
6. Arabic
7. Other: _____

14. Place of Birth

Place of birth offers context to your audience’s background, especially when paired with location and language data.

For example, two people might live in the U.S., but someone born in China will likely have different needs, values, preferences, and expectations than someone born and raised in the States. Without place of birth data, these details sometimes fall through the cracks.

Example: “Where were you born?”

1. North America
2. Central America
3. South America
4. Europe
5. Africa
6. Asia
7. Australia
8. Pacific Islands
9. Middle East
10. Caribbean Islands
11. Other: _____
12. Prefer not to say

15. Religion

Last but not least in the “tread lightly” category of demographic questions is religion. Religious affiliation reveals powerful insights into your audiences' values, beliefs, and lifestyle choices, which helps you craft messaging that resonates.

I recommend only including it if you must, and as always, make it optional.

Example: “What is your religious affiliation, if any?”

1. Christianity
2. Judaism
3. Islam
4. Hinduism
5. Buddhism
6. None
7. Other: _____
8. Prefer not to say

Benefits of Demographic Questions in Surveys

Demographic questions help you develop accurate buyer personas: detailed profiles that power targeted marketing campaigns, effective sales tactics, and support experiences that delight customers.

These personas reflect your customers’ backgrounds, needs, and pain points, giving you a competitive edge when connecting with them. However, the benefits of demographic information aren’t just for marketing teams.

When I worked at HubSpot Support, knowing our personas inside and out helped me better understand customers' needs, resulting in smoother calls and increased satisfaction. For example, one type of persona I often worked with was the IT professional, who was sharp, technical, and confident in troubleshooting. When I got on the phone with a techy customer, I knew I could reliably ask them to “inspect element” on a page without inciting panic.

Here are a few key benefits of using demographic questions in your surveys:

1. Better buyer personas.

Creating a buyer persona will help you understand customers’ habits, needs, pain points, and motivations. With these insights, you can:

• Improve the customer experience at key touchpoints.
• Create an effective customer journey map.
• Tailor your marketing messaging so it resonates.

The more accurate your buyer personas are, the better you can understand and serve your customers' needs. These insights will help you develop new products your customers want, improve service to make their lives easier, and personalize your marketing messaging so it strikes a chord every time.

2. Better understanding of business trends.

Demographic data brings another level of insight to your surveys. Instead of just seeing what’s happening, demographic data can give you the who and the why.

For example, if you notice a dip in sales, diving into the demographic data might show that Gen Z customers in the Northeast are falling off. These insights let you adjust your strategies surgically, saving time and money.

3. Better understanding of your target audience.

Demographic surveys provide a deeper understanding of your customers. If you plan to launch a new product or service, the demographics of your existing customer base will help you target your efforts to those most likely to respond.

Demographic information can also reveal new opportunities.

HubSpot’s 2024 Consumer Trends Report showed that while 55% of respondents are tightening their budgets, that number jumps to 68% for Baby Boomers. If you’ve done your demographics homework and discovered that a decent chunk of your customers are Boomers, that could be the cue to adjust your product's positioning and pricing.

4. Enhanced customer engagement.

Understanding your audience’s demographics can help you create more relevant content that people want to engage with. That could mean better social captions, blog posts that customers find genuinely helpful, personalized offers, or emails that don’t get immediately binned. The result? Increased customer engagement and more sales.

As a former HubSpot support rep, I have to give you a support-related example:

HubSpot’s 2024 Consumer Trends Report found that Gen Z preferred sending a direct message to receive support, whereas Boomers vastly preferred calling in. No surprises there.

If your demographics show that most of your customers are Gen Z, investing in an omni-channel customer support solution with powerful messaging features could delight your customers and your support team.

Now that we understand the importance of demographic survey questions, the next step is to put them to work. Using a Customer Feedback Software tool like ours, you can:

• Build surveys with demographic questions tailored to your audience.
• Run customer feedback surveys to gather key insights on how customers view your brand.
• Analyze customer feedback and data with customizable dashboards.
• Share insights across teams so that everyone’s on the same page.

The Power of Demographics

Demographics can help you understand your customers and how best to approach them with your products and services. The next time you reach out to your customers with a survey, I encourage you to include some of these demographic examples. Ultimately, I’ve found this information crucial in meeting customers where they are with the messages they want to hear.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in July 2024 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

5 Jun 2025, 3:00 pm

Knowledge management vs. knowledge bases — What works best, from a service pro 

I distinctly recall one quarter at Skybound Entertainment. We’d hit a sweet spot — successful Kickstarters, ecommerce campaigns, and new game releases meant rapid growth. Fantastic, right?

Except our support channels were utterly swamped with a sizable surge in tickets practically overnight. We had a knowledge base full of FAQs and troubleshooting guides for our ecommerce and gaming products. But it quickly became clear that just having a library of knowledge base articles wasn’t the silver bullet. We needed a system to manage all the information.

The experience drove home a vital lesson: the real difference between knowledge management vs. knowledge base. It’s a gap many businesses stumble into, and bridging it is fundamental to not just surviving, but truly excelling in today’s customer-first world.

So, let’s get practical and break down “knowledge management system vs knowledge base,” look at how they differ, and pinpoint when each — or as I’ve learned, both working together — can genuinely transform your approach to customer knowledge.

Table of Contents

• What is a knowledge base?
• What is a knowledge management system?
• Knowledge Base vs. Knowledge Management System
• When do you need a knowledge base?
• When do you need a knowledge management system?

What is a knowledge base?

To start, let’s define the fundamental component, a knowledge base. At its core, it is a centralized, self-service library of information, serving as a singular digital repository designed to empower users with quick access to answers without needing direct assistance. Think of it as your organization’s digital go-to for answers, designed for both customers and internal teams.

For customers, this is your FAQ section, your help center with how-to articles, and troubleshooting guides. Internally, it’s where employees find company policies, process docs, or technical details.

The main goal? To empower users to find solutions independently and quickly. This is vital, as a striking 81% of customers want more self-service options. Furthermore, 91% would use an online knowledge base if it were available and tailored to their needs.

During my time at Rar3Labs when I helped launch the digital collectibles marketplace, a top priority was to build a clear knowledge base for new collectors. It explained complex topics like digital wallets and royalties, significantly reducing confusion and enabling user self-sufficiency. The focus was direct: provide immediate answers.

A strong knowledge base must be:

• Searchable. Users need effortless information retrieval.
• Organized. Content requires logical structuring for intuitive navigation.
• Accessible. Available 24/7 and mobile-friendly.
• Current. Information must be accurate to maintain trust.

A knowledge base is a tool, an output for information retrieval. Solutions like the HubSpot Knowledge Base software empower businesses to create these self-service portals effectively.

What is a knowledge management system?

Moving beyond the static library concept, a knowledge management system (KMS) — or more broadly, knowledge management as a practice — represents the dynamic ecosystem and strategic infrastructure that ensures the organizational “library” is not only well-stocked and organized but also actively used, maintained, and continuously improved.

If a knowledge base is the library, then a KMS is the entire infrastructure ensuring that the library is effectively stocked, organized, and refined. It’s the overarching strategy and processes an organization employs to create, capture, organize, share, use, and maintain its collective knowledge.

Knowledge management transcends just software — it’s a holistic approach involving:

• Identifying critical knowledge needs.
• Creating and capturing new information, including tacit “know-how.”
• Organizing and storing this knowledge (where a knowledge base plays a part).
• Disseminating information to the right people at the right time.
• Applying knowledge to enhance processes, products, and experiences.
• Regularly reviewing and updating knowledge through feedback and analytics. This ongoing cycle is key to knowledge management.

At Dapper Labs, for instance, the AI chatbots we built for NBA Top Shot and NFL All Day were more than just knowledge bases. Their effectiveness stemmed from robust knowledge management: constantly analyzing conversation data, identifying knowledge gaps, and iteratively refining AI responses and underlying articles. This dynamic process is what knowledge management is all about. As it becomes a growing priority, structured knowledge-sharing systems are helping organizations reduce search time and enhance efficiencies by as much as 40%.

Knowledge management cultivates a culture of knowledge-sharing and continuous improvement, ensuring valuable insights aren’t lost and departments aren’t siloed.

Knowledge Base vs. Knowledge Management System

To truly grasp their roles and relationship, it’s important to clarify the distinction between a knowledge base and a knowledge management system. While often confused or used interchangeably, particularly when “knowledge management system” refers to software, understanding their core differences is important for a strategic application.

A knowledge base (KB) is a product or tool — a specific repository, often customer-facing, for self-service. It’s an output of a knowledge management strategy.

A knowledge management system (KMS) is the overarching software platform designed to facilitate the entire knowledge management process. It’s the suite of tools and infrastructure that supports the creation, capture, organization, sharing, use, and maintenance of organizational knowledge, of which the KB is often a core component or output.

Let’s consider a restaurant analogy.

• The knowledge base is the menu: It lists available dishes (information or FAQs) for customers.
• The knowledge management system is the digital platform managing the entire operation: From inventory and ordering (knowledge capture/organization) to recipe management and training modules (knowledge creation/sharing) and performance analytics (review/improvement).

You can have a menu without a dedicated system managing the whole operation, but its quality, consistency, and ability will likely be limited. Similarly, a knowledge base without a comprehensive knowledge management system to support its lifecycle risks becoming outdated or inaccurate, frustrating users. This lack of a systematic approach is a real issue, as only about 31% of companies report having a comprehensive knowledge management strategy, which a KMS is designed to support.

When should you use each?

I recommend you opt primarily for a knowledge base when:

• You face recurring, well-defined questions from customers or employees that can be addressed with static articles.
• Your primary goal is to provide a searchable, self-service repository for users to find information independently.
• You need a central hub for basic how-to guides, FAQs, or internal policies.
• You aim to offer 24/7 access to information and reduce basic inquiry volume efficiently. Knowledge bases can reduce support tickets by around 23%.

Implement a knowledge management system (which includes or integrates with a knowledge base) when:

• You need robust processes and tools to ensure consistent accuracy, quality, and lifecycle management of knowledge across the organization.
• Capturing valuable knowledge from experienced staff and making it accessible is a priority. Transferring expert knowledge is a top knowledge management priority for 2025, facilitated by KMS tools.
• You need to enhance collaboration and knowledge-sharing between different teams to break down information silos — 68% of organizations cite data silos as a top concern, which a KMS helps address.
• Leveraging insights from knowledge usage (analytics) to drive continuous improvement in products, services, and operations is essential.
• Your organization is scaling, and you require a systematic platform for efficient onboarding, training, and maintaining consistency across a growing team.
• You are dealing with complex, rapidly evolving, or highly regulated information where advanced features like version control, workflow approvals, and audit trails are necessary.
• You aim to integrate knowledge seamlessly across multiple channels (web, mobile, chatbots) with other business systems (CRM, helpdesk).
• You plan to use advanced technologies like AI for semantic search, content recommendations, or powering intelligent chatbots effectively. The global knowledge management software market is projected to reach almost $60 billion by 2033, reflecting the demand for these systems.

Source

My strong opinion? You nearly always need both, with a robust knowledge base component powered by a comprehensive knowledge management system. A knowledge base is a vital user-facing tool, but its full potential is unlocked by implementing a knowledge management system and the systematic processes it facilitates.

At Skybound during that ticket surge mentioned earlier, we increased our efficiency by 23% once we implemented systematic knowledge management (supported by processes and tools). It enabled rapid updates and informed BPO partners.

Features of a Knowledge Base vs. Knowledge Management System

While a knowledge base serves as a key component within a broader knowledge management framework, the software tools designed to support each function have distinct, though sometimes overlapping, feature sets that reflect their primary purpose and scope.

Knowledge base software typically emphasizes:

• Content creation/editing. User-friendly editors, version control, and article templates.
• Categorization and tagging. Tools for logical content organization.
• Search functionality. Robust search to help users find information quickly.
• UI and customizations. Branding options for a seamless user experience.
• Feedback mechanisms. User ratings and comments on articles.
• Basic analytics. Reports on article views, popular searches, and identifying content gaps.
• Access control. Simple viewing/editing permissions.

Knowledge management system features often include KB features PLUS:

• Advanced workflow and collaboration. Content review/approval processes, collaborative editing.
• Deeper analytics and reporting. Granular insights into content effectiveness, user behavior, and overall knowledge ecosystem health. Analytics can decode every little activity within your KMS.
• Integration capabilities. Seamless connections with CRMs (e.g., HubSpot), help desks, and other business systems.
• Version control and audit trails. Comprehensive change tracking for compliance.
• Expertise location. Identifying subject matter experts within the organization.
• Community and forum integration. Facilitates peer-to-peer knowledge sharing.
• Multi-channel content delivery. Ensuring consistent knowledge across touchpoints.
• Advanced security and compliance. Enterprise-grade data protection.
• AI and machine learning:

• AI-powered semantic search understanding user intent.
• Content recommendations and automated tagging.
• Chatbot integrations (as in my Dapper Labs experience).
• Predictive analytics for emerging knowledge needs. The AI in the knowledge management market is expected to grow significantly, reaching $62.4 billion by 2033.

Source

Why these feature differences matter: Knowledge base software is primarily for publishing and retrieving information. Knowledge management system software manages the entire lifecycle and strategic application of that information.

For simple FAQs, basic knowledge base software might do. For building a learning organization and leveraging knowledge strategically, comprehensive KMS features (or an advanced knowledge base with strong knowledge management capabilities) are essential.

When do you need a knowledge base?

Identifying when your organization is ready for, or critically needs, a knowledge base is often signaled by clear pain points in support efficiency and customer or employee frustration. The need for a dedicated, accessible repository often becomes undeniable as volume and complexity grow.

Here are key indicators I’ve noticed:

• Repetitive questions overwhelm your support team. If agents constantly answer the same basic queries, a knowledge base can deflect many questions, freeing them for complex issues.
• Customers express frustration with wait times or finding information. Low CSAT or complaints about accessing information signal a need for self-service. About 67% of customers prefer self-service to speaking with a representative.
• Onboarding new customers or employees is inefficient. A structured knowledge base with guides and tutorials streamlines onboarding. Effective onboarding can make employees 69% more likely to stay for three years or more.
• Internal information is siloed or hard to find. If team members struggle to locate information, an internal knowledge base centralizes operational knowledge, improving efficiency.
• You need to offer 24/7 support cost-effectively. A knowledge base provides constant support without round-the-clock staffing.
• Your business is scaling. Manual support becomes unsustainable with growth, and a knowledge base is a scalable solution.
• You want to boost SEO. Public knowledge bases with quality content can improve search engine rankings and drive organic traffic.

My view: If you have customers or more than a few employees, a knowledge base is fundamental. The HubSpot Knowledge Base software is an excellent example of a tool that can provide this foundational support.

When do you need a knowledge management system?

While a solid knowledge base is foundational, recognizing the need to evolve to a full knowledge management system (or implementing a strategic knowledge management practice supported by robust tools) typically occurs when the limitations of a basic repository become apparent, or when the strategic value of organizational knowledge needs to be leveraged.

This evolution is signaled when:

• Your KB becomes unmanageable or outdated. If maintaining accuracy is difficult, or users can’t find relevant content despite its volume, you need better management.
• Knowledge inconsistency across channels creates confusion. Differing answers from your KB, chatbot, and agents erode trust. Knowledge management ensures a single source of truth.
• Valuable “tribal knowledge” is being lost. When experienced employees leave, their undocumented expertise often goes with them. Knowledge management focuses on capturing this. Transferring expert knowledge is a top knowledge management priority amongst KM leaders for 2025.
• Poor inter-team collaboration and information sharing hamper progress. If departments operate in silos, inefficiencies arise. Over 80% of IT leaders find that data siloing prevents digital transformation. KM promotes cross-departmental knowledge flow.
• You need to drive continuous improvement through insights. A KMS provides analytics on knowledge use and gaps, invaluable for refining products and processes.
• You operate in a complex or regulated industry. Fields like finance and healthcare require meticulous, compliant information management.
• You aim to leverage AI for advanced capabilities. Sophisticated AI (chatbots, predictive support) requires a strong knowledge management foundation. Less than a quarter of organizations have fully deployed AI for knowledge management, indicating significant growth potential.
• Employee onboarding and training need greater efficiency. While a knowledge base helps, a knowledge management system ensures training materials are current and can even track comprehension. Only 12% of employees strongly agree that their company excels at onboarding.
• You’re committed to building a “learning org.” A knowledge management strategy is necessary for fostering collective intelligence and adaptability.

My take: Any business aiming for long-term, scalable success and superior experiences should invest in knowledge management. It’s about cultivating your organization’s collective intelligence. Platforms like those offered by HubSpot for knowledge management systems can help build this capability and get started on the right foot. You’re likely doing some knowledge management informally — the goal is to make it strategic.

Turning Knowledge Into Impact

Throughout my career, from fine-tuning ticketing systems to the thrill of building those conversational AI chatbots that genuinely transformed support, one truth stands out: Well-harnessed knowledge is a superpower. But like any power, it requires skill to wield.

The knowledge management vs knowledge base distinction is deeply strategic. A knowledge base is your frontline tool, essential for quick answers. I’ve seen how accessible, accurate information directly fuels customer loyalty, especially when the data shows most customers want to solve issues themselves, or have the option to. A robust knowledge base is table stakes.

However, as that Skybound ticket surge taught me, a library without a plan can quickly become more frustrating than helpful. Knowledge management is the conductor. It’s the strategy ensuring your knowledge base, agents, and even product teams are all working from the same, current, and accurate playbook. It’s what turns isolated data into actionable intelligence, driving efficiency (that 23% improvement I mentioned wasn’t accidental) and innovation.

The way I see it, the future of great customer experience is tied directly to how smart and self-sufficient you can help your customers become. Putting real effort into both a top-notch knowledge base and a smart knowledge management system isn’t just a best practice; it’s how you compose a customer knowledge masterpiece that truly sets you apart.

2 Jun 2025, 11:30 am

The benefits of a knowledge base and why your company needs one 

If I need help with a new product or service, you can bet that I’m going to try to find the answer on my own if it means I can avoid reaching out to customer support.

I initially thought this may just be my millennial nature, but it turns out that I’m part of the 81% of customers who say they’d rather take matters into their own hands when trying to solve a problem.

Companies can meet this desire to self-service by creating a knowledge base — but the ability for customers to find their own answers is only one of many benefits.

In this article, I’ll provide an overview of why it’s important for companies to have a knowledge base and dig into things like:

• What is a knowledge base?
• Tips for Building a Knowledge Base
• Why are knowledge bases important?
• Benefits of Using a Knowledge Base

Knowledge bases host information that customers need to effectively use your product or service and can include a variety of different content types, such as FAQ documents, help articles, video tutorials, and more.

Knowledge bases allow customers to quickly and easily find answers to their questions, removing the need to reach out to customer support for simple or common needs.

Why are knowledge bases important?

As the saying goes, “Customers are the backbone of any business.” Providing a great customer experience is critical to keeping your customers happy — yet I know firsthand that customers today have extremely high expectations.

Since 90% of consumers expect an immediate response to their customer support needs, any delay in resolution time can negatively impact their overall experience with your product.

While today’s customers may have high expectations, luckily, they’re also pretty resourceful. Nearly 70% of customers say they’ll try to solve their problem on their own first before reaching out to customer support.

This is where knowledge bases come in. Think of it this way:

• Desire of customers to self-service = need for a knowledge base. If customers expect 24/7 access to resources and want to self-service, then every company should have a knowledge base.
• Lack of a knowledge base = customer frustration. If your customer can’t self-service, they’re not only going to be frustrated about waiting to hear back from someone about their issue, but they’ll also experience a delay in value realization with your product.
• Robust knowledge base = satisfied customer. Offering your customers a robust knowledge base enables you to provide 24/7 access to the information they need to be successful with your product.

Benefits of Using a Knowledge Base

Now that we’ve covered why having a knowledge base is important, I’ll go over a few key benefits of implementing a knowledge base at your company.

Creates Happier Customers

In my experience, when customers can easily access what they need and get quick answers to their questions, they tend to be happier. By giving your customers access to a knowledge base, you’re ensuring they don’t have to wait around for answers to many of their time-sensitive questions.

Beyond that, a knowledge base shows your customers that you understand their needs and you care about their overall experience.

I asked Nicole Theohary, director of customer experience at Slang.ai, how she goes about building a knowledge base for their customer base of busy restaurants. I love what she had to say!

Theohary told me, “A great knowledge base is like a really attentive host at a restaurant — it anticipates your needs, makes answers easy to find, and leaves you feeling taken care of.

“At Slang, we think about support as an extension of hospitality. We create resources that are ready-to-go and easy to access, because restaurants don’t have time to wait — they need answers fast.”

I think we can all agree that faster time to resolution equals happier customers.

Meets Customer Expectations

Customers don’t just expect a speedy resolution, they also expect you to provide self-service options for them to try finding that resolution on their own.

Customers want to try to solve their own problems before reaching out to someone, and most of them really want to avoid talking to someone at all if they can. (And this is increasingly true with millennial and Gen Z customers, which Gartner calls the “self-service or no-service” mindset.)

In fact, one study showed that 73% of customers want the ability to solve product/service issues independently. Interestingly, the same report found that a third of those surveyed would rather clean a toilet than speak to customer service!

Additionally, 98% of customers said they rely on online self-service resources like help articles and FAQ documents, meaning they don't just want it, they need it.

In other words, if you require your customers to email or call your company to get help, you’re not meeting their expectations — and you’re delaying the time it takes for them to see value with your product.

Increases Product Adoption

You don’t just want your customer to use your product — you want them to love using it. There’s nothing better than having my customers get excited about new features or finding a new use case for the product.

Your knowledge base can drive product adoption in two key ways: foundational product adoption and enhanced product adoption.

• Foundational product adoption. First, you’ll want to start with creating content that helps your customers master the foundations of your product. This helps make sure customers don’t get “stuck” somewhere and give up on your product altogether, and ensures they see value early on.
• Sophisticated product adoption. Next, you can use your knowledge base to increase the level of adoption for your customers, helping them see even more value with your product.

I suggest using your knowledge base to provide self-service content that helps customers find more enhanced or sophisticated ways to use your product.

For example, in one of my previous roles, we included documentation in our knowledge base about how to build and test three of our most popular “advanced” chatbot use cases. These were considered a more “sophisticated” level of adoption, and the content we built for this included a video tutorial so that customers could build this flow on their own.

By creating content related to a variety of use cases, you help your customers discover new potential outcomes with your product and help make your product “stickier.”

Increases Retention and Revenue

It’s no secret that product adoption is integral to retention and revenue. For your customers to renew or expand their contract, they need to be happy with what they’re currently using and seeing value from it.

And in order to fully adopt a product or service, customers need help.

When customers run into issues, they’re either going to:

1. Try to solve their own problem in real time, or
2. Create a support ticket and wait for a response.

A simple way to increase your customers’ time-to-value is to help them self-service.

Providing a library of self-service resources helps remove friction for your customers by enabling them to complete whatever they need to accomplish with your product. And when customers have the resources they need to fully adopt what they’re currently paying for, chances are they’ll be more likely to renew and maybe even upgrade to more advanced functionality.

Reduces Support Ticket Volume

A customer support rep’s work is (seemingly) never done, and I’ve yet to work for a company that didn’t have a never-ending queue of support tickets and pressure to meet SLA’s.

Many products and online services take time for a customer to learn. Understandably, they’re going to have questions and need assistance. But in my experience, when a company provides an opportunity for customers to self-service for more common questions, it frees up support reps to help customers who have more complex needs.

Interestingly, 91% of customers said that they would use a knowledge base if it fit their needs. By ensuring your knowledge base adequately addresses your customer’s most common questions in a way that’s easily searchable, you:

1. Help your customers find their own answers (leading to quicker resolution time).
2. Keep customers out of the support queue (decreasing ticket volume).

Saves Costs

With every self-service interaction that your customer makes, your company sees significant savings. While you do need to make an initial investment to build and maintain your knowledge base, I promise that the return on investment will be worth it.

Forrester Research found that while a live agent interaction can cost between $6-12 each, a self-service interaction can cost as little as $0.10. This can add up to significant savings, especially if your customers are reaching out to live agents for repeating topics or common questions.

By enabling customers to find their own answers to more “Tier 1” questions, you ensure that your support reps can use their knowledge and expertise on more nuanced and complex customer interactions.

This not only saves you money, but also creates a better experience for both your rep and the customer. Win-win!

Helps Scale Your Organization

Any organization that’s focused on growth should also be focused on scaling effectively. I was pleasantly surprised to uncover how a well-maintained knowledge base helps your organization scale in today’s rapidly changing digital landscape.

As Nic Brown, senior customer education manager at Salesloft told me recently, “A solid knowledge base is crucial for any growing company. It’s not just about helping customers find answers — though that’s a big part of it.

“It’s really about making sure your team isn’t constantly reinventing the wheel. When you centralize your knowledge, it becomes easier for support teams to respond faster, for new hires to get up to speed, and for everyone to stay aligned on how things actually work.”

I agree with Brown’s point about any growing company needing a knowledge base, and I think a knowledge base is especially necessary for:

• Companies with smaller teams, since they’ll have a limited bandwidth of customer-facing employees.
• Companies that lean on AI tools to help with customer interactions. Using your knowledge base to train your model creates a better self-service experience for your customers.

Improves Internal Productivity

If I’m being honest, nothing makes me more frustrated than doing the same task repeatedly. Productivity and efficiency are critical these days, especially if you’re in a customer-facing role like me, where the hours in your day are precious.

Having a centralized repository of resources enables your internal teams to have a one-stop shop for information.

Whether it’s a CSM helping a customer enable a new feature or a technical support rep helping a customer troubleshoot their integrations, your teams can feel confident in the process of navigating to the knowledge base to look for the right information.

When you build a knowledge base, you enable your employees to follow the same process that you’ve built for your customers — i.e., trying to self-serve first. Much like your customers’ experience, this process helps your employees get answers more quickly and ensures they aren’t delayed in responding to their customers.

Creates Consistent Messaging

If you’ve ever played a game of telephone, you know how skewed a message can get when it’s relayed over and over. Luckily, if you have a centralized knowledge base, your internal teams all have access to the exact same messaging right down to the last word. This ensures that everyone in the company is relaying the same message.

A knowledge base not only ensures that a customer gets a consistent response no matter who they interact with from your company, but it also ensures that the customer is receiving the same information from your teams that they would find on their own if they searched the knowledge base. (We’ve all been in a situation where a customer said, “But so-and-so told me I could do this!”)

Consistency is important when setting expectations with customers, and by ensuring your internal teams and your customers are accessing the same information, you create a consistent experience.

Pro tip: In order to maintain consistent messaging, I suggest providing your teams with a process to follow if they can’t find the answer in the knowledge base. I never want to give my customer the wrong answer by just guessing when I couldn’t find the right answer in our help docs.

Improves Decision-Making

A knowledge base doesn’t just surface information to your customers — it can also surface valuable information to your company as well. Brown pointed out that using a knowledge base can actually improve your company’s decision-making by showing you key insights about your customers.

When talking to Brown about this, he told me, “In my experience, a well-maintained knowledge base surfaces trends you might otherwise miss. You start to notice what people are struggling with most often, and that can feed directly into product improvements, onboarding strategies, or even how you talk about your product externally.

“So while it might seem like a simple support tool, it actually plays a big role in how a company scales and stays connected.”

I think having these sorts of insights is a huge benefit to having a knowledge base. By leveraging the data within your knowledge base to uncover areas of friction in your customer’s journey, you can improve and enhance the overall customer experience.

Enables Faster Onboarding

Starting a new job comes with a steep learning curve, and it can take a new employee up to 12 months to be “fully productive” in their new role. (I know many of us can relate to that!)

When I’m new to a role, I spend a lot of time in my company’s knowledge base. If I’m meeting with a customer and they ask me a question that I don’t know the answer to, I’ll search for a help center article while screen sharing and say, “I’m not entirely sure, but let’s find out together.”

Having a knowledge base enables your employees to ramp faster, and is especially valuable for employees who are customer-facing.

For example: New customer support reps can lean on help center articles and FAQs to find answers to customer questions while they’re still learning the ins and outs of the product. This means they can jump into the support queue and start taking tickets more quickly.

As a CSM, using a knowledge base helps me feel like I can still deliver value to a customer in real time even if I don’t automatically know the answer to their questions. It enables us to find out together and remove whatever blocker they have to keep things moving for them.

Improves Internal Enablement

If you’ve ever worked for a software company, you know that sometimes the “speed of innovation” is faster than the speed of internal enablement.

When new products or features get released, a help center article should follow shortly after. By ensuring your knowledge base contains new (and updated) information about your products’ features and enhancements, you reduce the time it takes for employees to find information or get answers to their questions. You not only create a culture of self-service for employees, but you also build trust with your internal teams by consistently creating the content you know they’ll need to do their job.

Pro tip: If you lead a CX function at your organization, work directly with your product team to make sure there’s a plan in place for quickly creating knowledge base content related to new feature rollouts. There’s nothing worse than trying to support customers with new features or products when there’s no documentation to help you.

Now that you’re (hopefully) excited about reaping the benefits of a knowledge base for yourself, let’s talk about some tips for building one.

1. Define the goals and vision for your knowledge base.

Before you dive into creating knowledge base content, take a step back and define a plan for your project. What problems are you currently facing, and what metrics do you care about influencing?

I recommend taking some time to perform a gap analysis to really outline the current state versus your desired future state. This process can help you set tangible goals for the future that also help drive your project plan.

For example: If your support ticket volume is up by 15% or your product adoption of a new feature is lower than desired, you can use these metrics to map out the potential impact of your knowledge base.

If your company decides that support ticket volume and product adoption are the two most important metrics to track against, you’ll want to focus your efforts on building content that aligns with those two specific areas.

This means that any other content requests would be out of scope for right now and can be added to a “phase 2” of your project plan.

Pro tip: Don’t forget to align on who will be responsible for maintaining your knowledge base moving forward. This should be included in your project plan.

2. Find a knowledge management system that fits your needs.

Once you have your project plan and goals defined, you’ll need to decide which knowledge management system you’ll use to build and host your knowledge base.

I suggest using Hubspot’s Knowledge Base Software as it’s customizable to your brand, offers great AI features, and provides insights and analytics to help you measure performance.

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As with any software purchase, your needs and requirements will be unique to your business, but here are a few things to consider as you shop around.

• User experience. The interface should be easy to use and allow you to easily add images, hyperlinks, or videos to your knowledge base. Some tools will offer article templates, but I suggest testing them out to see if they work for your content.
• Robust search. Your search function should make it easy for customers to quickly pull up what they need. Implementing a federated search is a game-changer for the customer experience.

At my company, our knowledge base uses federated search to pull up results from the help center articles, our community hub, and our customer academy. This offers our customers multiple content sources to find what they’re looking for.

• Integrations. Make sure your knowledge base tool can integrate with other software like your support ticket center, your chatbot, or your CRM. If your support ticket software and your knowledge base are integrated, you can easily use support ticket data to drive new content creation.
• AI features. Many support tools out there offer AI features that can help you write or rewrite knowledge base content. My favorite AI feature that I’ve seen is when the tool can make suggestions for new content based on what users are searching on your site — and offer to write it for you. (Talk about making your job easier!)

Pro tip: If your company is global, AI features can often help with translating content into additional languages, which is a huge time saver.

• Analytics. Make sure the knowledge base tool you choose meets your requirements when it comes to reporting and insights. You’ll want to know how your content is performing and understand what your users are searching for so you can address any content gaps. I’ve also seen tools that include a “helpful” rating on articles so that customers can rate the level of value they received from the content.

3. Identify and segment your audience.

Who will your knowledge base content be written for? Be sure to consider all of your customer personas and their overall customer journey.

For example, if you’re in B2B and have an admin and a core user, chances are your admin is likely doing tasks in the platform that your core user is not.

If this is the case, you’ll likely want to create knowledge base content that caters to what each of those personas is trying to accomplish. A good place to start is with your product or service’s RBAC list.

Don’t overcomplicate this, though — just make sure you’re considering the knowledge base from all of your users’ perspectives. From there, focus on differentiating knowledge base content only where necessary so that you don’t end up with a million articles that require constant upkeep.

Common examples of different audiences you may want to consider:

• Buyers/Executive Sponsors.
• Platform admins.
• Core users.
• Partners/Consultants.

Example: Gong does a nice job of this by segmenting their knowledge base into categories like “using Gong” and “configuring Gong.”

4. Make your knowledge base easy to navigate.

Since the goal of a knowledge base is to find quick and easy answers, it’s important to set up your knowledge base in a way that’s easy to navigate.

How will your landing page and user navigation be organized? Here are a few things to think about when it comes to setting up your knowledge base:

• Will you create categories for your content? If so, how will you display your categories? You could consider using category boxes, links, or a combination of both.
• Will you highlight the most frequently viewed articles or popular categories?
• Will your content categories be organized by product, specific features, tasks, or desired outcomes?
• Make sure you have an easy way for customers to get more help if they can’t find an answer. You could include a chatbot widget on the knowledge base that lets them create a support ticket or chat with someone.

When organizing your knowledge base, I strongly suggest adding personalization to your approach. With 80% of consumers saying they prefer to do business with companies that personalize the experience, it’s worth taking the time to understand your customers’ unique experience.

For example, in my past roles as a CSM, I spent so much time training new admins and users on how to use our product. Because of this, I am a huge proponent of creating “user guides” and “new admin” resources that can serve as a one-stop shop to help get customers up to speed. You’d be surprised how often customers ask me for this!

I also like when knowledge bases have a section for new product releases. This makes it easy for customers to see what’s new and exciting, and also ties into the benefit I mentioned around product adoption.

Pro tip: However you organize it, make sure you have a search bar so that your customers can easily find what they’re looking for. Bonus points if you offer federated search and can bring in content from other data sources.

Need inspiration? Check out my list of the best SaaS Knowledge Bases!

5. Use data and analytics to define your content.

You should be using data to make informed decisions about what type of questions you want to answer. Whether you analyze support tickets or see what customers are searching for on your website, you’ll need to find data that helps you understand exactly what your customers need help with.

The most common place to start is with support ticket data — especially if your goal is to improve ticket deflection. However, here are a few questions you can ask to uncover other areas that may benefit from content creation:

• Where do customers get “stuck” with the product or service?
• Does your churn analysis point to any gaps that can be addressed with customer education?
• If you’re in retail or ecommerce, what are the most common return reasons?
• Are you checking other sources of customer feedback related to pain points, such as NPS data or Gong call analysis?

Once you have your data sources, look for the topics that come up repeatedly and start there with content creation.

Pro tip: Brown told me that, “An underused tactic is watching how people search — not just what they click on. Tools like search analytics or ticket deflection tracking show where users are getting stuck, or what terms they’re using that don’t match your wording.

“Those gaps are gold. They tell you where to improve, what to rename, or even which articles to prioritize. Most users tend to abandon a search after 2-3 page views; so knowing how they are searching and knowing what keywords they are using can go a long way in getting the content into their hands.”

6. Create cross-functional alignment for new content.

Make sure there’s alignment with your product, enablement, and customer-facing teams about the process for pushing content related to new features into your knowledge base.

Customer support reps, CSMs, and onboarding managers rely on this information to support their customers with new releases.

Pro tip: In order to keep your content consistent, I like using knowledge base article templates.

7. Continue to improve your knowledge base.

Unfortunately, a knowledge base is not a set-it-and-forget-it resource. As your product or offering changes and your company grows, you should be updating your knowledge base and creating new content.

You’ll want to measure your knowledge base's performance as a whole as well as the impact it’s having on the business (aka, those metrics I talked about earlier in the planning process).

There are a variety of factors you can use to measure your knowledge base’s performance, but here are a few to consider:

• Content consumption like page views, video plays, downloads, etc.
• Customer effort score.
• Article views versus support tickets on certain topics.
• Click-through rates for search results.
• Article ratings. Try to implement a rating score for customers to give you feedback on your content’s helpfulness.

When it comes to creating new content, make sure you’re routinely looking through the knowledge base’s analytics (like search results) to see what customers are looking for help with. I also suggest routinely reviewing support tickets for an uptick in new topics.

Pro tip: Brown shared a great tip with me on writing good knowledge base content. “Write for future you, not just current users. Most people focus on documenting things that are immediately useful — but great knowledge bases anticipate growth, change, and turnover. That means building content that’s easy to update, repurpose, and hand off to someone else down the line.”

A knowledge base is non-negotiable.

Throughout my career in customer success, I’ve definitely seen the value of a knowledge base firsthand. However, I was surprised to discover that there are so many additional benefits to using a knowledge base.

As a customer experience enthusiast, I love that a knowledge base delivers double value. It not only supports customers with their needs, but it also delivers actionable insights to your company, empowering you to make improvements to the overall customer experience.

A knowledge base doesn’t just benefit your customers and enhance their experience. It also benefits your employees, your cross-functional teams’ productivity, and the future growth of your company.

2 Jun 2025, 11:30 am

The best SaaS knowledge bases and what your company can learn 

I recently started a new job, and my company uses a few SaaS tools that are new to me. This means that not only did I need to learn the ins and outs of my new company and our product, but I also needed to get up to speed on new tools that my teams are using to collaborate.

Thankfully, most of those new-to-me tools come from companies that know the importance of having a SaaS knowledge base, making it easy for me to start using the product on my own.

Customer education resources like a SaaS knowledge base are a critical investment for organizations, with data showing that customer education can positively influence everything from product adoption to customer loyalty.

In this article, I’ve rounded up 10 excellent SaaS knowledge base examples and what I think they’re doing right.

Table of Contents:

• What is a SaaS knowledge base?
• Why SaaS Companies Need a Knowledge Base
• 10 SaaS Knowledge Base Examples

Why SaaS Companies Need a Knowledge Base

There are many benefits to building a knowledge base, but I’d like to focus on three major reasons why SaaS companies today absolutely need a knowledge base.

Reason #1: Customers need help with software tools.

I hate to break it to you, but your product is not the only SaaS tool your customers are using.

Customers use a lot of tools and apps to get their daily work done, with recent data showing that the average department uses 87 SaaS products (and that number skyrockets at the company-wide level).

I’ve seen even the most tech-savvy users still get stuck when using a product, and getting help quickly was important to them. If your customers get stuck and can’t complete their dedicated tasks in your product, not only does their daily workflow get delayed, but the time it takes for them to see value with your product also gets delayed, which is bad for your business.

A whopping 75% of surveyed users said they’d stop using a product altogether if they ran into friction, and a simple way to reduce friction is to provide a knowledge base so customers can self-serve.

Additionally, by providing a SaaS knowledge base that helps customers find answers to commonly asked questions, you help them avoid opening a ticket or calling your help desk. This drives faster resolution for your customer and also helps drive down support ticket volume.

I asked Nic Brown, senior customer education manager at Salesloft, about the importance of software companies having a knowledge base. He told me, “For a SaaS company, a strong knowledge base can be a game-changer. A lot of users today prefer to self-serve; they’d rather look something up and solve it themselves than open a ticket or hop on a call.”

And according to Brown, offering self-service options benefits the long-term relationship with the customer, too.

“Having a knowledge base empowers customers to solve problems on their own, on their own schedule, without having to open a ticket or wait in a queue. That kind of self-service builds confidence and keeps users engaged.”

Reason #2: A knowledge base improves the customer experience.

If you’re not meeting your customers’ expectations, you’re not delivering a great customer experience. And I think we all know that the customer experience directly impacts whether or not a customer decides to renew or expand with a company.

You may be surprised to learn that the overwhelming majority of customers today want to try to solve their own problems and they expect the companies they work with to provide self-serve resources.

So, if your company is one of the two-thirds of companies not currently offering self-service resources, there’s a good chance you’re missing an opportunity to deliver a great customer experience.

From what I’ve seen, customers want to be proficient in your product because it helps them do their jobs better and hit their goals. When I present topic-based webinars to my customer base, I always get the question, “Where can I find training and documentation on this?”

My take? Your customers are hungry for education on your product, and by delivering it, you’re meeting their expectations and delivering a great customer experience.

Plus, there’s a chance that if you’re not offering self-service options, your competitors are.

Build a Knowledge Base with HubSpot's Service Hub

Reason #3: A knowledge base will help your company scale.

I don’t know many SaaS companies that aren’t currently focused on scaling their business and trying to do more with less.

In fact, Brown pointed out to me that because SaaS companies move fast, a knowledge base can be a critical tool in helping a company scale.

“In this fast-paced environment, a knowledge base isn’t just helpful — it’s essential. It gives customers a way to find what they need on their own terms, and for the business, it cuts down on repeat questions, helps support teams focus on more complex issues, and ensures consistent messaging across the company,” he said.

Brown also pointed out that a knowledge base scales with your customer base, saying, “Instead of hiring more agents with every growth spike, you invest in content that serves thousands.”

Brown also shared that another benefit of a knowledge base is that it can surface key insights that SaaS companies need to grow. A knowledge base can show you what your customers are struggling with, allowing you to quickly address those gaps with customer education, product enhancements, or even improved customer journey points.

Together, this enables your company to keep up with your customers’ changing needs.

For more on this topic, check out my article The benefits of a knowledge base and why your company needs one. And if you’re ready to start building yours, I’d recommend HubSpot’s knowledge base software.

10 SaaS Knowledge Base Examples

If you’re looking for inspiration on building (or improving) your company’s knowledge base, I’ve got you covered.

I’ve pulled together some examples of SaaS companies that have built great knowledge bases, and I’ll walk you through what I think makes them stand out.

1. Salesloft

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Salesloft’s knowledge base is not only aesthetically pleasing (I’m a big fan of boxing the categories) but it also delivers easy navigation for users with the search bar at the top as well as the option to adjust the language (A+ for accessibility!)

I like that they’ve created categories for their product’s specific features and outcomes, and if you were to scroll down, you’d also see categories for important things like integrations and reporting/analytics.

What I love about it: I’m a big fan of personalization, and Salesloft did a great job of creating and organizing their knowledge base content in a way that’s relevant to multiple levels of personalization, including:

• Important customer journey points (Getting Started).
• Their user’s role (Admin Guides/User Guides).

As a CSM, I’m a huge proponent of creating content for new users and admins, as it’s incredibly time-consuming to train a new point of contact on your product’s features and benefits.

2. Slack

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Slack’s knowledge base also gets a nod for being aesthetically pleasing, as I like the use of icons and imagery, which feels playful and true to their brand. I don’t know about you, but when I’m met with a long list of links I get a bit overwhelmed, and the way Slack has set this up makes it feel easier for me to focus on what I might be looking for.

What I love about it: I like that they’ve included multiple ways to look for content, somehow seamlessly implementing all of these options on their landing page:

• A search bar.
• Structured categories.
• Featured articles.
• Common troubleshooting topics.

They essentially created a combination of multiple knowledge base formats all in one landing page, and they did it well.

Additionally, if you were to scroll down a bit more, you’d see Slack tips. I think this is a great way to help users see value early on and get some quick wins!

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3. Gong

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Gong’s knowledge base does a great job of covering all the bases for Gong users. They’ve included a search bar at the top, categories based on product features, and differentiation between using and configuring the tool.

If I’m a Gong user, chances are I don’t need to know how to configure the product, I just want to know the best ways to use certain features. This section separation then makes it easy for me to find what I need for my specific role.

What I love about it: I personally like the “What’s new in Gong?” callout at the top of the page. This is a great way to make sure your customers learn about new releases and product enhancements, and it ensures they have the content they need to adopt those features.

I also want to give an A+ for the New to Gong section. I think putting it at the top of the page makes it easy for new users to find what they need to get up and running with Gong.

4. G2

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I’m a big fan of companies that leverage AI tools built on large language models to help customers self-service, so I wanted to show you how G2 is doing this within their knowledge base.

G2’s knowledge base landing page allows you to search for your own topic or access content via their listed categories, but they also offer Monty — their AI-bot powered by ChatGPT — so that you can ask more nuanced questions.

You can see that Monty responds to my question with not only information and a direct link for what I need to do next, but a bit of sentiment, too.

What I love about it: I think implementing an AI bot into their knowledge base is a game-changer for the customer experience, and I wish more companies were doing this. Not only does it make it easy for me as a customer to find what I need, but it’s going to make it easy for G2 to surface insights and themes to see where customers are still struggling.

It’s no secret that using the right AI tools can help your customers quickly find answers and avoid submitting a support ticket, so it’s a no-brainer to include an AI bot that syncs up with your knowledge base.

5. Maven AGI

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Continuing with the theme of AI, I wanted to see how a company with an AI-focused product manages customer education in its knowledge base.

Maven AGI’s knowledge base includes a search bar, product-specific categories under the Welcome option, and a menu bar with quick links to content by product, feature, or desired outcome.

Maven also includes a glossary of terms, which I think is a nice touch, especially for customers who may be new to working with AI.

What I love about it: I like that Maven AGI has created an entire section about training the product, because anyone who’s worked with AI knows that training your model is critical to getting your desired outcomes.

I also like that they include best practice recommendations in their knowledge base. For example, in their content for adding knowledge, they include best practices like data quality, security considerations, etc. I think this is a great forward-thinking step that can help customers avoid future issues.

I also give them an A+ for including Advanced Options in their content. This approach empowers more tech-savvy customers to increase their product adoption sophistication.

6. Monday.com

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Monday takes a unique approach to their knowledge base by first offering customers the option of how to consume content instead of what to consume. They offer the option for reading articles, watching video tutorials, and more.

If you were to scroll down, you’d be greeted with a Getting Started section and the option to learn by content type (article, video, or academy). Scrolling further down gives customers popular resources and most loved features from Monday.com customers.

What I love about it: I like that they let the customer choose the format in which they learn best. If you click on Read Articles, you’re taken to a more standard help center page where you can search by topic, explore by topic, or explore by product.

I also like that once I navigated to the articles page, their chatbot widget popped up and immediately asked if I needed help.

7. Canva

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Canva is a product that spans the B2C and B2B space, so they have the unique challenge of creating knowledge base content that is relevant to a variety of roles and industries.

Their main knowledge base landing page allows you to search for a topic (and uses a nice AI functionality to summarize a response and suggest content for you), while also giving users the option to browse by topic.

What I love about it: I personally like Canva’s Solve Your Issue troubleshooting wizard, which is located at the bottom of the knowledge base’s landing page. This allows you to choose your issue from specific options, and based on your inputs it uses AI to scan the knowledge base and quickly provide a suggested resolution or help you create a support ticket.

8. Grammarly

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Grammarly is another tool that serves both individual customers and organizations, and I like that they have a clearly defined section in their knowledge base for Businesses & Schools. When you click on that category, you’re taken to a page that has a list of articles by subcategories relevant to an organization, including things like team features, subscription and payments, and managing permissions.

Additionally, their main landing page does a nice job of offering users the option to search by topic, see featured articles, or browse by category.

What I love about it: I like that Grammarly’s categories are built more around behaviors than specific features or topics. For example, if I land here knowing I want to troubleshoot an issue, I’ll easily know that Resolve Issues is the icon I should click on.

I think for a company that has one main product (versus multiple), this can be a nice way to organize your knowledge base. I also like that they offer Tips & Tutorials, both as a category and as a featured article. Driving customers to learn how to get more out of your product is a great way to get them to love using it.

9. Notion

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Since Brown has been in the knowledge base industry for a long time, I asked him if there was a SaaS knowledge base that impressed him, and he recommended this one to me.

When asked what he liked about it, he said, “It’s beautifully organized, intuitive to navigate, and uses a mix of short articles, visuals, and embedded videos … The tone is approachable and in line with their brand — no jargon, just clear explanations.”

I agree with his assessment, and I also found the left-side menu a great navigational element.

What I love about it: I love that Notion created guides within their knowledge base, and that they feel use-case focused and also share best practices for using Notion. As a CSM, I’m a big fan of content that feels like it’s offering strategic guidance to a customer — meaning it doesn’t just focus on how to do something, but it explains the value they’ll get from actually doing it.

10. HubSpot

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For a company that has multiple product lines, HubSpot does a great job of organizing their knowledge base in a way that caters to the unique needs of their many users.

Their knowledge base has an easy-to-access search bar with the highest-rated articles underneath. They also make content easy to navigate by having dedicated boxes for each category. I like that those categories cover both important behaviors (like Account & Setup and Getting Started) as well as feature and product-related sections (like Marketing & Messaging).

This is a smart approach because if I’m a customer who’s using a specific HubSpot tool like the CRM, I’ll know to navigate to the CRM section to quickly find what I’m looking for.

I give them bonus points for the AI chatbot widget that pops up and asks if you need help — you can ask it full questions or choose from a few common options.

What I love about it: I really like that HubSpot features their “highest rated” articles. I think this is a unique approach because while many companies showcase their top-viewed articles, HubSpot’s approach is centered around surfacing content to customers that other customers have already deemed helpful.

I also commend them for including a section dedicated to partners. This level of personalization is important, and it shows that HubSpot recognizes that their partners need specific or additional resources.

The best SaaS knowledge bases are built around the customer.

Across the 10 SaaS knowledge bases I listed for you today, I think it’s worth highlighting how each of them brought something unique to the table, and no two were built the same way. In my opinion, this is reflective of how each company is trying to meet their own unique customer needs when it comes to customer education.

My top three favorite features from these knowledge bases would have to be:

• The use-case-driven product guides from Notion.
• The personalization aspect of including new user and new admin guides from Salesloft.
• The inclusion of best practices and advanced options in articles from Maven AGI.

And my final tip? No matter how you decide to organize your knowledge base, make sure it’s customer-centric and easy to navigate, and you’ll be well on your way to success.

2 Jun 2025, 11:30 am

How to conduct survey analysis like a data pro [all my tips + secrets] 

I’ll be the first to admit that I wish survey data could sort and analyze itself. Unfortunately, it does not (yet?). So, you’ll need a dedicated survey analysis data team to sift through survey results and highlight key trends and behaviors for your marketing, sales, and customer service teams.

In this post, I’ll break down this process for you and discuss how to analyze survey data and present your findings — all with some helpful templates and tips along the way.

And trust me: The results are well worth the effort you and your team will put into analyzing your data.

Table of Contents

• How to Analyze Survey Results
• How to Write a Survey Report
• How to Present Survey Results
• Survey Report Template Examples
• Tips for Survey Data Analysis

Before we jump in, here’s the fictional business I’ll be sharing throughout the post for added context:

I sell high-quality goat soap to customers seeking natural ingredients for their skincare needs. To better understand my customers, why they like (or dislike) my products, and what they need, I sent them a survey.

Let’s say of the 100 customers I asked to participate in my survey, 94 of them participated — thanks to my well-written survey questions. Now, I have some raw data to sort through.

Here’s what I’m doing to analyze the survey results.

1. Understand the four measurement levels.

Before analyzing data, it’s helpful to refresh vocabulary from stats class and define the four measurement levels.

These levels determine how survey questions should be measured and what statistical analysis should be performed. The four measurement levels are nominal scales, ordinal scales, interval scales, and ratio scales.

If you’re like me and your statistics course feels like another lifetime ago, let’s take a minute to define what each of these terms means.

Nominal Scale

Nominal scales classify data without any quantitative value, similar to labels. An example of a nominal scale is, “Select your goat soap scent from the list below.”

The choices have no relationship to each other. Due to the lack of numerical significance, you can only keep track of how many respondents chose each option and which option was selected the most.

Ordinal Scale

Ordinal scales are used to depict the order of values. For this scale, there's a quantitative value because one rank is higher than another. An example of an ordinal scale is, “Rank the reasons for using goat soap.”

You can analyze both mode and median from this type of scale, and ordinal scales can be analyzed through cross-tabulation analysis.

Interval Scale

Interval scales depict both the order and difference between values. These scales have quantitative value because data intervals remain equivalent along the scale, but there's no true zero point.

An example of an interval scale is in an IQ test. You can analyze mode, median, and mean from this type of scale and analyze the data through ANOVA, t-tests, and correlation analyses. ANOVA tests the significance of survey results, while t-tests and correlation analyses determine if datasets are related.

Ratio Scale

Ratio scales depict the order and difference between values, but unlike interval scales, they do have a true zero point. With ratio scales, there's quantitative value because the absence of an attribute can still provide information.

For example, a ratio scale could be, “Select the average amount of money you spend shopping for soap.”

You can analyze mode, median, and mean with this type of scale and ratio scales can be analyzed through t-tests, ANOVA, and correlation analyses as well.

2. Select your survey question(s).

Once you understand how survey questions are analyzed, I suggest you take note of the overarching survey question(s) you‘re trying to solve. Perhaps it’s “How do respondents rate our brand?”

Then, look at survey questions that answer this research question, such as “How likely are you to recommend our brand to others?” Segmenting your survey questions will isolate data relevant to your goals, and using customer service software can help you connect with your customers.

If I learned anything from my college professors, it was this: Your experiments are only as good as your design. The same goes for your surveys. So, you should take some time to select the best, most appropriate survey questions.

Or, work smarter, not harder. Use a survey maker. A survey maker can help you create a mix of close-ended and open-ended questions to get the best, most accurate responses.

• Close-ended questions. A close-ended survey question gives a limited set of answers. Respondents can't explain their answer and they can only choose from predetermined options. These questions could be yes or no, multiple-choice, checkboxes, dropdown, or a scale question. Asking a variety of questions is important to get the best data.
• Open-ended questions. An open-ended survey question will ask the respondent to explain their opinion. For example, in an NPS survey, you‘ll ask how likely a customer is to recommend your brand. After that, you might consider asking customers to explain their choice. This could be something like “Why or why wouldn’t you recommend our product to your friends/family?”

Here are a few example questions I might ask my soap buyers to hopefully elicit their opinion, instead of just “Yes” or “No.”

Pro tip: You can present your questions in a form. Plus, using a form builder makes it easy to conduct survey data analysis. You can use it to look at the results of individual questions, which, in my opinion, makes it easy to glance at and quickly analyze.

3. Analyze quantitative data first.

Quantitative data is valuable because it uses statistics to draw conclusions. While qualitative data can bring more interesting insights about a topic, this information is subjective, making it harder to analyze.

To me, it’s helpful to recognize that most qualitative data comes from open-ended questions. These questions allow participants to share their opinions and feelings without being pigeon-holed into pre-populated responses.

Quantitative data, however, comes from close-ended questions that can be converted into numeric values.

Once data is quantified, it's much easier to compare results and identify trends in customer behavior. It’s best to start with quantitative data when conducting survey data analysis.

That’s because quantitative data can help you better understand your qualitative data.

Let’s look at my goat soap sales. If only 50% of my soap customers say they're very satisfied with my product, I should focus on why the rest are not as happy. This can help me identify roadblocks in the customer journey and correct any pain points causing churn.

4. Use cross-tabulation to better understand your target audience.

If you analyze all of your responses in one group, it isn’t entirely effective for gaining accurate information. Respondents who aren’t ideal customers can overrun your data and skew survey results.

For example, let’s say my target soap buyers fall within the age range of 18 to 34-year-olds. If I were to include data outside of my intended audience, the results of my satisfaction analysis would be incorrect.

Here are two pie charts to compare the differences. The first is my target demographic. Notice the neutral result.

However, when I include data from every customer, my results change.

Instead of lumping my results together for survey data analysis, I should segment responses using cross-tabulation. With cross-tabulation, you can analyze how your target audience responded to your questions.

Split Up Data by Demographics

Cross-tabulation records the relationships between variables. It compares two sets of data within one chart. This reveals specific insights based on your participants' responses to different questions.

For example, you may be curious about customer advocacy among your customers based in Boston, MA. Cross-tabulation helps you to see how many respondents said they were from Boston and said they would recommend your brand.

Pulling multiple variables into one chart allows us to narrow down survey results to a specific group of responses. That way, you know your data only considers your target audience.

Below is an example of a cross-tabulation chart. It records respondents’ favorite baseball teams and the city in which they reside.

Source

5. Understand the statistical significance of the data.

As I mentioned in the last section, not all data is as reliable as you may hope. Everything is relative, and it's important to be sure that your respondents accurately represent your target audience.

For instance, let’s say your data finds:

• 33% of respondents would recommend your brand to others.
• 75% of them were over 40 years old.

However, the problem is that your target audience is 18 to 29 years old. In this case, this data isn’t statistically significant as the people who took your survey don’t represent your ideal consumer.

Random sampling — selecting an arbitrary group of individuals from a larger population — can help create a more diverse sample of survey responses. Additionally, the more people you survey from your target audience, the more accurate the results will be.

Running an analysis on software like SPSS (shown above) will tell you if a data point is statistically significant using a p-value.

If you look just below the table, the key indicates:

• *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
• **Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

This indicates which values are statistically relevant in your analysis.

If a data point's statistical significance or p-value is equal to or lower than 0.05, it has moderate statistical significance since the error probability is less than 5%. If the p-value is lower than 0.01, it is highly statistically significant because the probability of error is less than 1%.

Pro tip: I like to use analytical reporting software to help with my survey data analysis.

6. Consider causation versus correlation.

Another important aspect of survey analysis is knowing whether your conclusions are accurate.

For example, let’s say we observed a correlation between ice cream sales and car thefts in Boston. Over a month, as ice cream sales increased, so did reports of stolen cars.

While this data may suggest a link between these variables, we know there’s probably no relationship. Just because the two are correlated doesn‘t mean one causes the other.

In cases like these, a third independent variable typically influences the two dependent variables. In this specific example, it's temperature.

As the temperature increases, more people buy ice cream. Additionally, more people leave their homes and go out, leading to more crime opportunities. While I know this is an extreme example, you never want to draw an inaccurate or insufficient conclusion.

Pro tip: Analyze all the data before assuming what influences a customer to think, feel, or act a certain way.

7. Compare new data with past data.

While current data is good for keeping you updated, it should be compared to data you've collected in the past.

If you know that 33% of respondents said they would recommend your brand, is that better or worse than last year? How about last quarter?

If this is your first year analyzing data, make these results the benchmark for your following analyses. Compare future results to this record and track changes over:

• Quarters
• Months
• Years
• Whichever interval you prefer

You can even track data for specific subgroups to see if their experiences improve with your initiatives.

Now that you‘ve gathered and analyzed your data, the next step is to share it with coworkers, customers, and other stakeholders. Don’t just share a list of numbers — presentation is key!

A clean presentation aids in helping others understand the insights you’re trying to explain.

In the next section, I’ll explain how to present your survey results and share essential customer data with the rest of your organization.

How to Write a Survey Report

1. Decide the outcome of the survey.

Believe it or not, writing the intro to a survey report isn't always the best first step. If I’m writing anything, whether it’s a report, a blog post, or a case study, I rarely write the introduction first. Instead, I focus on the outcome.

By starting with the outcome, I get a better feel for the specific takeaways I want my readers to understand.

So, to keep your report focused on a specific outcome that you want the reader to take away, start by explaining the outcome in detail. This section of the survey report will be included in the middle, but it's a great way to get your bearings when writing, especially with a longer report.

The outcome of the survey report should:

• Reveal what could happen if the stakeholders reading the report were on board with your analysis.
• Offer some ideas for outcomes of a new product offering based on the result of customer feedback.
• Explain the rationale behind price adjustments to the price of a service to increase revenue.
• Explain why you should enter a new market that shows potential for the organization to expand.

Pro tip: When writing this section, ensure the survey analysis data you‘ve collected fully supports the outcome. For instance, I try to avoid ideas that can't be substantiated by the other information in the report.

2. Write your research summary.

Next, summarize your research findings.

In this part of the survey report, you‘ll include notable results and any information that correlates with other studies your company may have done in the past.

The summary is the part of your survey that readers will focus on the most. It’s a condensed version of your survey findings, jam-packed with golden nuggets. The research summary should be no more than a page long, as you’ll get into the meat of your report in other sections.

Pro tip: To make it even easier to read, I suggest including headers above paragraphs to guide your readers through the content.

3. Create an outline for the report.

Now that you have your outcome and summary, it‘s time to develop the outline. Because the survey report is typically around eight to ten pages long, you’ll want to use a concise outline that includes all the relevant information the stakeholders will want to know.

Here's a sample outline I like that you can customize:

• Introduction. Setting the stage for the report.
• Summary. Summarize the findings and key elements of the research.
• Methodology. Explaining how the research was conducted.
• Results. Describing what the research revealed.
• Outcomes. Analyzing the results in the context of your organization's goals.
• Limitations. Revealing any research oversights or areas for further research.
• Conclusion. A summary of the research analysis and why the audience should care about it.

4. Choose a layout.

After completing the outline, you‘ll know how much space you’ll need for each section. Depending on your preference, survey reports can be published in portrait or landscape layouts.

Let’s take a brief look at when you should use one layout over the other.

When to Use Portrait Layout for a Survey Report:

• Portrait landscape is best used when the report is text-heavy. Charts and graphs with more rows than columns also work well in portrait-style layouts.
• Avoid dedicating entire pages to images or infographics in this layout, as it takes away space from important text-based content.

When to Use Landscape Layout for a Survey Report:

• Use a landscape layout for your survey report when your report will be design-heavy. High-quality imagery, graphs, and charts work well in landscape because there's more space for text-based content beside the visuals.
• Too many text-heavy pages can make a landscape report feel much longer than it actually is.

Pro tip: In terms of the overarching design and layout of your survey, I highly recommend starting from a survey template. HubSpot also has free customer satisfaction templates that are a great starting point as well.

5. Include the methodology of your research.

The methodology section of your report should explain the who, what, and how of your research. It explains:

• How your survey was conducted.
• Who was invited to participate.
• What types of tests are used to analyze the data.
• Why you chose certain tests for the analyses.

You might use charts or graphs to help communicate this data. It's okay to be detailed here — the readers will want to know that the outcomes of the survey are valid and based on relevant research methods.

Make sure you also include:

• The number of participants.
• How they were selected.
• Any demographic data you collected about them.
• Your process for selecting the survey questions.

In my opinion, the methodology section of your report is one of the most important sections. This section can help you or your readers conduct an exact survey analysis at a later time with new information.

6. Mention any limitations in your research.

No matter how much you prepare before conducting your survey, you‘ll find some information in the results that could’ve been more conclusive had you considered another variable. But I’ve got good news for you: Research can be continued in the future.

The limitations section sets the stage for future researchers to pick up where you left off or correct any mistakes you made in the current survey.

7. Add appendices if needed.

If you're fortunate enough that all of the survey analysis data you present fits neatly into a chart within the report, you may not require an appendix at the end.

But if the graphs and charts you include on the pages are truncated versions of large data sets that provide context, you should include them in their raw forms at the end of your report.

Pro tip: If you use an appendix, reference it throughout the reports so your readers can review it for a deeper understanding of your content.

How to Present Survey Results

Now that you have your results, you must present them well — as in, accurately and intelligibly.

1. Use a graph or chart.

Graphs and charts are visually appealing ways to share data. Colors and patterns are easy on the eyes, and data is often easier to understand when shared visually.

However, it's important to choose a graph that highlights your results in a relevant way.

The image above is an example of a stacked bar graph my team created using data on the brand Allbirds.

If you‘re having trouble reading it, you’re in good company. I received feedback that it was confusing to understand. That‘s because the data wasn’t organized in a way that would make sense to a stakeholder who's unfamiliar with our project.

So, I decided to revamp our graph's image and came up with the design below:

This bar graph is much simpler to read because it has a clear key and individual bars for each variable. The design fits the data that we're trying to display. Readers can easily understand the information we obtained from our survey.

Depending on the survey you've conducted, there are many types of graphs and charts you can use. A few options you can choose from are:

• Pie charts.
• Venn diagrams.
• Line graphs.
• Scatter plots.
• Histograms.
• Pictograms.

Pro tip: Pick one that accurately displays your data and is clear to your stakeholders.

2. Create a data table.

Tables are a great way to share numerical data. You can use software like SPSS or Excel to display data easily, like in the survey data analysis example below.

This table was created from a cross-tabulation analysis.

I removed the unnecessary information — statistical significance, mean, median, etc. — and focused on the data we wanted to share: the percentage of each gender that preferred each promotional incentive.

This gave us a format that demonstrated the percentages we were looking to share with our stakeholders.

3. Tell a story with survey data analysis.

Former Vice President of Merchandising at Chewy, Andreas von der Heydt, shared a profound message on LinkedIn about the power of storytelling with data.

In the image below, Legos are arranged in five different ways:

• A random assortment.
• Color-coded.
• Arranged in varying heights.
• Positioned in a visually appealing way.
• Constructed into a house.

Source

One of the primary goals of good data analysis is to weave information together so that it builds upon each other — just like building a house.

Some data will serve as the foundation of your story, and all the points in your presentation will tie back to this foundation.

From there, you‘ll structure your key findings like the walls of a house. These key findings support the conclusion of your research, which acts as the roof. That’s the primary point you want to make when presenting your data analysis.

I understand that communicating data can be tricky, especially when stakeholders have varying degrees of analytical skills. But no matter how sophisticated (or not) your team is, a story will always resonate.

Pro tip: Take the time to identify the point the data leads to and structure a story around that conclusion.

4. Make a visual presentation.

Sometimes, combining visuals with text creates a thorough description of your findings. A presentation could be a good fit for showcasing your data in these cases.

This gives you a chance to present the earlier stages of your survey, including:

• Research questions.
• Hypotheses.
• Survey questions.
• Analysis methods.

This slide from my presentation combines a graph with a table and some text. The same data is shared in three different ways to appeal to people with different learning styles:

• Those who prefer visuals.
• Those who prefer numbers.
• Those who prefer words.

5. Put together an infographic.

If you need to share data that's easy to read and quick to consume, infographics might be your best bet. I like infographics because they can quickly share lots of information in a visual representation.

Remember the Lego post? That was an infographic.

Source

This HubSpot Research infographic explains survey results through icons, numbers, and descriptive text. Infographics are incredibly effective for this purpose, breaking down complex ideas into simple messages that are more appealing to read than blocks of text.

6. Use survey results in a report.

Sometimes, those blocks of text are essential for persuading stakeholders. If you present data to senior executives or business clients, you might want to prepare a full report on your findings.

You wouldn’t refer to this document during a presentation, but you might hand this to your audience to read through on their own time.

This is the table of contents page from my report on our survey project. It‘s important to keep track of all the work you’ve done and maintain records of how you conducted your survey. That way, you won't make similar errors or have to duplicate any research.

Survey Report Template Examples

I find creating new survey reports from scratch to be difficult, so I like to use survey report templates for analyzing and presenting my data.

Below, I’ll share some free downloadable templates to make things easier. When choosing a template, look for one that includes placeholders for graphs and images and multiple page layouts, so you have some variety.

1. Customer Satisfaction Report - Piktochart

Not only is this report eye-catching, but it also includes key insights at the top of the infographic. This placement automatically provides readers with added value, without causing them to search for it.

This template can be customized to fit your brand easily. As an infographic-style layout, you'll love this template for data-heavy reports.

Source

2. Education Logo Survey Results Template - Vengage

I like this Vengage report template. First, this is a great template for multiple-choice survey questions. It offers plenty of space to describe the varied answers your audience might give.

One of the rare gems of this template, in my opinion, is its ability to balance large, clear images that don't crowd out the important written information on the page.

Use this template for hybrid text-visual designs.

Source

3. Green Minimalist Content Analysis Report - Canva

The Green Minimalist Content Analysis Report template by Canva is a vertical-style presentation that can also be used for survey reports. It comes with plenty of space to provide context as well as charts and graphs that you can tailor to your research and data.

Don’t love the green? No problem. Canva’s editor makes it easy to customize any template to fit your brand.

Source

Tips for Survey Data Analysis

Now that you know all of the ins and outs of survey analysis, it’s time for me to share some of my expert tips to make conducting a survey and running an analysis of the results easier for you.

1. Define your objectives.

Before you begin asking your customers survey questions, define your objectives. I know it can be tempting to pepper your customers with all manner of questions, but doing so will lead to results that might not make any sense.

Instead, I suggest you take some time to plan your survey.

Ask yourself why you want to conduct a survey and what you hope to accomplish with it. This will help you define your objectives and stay within their bounds.

2. Check and clean your data.

Once you’ve collected your survey data and before you run analysis on it, you need to check your data.

As much as I would like to think all customers take the time to answer survey questions appropriately, I also know that some will just click responses to get through it.

Silly responses will skew your results and, ultimately, give you a lousy survey analysis.

Take some time to check your data and clean it. Remove any obvious junk or corrupt results before you begin.

3. Use the best, most appropriate tools.

You can run all the mathematical equations on your data by hand. However, this will take some time, and if you’re not strong in math, it can introduce the potential of errors.

Instead, consider using analytical software (like HubSpot’s dashboard and reporting software or customer feedback software) to help with your survey analysis. Analytical software can save you time and reduce errors.

Plus, thanks to the emergence of AI, some software can forecast your data so you can make better predictions and understand potential outcomes.

Source

4. Use visuals to help explain your data.

I know I am not the only one whose eyes glaze over when reading a table of numbers. Presenting your numbers in a table makes it easier for your audience to glance over them and get the wrong impression.

Using graphs to organize and explain your results is the way to go.

5. Clearly report your findings.

My final tip is to clearly report your findings. It can be tempting to mold the results into what you want them to say. But doing so is dishonest and a misrepresentation of your customers.

Make sure your results are precise and fairly represented. You’ll want an accurate representation of your results to better plan future initiatives or business decisions.

Conduct Survey Analysis Like A Pro

It's one thing to collect data, but without a strategic analysis process, you could struggle to reach conclusions that justify pursuing your business goals. Follow the tips in this post to produce well-crafted data analyses that will support even the most aspirational projects.

Editor's note: This article was originally published July 2019 and has since been updated for comprehensiveness.

26 May 2025, 11:30 am

Wiki vs. knowledge base – Exploring definitions, challenges, and benefits 

When I worked at HubSpot Support, I frequently referenced our knowledge base for product documentation, troubleshooting steps, and how-to guides for assisting customers. I frequently referred to both our internal wiki and our knowledge base; although they have some similarities, there are some clear distinctions.

If I needed a refresher on connecting an external domain to HubSpot, I’d head over to the knowledge base. But if I wanted to know which food trucks were coming to the courtyard that month? That’s a wiki question.

Knowledge bases and wikis are both designed to store and share information, but they have different use cases when you get down to specifics. In this post, I’ll break down the differences between wikis vs. knowledge bases and discuss the benefits of each.

Table of Contents

• Wikis vs. Knowledge Bases – What are they?
• What are the benefits and challenges of a corporate wiki?
• What are the benefits and challenges of a knowledge base?
• Investing in a Wiki vs. a Knowledge Base

Wikis vs. Knowledge Bases – What are they?

The terms wiki and knowledge base are often used interchangeably, but they’re not the same thing. Wikis and knowledge bases both store information, but that’s about where the similarities end.

So, wiki vs. knowledge base, what’s the difference?

The difference comes down to purpose and structure.

• A wiki is a collaborative space where anyone on your team can share or update information.
• A knowledge base, on the other hand, is a more formal resource where content is verified, structured, and typically editable only by select contributors.

To better understand the differences between wikis and knowledge bases, I’ll break them down one at a time.

What is a knowledge base?

A knowledge base is a centralized, structured repository of verified information. It can be internal or external and serves as a single source of truth for critical company knowledge, FAQs, product documentation, SOPs, and more.

Most companies use an external knowledge base to document product features and publish step-by-step guides, and HubSpot is no exception.

HubSpot’s knowledge base is a customer-facing, highly-searchable treasure trove of everything a user might need to get the most out of the product. It’s not just for customers, though. As a HubSpot support rep, I referenced our knowledge base daily when troubleshooting customer inquiries.

What makes a knowledge base special is how it’s curated. Knowledge base content is crafted by subject matter experts and reviewed for accuracy before publication. Ideally, a dedicated team maintains the knowledge base and keeps it up to date as products and processes evolve.

What is a wiki?

It’s impossible not to think of Wikipedia when discussing corporate wikis, and to be honest, I’m not sure which idea came first. What makes Wikipedia special is that anyone can contribute to it, and a company wiki shares the same philosophy.

A wiki is a collaborative internal hub where any team member can create, edit, and share information. Unlike a knowledge base, which is highly curated and restricted to a select few contributors, a wiki is like your company’s private Wikipedia. It is an ideal resource for quick note-taking, brainstorming, and knowledge sharing that doesn’t require strict oversight.

Below is an example of a wiki template I found in Notion that paints a clear picture of what a company wiki is all about:

Source

As you can see, a wiki is less formally structured than a knowledge base and carries information with less authoritative weight. Looking for information on vacation policy and upcoming team events? That's wiki territory.

Wikis aren’t just for housekeeping and company policy, though. Wikis excel as collaborative tools for fast-moving teams. They shine in environments where transparency and speed are more important than structure. For example, engineering teams might use a wiki to publish guides, document internal best practices, and share deployment workflows.

Here’s another example from Notion:

Source

Now that I’ve covered what a wiki is and what a knowledge base is, let’s jump into the wiki vs. knowledge base differences that matter most.

How do a wiki and a knowledge base differ?

Wikis and knowledge bases are both valuable tools for storing and sharing information, but they differ in their use cases and formality.

• Wikis are great for collaboration since any team member is free to edit and add information. However, this flexibility comes at the cost of reliability and structure.
• Knowledge bases, on the other hand, are curated and maintained by a dedicated team of editors and experts, making them a repository of authoritative, consistent information that is meticulously structured and organized.

Wikis and knowledge bases both have advantages and drawbacks, which is why many companies use both.

Next, I’ll lay out the benefits and challenges of wikis and knowledge bases.

What are the benefits and challenges of a corporate wiki?

Corporate Wiki Benefits

1. Knowledge Retention

Wikis enable team members to easily share their knowledge of company processes, demonstrate their expertise, and document best practices. Since there is no approval process and employees can add and edit information at will, people are more likely to share their experience and knowledge on the wiki.

The result is reduced corporate amnesia, or a knowledge drain, which occurs when experienced employees leave a company and take vital knowledge and experience with them.

2. Higher Job Satisfaction

A corporate wiki can be the place for employees to shine. When I worked in HubSpot Support, I remember a particular team member who was very shy and rarely talked to anyone. However, she stood out in the corporate wiki, where she became known across the department as a support wizard. Everyone relied on her deep expertise and thorough documentation.

Providing employees with a space to share knowledge can boost job satisfaction by fostering recognition for expertise and contributions.

3. Better Productivity and Increased Collaboration

A corporate wiki can boost productivity and save employees time. Since important information is centrally stored in a searchable wiki, people won’t have to waste time tracking down a lost brainstorming doc or meeting checklist. It’s all one quick search away.

When I worked at HubSpot Support, our internal wiki saved me loads of time with easy access to post-meeting notes and documentation of hyper-specific edge-case support experiences that weren’t covered in the knowledge base. It made it easier for me to collaborate with other support representatives and provided me with the insights I needed to perform my job more effectively.

Corporate Wiki Challenges

1. Less Control Over Content

The beauty of a wiki lies in its collaborative nature. However, this can also be a drawback. Anyone can upload and update content without prior approval, leading to inaccuracies and outdated information. As a result, wikis might be viewed as less trustworthy.

Without a clear ownership model, it can be challenging to determine and trust the accuracy of information, especially when no one is technically responsible for maintaining it.

2. Less Structured Than a Knowledge Base

Wikis are excellent for quick documentation, but over time, they can get messy. For example, I might add a new document to the wiki only to discover that someone has already covered the topic.

Without a dedicated curation and editing team, it is easy for a wiki to become overrun with inaccurate or duplicate information. Wikis are also less structured and organized than knowledge bases, making it more difficult to find information. Typically, wikis rely on search functionality to overcome this hurdle, but if your wiki is overloaded, those results can be overwhelming.

3. No Analytics

Company wikis typically lack analytics features and feedback tools to measure which pieces of content are most useful to your team.

Without usage data, it can be challenging to maintain relevant and quality information, fill content gaps, and prioritize updates, especially in a large company with a bloated wiki.

What are the benefits and challenges of a knowledge base?

Here are some advantages and potential risks of running a knowledge base.

Knowledge Base Benefits

1. Building a Single Source of Truth

A well-organized knowledge base ensures that every employee knows where to find critical information, without having to second-guess its accuracy. Everything from FAQs to product documentation and troubleshooting guides is organized, categorized, verified, and easy to navigate.

When I worked in HubSpot Support, our knowledge base was the single source of truth for both reps like me and customers. I relied on it daily for accurate, up-to-date product documentation to guide my troubleshooting, and I never hesitated to share those articles with customers because I knew all of the information was verified and meticulously maintained.

2. Maintaining Consistency

A knowledge base ensures consistent information across your whole organization, keeping teams on track. Since knowledge base information is curated and reviewed, there is no risk of inconsistent, duplicate, or conflicting information circulating.

This becomes especially important when customers are involved. Hearing conflicting information from different representatives or across different departments can lead to a negative customer experience that erodes trust.

At HubSpot Support, I knew customers were receiving consistent, accurate information, whether it came from me or my teammates, because we were all working from the same knowledge base.

3. Training Benefits

A comprehensive knowledge base can be a massive pillar of the onboarding process. When I was a new hire on HubSpot’s Support team, I lost count of how many times I heard, “Did you search the knowledge base?” whenever I had a question.

Our knowledge base was a significant training resource for me. It provided me with access to troubleshooting guides, process documentation, and detailed information about every aspect of the product. It proved invaluable for my development as a new hire and continued to support my growth long after the “new guy” phase was over.

[alt[ knowledge base benefits and challenges

Knowledge Base Challenges

1. Encouraging Employees to Share Knowledge

I’ve learned that a knowledge base is only as valuable as the content inside it. Encouraging employees to contribute to your knowledge base can be a challenge, especially considering the higher standards for authoritativeness and expertise required for knowledge base content compared to wiki content.

Some employees may hesitate to contribute to a knowledge base due to the time commitment or because they are unsure whether their expertise is valuable enough to share. Ideally, your organization has a dedicated knowledge team for curating, creating, and maintaining content. If not, it’s essential to establish a culture of knowledge contribution early to prevent against knowledge drain when experienced team members leave.

2. Staying Up-to-Date

As your company and products evolve, your knowledge base content must keep pace. If knowledge is outdated, employees may rely on incorrect information, leading to confusion, mistakes, and poor customer experiences.

The key is creating a system for knowledge base upkeep. This should involve regularly scheduled content audits and a flagging system where team members can alert the knowledge team of any incorrect or outdated articles.

Pro tip: Leverage your customer support team to notify you about outdated or inaccurate content. As a support representative at HubSpot, I was neck deep in our knowledge base every day. I often flagged outdated or incorrect content long before the knowledge team would have spotted it in their review schedule.

3. Maintaining Security

A knowledge base may contain sensitive information about internal processes and proprietary software secrets. Even customer-facing content can be highly sensitive and shouldn’t be edited without approval.

That’s why it’s essential to select a high-quality and trustworthy knowledge base platform that safeguards your information and streamlines maintenance with granular permissions.

HubSpot’s Knowledge Base software enables you to create a top-of-the-line knowledge base with extensive controls for who can view, edit, and publish content, allowing you to protect your valuable knowledge while keeping it accessible to teams that need it.

Investing in a Wiki vs. a Knowledge Base

Knowledge bases and wikis are both valuable tools for storing and sharing business information, but they serve different purposes. Depending on your organizational goals, the products you offer, and how your teams operate, it could make sense to use a wiki, a knowledge base, or both.

Need an organized database of customer-facing product guides and documentation? A knowledge base is built for that. Meanwhile, a wiki can be just the thing for your agile engineering team looking to move fast, break things, and keep track of sprint notes and brainstorming docs.

The wiki vs. knowledge base debate isn’t really a debate at all. They are complementary tools for streamlining information access, and I would argue that most companies can utilize both: a wiki for internal collaboration and informal record-keeping, alongside a knowledge base for curated, searchable, verified content.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in August 2022 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

23 May 2025, 11:30 am

Leading questions: What they are & why they matter [+ Examples] 

Picture this: I’ve just walked in the door and barely put my bags down after a hotel stay. My phone buzzes. It’s a survey from the hotel asking, “How wonderful was your recent relaxing stay with us?” My immediate thought?

That’s a classic leading question.

Leading questions like that have a knack for steering you toward a specific answer, often reflecting the asker’s hopes or biases. In my hotel example, the question pushes the idea that the stay was “wonderful” and “relaxing,” making it a bit awkward if my actual experience was, well, not that.

In this article, I want to dive into what leading questions are — specifically leading survey questions — and emphasize why identifying and ditching them is so critical, especially when you’re after honest-to-goodness feedback.

In this article:

• What are leading questions?
• Types of Leading Questions
• Leading Questions vs. Loaded Questions
• Examples of Leading Questions I’ve Encountered
• How to Avoid Leading Questions
• Why You Should Avoid Leading Survey Questions
• The Lesson: Don't Lead Your Customers On

For me, a leading question is one that subtly (or not-so-subtly) guides someone toward the answer, or one the researcher might want to hear. The desired answer is kind of baked right into the phrasing or the context.

Because leading questions draw from assumptions and biases, they tend to lead to unreliable survey results — and that can be bad for business.

I see leading questions pop up a lot in surveys. Often, they contain information or assumptions the surveyor wants to confirm or deny. But instead of letting you answer freely, the question nudges you in a particular direction.

Why does this matter? Because relying on feedback from leading questions can lead to seriously skewed results. If your data is based on assumptions and biases rather than genuine opinions, the decisions you make based on that data could be shaky.

Let’s say I’m trying to figure out how customers really feel about my product’s ease of use. If I send out a survey asking something like, “How satisfied are you with how easy and simple our product is to use?” – well, I’m probably not going to get the unvarnished truth from folks who are actually struggling.

That kind of honest, critical feedback is gold because it highlights potential problems that might be causing others to leave (churn). It’s estimated that businesses lose more than $5 million annually due to decisions based on inaccurate data, with 7% reporting they lose $25 million or more, making unbiased feedback collection essential.

That’s why I believe crafting clear, neutral survey questions is fundamental to getting useful results.

Pro tips:

• Always strive for neutral wording. I make it a point to strip out subjective adjectives (like “wonderful,” “amazing,” “terrible”) and leading adverbs because they instantly introduce bias into the question.
• Keep your questions simple and focused. Try to ask about only one thing per question. Combining multiple ideas can unintentionally lead the respondent or make the question confusing.

Now, let’s get into the various types of leading questions.

I’ve noticed leading questions tend to fall into a few common categories. Recognizing these types helps me avoid writing them myself.

Questions Based on Assumptions

This kind of leading question presumes the respondent thinks or feels a certain way.

These types of questions tend to lean positive and use phrases like:

• How much do you like X?
• How delighted are you with Y?

Pro tip: Before finalizing a question, ask yourself: Am I assuming anything about the respondent’s feelings, experiences, or knowledge? If the answer is yes, rephrase the question to remove that assumption. Instead of assuming they liked something, ask them how they would rate it.

Questions Based on Interrelated Statements

With these kinds of questions, I might see a statement of fact or opinion followed by a question tied to it.

These types of questions tend to use phrases like:

• [Insert statement]. What are your thoughts?
• [Insert statement]. How do you feel about this?

While sometimes useful for gauging agreement, if I’m not careful, the initial statement can heavily influence the answer.

Pro tip: Avoid pairing a strong opinion or potentially biased statement directly with a question asking for a related feeling or thought. If you need to provide context, keep it strictly factual and neutral, and clearly separate it from the question itself, perhaps by putting it in a preceding sentence.

Questions Based on Direct Implications

These questions ask respondents about the future consequences of a current attitude or action, whether it applies to them or not.

These types of questions tend to use phrases like:

• If you liked X, should we do it again?
• If you subscribed to X, will you be subscribing to Y?

This gets awkward if the person didn’t like X.

Pro tip: Steer clear of “if/then” questions that hinge on assumed feeling or action. Instead, ask separate questions. First, determine the respondent’s actual attitude or behavior (e.g., “How did you feel about X?”). Then, ask a separate question about future possibilities (e.g., “What new options related to X would you like to see?”).

Questions Based on Coercion

These questions use language that practically forces agreement.

These types of questions tend to use phrases like:

• You enjoyed X, didn't you?
• Our product is great, right?

I find these are among the worst offenders for bias, as they leave very little room for honest disagreement.

Pro tips:

• Instead of coercion, leverage rating scales like Likert scales to avoid coercive language or forcing simple Yes/No answers where nuance is needed. Scales give respondents the freedom to express their true feelings more accurately.
• After getting a rating or a specific answer on a survey, sometimes the most valuable insight comes from a simple, open-ended follow-up question like: “Why did you give that rating?” or “Could you tell me a bit more about that?” This gives respondents space to explain in their own words, providing richer context.

Leading Questions vs. Loaded Questions

People often ask me about loaded questions, too, as they’re another type to avoid. While similar, I explain the difference like this:

A leading question nudges you toward an answer, while a loaded question contains an assumption (often controversial or unjustified) about the respondent within the question itself.

Loaded questions often use emotionally charged language or make leaps in logic.

• Example: “Do you find it difficult to hide your imposter syndrome?”

This question is “loaded” because it implies that the respondent has imposter syndrome. These kinds of questions can really put respondents on the defensive because of the built-in assumptions.

While both are bad for neutral surveys, I find loaded questions often feel more like a trap.

Examples of Leading Questions I’ve Encountered

Here are a few examples that break down the types of leading questions we just discussed.

Example 1: Assumptions

Question: “How excited are you about our new product?”

Why I see it as a leading question: It assumes I am excited, rather than asking how I feel neutrally.

Example 2: Interrelated Statements

Question: “Most people are excited about our new product. Are you?”

Why I see it as a leading question: The first sentence creates social pressure to agree.

Example 3: Direct Implications

Question: “If you're excited about our new product, should we offer another version?”

Why I see it as a leading question: It links a future decision to an assumed present feeling.

Example 4: Coercion

Question: “You're excited about our new product, right?”

Why I see it as a leading question: The “right?” pushes strongly for a “yes.”

Now, I do see leading questions used intentionally, and sometimes effectively, in other contexts:

Example 5: Marketing

Marketers might use them to create buzz or social proof.

Question: “Thousands of customers are loving our new ebook. Are you ready to download your copy?”

Why it’s used: The initial statement aims to persuade by highlighting popularity.

Example 6: Sales

I’ve seen sellers use them to move a prospect towards closing.

Question: “So, shall we set up your subscription starting Monday?”

Why it’s used: It assumes the decision to buy has already been made, making it harder to back out.

Example 7: Legal

Lawyers sometimes use them strategically (within rules) to guide testimony. However, for gathering unbiased feedback, especially from customers? I steer clear.

Question: “How fast was the other car going when it ran the red light?”

Why it’s used: It assumes the light was red and the other car ran it.

How to Avoid Leading Questions

The best way to avoid leading questions is usually by reframing the question through a more objective lens. For example, the assumption-based question: “How excited are you about our new product?” would be better framed as “How would you rate our new product?”

Why?

By removing the assumption that the customer is excited about the new product, you give the customer the freedom to rate the product honestly — even if that means they're not that jazzed about it.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to avoid writing leading questions:

• Are my own personal assumptions or biases present?
• Am I forcing a respondent to answer in a specific way?
• Are the respondent's thoughts or feelings implied?
• Am I asking the respondent to consider something they may not agree with?

Pro tip: If you’re looking for a hand while crafting neutral questions, templates can be a real time-saver. HubSpot offers a helpful set of customer satisfaction survey templates that incorporate many best practices for avoiding bias. They can help keep your questions on the right track.

Why You Should Avoid Leading Survey Questions

We touched on it already, but let me explicitly break down why I think leading questions are so problematic when you’re after genuine insights.

1. They pollute your data.

This is the big one for me. Leading questions introduce bias — plain and simple. They encourage respondents to answer based on the question’s framing, not their true feelings. This means the data you collect isn’t an accurate reflection of reality.

Pro tip: Treat every question draft as potentially biased. Actively read it from the perspective of someone holding the opposite view you might expect. Does the wording make it harder or more awkward for them to answer honestly? If so, revise for neutrality.

2. They lead to poor decisions.

If your data is skewed, any decisions you make based on it – product updates, marketing strategies, customer service improvements – might be misguided. You could end up investing resources in the wrong areas because you misunderstood your audience’s actual needs or opinions.

Pro tip: Remember the “garbage in, garbage out” principle? The cost of fixing a bad decision on flawed data (e.g., rolling back a feature, changing marketing spend) is almost higher than the effort required to collect unbiased data upfront.

3. They frustrate respondents.

Being nudged towards an answer you don’t agree with can be off-putting. It can make people feel like their genuine opinion isn’t valued, which can lower survey completion rates and even damage their perception of your brand. Research suggests response rates can drop when surveys feel biased or manipulative.

Pro tip: Value your respondents’ time and intelligence. A well-crafted, neutral survey signals respect for their genuine opinion. This not only improves data quality but also strengthens their relationship with your brand, making them more likely to offer feedback in the future.

4. They mask critical problems.

By encouraging positive or specific answers, leading questions can hide underlying issues. Like my product example earlier, asking about the “easy and simple” use might prevent you from discovering that a significant number of users find it confusing.

Pro tip: Embrace negative or unexpected feedback – it’s often where the most valuable learning lies. Purposefully frame questions neutrally to uncover potential problems, rather than seeking confirmation of success.

5. They undermine trust.

Consistently using leading questions can make it seem like you’re not interested in honest feedback, just validation. This erodes trust between you and your audience.

Pro tip: View every survey as a conversation and a brand touchpoint. Asking questions that feel manipulative or biased sends a message that you aren’t genuinely listening. Prioritize building trust through open, fair questions – the honest insights will follow.

Getting unbiased, truthful feedback is just too important to risk compromising it with poorly phrased questions.

The Lesson: Don't Lead Your Customers On

Leading questions might have their place in sales pitches or marketing stunts, but when I’m trying to understand my customers, I leave leading questions at the door. For me, feedback is pure gold. It drives improvement and helps build stronger relationships. But to get that value, I need to ensure the feedback is genuine and untainted by my own biases reflected in the questions.

Aiming for clear, neutral, and unbiased survey questions is always my goal.

The bottom line: Leading questions may work for sales, marketing, and even legal, but try to leave them out of your customer surveys.

Even if the underlying goal is to test an assumption, this may push respondents to answer in the direction of that assumption.

Questions Based on Interrelated Statements

Questions that use interrelated statements include a statement of fact or opinion, followed by a question that prompts a related answer from the respondent.

These types of questions tend to use phrases like:

• [Insert statement]. What are your thoughts?
• [Insert statement]. How do you feel about this?

Questions in this format can be useful to measure how much a respondent agrees or disagrees with a particular statement. But, if framed incorrectly, it may also encourage the customer to answer based on the information provided in the original statement.

Questions Based on Direct Implications

Direct implication questions require the respondent to determine the future implications of a present attitude or behavior — whether it applies to them or not.

These types of questions tend to use phrases like:

• If you liked x, should we do it again?
• If you subscribed to x, will you be subscribing to y?

But what happens if the respondent didn't "like" or "subscribe" to x? It makes it difficult for them to answer the question accurately.

Questions Based on Coercion

Questions that include coercive language usually force the respondent to affirm or agree with something.

These types of questions tend to use phrases like:

• You enjoyed x, didn't you?
• Our product is great, right?

Coercive questions are among the biggest contributors to survey bias because they sway respondents to provide a predetermined answer. There's little room for people to answer differently (and comfortably).

Leading Questions vs. Loaded Questions

Loaded questions are often mentioned along with leading questions when talking about things to avoid. Loaded questions are trick questions that contain assumptions about the respondent within the questions and often have exaggerations or emotionally charged language.

Example of a loaded question:

"Do you find it difficult to hide your imposter syndrome?"

This question implies that the respondent has imposter syndrome. The assumptions made asking loaded questions can put respondents off.

Now, let's get into a few examples of leading questions.

Leading Questions Examples

Here are some examples of the different types of leading questions that may unintentionally end up in your surveys (also highlighted in the image above).

Example 1: Assumptions

Question: "How excited are you about our new product?"

What makes it leading?

This question assumes that the respondent feels excited about the product.

Example 2: Interrelated Statements

Question: "Most people are excited about our new product. Are you?"

What makes it leading?

This question may prompt a particular answer (in this case, yes) based on the closely connected statement that most people are excited about the new product.

Example 3: Direct Implications

Question: "If you're excited about our new product, should we offer another version?"

What makes it leading?

This question forces respondents to consider the future implications of whether or not they feel excited about the new product.

Example 4: Coercion

Question: "You're excited about our new product, right?"

What makes it leading?

This question compels the respondent to agree that they're excited about the product.

But leading questions aren't all bad. In fact, they're commonly leveraged in marketing, sales, and legal contexts.

Example 5: Marketing

Marketers may use leading questions to help promote a product or service.

Question: "Customers love our new e-book. Are you ready to download a copy?"

Why It's Used:
This statement establishes that other customers love their book to help persuade new customers to purchase.

Example 6: Sales

Salespeople may use leading questions to persuade a prospective customer to buy a product or service.

Question: "When would you like to start your subscription with us?"

Why It's Used:

This question corners recipients into starting a subscription by assuming they're already on board to sign up.

Example 7: Legal

Lawyers may use leading questions to nudge the case in a specific direction (i.e., in their favor).

Question: "How late did the defendant get home that night?"

Why It's Used:

This leading question assumes the defendant got home late, which plays into whatever strategy the legal team has.

Still, you'll want to avoid using leading questions in your surveys. Let's discuss how to do that next.

How to Avoid Leading Questions

The best way to avoid leading questions is usually by reframing the question through a more objective lens.

For example, as shown in the image above, the assumption-based question: "How excited are you about our new product?" would be better framed as "How would you rate our new product?"

Why? By removing the assumption that the customer is excited about the new product, you give the customer the freedom to rate the product honestly — even if that means they're not that jazzed about it.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to avoid writing leading questions:

• Are my own personal assumptions or biases present?
• Am I forcing a respondent to answer in a specific way?
• Are the respondent's thoughts or feelings implied?
• Am I asking the respondent to consider something they may not agree with?
• Do I feel strongly in one direction about this subject, and does it show?

Don't Lead Your Customers On

Businesses thrive off of customer feedback. And it's important to give your customers the opportunity to communicate with you openly and honestly.

The bottom line: Leading questions may work for marketing, sales, and legal, but try to leave them out of your customer surveys.

Editor's note: This article was originally published in September 2022 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

16 May 2025, 11:30 am

12 Crucial strategies for promoting team collaboration — Plus, the biggest collaboration roadblocks, according to ClickUp’s CEO 

I used to think team collaboration was mostly about being a good teammate — offering help, showing up to meetings, and staying in the loop. But the longer I’ve worked on cross-functional teams, the more I’ve realized that real collaboration is something you have to design on purpose.

After more than a decade of managing content and marketing projects across in-person, remote, and hybrid teams, I’ve seen how quickly things fall apart when expectations aren’t clear or tools don’t play nicely together. I’ve been on projects where four people thought they were the “point person,” and others where no one spoke up because they weren’t sure if it was their place. Good vibes only go so far when the process is murky.

In this post, I’m sharing 12 strategies that helped my teams collaborate more effectively — plus a few lessons from ClickUp’s CEO, Zeb Evans, on the biggest roadblocks to watch out for and how to avoid them.

Table of Contents

• 12 Collaboration Strategies
• Team Collaboration Tools
• What is team collaboration?
• What does great team collaboration look like?
• What Your Team Gets Wrong, According to ClickUp’s CEO
• Making Team Collaboration Smoother, One Step at a Time

What is team collaboration?

At its core, team collaboration is just people working together toward a common goal. Not just splitting up tasks and checking boxes, but actually solving problems, making decisions together, and creating something stronger than any one person could’ve done alone.

I’ve been on teams where it just worked. Everyone was in sync, trusted each other, and had the clarity to move quickly. And I’ve seen the flip side: siloed communication, too many tools, missed signals, and meetings that didn’t go anywhere. When things start falling apart, it’s usually because something’s off with the structure, the communication flow, or the culture itself.

And the impact goes way beyond just a few missed deadlines. According to a 2024 Zoom report, poor collaboration can cost companies up to $874,000 a year in lost productivity — and that’s just from a third of managers in a 1,000-person company.

Gartner’s research backs this up, too, showing that teams bogged down by what they call “collaboration drag” are 37% less likely to hit their revenue targets.

So, when we talk about collaboration, we’re not talking about cramming in more meetings or adding yet another app. It’s about removing the friction, building shared context, setting clear expectations, and creating the kind of trust that actually helps people work together, not just alongside each other.

What does great team collaboration look like?

Just because everyone’s chatting in the same Slack thread doesn’t mean they’re actually collaborating. I’ve learned that real collaboration takes structure and intention. Without it, things can fall apart fast.

The best teams I’ve worked with usually have a few key things nailed down. They’re clear on the goal, know who’s handling what, and have figured out a way of communicating that fits how they work. That kind of setup gives everyone a shared sense of direction and keeps the chaos to a minimum.

United Around a Common Goal

It sounds obvious, but having a clear, shared goal is where everything begins. When that’s missing, teams start drifting. People move in different directions, duplicate work, or solve the wrong problem entirely.

According to Zoom’s 2024 Global Collaboration Report, one-third of leaders say that a lack of alignment within their own team or across teams is a major blocker to collaboration. ​I’ve felt that firsthand. Taking the time early on to get aligned, and doing a few check-ins along the way, has saved my teams from a ton of wasted effort.

Structured With Clear Roles and Responsibilities

One of the most common pitfalls I’ve seen is fuzzy ownership. When everyone’s kind of responsible, no one really is — and that’s how things fall through the cracks.

According to Mural’s 2023 Collaboration Trends report, unclear priorities and expectations rank among the top three obstacles to effective collaboration​. I’ve found that writing down who owns what, and where to find it, can prevent a ton of confusion and unnecessary back-and-forth.

Prioritizes Reliable Communication

More communication doesn’t always mean better communication. It’s really about making it easier to get the right info at the right time. Zoom’s report found that 82% of employees deal with delays because teammates don’t respond quickly, and 72% feel they don’t have enough time between meetings or chats to get things done​. That’s a recipe for burnout.

ClickUp CEO Zeb Evans put it perfectly: “With multiple channels, multiple DMs, and multiple platforms, context can get los … If all of the context is in the same place, then you don’t have to repeat yourself, you don’t have to ask where things are continuously, and you don’t have to ask for status updates or have meetings for alignment; all context is already in the same place.”

That hits home. Everyone on a team should know where updates live and how to find what they need without chasing it down. This is incredibly important for remote and hybrid setups, where casual check-ins aren’t as easy. When teams align on what goes where, it reduces noise and keeps work moving.

Effective Leadership

In my experience, collaboration breaks down fast when leadership feels distracted or disengaged. The best team leaders I’ve worked with aren’t just delegating; they’re actively shaping the process, setting the tone, and making it easy for the rest of us to show up with confidence.

That sense of confidence has to go both ways. Leaders need to trust their teams, and teams need to feel that trust in return. But, according to Gallup, only 21% of U.S. employees strongly agree they trust the leadership at their organization — and that number’s been going down.

It doesn’t help that only 46% of employees say they know what’s expected of them at work, which is 10 points lower than it was in early 2020. Without that clarity, it’s hard to know where you’re headed, let alone work effectively with others to get there.

I’ve found that the leaders who stand out are the ones who communicate with intention, clear roadblocks, and consistently connect the day-to-day with the bigger picture. That kind of direction builds trust, creating the space for genuine collaboration to happen.

Productive Team Meetings

I used to schedule meetings for everything — a quick check-in here, a brainstorm there. But looking back, a lot of those could’ve been a shared doc or a quick Loom.

The data backs it up. Microsoft’s 2024 Work Trend Index found that 62% of employees feel like too many meetings are cutting into their ability to do focused work​. Mural’s research goes even further, ranking unproductive meetings as the number one thing getting in the way of real collaboration.

These days, I’m way more intentional. If there’s no clear agenda, there’s no meeting. The most collaborative teams I’ve worked with don’t use meetings as the default. They lean on async updates when they can and save the live conversations for when they actually move things forward.

Motivational Work Environment

One thing I’ve noticed across the most collaborative teams I’ve worked with is that people wanted to be there. It wasn’t just about perks or job titles but about feeling connected to the work and the people around them.

HP’s 2024 Work Relationship Index backs that up. Employees who feel connected to their teammates are 2.5 times more likely to say they have a healthy relationship with their job, which directly impacts how well they collaborate. People are more likely to speak up, share ideas, and stay engaged when there's a sense of connection.

When people feel like their input matters — and they know they’re working alongside people who care — collaboration stops being a box to check. It becomes something people want to be part of.

Transparency and Accountability

In my experience, teams get just as much value from what happens after a project as they do from the work itself. Whether everything went smoothly or was utterly derailed, teams grow when they talk openly about what worked — and what didn’t. Transparency and accountability aren’t just nice-to-haves; they keep teams aligned and relationships strong.

I still remember one project where we barely hit the deadline, but in the recap meeting, the project manager said everything had gone great. That shut down any chance of an honest conversation. The forced positivity made people retreat, and no one felt encouraged to speak up the next time something wasn’t working.

ClickUp CEO Zeb Evans put it well: “Clarity around ownership is often the root of collaboration issues.”

That kind of clarity (or lack of it) has ripple effects. Zoom’s 2024 Global Collaboration Report found that only one in four employees say their managers help resolve collaboration issues quickly​. When there’s no space to reflect and no clear accountability, it’s tough for teams to improve or trust that things will go differently next time.

1. Tie work back to the mission.

When I started managing teams, I assumed people naturally understood how their work fit the bigger picture. But I’ve since learned that connecting the dots between a task and the larger mission is something leaders have to do intentionally and often.

It’s not about giving a big motivational speech before every sprint. What’s helped more is calling out how a specific project or task moves the bigger goals forward, particularly during planning or kickoff meetings. It keeps everyone on the same page and reminds folks that what they’re doing matters — not just to the team but to the mission.

And when people feel that connection, they collaborate differently. There’s more intention, more ownership, and more care. It’s a slight change in how we talk about the work, but it makes a big difference in how the job gets done.

2. Communicate your expectations for collaboration.

Many collaboration issues start with a simple assumption: everyone’s on the same page. But more often than not, they’re not — and that’s when things start to go sideways. I’ve learned that setting clear expectations early (and checking in on them regularly) saves a ton of confusion and rework.

This doesn’t have to be anything formal. Making sure people know who’s leading, how to give feedback, or what “done” means can go a long way. It also helps with burnout: Gallup found that employees who clearly understand what’s expected of them are 47% less likely to feel burned out.

Being aligned doesn’t mean hovering over every detail. It’s just about giving people the clarity they need to move confidently and work well together without stepping on toes or duplicating effort.

3. Highlight individuals’ strengths.

Not everyone loves leading a meeting or speaking up in a big group — and that’s totally fine. In my experience, the most collaborative teams work best when people bring different strengths to the table, and those differences are seen as a plus, not something to “fix.”

When I was building out my content team, I made a point to hire folks who balanced each other out — someone who thrived with long-form writing, another who had a sharp eye for visuals, and someone who could take a messy idea and turn it into something clear and structured. Calling out those strengths out loud helped the team trust each other more and work together more naturally.

The numbers back that up. According to Nectar, over 83% of employees say being recognized boosts their motivation, and nearly 78% say they’d be more productive if they were recognized more often. Even a quick Slack shoutout can make a difference. It’s a simple way to build trust and keep the team moving in sync.

4. Promote a community working environment.

I’ve been on teams where everyone showed up, did their part, and got the job done, yet it still felt disconnected. The work moved forward, sure, but there was something missing. The most collaborative teams I’ve been on felt like a true community. People felt safe speaking up, asking for help, and celebrating each other’s wins.

That kind of environment doesn’t just happen, it takes intention. It’s about building psychological safety, where no one’s afraid to throw out an idea or admit they’re stuck. And it’s about regular, low-stakes moments of connection that build trust over time.

A quick daily standup is one of the simplest things that’s worked for me. It’s easy, keeps everyone aligned, and gives people a space to raise blockers or give shoutouts without any pressure.

And it makes a real impact. HubSpot’s 2025 State of Marketing report found that marketers on highly collaborative teams are 3.5x more likely to feel confident about hitting their goals​. That confidence comes from knowing you’re not in it alone. And that kind of support can make all the difference.

5. Encourage innovation and creative thinking.

Some of the best ideas I’ve seen didn’t start fully formed — they started as someone tossing out a rough thought that sparked something bigger. But that kind of thinking doesn’t happen unless people feel safe speaking up, so building a culture that welcomes creativity is vital for real collaboration.

Mural’s 2023 Collaboration Trends report found that nearly half of employees are unhappy with how their teams collaborate, and a big reason is that there’s not enough space for fresh ideas or time to think creatively. I’ve felt that on teams where the only focus was speed. Experimentation tends to fall by the wayside when the goal is just to ship fast.

One simple thing that’s helped me is giving people a heads-up before brainstorms. Not everyone thinks best on the spot (I know I don’t), so even a day of prep time can make a big difference. The ideas become stronger, and people are more likely to speak up when they’ve had time to think things through.

6. Share knowledge, insights, and resources.

Few things are more frustrating than getting stuck on something, only to find out later that someone else already solved it, but the answer was buried in an old email thread or sitting in a folder no one checks. That kind of siloed knowledge slows everything down and kills momentum.

I’ve found that collaboration gets a whole lot smoother when teams build habits around sharing what they know. It doesn’t need to be fancy — just keeping documentation up to date, recording a quick Loom to walk through a process, or dropping links in a shared Slack channel can make a big difference. Tools like Notion, Confluence, or even a well-organized Google Drive can go a long way when everyone actually uses them.

It also helps teams stay aligned. Mural’s 2023 Collaboration Trends report found that “no alignment across teams” was the second biggest barrier to effective collaboration, right after too many unproductive meetings. The good news is that you can solve a lot of this by making information easier to find and encouraging people to share what they know.

7. Lead by example.

It’s one thing to talk about collaboration and another to model it. I’ve seen teams thrive when leaders are willing to jump in, listen actively, and work transparently. When leaders show up with curiosity and humility, the rest of the team tends to follow.

That doesn’t mean having all the answers. Some of the best collaborative moments I’ve been part of started with a manager saying, “I’m not sure what the right move is; what do you think?” It immediately changed the tone of the conversation and encouraged the rest of us to speak up, too.

It also shows up in the small stuff, like how you run one-to-ones. Are you making space for honest conversations? Asking thoughtful questions? Following through on feedback? Those everyday actions clearly signal whether collaboration is just a talking point or something that matters.

8. Make space for real-world connection.

Some of the best team bonding I’ve experienced didn’t happen at a whiteboard. It happened over coffee, while walking between conference sessions, or getting lost trying to find the happy hour spot at an offsite. Stepping out of the usual routine helps people connect as people, not just coworkers.

I still think about a casual team hike where someone opened up about what had been frustrating them at work — something they never mentioned in a meeting. That one conversation cleared the air and made everything easier moving forward. You can’t force that kind of trust on a Zoom call, but unstructured moments like that create space for it to happen.

And if your team’s remote, this still matters. Meet up for a local co-working session, plan an occasional offsite, or even just grab lunch when someone’s in town. It doesn’t have to be frequent — even once a quarter makes a difference. The goal isn’t just to “get out of the office.” It’s to build moments that don’t depend on a calendar invite or an agenda.

9. Celebrate and reward successful teamwork.

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen is treating collaboration like a checkbox. The project gets done, everyone moves on, and no one takes a second to acknowledge the effort it took to get there. When leaders recognize team contributions, especially the behind-the-scenes work, people are more likely to bring that same energy next time.

I try to call out great teamwork publicly whenever I can. Small moments of recognition can go a long way, whether it’s a quick shoutout during a meeting or a thank-you message in Slack.​

And it’s not just a nice-to-have. According to Gallup, only one in three U.S. workers says their managers recognized them for good work in the past week. Workers who don’t receive that recognition are twice as likely to consider quitting within the year.

When you celebrate collaboration, you send a clear message: how the work gets done matters just as much as the outcome. Building recognition into things like performance reviews and team rituals shows that working well together is a key part of success, not just a bonus.

10. Invest in collaboration tools.

I’ve worked on teams with so many tools flying around that no one knew where anything lived. People stored docs in different folders, buried updates in Slack threads, and duplicated the same task across multiple platforms. The tools weren’t the issue — the lack of structure was.

The best tools don’t just help with communication; they give teams shared visibility and reduce the need for endless check-ins. I’m a big fan of using one central platform for tracking projects (like Asana, Trello, or ClickUp) and combining that with clear communication habits so nothing slips through the cracks.

And it’s not just about preference, it’s about performance. Zoom’s 2024 Global Collaboration Report found that teams using more than 10 different team collaboration tools were twice as likely to struggle with collaboration compared to teams using fewer than five.

The key is finding what works for your team. You don’t need to roll out a massive stack or spend a ton immediately. Start simple, experiment, and build a setup that supports how your team works and not one that gets in the way.

​​11. Build buffer time into shared projects.

Even the most collaborative teams need breathing room. Deadlines shift, blockers show up, and people move at different speeds — especially when you’re working across functions or time zones. That extra space can make the difference between chaos and a smooth handoff.

I try to plan with some flexibility, whether it’s leaving space between handoffs or avoiding back-to-back launches. That wiggle room creates space for actual collaboration instead of a last-minute rush to hit a deadline.

12. Align on what success looks like.

A lot of collaboration headaches come down to misalignment on what “done” actually means. I’ve seen teams check every box and still miss the mark because no one paused early on to define what success looks like.

Now, I set that foundation up front. Sometimes that means picking a few key metrics, sharing a past example, or just writing a clear definition of “good enough” for the project. It doesn’t take long, but it saves a ton of back-and-forth later.

What Your Team Gets Wrong, According to ClickUp’s CEO

Collaboration can seem relatively straightforward, but effective and scalable collaboration is a different story.

Let’s dive into some of the biggest roadblocks to successful collaboration, according to Zeb Evans, ClickUp’s founder and CEO.

Already a HubSpot Customer? Click here to integrate ClickUp and use both tools to deliver customer value faster, streamline operations, and be more productive.

1. Your team hosts too many meetings without a clear goal.

Hosting meetings with your team can be a strong opportunity for collaboration, but too many meetings might get in the way of productivity.

As Evans told me, “One of the biggest problems I see is there are too many meetings today, and they can be a very inefficient use of time. Oftentimes, there are too many people who don‘t need to be in certain meetings, and there aren’t enough clear goals around the meeting.”

I’ve certainly sat through my fair share of those — the kind where you leave wondering why it couldn’t have been an email. Meetings without a purpose don’t just waste time; they chip away at momentum and morale.

To avoid this, I make meetings more intentional. Instead of a weekly standup where everyone rattles off what they’re working on, I’ve had success asking the team to come prepared with one challenge they need help with. That turns the meeting into a valuable space for problem-solving, not just reporting.

It’s also worth taking a hard look at your recurring meetings. Ask yourself:

• Which ones could be asynchronous?
• Which ones could shift to monthly or quarterly?
• Which ones could be merged or dropped entirely?

2. Your team doesn’t leverage software to create stronger alignment.

As Evans told me, “There‘s too much work about work in general. Too much planning of work, managing of work, communicating about work … rather than just focusing on the work itself. And that’s when it becomes inefficient.”

I’ve felt that on teams where tools multiplied but clarity didn’t. We were “collaborating” in ten different places, but no one had a clear view of the actual work or how it all connected.

Evans emphasized the importance of simplifying and streamlining work processes with better systems.

“In five to ten years,” he predicts, “we‘ll have more of a connected work ecosystem where all work is either in a single platform, or a single connected platform … not necessarily replacing everything, but at least connecting with everything so you remove inefficiencies, you have transparency, and you have a level of alignment that currently doesn’t exist.”

That future doesn’t feel far off. I’ve already started to see how using fewer, better-integrated tools can help teams spend less time chasing updates and more time doing focused work.

As Evans said, “In the next couple of years, we'll also see the execution of work align much more closely to the communication around the work.”

And the key to getting there? Simplify your systems. “Leveraging an all-on-one platform is critical for reducing the inefficiency that comes with too many disparate solutions,” Evans said. “Without getting your entire organization on one platform, you risk losing the context you need to scale projects effectively.”

3. Your organization lacks transparency.

Team collaboration takes a hit when teams don’t know what the other is working on. Silos start forming, things get duplicated, and chances to work together slip through the cracks.

I’ve worked on teams where one group was launching a campaign while another was building something nearly identical — no one knew until the last minute. That kind of disconnect leads to mixed messaging and wasted effort.

“Communication needs to happen in the same place, and you need general alignment so people know what other people are working on,” Evans told me. “Of course, there are many ways to solve this through software.”

One of the easiest ways to bring in more transparency is with tools that give everyone shared visibility. When teams work in a single platform, they can see what’s happening across the company without digging. Teams that consistently use tools like ClickUp, Slack, and Notion break down silos and make cross-team collaboration a whole lot easier.

I remember seeing a Slack note about the social team planning a leadership video series. Just from that quick mention, we were able to align a blog post with the same theme. That kind of connection only happens when information is out in the open.

The tools matter, but so does the mindset. Transparency isn’t just about software — it’s about encouraging people to share early, even if things aren’t polished yet. When updates are visible, teams can build on each other’s work instead of reinventing the wheel.

Speaking of tools, let’s look at a few that can help bring all this to life.

1. Loom

Team Collaboration Tool: Video Communication

Loom lets you record quick videos of your screen, voice, and face to explain ideas or walk teammates through a process — no meeting needed. I’ve used it to clarify feedback, demo workflows, and onboard new employees by walking them through key docs and tools needed to get started.

It excels in async communication. Instead of writing a long Slack message, I’ve found that a two-minute Loom usually gets the point across faster.

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The platform also offers AI-powered summaries, auto-generates titles, lets viewers respond with emoji reactions and threaded, time-stamped comments without breaking the flow, and saves everything in a searchable video library for future reference.

Price: Free plan available, with advanced plans starting at $15/month

2. Google Drive

Team Collaboration Tool: Shared Documents

Google Drive is one of the most accessible tools available for storing and sharing files, and if your team isn’t using it already, it’s worth exploring. I’ve used it for everything from campaign planning docs to video files and editorial calendars, and what makes it so helpful is how easy it is to organize, access, and collaborate in real time.

One thing that’s made a big difference for me is the ability to adjust permissions on individual files and folders. You can give someone view-only access, allow comments, or open things up for editing, which helps cut down on confusion and keeps version control under control.

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Drive also makes it easy to set up shared folders for teams or projects, so everything lives in one place instead of buried in email threads. And if you’re juggling multiple docs, the built-in search and AI features (like file summaries and suggested actions) can be surprisingly helpful, even if you only use them occasionally.

Price: Free with Google account; business plans start at $7/month

3. ClickUp

Team Collaboration Tool: All-in-One Project Management

ClickUp allows teams to manage work across functions. It combines project management tools with features like Docs, Whiteboards, and Dashboards so teams can plan, communicate, and execute in one place.

Support teams, for example, can assign multiple people to a single ticket, loop in other departments via threaded comments, and track task progress without switching tools. For teams managing complex or cross-functional projects, ClickUp’s ability to customize views and permissions helps ensure the right people stay informed without getting overwhelmed.

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Its built-in AI assistant can also help generate tasks, summarize updates, and spot potential blockers before they derail timelines.

Price: Free for personal use, or $12/month for Business Plus.

4. Asana

Team Collaboration Tool: Project Management

Asana helps teams manage collaborative work, especially when multiple teams or departments are involved. I’ve used it to keep content calendars on track, coordinate blog posts across contributors, and map out timelines when many moving parts are in play.

You can easily assign tasks, set deadlines, and track progress without needing constant check-ins. I’m a big fan of the Workload Monitor, which shows exactly how much each person is juggling across projects. It’s helped me spot when someone’s overloaded or has room to take on more, so I can rebalance work before anything slips through the cracks.

Tools like Timeline View, Milestones, and Goals give everyone a clear picture of what’s happening and how their work connects to the bigger picture. And if you're managing multiple teams or clients, Portfolios lets you monitor progress across all your active projects in one place.

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Asana recently rolled out more AI features, too. It now generates status updates and flags potential blockers, which is handy when you’re moving fast and trying to keep everything aligned

Price: Free basic plan available; premium plans start at $10.99/month

5. Dropbox

Team Collaboration Tool: File Sharing and Storage

Dropbox is one of those tools that feels simple, and that’s the point. I’ve used it to send large video files to clients, organize assets across departments, and keep version control sane when working with external collaborators who aren’t in our usual tool stack.

It’s convenient when your team works with big design files, multimedia, or anything that doesn’t live neatly in a doc. You can comment directly on files, set permissions for who can view or edit, and even track file activity so you know when something’s been opened or reviewed.

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Dropbox also includes tools like Dropbox Paper for lightweight document collaboration and DocSend for sharing trackable links — great for sales or partnership teams who need to know when materials get viewed.

Price: Free for individuals; business plans start at $15/user/month

6. Notion

Team Collaboration Tool: Docs, Wikis & Project Spaces

I’ve only scratched the surface of what Notion can do — mostly using it as a place to collect research and ideas with my content team — but I quickly saw why so many teams love it.

Notion blends the structure of a project management tool with the flexibility of a document. You can build pages that act like docs, dashboards, or even mini websites, and everything stays organized in a visual, easy-to-navigate space.

Notion stands out because it lets teams customize almost everything without feeling overwhelmed. You can build shared wikis, project trackers, campaign planning hubs, and more — all connected through linked pages and databases. Since it doesn’t lock you into one format, you can adapt and expand as your team’s needs evolve.

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Its newer AI features also help you write, summarize, and find info across your workspace. If your team is juggling docs, strategy, and planning in a bunch of disconnected tools, Notion can help bring it all under one roof.

Price: Free for individuals; Plus plans start at $10/user/month

7. Miro

Team Collaboration Tool: Visual Collaboration & Brainstorming

Miro is great when you need to get ideas out of your head and onto a shared canvas — whether mapping out a project, running a retro, or just brainstorming with your team. It’s like a digital whiteboard that multiple people can edit in real time, which makes it conducive for hybrid or async teams.

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I’ve seen teams use it for everything from sprint planning and user journeys to campaign mind maps and sticky-note-style ideation. It’s flexible, easy to share, and integrates with tools like Asana, Slack, and Google Drive, so it fits into most workflows without much setup.

Price: Free for small teams; business plans start at $8/user/month

8. Slack

Team Collaboration Tool: Real-Time Communication

Slack is a top communications and collaboration tool for most of the teams I work with. I’ve used it to brainstorm with teammates, share updates on a project’s status, and check in on quick questions without clogging up anyone’s inbox.

Channels help keep things organized by topic or team, and emoji reactions make responding easy without adding to the noise. I also like how Slack threads keep side conversations from derailing everything else, particularly in busy cross-functional channels.

One thing I appreciate about Slack is how customizable it is. You can tailor the experience to fit your team’s needs, integrating tools like Google Drive or Asana or setting up a personalized onboarding message for new team members. That welcome message can include tips, channel recs, or a quick rundown of how your team uses Slack so new folks get up to speed fast.

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It’s not perfect; nothing is (searching for that one message from last week can still be a pain). But when everyone’s using it consistently, it cuts down on unnecessary meetings and makes it easier to keep things moving.

Price: Free for small teams; pro plans start at $8.75/user/month

9. Microsoft Teams

Team Collaboration Tool: Enterprise Communication & Collaboration

I used Microsoft Teams daily for about three years, mostly at larger companies where everyone was already in the Microsoft ecosystem. It wasn’t perfect, but it did a solid job keeping chats, meetings, and shared files in one place. That alone helped reduce the constant need to switch between tools.

I appreciated how easy it was to jump from a message thread into a quick video call, or pull up a doc and edit it with someone in real time. When you set up Teams properly, it naturally becomes the central hub for getting work done, especially if your team’s managing a lot of cross-functional collaboration.

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Since I last used it, Microsoft has added more AI features, like meeting recaps and automatic summaries, which could be a real timesaver if you’re in back-to-back calls or need to catch up on what you missed.

Price: Free version available; premium plans start at $4/user/month

10. Twist

Team Collaboration Tool: Async Communication

The team behind Todoist built Twist for teams that want to communicate more thoughtfully without staying constantly online. Twist organizes messages into threads by default, hides online status, and encourages people to focus without nonstop interruptions.

Unlike Slack or Teams, Twist removes the pressure to reply right away. It groups conversations by topic and feels more like a discussion board than a typical chat app. That structure makes it easier to catch up after time away and helps remote or globally distributed teams avoid burnout from notification overload.

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Twist also integrates with tools like GitHub, Notion, and Google Drive, and includes powerful search to find conversations later. It’s not for every team, but for those who value focus and async communication, it’s a compelling alternative.

Price: Free for small teams; premium plans start at $6/user/month

11. Google Calendar

Team Collaboration Tool: Scheduling & Time Management

Google Calendar isn’t flashy, but it’s one of the tools I rely on most. Whether I’m coordinating meetings across teams, blocking off focus time, or scheduling content deadlines, it helps keep everything visible and on track.

The shared calendar feature makes it easy to see who’s available and when, which is useful when finding a time that works across time zones. I also like setting up recurring events for things like weekly team standups or monthly strategy check-ins. It takes a task off my plate and helps build structure into the week.

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It’s tightly integrated with tools like Gmail, Meet, and Slack, so it fits seamlessly into most workflows. And for larger teams or busy calendars, color-coding events is a small detail that goes a long way.

Price: Free with a Google account; included with Google Workspace plans

12. Microsoft Outlook

Team Collaboration Tool: Email, Calendar, & Scheduling

Outlook has been around forever, but it’s still the go-to communication and scheduling hub for many companies, particularly those using Microsoft 365. When I worked at organizations that ran on Outlook, I used it constantly to manage emails, set up meetings, and keep my week organized with the calendar view.

The built-in scheduling assistant makes it easier to coordinate with busy teams, and I liked that you could view your calendar side-by-side with a coworker’s. It made the decision simple when choosing whether to accept or reschedule a meeting. You can also send calendar invites, create recurring meetings, and manage RSVPs without jumping between tools.

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It ties in tightly with Microsoft Teams, Word, and Excel, so if your team’s already in that ecosystem, Outlook helps keep things connected. It might not be flashy, but for teams that live in their inboxes, Outlook still pulls a lot of weight.

Price: Free for personal use; included in Microsoft 365 Business plans

13. Zoom

Team Collaboration Tool: Video Conferencing

Zoom has been a staple for remote work for years now, and I’ve used it for everything from team meetings and interviews to virtual events and trainings. Most people already know how to use it, which makes it easier to stay on schedule and skip the usual tech hiccups.

It integrates easily with tools like Google Calendar and Slack, and it’s simple to record sessions, share your screen, or use breakout rooms for small group discussions. Zoom also rolled out some smart AI features like meeting summaries and auto-generated action items that can save time if you jump between back-to-back calls.

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Price: Free (for up to 40-minute meetings); Pro plans start at $15.99/month

14. Zenzap

Team Collaboration Tool: Team Communication

Zenzap is a team communication platform that enables more connected and organized conversations. These allow you to create separate conversation threads for different clients or projects, making it easy to track and analyze. The teams can have a single platform to store work, clients, and projects, reducing the need for endless searching and follow-ups. 

With Zenzap, you can manage access, keep data off personal devices, and easily manage permissions. It's a mobile-first platform with a minimal learning curve, making it perfect for beginners.

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Price: Free for teams that need structured, professional communication, pro plans start at $4 per user/month.

Making Team Collaboration Smoother, One Step at a Time

No matter how aligned your team is, collaboration takes ongoing effort. It’s not just about the tools — though the right ones definitely help — it’s about building an environment where people feel supported, heard, and clear on what they’re working toward.

Some of the strategies in this post took me years to figure out (and I’m still learning). But having a few go-to habits and the right tools to back them up has made a huge difference in how teams I’ve worked with communicate and get things done.

If collaboration feels clunky or inconsistent, that’s probably a sign to pause and reassess. Start small. Pick one strategy or tool that stands out, give it a test run, and see what shifts.

If your team still runs into the “who’s leading this?” moment, that’s a sign to pause and realign — not push through.

Progress doesn’t have to be dramatic. It just has to be steady. A few small changes can go a long way toward making teamwork feel less like friction and more like flow.

Editor's note: This article was originally published in December 2018 and has since been updated for comprehensiveness.

16 May 2025, 11:30 am

AI agents vs. chatbots: What's the difference? 

If you’ve contacted a company looking for customer support recently, chances are you were prompted with a digital interaction first. Companies are increasingly relying on digital-first interactions like chatbots and AI agents to help them scale their customer support function.

In my time working at a leading chatbot company, I’ve seen companies build great digital interactions that felt personalized and human-like. But I’ve also seen plenty of not-so-great chatbots that were stale and frustrating to engage with.

Using AI in your digital customer interactions is the best (and dare I say “easiest”) way to make those interactions feel more human, which in turn makes engaging with them a better experience for your customers, offering up responses that are tailored to your customer’s unique needs.

In this article, I’ll discuss:

• AI Agents Versus Chatbots
• The Differences Between AI Chatbots and AI Agents
• AI Agent Use Cases
• AI Chatbot Use Cases
• How to Choose Between AI Agents and Chatbots

AI Agents Versus Chatbots

What is a chatbot?

A chatbot is a software application that uses artificial intelligence to simulate human-like conversation.

The goal of a chatbot is to help customers by processing requests, generating answers, and providing general support. You may hear the term “conversational AI” floating around. This term essentially summarizes the experience of using AI to create communication that feels smooth and conversational in tools like chatbots, voice assistants, email writing tools, and more.

Chatbots typically use natural language processing models (NLP) to create that human-like communication.

Here are some of our favorites.

What is an AI agent?

An AI agent is a software program that uses artificial intelligence to perform tasks and make decisions on behalf of a user.

AI agents use advanced large language models (LLMs) to understand and respond to user inputs, and they’re able to handle multi-step processes.

AI agents go beyond just gathering information needed to make a decision or solve a problem — they can interact with external sources to obtain the required data and then autonomously complete the task for you. (Example: Rebooking your hotel room reservation for another day, or generating a report).

The Differences Between AI Chatbots and AI Agents

When you hear AI agents vs. chatbots, you may be tempted to use them interchangeably. While both utilize AI to help businesses or users complete a task, they differ in their level of knowledge and their ability to execute.

• AI chatbots are built for conversations. They help users find information that they need to complete a task by using two way communication. This makes them great at handling commonly asked questions or helping with simple requests.
• AI Agents are built to handle complex, multi-step requests that are not predefined. Agents have the capacity to actually execute actions in order to complete the request.

I spoke to Ben Gardner, VP of customer care at AvidXchange, about how he explains the differences between AI chatbots and AI agents. Here’s what he said.

“Chatbots are simply conversational and are providing answers or instructions on how to do things yourself,” he said.

In contrast, Gardner said that, “an agent can do more than just have a conversation and provide information … [it] can look up data in other systems, perform actions, and do things that typically a person could do.”

“Both options are useful but they have different focuses,” he concluded.

Here are a few key ways I’ve learned that they differ.

Interacting With Customers and Helping With Requests

What AI Chatbots Can Do

At their core, AI chatbots are designed to offer support within the context of a conversation by providing information or offering next steps for a user to complete their request.

An AI chatbot is more advanced than a traditional chatbot in that it can understand language outside of pre-programmed commands and offer AI-generated responses based on data it has been trained on. However, an AI chatbot needs to ingest large quantities of information (like conversational data) for it to analyze and use to formulate responses.

• Since AI Chatbots are trained on things like your past conversations, your knowledge base articles, and your content, they are really good at performing basic tasks like solving frequently asked questions and troubleshooting.
• AI chatbots are great for helping customers self-serve. When connected to your knowledge base, AI chatbots can surface help articles and content based on keywords provided within the conversation.
• Chatbots can obtain information (like asking the visitor for their name, order number, etc.) and pass that along to other connected systems like your CRM or ticketing software. They can sometimes even use APIs to pull information back into the chat.

However, when it comes to multi-step interactions, AI chatbots have limited capabilities.

What AI Agents Can Do

AI agents function more like a real customer service rep would operate.

Since AI Agents are built on LLMs, they can learn and adapt in real time while also understanding context and sentiment. So instead of solely relying on keywords or pattern matching to provide a resolution, the agent can understand more nuanced questions and even help solve multi-step interactions.

This not only makes the conversation feel more natural, but it also allows for the agent to solve more complex problems.

• AI agents shine at managing complex interactions and multi-step requests. An AI agent can do things like pull up your order status, recognize that your order is delayed in shipment, and automatically offer you an incentive or solution to make up for that delay.
• Some AI agents can even use things like detected sentiment and customer intent to intelligently decide next steps, like offering an incentive to a dissatisfied customer to avoid cancellation or suggesting an upgrade to a long-time VIP customer. Then the agent can take it a step further by actually processing those tasks, thus taking work off of a human rep’s plate.

Example of How AI Chatbots and AI Agents Interact Differently With Customers

Here’s an example I like to use to pull it all together.

Imagine you’re visiting a shoe store in person. Here are your different interactions.

Chatbot interaction: The AI chatbot is similar to the greeter at the front door who says hello, asks if they can help you find something, and then points you in the right direction. While they can detect things like your intent and your sentiment, if you asked this person which brand you should buy or if a shoe runs true to size, they’d have to pull in another employee to help you.

Agent interaction: The AI agent is more like the shoe store employee who specializes in the type of shoes you’re looking for and can be consultative in their guidance. They can answer your questions about brands or functionality, pull sizes from the back for you to try on, suggest a pair of matching socks to go along with your new shoes, and then ring you up at the register to complete your transaction.

Conclusion: While the chatbot and agent both helped you on your journey to buy new shoes, their roles and responsibilities are limited to their level of knowledge and their ability to execute on certain tasks.

Learning and Adapting

How AI Chatbots Learn

AI chatbots typically require more manual training and review, and any findings that you uncover can also require manual updates to the decision trees and bot flows.

For example, if you uncover a question that the bot is struggling to answer, you’ll need to go in and review that customer question, see how the bot is responding, and train the model on a better response. You may even need to A/B test question and answer flows to see which performs better.

Since AI chatbots are constantly learning from conversations, the more conversations the bot is having and the more feedback that you give it, the more the bot adapts its future responses (and its suggested replies for your team).

Pro tip: Your support teams should also be training the model by giving it feedback on the conversations. Most chatbots will have a place for a human to do things like approve, deny, or edit a suggested response as well as rate a conversation that the bot had.

How AI Agents Learn

AI agents typically come with built-in models or algorithms that help the agent learn and adapt.

As with the chatbot, the more conversations your agent has, the more it is learning and changing to fit your customers' needs.

Once an AI agent is trained on your datasets and connected to your tech stack, it can do things like look at past conversations or interactions that your human reps have had and offer similar responses.

As your company’s knowledge base, product offerings, or policies change, your AI Agent can automatically adapt its responses to reflect those changes, removing the need for manually updating tags or conversation flows.

Training an AI Agent still includes the responsibility of reviewing customer interactions and providing feedback, but the beauty of an agent is that it usually doesn’t require a manual adjustment (like adding a new response to multiple bot flows) in order for the bot to implement the changes necessary.

Additionally, many AI Agents will continually analyze data to find gaps and make suggestions for new or revamped flows. Some agents can even go beyond just suggesting changes and can actually write the new flows and implement them for you.

Level of Knowledge

Chatbot Knowledge

Your AI chatbot is only as intelligent as the information you feed it. Your bot’s knowledge domain will be limited to the information you’ve given it access to via site mapping, integrations, or APIs.

When possible, using federated search provides a better customer experience, but it requires more lift to set up with an AI chatbot.

To enable federated search in a standard AI chatbot, you may be looking at doing things like manual tagging and even requesting help from your engineering team to connect various data sources, training the bot, and defining the rules for relevant content types.

AI Agent Knowledge

In contrast, an AI agent not only scans your website, data, and integrations for answers, but it can also use broader language models, external resources, and historical context to inform the answers it provides.

But it goes beyond just pulling that variety of information — it can then combine those inputs to make a logical assumption, creating a more robust and nuanced response for customers.

Additionally, vertical AI agents are likely to increase in popularity due to the increasing need for industry- and domain-specific knowledge in AI workflows.

AI Agent Use Cases

You’d be hard pressed to find a company that isn’t trying to balance scaling their organization while also ensuring they deliver a great customer experience. AI agents excel at helping organizations achieve both of those goals simultaneously.

The market for AI agents in tech is expected to grow at least 45% over the next five years, with Boston Consulting Group predicting that businesses will transition to a model that includes having much smaller teams of humans working alongside an agent — specifically for complex disciplines like customer service, analytics, and software development.

Next, I’m going to look at a few ways AI agents can benefit different teams across an organization.

Use Case #1: Customer Service

Customer service and support teams continue to look to AI to help enhance the customer experience while decreasing ticket volume and response time. A recent study by Gartner found that 80% of companies are either using AI or planning to use AI in customer service by 2025.

AI agents can transform the support experience by not only handling Tier 1 support requests, but by helping customers fully resolve their own issues (which leads to quicker resolution times).

As we’ve discussed earlier, AI agents can revolutionize the customer experience by doing things that typically require multiple steps, systems, or human intervention, such as:

• Helping a customer add more seats to their software plan.
• Rebooking a customer’s hotel reservation for a new date, or upgrading them to a bigger room.
• Freezing or pausing a customer’s subscription upon request.
• Surfacing videos, dev docs, or training courses to help with a customer’s specific question.
• Analyzing customer requests and pain points to surface themes. This could help identify potential improvement opportunities across the company including trends in staffing, gaps in support documentation, and more.

Use Case #2: Ecommerce

Implementing AI agents can help retailers drive more revenue and enhance the customer experience. AI agents can also help retailers make buying decisions by providing real-time analysis on customer data and inventory.

AI Agents could help ecommerce teams with things such as:

• Creating personalized product recommendations for customers based on their previous purchasing history.
• Proactively suggesting a sizing guide to a customer when they’re shopping for an item that is commonly returned. This can help companies avoid losing money to things like “bracketing,” where customers buy multiple items because they’re unsure what size will work best, and they return what doesn’t fit.
• Analyzing historical data on items that are commonly purchased together and then creating proactive upsell opportunities for customers as they shop.
• By detecting sentiment or intent, the agent can offer appropriate next steps that proactively increase customer satisfaction. For example, if the agent recognizes that a customer’s order is delayed or lost in shipping, the agent can automatically offer a discount or ship out a replacement order.

Use Case #3: B2B Account Management/Customer Success

Ask any customer success manager what they wish AI could take off their plate, and chances are they’ll have an entire list. If you can find an agent that helps account teams spend more time managing relationships and less time on admin work, you’ll have a happier team!

Josh Schachter, the CEO of UpdateAI, told me that in his experience, “AI agents are redefining customer success and account management by automating busywork, scaling customer knowledge, and delivering white-glove service at scale.”

Similarly, Erin Gehant, an account manager at TrueLearn, said that their AI agent streamlines their internal processes and does things like “transcribing meetings and summarizing key takeaways, and then drafting follow-up emails based on meeting insights.”

Gehant says this has “helped boost efficiency in my workflow which gives me more time to focus on relationship building.”

Here are a few ways account teams can benefit from AI agents:

• Automatically surfacing at-risk customers based on a drop in sentiment, product adoption data, or health score.
• Suggesting (and then drafting) activities to engage customers based on customer sentiment, drop in MAU, or other signals of risk.

Example: An agent could notify a CSM that their top account has dropped in product adoption, then offer to draft an email inviting that customer to an upcoming webinar the customer could benefit from.

• Scan customer interactions like emails and meeting recordings for keywords or sentiment that may signal an upsell, then notify an Account Manager.
• Based on certain triggers, an agent could compile a deck or report for an upcoming QBR with the customer’s data.
• Automatically drafting a follow-up email after a meeting with a summary and/or key points that the CSM said they would follow up on.

Use Case #4: Marketing

When it comes to finding creative ways to use AI, I’d bet money that marketing teams already have a long list of clever use cases. From lead scoring to data analysis to content creation — the possibilities are endless.

Today, between 40-50% of marketers are already using some form of AI in their workflow and the majority of marketers surveyed expressed excitement about what AI can help them with in their jobs.

Here are just a few ways that AI agents are being used by marketing teams today:

• Predictive modeling. AI agents can forecast customer behavior and trends, which enables marketers to make changes and enhancements to their marketing strategies in a timely manner.
• Personalized content. AI agents can analyze customer data and create curated content and experiences for them. The agent can also surface missed opportunities for conversion, low-performing campaigns, and other themes in customer behavior that you can use in creating campaigns.
• Curating communication. As I talked about earlier, agents are powered on advanced language models, so having an agent draft your emails, website copy, webinar titles, and more gives you a great starting point. You’ll want to go in and review it to make sure it sounds human and matches your company’s brand voice, of course, but the more you use features like this, the more the agent learns and adapts to your brand voice.
• Surfacing compelling insights. If an AI agent has access to data like customer feedback, NPS scores, product adoption, and customer lifetime value, imagine what insights it could surface for you. If an agent can find correlations between things like buying a certain feature and quicker time to value realization, you can use those insights to target future customers.

While this list highlights just a few different teams that can benefit from AI agents, I have no doubt we’ll continue to see new and creative use cases for AI agents expand across entire organizations.

AI Chatbot Use Cases

When it comes to how consumers interact with a business, chatbots have become table stakes in today's digital landscape. Customers not only expect to have a chatbot option, but in some cases, they prefer using a chatbot, with 74% of internet users saying they prefer a chatbot for help resolving simple questions.

However, currently only 58% of B2B companies and 42% of B2C companies are using chatbots, which I find surprising. If the majority of consumers want (and expect) a quick, 24/7 chat experience to be available, then it sounds like companies have some catching up to do.

It’s worth noting that chatbots aren’t limited to just helping with support questions — businesses can use chatbots to increase conversion and revenue as well. Data shows that on average, businesses that use chatbots see more high quality leads captured, an increase in transactions, and more upsell revenue attributed to chatbot interactions.

Let’s look at a few ways that teams can use AI chatbots.

Use Case #1: Customer Service

When you use an AI chatbot to manage repetitive and commonly submitted support requests, you free up your support team to handle more complex customer issues and deliver white-glove service.

Additionally, by creating these support flows with an AI chatbot, you provide your customers with 24/7 support, which, for the majority of consumers, is the most helpful feature of a chatbot.

Here are a few key ways that AI chatbots can help customer service and support teams:

• General support. I recommend beginning with a “Get help” chatbot flow that’s modeled after your FAQ docs. After a few weeks, review the reporting to see what areas remain unresolved, then train and update your model accordingly.
• Self-serve for customers. This one is a no-brainer. Connecting your AI chatbot to your knowledge base, academy, and even dev docs is a great way to surface relevant content that can help customers find answers to their questions. Not only can your AI bot deliver the content, but it can use the content to formulate the appropriate response.
• Suggested replies. Most AI chatbots will offer suggested replies. Have your team spend time training the model by actively using these suggested replies. Whether your reps edit them, accept them, or reject them, the only way to make them better is by engaging with the feature so the model learns as it goes.
• Onboarding new support reps. Access to an AI chatbot is a goldmine for a new support team member. Support reps can use features like suggested replies to expedite their responses or search for past tickets by topic to see how previous reps have responded to similar questions. This allows support reps to jump into the queue without needing quite as much ramp time.

Use Case #2: Product Setup/Onboarding

Offering your customers support with their new purchase is a great way to make setting up a new product, or onboarding to a new software, feel personal. If the product or service you sell requires your customer to set it up on their own, an AI chatbot can offer quicker time to value for your customers and take some of the lift off of your implementation teams.

Gardner sees even more opportunity here: “I foresee AI expanding more into onboarding and customer success in the near future. We can use AI to think about helping customers set things up or be more strategic in their implementation.”

I’ve seen how onboarding bots offer value in both the D2C and B2B space:

• In B2B, CX leaders are looking at how they can leverage AI to enhance every stage of the customer journey.
• In the D2C space, not having a streamlined setup or onboarding strategy could cost you revenue, since data shows that 54% of consumers say they’d return a product if it was hard to install.

Here are a few ideas on how to use a chatbot for onboarding:

• Design a “Getting Started” or “Setup” chatbot that hand-holds users through setting up their product or service.

Pro tip: Go one step at a time, set a positive and encouraging tone, and require the customer to engage with the chat before moving on to the next step. Avoid just linking help docs in this bot — actually write out the steps and embed video tutorials in the chat flow if a step is especially technical or complicated.

• Design a “Troubleshooting” chatbot that’s based on common troubleshooting questions that arise after a customer starts using your product.

Pro tip: Take time to review this and see how it’s performing. I would be sure to ask myself: Is this bot helping me drive down support tickets?

• Once a customer completes the setup flow, or upon their next visit, launch a “Tips and Tricks” chatbot that shows the customer more cool features and functionality they can take advantage of.

Pro tip: I suggest you get creative with this by pulling in your customer marketing or customer advocacy team to feature existing customers showing off their tips and tricks.

Use Case #3: B2B Sales Teams

AI chatbots are a great tool for helping businesses move customers through the different stages of the sales cycle.

Chatbots can capture and qualify leads, offer a prospect the chance to book a demo right away, and curate content that resonates with prospects no matter where they’re at in the funnel.

Here are a few key ways AI chatbots can benefit sales teams:

• General lead capture. Instead of making your site visitors fill out a clunky website form, offer them a chatbot experience that feels conversational. AI can enhance the lead information by flagging things like sentiment and intent for you.

Pro tip: If you set qualifying criteria in the chatbot flow, like company size, business email, etc., you could have the chatbot drop your calendar for qualifying visitors and give them the opportunity to book time with you.

• White glove treatment for inbound prospects. If your chatbot has a way to recognize when visitors from your prospect list land on the site, then offer those prospects a personalized chat experience that includes the option to chat with you or book time on your calendar.

Pro tip: I’ve seen AE’s create hyper-personalized chat experiences for their “white whale” accounts, including a chatbot that presents a video of the AE addressing that company by name and introducing themselves.

• Curated content. Use your AI chatbot to create curated experiences for visitors, like relevant case studies for returning visitors, or specific experiences for inbound visitors who fit your ICP.
• Close the deal. If your chatbot can recognize when a visitor from an open opportunity lands on your site, you can create a more personalized chatbot experience that helps move them through the sales cycle.

Use Case #4: Industry-Specific Use Cases

AI chatbots are a great resource for every business, and while I highlighted a few different teams above that could benefit, I thought it would be worth visiting a few additional industry-specific use cases.

Service and Hospitality Industries

• Restaurants can use AI chatbots to help diners find a location and book a reservation.
• Stylists can use a chatbot to help customers choose a service and book an appointment.
• Hotels or B&Bs can use chatbots to help customers get answers to frequently asked questions, request additional services, or book add-ons.

Pro tip: If Millennials are part of your target demographic, you should really have a chatbot option. Data shows millennials overwhelmingly prefer a chatbot option for contacting businesses, booking services, etc. (I’m a millennial, and trust me — we don’t pick up the phone unless it’s an emergency.)

Recruiters

• Consider using an AI chatbot as an intake for interested applicants. You can customize the questions to reflect the information you need and set qualifying criteria (just don’t ask for personal information and be aware of data privacy laws!)

Realty/Property Management

• Depending on the complexity of your chatbot and how it integrates with something like an MLS, you could use a chatbot to allow visitors to search for properties by zip code, capture information for interested buyers, and set appointments for tours.

How to Choose Between AI Agents and Chatbots

Now that I’ve covered the major differences and use cases between AI agents and chatbots, how do you decide which one is the best option?

In general, I think it comes down to a few key factors like budget, bandwidth, your specific use case, and your desired outcome.

Reasons to go with a chatbot:

• AI chatbots are a great option for anyone, but work especially well for those who are just starting to use AI to help scale their organization.
• Small teams, small businesses, and those on a tight budget also benefit from choosing an AI chatbot.
• If your use case is fairly simple, and aligns with the use cases above, then an AI chatbot is a great option for you.
• Chatbots are likely more affordable than an AI agent, so if you’re working on a small budget, this will likely be your best bet. (I’ve seen AI chatbots greatly vary in capability, too, so if you’re looking for a more advanced bot, those options definitely exist.)

Pro tip: In my time working for a leading chatbot company, I’ve found that many companies will throw “AI” in front of their rule-based chatbot and call it an AI chatbot.

But just because a chatbot connects to your knowledge center and can surface help articles does not make it an AI chatbot. If you truly want an AI chatbot experience, look for a tool that uses NLP, can respond and adapt to changes in language, and does not rely solely on rule-based decision trees.

Reasons to go with an agent:

• AI agents are great for companies that are trying to solve for efficiency or headcount constraints.
• Agents are great for larger and mature organizations because there’s typically existing infrastructure to help build, integrate, and manage an AI agent to maximize its capabilities. (That’s not to say that an AI agent isn’t right for a small, scrappy company that has the right team in place to implement and manage!)
• AI agents are great for semi-complex to complex use cases — situations where you don’t just want to ask AI to pull data for you, but you also want a tool that can synthesize that data, make suggestions, and execute tasks for you.
• If you’re an organization that wants to leverage AI to reduce manual tasks, create efficiency, identify ways to improve the customer experience, and analyze data to make more informed decisions, then an Agent is the best option for you.

No matter which option you choose, here are a few final recommendations to consider before you sign the dotted line:

1. Review integration capabilities with your current tech stack (especially your support ticketing system if that’s your use case).
2. Ask about things like the time involved in training the model, guardrails, and data privacy.
3. Read the reviews and ask around before you commit.

Make Your Choice: AI Chatbot or AI Agent

Whether you choose an AI chatbot or an AI agent, you’re sure to see gains in efficiency for your teams and an enhanced customer experience.

In my humble opinion, I believe if you’re just starting out or you have a really simple use case you’re looking to solve for, then you can’t go wrong starting with an AI chatbot.

However, if you find yourself leaning on external AI tools (ahem, like ChatGPT) to pull up information, synthesize data, or automate other tasks, then it’s time to explore an AI agent.

16 May 2025, 11:30 am

The best AI agents for customer support teams 

Today’s customer support teams are faced with the impossible task of managing high volumes of support requests while also providing a high level of customer service. Have you been there? I know I have.

With AI’s ability to create personalized experiences, find efficiencies, and deploy automations, customer support teams are quickly adopting tools like AI agents in their workflows.

While around 45% of customer support teams are already leveraging AI today, that number is expected to grow. Gartner predicts that in 2025, AI will be involved in 80% of customer interactions. And companies that embrace AI can benefit from more than just efficiency.

Are you ready to explore how AI agents can assist customer support teams? In this post I’ll share expert insights, discuss the current AI landscape, and share what I think are the best AI agents for customer support.

In this article:

• What the Rapid Adoption of AI Means for Customer Support Teams
• How Customer Support Reps Use AI
• The 5 Best AI Agents for Customer Support
• AI for Customer Support Agents Continues to Grow

What the Rapid Adoption of AI Means for Customer Support Teams

While it’s normal to worry that AI might put you out of a job, both CX leaders and support reps see the positive potential of using AI for customer support reps. Because when AI manages more “Tier 1” interactions, support reps are able to help with more complex interactions that require human intervention.

In fact, 75% of CX leaders see AI as a force for amplifying human intelligence, not replacing it. And as customer-facing reps (like me!) lean more into using AI in their daily workflows, they’re realizing that using AI for automation frees them up to do more of the work they really enjoy.

I spoke to Kellen Brown, a customer support specialist at Textla, and he echoes this sentiment. He told me, “What I’ve found is that AI helps me actually do my job better. With the help of AI, I’m able to deliver more white glove treatment to customers.”

In other words, what we’re seeing is that equipping your support reps with AI-powered customer service software enables them to handle more support requests while delivering an even better customer experience.

How Customer Support Reps Use AI

The data shows that AI can help reps deliver better service and improve CX, but if you’re like me, you might be wondering: How? Let’s look at a few key use cases for implementing AI into customer support.

1. Automating Manual Tasks

Support reps often have to look in multiple places to find the right documentation or manually complete multi-step requests for customers.

Implementing AI in support workflows can help with managing the more time-consuming or repetitive parts of customer support, which frees up your reps for more complex support cases.

Brown has seen the advantage here.

He tells me that using AI tools “frees me up to be more hands-on with customers that have more complex problems. I really want to help customers solve those nuanced problems, and when I have the capacity to do that instead of just sending them instructions on how to do it on their own, our customers really remember that and appreciate it.”

Reps are using AI to help with things like:

• Answering basic customer questions, gathering customer details, and helping your customers self-serve.

• Analyzing or merging data and quickly finding the information they need to answer a customer‘s questions in real time. (If you’ve ever used Generative AI to get help with a question, you’ll know how powerful this could be for reps to have access to during a live conversation.)
• Surfacing themes and topics that can help you identify knowledge gaps or implement updated support flows.
• Solving multi-step problems. AI agents, specifically, are great at this when they’re integrated into your tech stack and can autonomously complete various tasks or assist reps with task completion.

I’ve seen how efficiencies like these add up to tangible outcomes. Data shows that AI-enabled customer service teams have reported saving 45% of the time spent on calls, resolving customer issues 44% faster, and experiencing a 35% increase in the quality and consistency of support.

2. Expediting Onboarding for New Reps

A new support rep often faces a steep learning curve when joining a new company. CX leaders are leveraging AI to help their support reps ramp faster and provide a consistent customer experience.

Ben Gardner, VP of customer care at AvidXchange, told me that “AI Agents enable faster ramp time for teammates because they help with finding answers and validating information more quickly. They also help with things like calls and training for new team members.”

Here are a few ways that using AI can help your support reps jump into the queue more quickly:

• Allow reps to easily reference previous responses from more tenured reps to help them answer customer questions.
• Automatically surface help docs and articles that are relevant to the topic at hand.

• Analyze previous conversations and offer suggested replies to help reps quickly respond to customers, whether it’s email or live chat.
• AI Agents can even suggest next steps or automatically perform tasks to help reps solve multi-step problems. This can be especially helpful for new reps who may not know how to process a refund or initiate an exchange, for example.

This sort of AI functionality significantly reduces employee ramp time and brings them up to speed much more efficiently.

3. Creating a Consistent Customer Experience at Scale

Having AI serve as the front line in your customer support strategy allows you to scale your customer support function in a multitude of ways.

Here are some areas where I’ve seen AI help with CX at scale:

• By leveraging AI, you can provide 24/7 support to your customers and offer service in a variety of languages. 90% of consumers expect an immediate response to their support questions, so this also benefits the customer by providing a faster time to resolution.
• AI tools allow your team to tackle more high-volume tickets without needing to add more headcount.
• AI also helps you create consistency in responses. When the agent and your human reps are using the same information to provide answers, customers receive consistent responses and support across the board.
• AI can analyze data and surface themes that can help you make important decisions. For example, an AI tool can analyze multiple systems and datasets to show you where customers are typically getting stuck or frustrated, allowing you to make improvements to the customer journey.
• Predictive modeling in AI tooling can help you make decisions about the future — whether it’s running a simulation to see the possible outcomes of changing a customer support flow or predicting trends in customer behavior.

The 5 Best AI Agents for Customer Support

I’ve talked a lot about how AI agents can help your customer support teams, but now the rubber meets the road. Here are five AI agents built for customer service that are at the top of my list right now. (They’re in alphabetical order, so no favoritism here!)

1. Ada’s AI Agent

Ada’s AI Agent empowers organizations to offer “instant, proactive, personalized, and effortless support.” By leveraging GPT models, Ada’s agent is able to have robust conversations, understand nuance and sentiment, and continuously learn and adapt. It surfaces key insights like conversation topics so you can efficiently train your model.

You can test your agent with simulations, coach your agent to follow rules and guidance, and set it up to complete multi-step processes (like processing a return, in this example).

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Ada’s AI Agent translates into an impressive 50 languages and supports multiple customer channels, including messaging, voice or email. Ada’s platform allows you to launch proactive support that’s personalized and behavior-based, making it feel like an authentic support interaction.

For example, in the screenshot below, the agent offers support to this customer when it recognizes that they’re setting up their first report.

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My favorite features:

• The option to segment your customers and tailor your agent’s responses by geography, channel, and more.
• Support voice, chat, SMS, and email channels.

My overall thoughts: The level of personalization Ada offers excites me. Customers have come to expect personalization and data proves that personalized engagements drive better results. I think using an AI Agent like Ada to drive proactive and segmented support could be a game changer for CX leaders.

2. Hubspot’s Breeze Customer Agent

Hubspot’s Breeze agents are AI-powered specialists designed to dive deep into a specific subset of tasks and automate workflows. Using Generative AI, these agents engage in natural conversations with your customers on your website and provide instant answers, 24/7.

Breeze Agents are a natural extension of Hubspot’s AI-powered customer service software, adding a layer of automation and front-line support that seamlessly integrates with your existing workflows.

Breeze Agents can help support teams by tackling repetitive or common requests, even those that require an additional step.

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When creating a workflow for your agent, you can tell it how to evaluate the inputs it receives and then how to categorize those inputs. From there, you can trigger automations for each relevant category, like automatically sending a password reset email to a customer when the agent labels them as locked out of their account.

Or if your agent identifies that a customer is interested in adding more seats to their plan, you could trigger an automation to help the customer complete their upgrade, then trigger an additional action to notify internal teams, like a Slack update or a push to your CRM.

Hubspot’s agent promises easy setup and training, and 95% of customers agree that Hubspot’s AI capabilities are easy to use.

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My favorite features:

• Breeze Copilot, Hubspot’s AI-powered virtual assistant, can help support reps quickly find information, generate content (or responses), and complete routine tasks.
• Agents cite their sources when they provide a response, which I think is great for transparency.

My overall thoughts: If you’re already using HubSpot, utilizing the Breeze agents is a no-brainer. I really like how they’re built into the software to help at certain touchpoints.

3. Maven AGI's AI Solution

Harnessing the power of GPT-4, Maven AGI’s agent delivers an elevated support experience in a variety of ways.

Maven AGI’s solution taps into GPT’s capacity for natural conversation to guide customers to quickly find the answers to many questions on their own, while also being capable of providing personalized answers, taking actions on behalf of the customer and handing off the conversation to a live agent.

This agent can also assist a customer with things like upgrading their plan, adding more licenses to their subscription, or rebooking their reservation.

In the screenshot below, Maven AGI’s agent has changed a hotel reservation for a customer.

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After the task is completed, the agent can also ask intelligent follow-up questions, like asking the customer if they’d like to add a spa package to their hotel reservation.

My favorite features:

• For support reps, Maven AGI can automatically summarize, translate, guide, and suggest solutions, equipping CX teams with the insights they need to assist customers.
• You can train Maven using documentation in any form and format — no need to structure or organize it beforehand.

My overall thoughts: With backing from OpenAI and their platform being built on GPT-4, I can tell from my research that Maven AGI is a powerhouse of an AI Agent. It’s going to naturally excel at handling robust and nuanced requests from customers and I think it’s sure to drive major efficiencies for businesses via its autonomous task completion.

4. Nice's AI Agent Platform

Nice’s CXone Mpower platform allows businesses to orchestrate and scale customer service workflows, agents, and knowledge. With Nice, Automation is the name of the game. I’m going to quickly review two of Nice’s agents, Autopilot and Copilot.

Autopilot uncovers customer intent, prioritizes that intent by ROI, and then identifies and suggests new paths for optimal outcomes. Autopilot can then take it a step further and actually build out those new paths as botflows — no manual work required.

The Autopilot agent can completely resolve customer issues by helping customers do things like schedule an appointment, transfer money, or as in the screenshot below, sign up for a subscription package and schedule installation.

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Nice’s other agent, Copilot, is designed for support reps, giving them AI-driven knowledge to drive faster resolutions for customers. Copilot guides reps through conversations, automatically generating suggested replies, surfacing relevant knowledge articles and providing the rep with real-time intent. Copilot can even detect and initiate upsell opportunities and can support multi-step solutions.

What I think makes the CXone Mpower platform really unique is its ability to find opportunities, propose solutions, and implement changes. The platform will automatically analyze data and suggest changes that could lead to better outcomes.

In the example below, the Copilot suggests adding proactive notifications for orders that are identified as delayed.

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If the admin accepts the proposed changes, the platform can use predictive modeling to run a simulation and show the potential outcomes of making the change.

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From here, if the admin agrees, then the Copilot will automatically implement the changes and update the flows. Or, the admin can request edits (using natural language) and the model will adapt to the request.

My favorite features:

• My favorite feature in this agent is its ability to identify areas of opportunity, create a suggested change, run a simulation to test the change, and fully implement it. This level of automation takes a significant amount of work off of a CX professional’s plate.
• Autopilot’s ability to detect intent and prioritize by ROI.

My overall thoughts: As someone who’s worked in the chatbot space, this platform’s ability to identify new paths and flows and make the changes for you is incredibly impressive. If I was a CX leader, this is a feature that would excite me. I think the combination of predictive modeling and autonomous task completion makes this agent a powerful partner for internal teams.

5. Zendesk's AI Agent

Zendesk’s AI agent is designed to solve both simple and complex customer issues from end to end. By utilizing Generative AI, Zendesk’s agent can understand a customer’s questions and scan your internal documentation to find the best answer.

If the customer needs to take an action, the agent can complete autonomous tasks on behalf of the customer, like purchasing concert tickets and then sending the customer the receipt. It can then go a step further and update the internal order management system on the backend.

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Agents can adapt to the conversation in real time and can call on other systems for more information when needed.

In the event that the agent needs to route the conversation to a rep, it uses “Intelligent Triage” to connect the customer with the best representative for their specific problem. The agent also provides customer intent, sentiment, and a summary of the ticket for the rep upon transfer.

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Zendesk’s Co-pilot feature proactively guides human agents through each interaction and can anticipate a customer’s next steps. Copilot can also offer suggestions to the human rep and complete tasks on their behalf.

My favorite features:

• When replying on their own, support reps can type a few bullet points and have the agent change the formatting from bullet points into a few sentences.
• Zendesk’s AI platform offers a variety of reporting, including their Generative AI dashboard that surfaces trending topics to address content updates and training opportunities for the agent.

My overall thoughts: Zendesk’s AI agent has all the bells and whistles that you’d want in a customer support agent. I like that the co-pilot feature still functions as an agent with autonomous capabilities but is designed to support reps when they’re in a live conversation.

AI for Customer Support Agents Continues to Grow

After digging into these AI agents for customer support, I’m impressed that each agent on this list has its own unique feature that sets it apart. The features I found the most compelling are the agent’s ability to autonomously process CX platform updates and the personalization and segmentation capabilities.

While the AI agent space is growing and changing rapidly, I hope this list of AI agents highlights some new features or use cases to help you leverage AI in your customer support teams.

12 May 2025, 11:30 am

How long should a survey be? The ideal survey length [New data] 

When offered the opportunity to provide a company with feedback, I’m usually happy to participate — but only if the process is easy. Like most people these days, I’m short on time (and attention), so companies are better off making their requests for feedback short and sweet.

But how can a company find the ideal survey length? If their survey is too long, participants may not start or complete it. If it's too short, they’ll miss opportunities to gain insights into their customer base.

Today, I’m going to share everything I learned about how to create the ideal survey length while talking to experts in the field.

Here are the questions I’ll dive into in this article:

• Expert Insight on Ideal Survey Length
• How many questions should a survey have?
• How long should a survey be?
• How long should it take to complete a survey?
• How do you create surveys that feel customer-centric?
• How do you find the right survey length?

I went to the experts for insight on ideal survey length, survey question count, and more.

I’m pretty fanatical about customer centricity, and I wanted to know how survey designers create an experience that meets both the needs of the business but also serves the participant — and avoids survey fatigue. So, I had lots of questions that I posed to experts, which you’ll find below.

A quick reminder: Whether you’re getting ready to build your first survey or you’re looking for ways to make longer surveys more user-friendly, you’ll want to start with the foundation: your survey structure and design.

The structure of your survey will directly impact its rate of success, from the number of questions included to their level of complexity, each question contributes to the length of time it takes to complete the survey.

Use the tips below – and helpful templates like these — to get started.

Let’s dig in.

How many questions should a survey have?

The fewer questions, the better, in most cases. In general, shorter surveys have higher completion rates and better quality data.

If your survey has too many questions, you may run into survey “satisficing,” where respondents begin answering the questions without putting much effort or thought into them. Satisficing can happen for a number of reasons, like the respondent running out of effort or the task being too difficult.

One study showed that for every additional 10 questions added to a survey, the completion rate continued to drop. This makes it important for your team to really consider what needs to be asked versus what may just be a “nice to know” question.

I asked Ting Lai, voice of the customer program manager at AuditBoard, for his opinion on the ideal number of survey questions.

His answer? “It depends.”

Lai added some more insight for me, saying, “You have to consider your audience and where they’re at in the journey, as well as the type of customer interaction taking place.”

“Transactional surveys like support surveys tend to be two to three questions. We try to make this sort of experience as quick and painless as possible. For surveys sent at the end of a customer journey milestone … those tend to be a little bit longer, and a general best practice for those types of surveys is 7-10 questions.”

Pro tip: Place your top priority questions earlier on in the survey so that if you do see drop-off, you’re at least obtaining key information early on.

How long should a survey be?

So, what’s the magic number? Is there a magic number? While it depends on your industry and your desired outcome, the general consensus is that the ideal number of survey questions is between 1 and 10, especially if you’re looking to get a high completion rate.

But the number of questions is only one half of the equation, as you also have to consider how much time it takes to actually answer those questions (which I’ll discuss in the next section).

You could potentially include more questions in your survey if they’re easy to answer and can still be completed within a short timeframe (or if you’re incentivizing customers to participate.)

Important point: Lai also pointed out to me that thinking about survey length in terms of number of questions can be a bit misleading, because modern survey tools allow you to create differentiated experiences based on the previous answer.

For example, if you’re running a post-onboarding survey and your customer expresses dissatisfaction or frustration, you can send them down a path that offers follow-up questions for them to provide more context on their experience (or even create an escalation path).

So, while your overall survey may have 20 questions, each survey path might only be 7 to 10 since it’s a differentiated experience.

Pro tip: In my line of work, I run a three-question post-event survey. Only the first question is required (the rating for the session), and I clearly label the second and third questions as optional so that I don’t scare participants off from at least completing the first question. Not everyone loves answering open-ended questions, and that’s okay!

How long should it take to complete a survey?

While the number of questions on your survey is important, you also need to consider how long it will take for participants to answer those questions. People are busy, attention spans are shorter than ever, and survey fatigue is real.

So, is there an ideal survey time?

I asked Amy Maret, who used to lead the Research and Thought Leadership team here at HubSpot, what she thinks about the ideal survey.

"The shorter the survey, the better,” she says.

“We‘re always looking to be more selective about the questions we ask. A shorter survey pretty much always means better data quality. Fifteen minutes is about the maximum I would want for a market survey … If you’re surveying your own customers, you‘d want to go even shorter to make the best use of the time they’re willing to give you."

The key point? People will take the time to complete your survey, but it's best to keep it under 15 minutes.

Recent data even suggests that you might want to go shorter than that. According to Qualtrics data, “Surveys longer than 12 minutes (and 9 minutes on mobile) start to see substantial levels of respondent break-off.”

That being said, it’s worth noting that the length of your survey may vary based on the type of information you're looking for.

For example, when I run NPS surveys, they only consist of one question and takes less than a minute to complete. In contrast, a research survey is likely going to be longer and take more time to complete.

As Mike Christopher, customer experience manager at AuditBoard pointed out to me recently, if your participants are engaged with your brand or have opted into the experience, you can likely get away with a slightly longer survey.

“When I’m building out a survey,” Mike says, “the length will depend on what the goal of the survey is.”

“If you’re engaging a specific curated panel, or running a research survey, I think you have a bit more leeway to make it longer because these people have opted into it. They’re more likely to accept a longer survey because they’re engaged and interested.”

Pro tip: Be transparent with participants about how long the survey will take. You can do this by including the approximate time to completion when you send out your survey. Software like Hubspot’s Customer Feedback Software provides an easy way to send surveys and collate customer insights.

Source

How do you create surveys that feel customer-centric?

When building your survey, start with the needs of the team you’re working with. Be thoughtful about what questions really need to be asked and remember that more complex questions take more time to complete.

Additionally, different question types may require more time to complete than others. For example, multiple choice questions might take less time to complete than having a matrix or open-ended questions.

I asked Lai how he and his team go about prioritizing the customer with their surveys, and here’s what he said:

“When I came into this industry, I always felt like surveys were kind of lacking, because while you’re providing your opinion as a participant, it's not necessarily helping you with your current experience. It felt very one-sided.”

Lai said that adding contextual questions led to better responses.

“If the customer has a negative response to a question, we can send them down a path that asks follow-up questions for us to better understand (and then later respond) to their issue. I believe surveys can be a way of building trust with your customers.”

In fact, research shows that personalization in surveys can result in higher engagement and more granular insights. You can do this by creating micro-segmentation or creating different branches and paths for customers based on their responses.

Lai also told me that he and his team will test out their surveys to get a feel for the participant experience. This includes testing it out at the point of interaction. For example, Lai might complete an in-app experience or create a support ticket, then take the resulting survey that follows.

I personally really like this approach to testing as it feels really customer-centric and allows you to ask yourself, “Would I fill this survey out if it were offered to me?”

Pro tips:

• Make sure you're thinking about your survey participants (and not just your company) when you’re building out a survey.
• Find ways to make sure your participant feels heard and supported and create an experience that feels more collaborative than one-sided.
• Stay away from repetitive questions, test the survey for technical issues, and be mindful of privacy concerns (e.g., too much personal information being requested).

How do you find the right survey length?

I asked Maxwell Iskiev, a senior market research analyst for the HubSpot blog, how he finds the ideal survey length.

"The ideal length of a survey depends on the purpose behind it,” he shares. “For example, my surveys on broad topics like Marketing Trends will be longer, covering many aspects of the industry.”

“From there, I might notice interesting themes to follow up on, like data privacy, or the impact of the recession on marketers. I'll then write shorter, more focused surveys around 5-10 questions diving deeper into a specific topic of interest.”

Maret seconds the idea of shorter, deep-dive surveys:

"[Keeping surveys short] might mean breaking up what could be a longer survey into multiple, smaller, sequential surveys with the same audience.”

“An added benefit to this approach is that it allows you to tailor your follow-up surveys based on what you learn from the previous ones, and pivot more quickly if priorities change — which they often do."

Here’s what this means for you:

• Start with the purpose of your survey, then build your questions.
• If your topic is straightforward and specific, keep it simple. More comprehensive subjects will likely require slightly longer surveys or a sequence of questionnaires.
• If your survey is heavy on open-ended questions, less is more. If there are a majority of multiple choice or rating scale questions, you can probably get away with some extras.

Pro tip: Don’t forget to measure and improve. Track the survey completion rate and make adjustments if it's lower than what you want it to be.

Start With the End in Mind

In addition to the length of the survey and number of questions, it’s important to start with your end goal in mind.

As Christopher told me, “You need to understand the goal of your survey and then work backwards from there. Identify the point of your survey, the goals you’re trying to achieve, and make sure you understand your audience. Then, you can decide what questions to ask.”

Survey length matters, but there's no one-size-fits-all rule for how long a survey should be. The length of your survey will ultimately depend on survey type, question format, and survey frequency.

Based on my research, I’d recommend using a 10/10 rule:

Create a survey that has 10 questions or fewer and takes no more than 10 minutes to complete.

When in doubt, put yourself in your customers‘ shoes. If you wouldn’t spend the time to take your own survey, chances are they won't either.

Editors' note: This article was originally published in August 2018 and has since been updated for comprehensiveness.

9 May 2025, 11:30 am

Customer onboarding: Strategy & best practices to reduce churn 

As an experienced customer success manager, I know that two of the major reasons customers churn are that they don’t understand how to use your product or they don’t see value from it quickly enough. This is precisely why customer onboarding is so critical.

Without proper onboarding, customers can get frustrated and disengaged. In fact, over half of B2B SaaS customers said they’d just stop using a product that they didn’t understand — yikes!

The onboarding stage is your opportunity to start delivering on what you promised during the sales process. In this guide, I will teach you everything you need to know about customer onboarding, including how to implement it as a normal part of your customer service, leveraging easy-to-use templates.

In this article:

• What is customer onboarding?
• What is a customer onboarding playbook?
• Creating a Customer Onboarding Strategy
• The Customer Onboarding Process Workflow
• Customer Onboarding Template
• Customer Onboarding Best Practices
• Customer Onboarding Checklist
• The Benefits of Customer Onboarding
• Customer Onboarding Examples
• Customer Onboarding Software

Customer onboarding begins after the sale is complete. It may involve a dedicated onboarding team or rely on the customer “self-onboarding” to your product with help and resources that you create for them.

Why is customer onboarding so important?

The onboarding stage sets the foundation for how your customer will feel about your product or service. If you can help your customer quickly adopt your product and start to see value, chances are they’re going to want to keep using it, which can positively influence their customer lifetime value (LTV).

Customer onboarding is a critical part of the customer experience, with over two-thirds of customers saying that they factor onboarding and post-sale support into their purchasing decisions.

Here are a few more facts that prove the importance of onboarding:

• Customer retention is critical to your business, and effective onboarding has been shown to increase customer retention by 50%.
• 86% of customers express greater loyalty to a business when provided with educational and welcoming onboarding.
• A great onboarding experience creates highly engaged customers, and data shows that highly engaged customers make purchases more frequently and spend more per transaction.

In other words, customer onboarding is imperative to customer retention and, in turn, your business growth.

The Role of the Onboarding Specialist

An onboarding specialist is responsible for ensuring that customers are set up for success with your company’s product or offering.

They work with the customer to understand their unique goals and objectives and then help the customer get started with your product to achieve those goals.

The onboarding specialist is typically the first post-sale relationship that the customer experiences with your company, and they try to “teach the customer how to fish.” In other words, they’re training the customer on how to use your product and showing them the value it offers early on, so that once the onboarding stage is finished, the customer is set up for ongoing success.

An onboarding specialist’s role is both technical and strategic, mapping your product’s capabilities to the customer’s individual OKR’s.

Creating a Customer Onboarding Strategy

Before you launch your onboarding program, I recommend you start by setting a goal and making a plan. Where you can, use data to decide what objectives you care about when it comes to customer onboarding.

Here are a few questions I recommend asking yourself to narrow down your onboarding goals:

• What does our churn data tell us about why (and when) people churn?
• What are the milestones we want customers to achieve in their first day, first week, first month, etc?
• What metrics do we know are important for adoption and retention? (MAU, etc.)
• How do customers see value in our product?
• What are our “sticky” features that we know lead to retention and upsell?

This type of data should tell you what’s important for customers — including where they get stuck or feel frustrated.

Based on your data, you may decide that one of your goals is to get new customers to use your product more than once in the first week. Or, you may find it really important to have a customer build and launch something on their own before the end of the first month.

No matter your goal, once you’ve defined it, you can start planning an excellent customer onboarding experience.

The Customer Onboarding Process Workflow

The point of onboarding is to help new users get acquainted with all the features of your product. The flow of your onboarding process will depend on each user’s specific needs.

You can’t force a new user to watch your welcome video, for example, but they should be able to access it when they’re ready.

Your objective is to empower your customers by providing them with all the resources to onboard autonomously. That means your process requires certain features to guide customers from setup to realizing their first win.

Here are the steps I like to include in an onboarding process.

1. Send a welcome email.

Your first correspondence (also known as a welcome email) with your new customer needs to be a positive one. Congratulate them on their new purchase and thank them for choosing you over other options.

If this email is automated, make it feel more personal by making the “reply” address an actual human on your team, and use personalization tokens to include their first name. (Side note: email marketing tools can help you automate and set all of this up.)

Also include any important resources, like a getting started guide, in your email, but be sure not to overwhelm your new customer.

If you’re doing a high-touch onboarding motion, don’t be afraid to express your excitement about working with the customer and then offer to set up a kickoff call or initial meeting.

Your welcome email should also have a clear CTA. Whether it’s having them log in and complete a task (like setting up their profile), scheduling their kickoff call with your team, or signing up for a new user training, make it clear and easy to complete.

I really liked this email I received from Wiza explaining other ways I could use their platform. I find that a good welcome email prevents feeling overwhelmed once I know a clear first step I can take.

Pro tip: Use these 50 Customer Service Email Templates to welcome, onboard, and communicate with your customers.

2. Offer a greeting message.

Different from a welcome email, a greeting message is an in-app welcome that greets users on their first login and encourages them to take the first step in setting up their account.

It’s best practice to ask the user to do only one thing (i.e., change their password or turn on email notifications) and should include a video to guide them.

If you can, I suggest creating a completion tracker for things like profile setup, so users can easily see if they've completed all the required items for account setup.

This email from Hive is a great example of an in-app greeting message with a simple and clear CTA.

3. Guide them with product setup.

A guided tutorial or setup wizard is great for customers who are ready to jump in and get started on their own. Create a guided tutorial that takes your customers through the setup process, step by step.

Guided setup is most commonly used when there are multiple steps or when steps need to be taken in a particular order.

This tutorial should be short and sweet, as well as optional. Make sure that if your customer doesn’t complete the tutorial the first time, there’s an easy way for them to reference the information later (like in an FAQ or Getting Started section).

4. Offset empty states.

When a customer first enters their portal, there will be features without any data. Fill these empty states with educational and actionable content to explain what the feature is, demonstrate its value, and encourage them to start using it.

By doing this, you’re helping your customer visualize what their success could look like.

An example might be an in-app scheduler with the copy “Schedule meetings with your team in seconds.” Or an autoresponder feature that reads, “Build email sequences to send to your audience with the click of a button.”

Source

5. Include feature callouts.

Use a tip banner that guides users around the product and calls out any important features that they should know about.

The banners serve as an introduction, not a substitute for an actual tutorial. Once a user completes a certain behavior (like logging in a certain number of times, or completing X% of their onboarding), use feature callouts to show them more mid-level to advanced features they can take advantage of.

6. Offer interactive trainings.

The most important part of the onboarding experience is teaching your customers how to use the product and get value from it. And the best way for customers to learn is to let them use the product themselves and learn by doing.

An interactive tutorial will be similar to your feature callouts, except they will appear as the user completes one task to show them how to accomplish the next one.

Make sure to create contextual tips that teach a user how to complete a task.

If you can’t do this in an automated way, find other ways to help your customer complete in-app tasks and “missions” on their own so they can get familiar with your product’s workflows.

7. Provide a knowledge base.

A knowledge base or resource section is key for new users. By offering resources like frequently asked questions, you help your users solve their problems quickly and autonomously.

I suggest creating a section specifically for new users and admins. This section could offer content in a variety of ways, like help articles, Academy courses, and bite-sized training videos that are all key to onboarding with your product.

You should also have a chatbot that’s connected to your knowledge base to help surface help articles and content for customers.

I suggest leveraging your chatbot to create a personalized support path for customers during onboarding. You can do this by building an onboarding flow into your support chatbot and ensuring the chat widget is always visible when a customer is logged in. This onboarding flow should include decision trees for the most frequently asked questions from new users so that your customers can self-serve 24/7.

If you’re using an AI Chatbot, that’s even better! When your chatbot is connected to your help center and customer academy, new users can quickly and easily search for what they need by asking their own questions, leading to quicker resolution times (and happier customers!)

While I had Chat GPT generate this image for me, here’s an example of what this sort of chatbot greeting could look like:

If you’re interested in exploring this and are currently using HubSpot, try our customer support AI agent. It’s your AI-powered front line for repetitive questions, so your team can handle the important conversations that keep customers loyal.

Source

8. Schedule routine check-ins.

I always say that “no news isn’t always good news” when it comes to working with customers. You never want to assume that your customers have everything they need just because you haven’t heard from them.

Routine check-ins should be a key feature of your onboarding process.

If you have a team dedicated to customer onboarding, make sure there’s an onboarding project plan that gets routinely reviewed with your customer. This ensures there’s transparency between you and the customer regarding onboarding progress and deliverables.

If you don’t have a dedicated team to support your customers during onboarding, consider automated ways of checking in with customers, like in-app surveys or automated emails based on certain milestones.

Pro tip: Create an automated way of checking in and “nudging” customers who fall behind in onboarding. You can trigger an email campaign or in-app message based on certain behaviors, like failure to complete something within 45 days.

Your new customers deserve a little extra TLC, and they should feel like you care about their progress. Take the time to check in with them to see where they may be getting stuck, and offer to help them with any roadblocks.

9. Create mini celebrations.

Everyone loves to celebrate. Based on the goals you identified in your onboarding strategy, decide which customer milestones are worth creating a “mini celebration” for during onboarding.

By celebrating these mini milestones, you get your new customers excited about being one step closer to their goals.

You can do this with an in-app notification, a congratulatory email, or a quick call. The more they feel that you’re invested in their success, the more invested they will be in your solution.

Pro tip: If you don’t already have some quick wins identified, be sure to find a few easy ways your customer can complete something to feel “accomplished” during onboarding. This not only helps them feel like they’re getting the hang of using the product, but it can also help them see value from the tool early on.

See the email below from Deel as a great example. Receiving an email like this gave me the excitement of a little win, while also encouraging me to explore their other products.

10. Use a learning management system.

Learning management systems (LMS) are software tools used to train, onboard, and guide your customers (or even employees) through different lessons, tools, and work processes.

Here are some of my ideas on how to leverage this:

• Create onboarding tracks within an LMS that lets customers complete online courses at their own pace.
• Tailor the digital onboarding journey for your customer by personalizing the learning paths and content based on the user’s role or their goal.
• Consider ways to make this process more fun by offering incentives like micro-certifications or digital badges for customers who complete the entire learning track during onboarding.

Pro tip: When building your onboarding learning tracks, try to find interactive ways to help your customers get a quick win. For example, your training videos could begin by saying that viewers should pull up their account and follow along with the video for best results. This way, they’re doing the task as they’re learning it, and they also accomplish something in-app at the same time!

11. Offer ongoing support at scale.

If you don’t have a dedicated onboarding specialist (or even if you do), consider hosting webinars or office hours to help new customers learn about your product and get their questions answered.

In my experience, events like webinars and office hours can help lower support ticket volume and also drive customer satisfaction. I’ve found that when customers can get their questions answered in real time, they’re usually very happy!

Create a webinar cadence that makes sense for your team, and focus on topics that you know are critical to a successful onboarding experience. Make sure you have an onboarding or product specialist on hand for these webinars to adequately field those live customer questions.

Pro tip: Make sure to consider all stages of the onboarding journey when you plan out your scaled support offerings. Try tailoring the scaled support event by role, milestone, or goal.

For example, with new users, you could host casual monthly office hours that include time for Q&A. For customers who are in the later stages of onboarding, you could host webinars that highlight additional use cases that they can try next to get even more value out of your product.

Customer Onboarding Template

Creating a customer onboarding process from scratch is a time-consuming task. It can also be hard to know where to begin. Luckily, you can use a template to get on the right track.

The HubSpot customer onboarding template includes:

• An internal onboarding checklist. Make sure everything’s ready to go internally by automating onboarding tasks and checking off individual tasks that must be completed for each customer.
• A welcome packet template. This welcome packet template includes everything you need to set up your customer for success, including a team introduction, a customer intake form, a timeline for the first few months, and a resource sheet with links to help documentation. This is especially important if you plan to execute an email onboarding sequence.
• A first onboarding call agenda. The first onboarding call is a make-or-break moment, setting the tone for your relationship with your customer. You’ll share this agenda with your customers to make sure everyone is on the same page.
• A training resources template. You don’t want your customer to leave the call and not know what to do next. By providing training resources, you’ll ensure they have everything they need to get the most out of the product.
• Handoff templates. Use these templates to hand off your customer to their long-term contact at your company.

Download your free customer onboarding templates

When using these templates or creating a customer onboarding process from scratch, it’s important to follow best practices. Let’s take a look below.

Customer Onboarding Best Practices

Let’s look at a few Customer Onboarding best practices that will help you create a solid onboarding experience.

The following tips require information from every point of contact with your customers. Keep track of your interactions in a CRM or data management platform.

1. Understand your customer.

The best way to understand your customer is to ask the right questions and then listen to what they have to say.

You likely know your buyer persona in and out, which translates to knowing your customer pretty well — including their overall value drivers.

But each customer is going to have their own unique goals, challenges, and success metrics. It’s critical that you take the time to understand what your customer cares about and what they’re trying to achieve.

When you have this level of detail, you can tailor their onboarding experience and get them to see value more quickly.

2. Set clear expectations.

Before purchasing your product, your customer should know what to expect. Your sales process should lay out the qualifying factors for using the product and what they can expect to achieve with it.

Onboarding is the perfect time to align on this and make sure that you and the customer are both clear about the value your product can deliver. This is also the time to create accountability and let the customer know what they will need to do to reach their goals.

Having this conversation during onboarding positions you as the expert and builds trust with the customer. It also helps prepare them for potential setbacks or sticky points.

During the onboarding stage, it’s critical to align on things like roles and responsibilities, timelines for the project plan, and realistic results the customer can expect to see.

3. Show value.

Before your new customer can get excited about your product, you need to re-emphasize the value it will provide for their unique case. This is where the onboarding team’s strategic skill set shines.

By understanding your customer’s goals and success metrics, you can map out how your product will address their pain points and help them achieve their goals.

Find ways to make this feel personalized for your customer. A kickoff call is ideal, but for companies without dedicated onboarding teams, you could create asynchronous training tracks that are built around different use cases.

Whichever way you deliver it, when you connect the dots for your customer between the specific goals they want to achieve and how they can do it with your product, you put them on the fast track to value realization.

Pro tip: Don’t forget about digital outreach! For customers who don’t receive 1:1 onboarding, how can you create consultative guidance at scale? At my last company we created email campaigns to expedite value realization for specific use cases. In these campaigns I focused on including consultative guidance so they felt like they were coming from a CSM. This could totally be done for onboarding.

4. Stay in constant communication.

After your initial welcome message, continue using email throughout the onboarding process to complement any in-app tutorials and guides.

At this point, email is probably your customer’s most-used form of communication. Once your product becomes indispensable, you can count on them signing in on their own to view in-app notifications.

If you’re working closely with your customers through onboarding, ask them what their preferred channel of communication is and try to meet them where they’re at.

Pro tip: Be sure to measure the efficacy of your outreach efforts to see what’s working. Are customers opening your onboarding emails? If not, look for ways to make those emails feel more personal. And be careful not to overload them with in-app notifications. I recommend using HubSpot’s email marketing tools to help with this.

5. Create customer-centric goals.

Your customer’s goals and metrics will be unique to their situation. Allow them to define success, then help them create measurable milestones to get there with benchmarks to hit along the way.

In my previous role, we’d typically come to the onboarding kickoff call with a few ideas of milestones that we could hit based on the information we had from the sales handoff.

Then we’d ask the customer to identify their specific success metrics. It was important for us to discuss those success metrics during that call, as sometimes the customer’s expectations didn’t match what we could feasibly accomplish during the onboarding period.

By gently pushing back on the customer and helping to reset their expectations, we positioned ourselves as a trusted partner and the expert in our product.

Pro tip: Having an onboarding “graduation” or wrap-up call is a great way to celebrate all the hard work the customer has done throughout onboarding. Create a slide that highlights those early wins and includes relevant metrics. This makes it easy for your customer to share it with their leadership team.

If you can’t do a dedicated wrap-up call, find a way to automate this and send them an “Onboarding Wrapped” email that highlights the great work they’ve accomplished so far.

6. Seek to impress.

It goes without saying that your goal for every interaction, but especially during onboarding, is to generate a positive experience. Find ways to bring value to each interaction with your customer during onboarding, whether it’s giving prescriptive guidance or helping them remove a roadblock.

Don’t overlook the value of relationship-building during onboarding. When you show up to each interaction and genuinely want to help them, they feel it!

Purchasing a new (expensive) piece of software can be stressful for customers, and each interaction you have with them during this period helps establish the working relationship and build trust.

7. Measure your success.

Like any major company initiative, it’s important to measure your onboarding program’s success and find areas for improvement.

You’ll want to do this by gathering customer feedback, identifying friction points, and tracking key onboarding metrics so you know what’s working and where to improve.

When measuring the success of your program, here are a few questions I like to consider:

• Did my onboarding program meet the goals that I outlined?
• Are my customers hitting the milestones I identified?
• How is my onboarding program impacting churn and revenue?
• Is my onboarding program positively impacting the metrics I care about? (MAU, etc.)
• Are my customers happy as they exit onboarding?

Pro tip: Make sure that you’re running a post-onboarding survey for your customers to understand how they’d rate their onboarding experience. I suggest including an open-ended question in that survey so they can share their feedback at length with you.

Customer Onboarding Checklist

Taking the best practices I just went through, here’s a quick onboarding checklist you can save to refer to again and again as you create your onboarding program. Right-click to save the image.

1. Create an automated welcome email that triggers when a new user signs up.
2. Schedule a follow-up email to invite your new customer to log in to the software that triggers after two days of inactivity.
3. Build a greeting message for the initial login that includes a CTA to the first step.
4. Design feature callouts that pop up when a user enters the app for the first time.
5. Create content for all of your empty states.
6. Build a knowledge base with answers to FAQs, and update it frequently.
7. Schedule tasks for regular check-in calls or emails with your new customer.
8. Trigger a celebratory notification to go off once a client hits a milestone.

The Benefits of Customer Onboarding

A well-designed onboarding process ensures that your customers feel valued, supported, and confident in their decision to choose your product. It also provides them with the necessary tools and knowledge to use the product effectively, leading to a more satisfying user experience.

For example, Jeff Zhou, the CEO and founder of Fig Loans, gamified the tool’s onboarding process to boost customer enthusiasm and facilitate better learning. His team introduced a rewards system where customers earn points for completing specific onboarding tasks, such as watching educational videos, setting up direct debits, or exploring our financial tools.

This gamification improved the onboarding experience while also increasing completion rates by 50%, he said. Customers valued the interactive and gratifying experience, which strengthened their connection to the platform.

I talked to some business professionals about their customer onboarding process, and they shared with me the benefits of creating the best onboarding process possible.

1. Increased Customer Retention

A positive onboarding experience helps to build a strong foundation for a long-term business relationship between you and your customers.

Effective onboarding educates customers on your product’s value, ensuring they see its benefits quickly, which reduces the likelihood of them abandoning it. This long-term engagement translates into higher retention rates, which are crucial for sustained business growth.

Shawn Plummer, the CEO of The Annuity Expert, knows this, and that’s why the company revamped its onboarding process to include personalized welcome messages and step-by-step guides.

“[After doing this], our customer retention rate increased by 20% within six months,” says Shawn. Customers frequently mentioned how the welcome messages made them feel immediately at ease, encouraging them to engage more deeply with their offerings.

2. Improved Customer Satisfaction

A smooth onboarding process ensures that customers feel welcomed and understood. It addresses their needs and concerns right from the start, leading to higher levels of satisfaction.

“Positive onboarding reduces the learning curve and accelerates time-to-value; customers can achieve their objectives more quickly by receiving explicit, step-by-step instruction and resources,” says Logan Mallory, the VP of marketing at Motivosity.

Motivosity created a series of Quick Win tutorials to showcase essential features and benefits. “Customers who engaged with these tutorials reported a 40% faster time-to-value, increasing their overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend our product,” she said.

As Logan said, satisfied customers are more likely to become advocates for your brand, providing positive reviews and referrals. This not only boosts your brand’s reputation but also attracts new customers.

3. Higher Product Adoption Rates

Effective onboarding introduces customers to your product's features and functionalities, ensuring they understand how to use it fully. This comprehensive introduction leads to higher adoption rates, as customers are more likely to use the product to its fullest potential.

Higher adoption rates mean customers derive more value from your product, which increases the likelihood of them remaining loyal and upgrading to premium features or plans.

4. Reduced Customer Support Costs

When properly onboarded, customers are less likely to encounter issues or have questions requiring support. The training and resources you provide them during onboarding empower them to resolve minor issues on their own.

Alfred Christ, a digital marketer at Robotime, said that integrating an efficient onboarding process has built efficiency into their customer support since well-informed customers typically have fewer questions asking for help.

“For example, once we implemented a variety of onboarding emails that included tips, video tutorials, and FAQs, we found there was a significant drop in the number of support tickets related to the assembly of products,” he said.

“This increased the productivity of our support team and improved the overall customer experience — a win-win.”

Reducing support requests lowers customer service costs and allows your support team to focus on more complex issues.

5. Stronger Brand Loyalty

A well-executed onboarding process helps you create a positive first impression and establishes trust with your customers. When customers feel supported and valued from the beginning, they can develop a strong emotional connection with your brand, leading them to continue using your product and actively promote it to others.

Axel Lavergne, the founder of Reviewflowz, knows all about this.

“One of our clients, a SaaS company, had a significant churn rate due to a complicated setup process. We helped them streamline their onboarding with interactive video tutorials and automated follow-up check-ins that addressed typical concerns and questions. The result was a 50% drop in churn and happier customers who became advocates for their product,” he says.

6. Increased Revenue

Perfecting your customer onboarding can directly impact your bottom line. Retained and satisfied customers are more likely to make repeat purchases, upgrade their plans, and take advantage of additional services you offer.

This is not limited to B2B companies; B2C and DTC companies can also increase their revenue and profitability by integrating stellar customer onboarding processes, as Sergey Taver knows well.

As the marketing manager of Precision Watches, a DTC brand, Taver and the team implemented a proactive service check-in, contacting clients a month after they purchased. This included a personalized email and a quick survey to gauge satisfaction and address any concerns.

“One customer, who had a minor issue with their watch clasp, appreciated the timely intervention and became a loyal repeat customer. This strategy led to a 30% increase in repeat purchases and an influx of referrals. It demonstrated our commitment to customer satisfaction beyond the initial sale,” Taver says.

7. Improved Customer Insights

The onboarding process is an opportunity to gather valuable data about your customers’ needs, preferences, and behavior. By analyzing this data, you can gain insights into how customers are interacting with your product and identify areas for improvement.

This feedback loop allows you to continuously refine and optimize your onboarding process, making it more effective over time and ensuring that it meets the evolving needs of your customers.

Pro tip: If you need a free tool to help you perfect your customer onboarding process, check out HubSpot’s Customer Service Software.

The playbook outlines every element, such as:

• Initial contact.
• Product demonstration.
• Onboarding process.
• Follow-up support.

The playbook serves as a “how-to” for building relationships with customers and providing the most effective onboarding experience possible. It ensures that all employees are following the same process when it comes to interacting with customers.

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Customer Onboarding Examples

By now, it’s clear that your customer onboarding process can take almost any direction.

Here are a few customer onboarding examples I admire that you should use for inspiration.

1. Slack

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Slack ensures new users know exactly what to do to get started with the tool. They also provide live, animated links that teach you how to complete each task.

2. Duolingo

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Duolingo provides an animated walk-through of their tool. They also provide a step-by-step onboarding process so new users don’t get overwhelmed with a long to-do list.

3. Dropbox

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Dropbox has a progress bar within the app that details steps to take to familiarize yourself with the tool, including uploading a file or folder, sharing a file or folder, and connecting your devices. The progress bar closes with each step you take, and the goal is to close it entirely (or get to 100% in Dropbox’s case).

4. Pinterest

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Pinterest suggests a series of categories to help users cater to their interests. Once a user selects five options, the platform uses this information to create a feed that simplifies discovering and saving pins.

5. Etsy

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Etsy allows its shop owners to know exactly where they are in the setup process. The indicator at the top of the page informs them of their current step and the following steps needed for completion.

6. Canva

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Canva provides a tour around its system. In four quick steps, it highlights the most necessary parts of the design process to help users get from start to finish.

7. JustFab

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JustFab gives customers a quick survey to cater the shopping experience to their likes and dislikes. Once they create a profile, the company uses this information to present a curated list of styles.

These examples might make it seem like customer onboarding can only be done by prominent brands with a wealth of resources. Luckily, you can begin onboarding customers with a similar level of professionalism using the following free and paid tools.

Customer Onboarding Software

Whether you have tens, hundreds, or thousands of customers, it is hard to keep up with each person along the buyer journey. I like to let customer onboarding software do the work for me.

The tools below optimize the experience for customers and offer various methods — including email, live chat, and tutorials — to guide users through the onboarding process.

Not only does this software carry the brunt of the labor, but it also helps increase customer retention and conversion rates for your business.

1. HubSpot

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HubSpot includes free email tools, contact management tools, and live chat, ensuring that each of your customers is treated like an individual and not just another entry in an unmanageable database.

HubSpot’s Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, and Operations Hub are integrated into a single platform, making it easy for you to successfully onboard and serve your customers.

The best part is that you can start onboarding your customers for free, then upgrade as you grow. If you upgrade to a Marketing Hub Professional subscription, for instance, you can begin to automate onboarding tasks as you acquire more customers.

Pricing: A free plan is available. The starter customer platform costs $15/month per seat. Professional bundles start at $1,300 a month.

2. Arrows

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Arrows is a customer onboarding platform built specifically for HubSpot, so you can stop onboarding customers with spreadsheets and project management tools.

Arrows allows you to attach collaborative client onboarding checklists to HubSpot deals and tickets, so your customers can take action on their tasks and your CRM stays up to date as they do.

Because Arrows has a deep HubSpot integration, it feels like a native extension of your team’s CRM processes. It fully utilizes HubSpot features like the CRM card, workflow actions, real-time data syncing, timeline events, and more.

More importantly, Arrows is designed to help your customers complete their tasks. It allows you to embed forms, meeting links, videos, and more directly on the task page so your customers can keep moving.

Pricing: A free plan is available if you connect your HubSpot account. Paid plans start at $300 per month.

3. Userlane

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Userlane is a digital adoption platform that gives you the ability to create an automated onboarding tour across your software.

Bubbles and notes will pop up as your customer moves through your platform. You can create a personalized tour for each customer type depending on their goals.

The tool allows you to create unlimited “userlanes,” or tutorial paths, as well as unlimited plays. Userlane tracks your customers’ interactions to deliver metrics on your onboarding’s effectiveness.

With Userlane, you’ll still need a CRM and marketing automation platform to send onboarding materials to your new customers and provide a more personal touch.

Pricing: Pricing is available upon request.

4. GuideCX

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GuideCX is a client onboarding system that allows you to create assignments and tasks that teach your client how to use your product.

Similar to a project management platform, GuideCX works on a “Project” basis. Each project provides steps and tasks to complete as onboarding progresses.

Your customers don’t have to log in to track their progress. They simply have to follow the link sent to their email.

The tool provides a basic automated email feature that will send onboarding messages for you. For stronger customer management power, you’ll want to pair GuideCX with a CRM.

Pricing: The Starter tier is $5,000/yr with other plans available upon request.

5. Userpilot

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Userpilot is a robust user onboarding tool that combines an easy-to-use in-app onboarding guide builder with advanced product analytics and in-app surveys. It doesn’t require any code to build the onboarding flows or tag feature you want to track.

Userpilot is one of the few solutions on the market that allows you to trigger in-app experiences in real-time based on user behavior. It also allows you to collect user feedback with in-app surveys and NPS. Userpilot also offers the most advanced user analytics from similar engagement tools with paths, trends, and funnels.

Pricing: Starter is $249/month; Growth is $799/month; and Enterprise pricing is available by request.

6. Apty

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Apty is a digital adoption platform that allows you to create a tutorial path across your software. The tool’s on-screen guidance feature is paired with onboarding checklists and customized content to deliver a seamless onboarding experience.

Another useful feature is its in-app help widget, which allows users to quickly retrieve help documentation without needing to access a separate knowledge base.

Apty is most effective when paired with an email marketing tool and a CRM.

Pricing: Pricing available upon request.

Customer onboarding helps you grow better.

Creating a great customer onboarding process starts with truly understanding your customer.

I’ve learned that by using data and customer feedback to understand what your customers need, you can build an effective onboarding experience that’s relevant at every step of the new customer journey.

By empowering your customer to quickly see value from your product, you’re setting them up to hit their personal goals and you’re creating revenue and retention benefits for your company.

Net Promoter, Net Promoter System, Net Promoter Score, NPS and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.

Editor's note: This article was originally published in June 2018 and has since been updated for comprehensiveness.

8 May 2025, 11:30 am

20 Crystal-clear FAQ page examples [+ How to make your own] 

There’s nothing more frustrating than fumbling around a company’s website trying to find answers to your questions. Thankfully, most companies now have a Frequently Asked Questions — or FAQ page — section on their website.

This page hosts answers to common questions and includes topics related to product or service usage, business hours, return policies, prices, and more.

While sometimes overlooked, I have seen how FAQ pages are a key component of most customer support strategies. FAQ pages save time for both the customer and the employees, as they can help deflect customer questions while also providing employees with consistent responses to recurring questions.

Here’s what I’ll talk about in this post:

• How to Create an FAQ Page
• FAQ Page Design Tips
• FAQ Page Examples

1. Use data to identify your most common questions.

Your FAQ page should address the most common questions customers have about your products, services, and brand as a whole. The best way to identify those questions is to tap into your customer support ticket data and see which problems customers are consistently reaching out to you with.

Your help desk or call center software can help you easily identify the most common questions that customers are asking. If you’re utilizing tagging within your ticketing system you can sort the tickets by tag to see which topics are most frequently asked about.

Pro tip: I also like to review the data from my help center to see which keywords are being searched for the most and which knowledge base articles are getting the most traction.

2. Organize your FAQ Page.

FAQ pages come in many different styles and formats. Depending on your business and your offerings, your FAQ page may consist of a single page with a list of questions or several pages linked together. When deciding how you’ll organize your FAQ page, consider what will be easiest for your customer to navigate and what will help them quickly find answers.

If your FAQ page consists of multiple pages, one critical element you‘ll need to consider is your navigation bar. If your search bar is tricky to use or doesn’t yield desired results, customers won't have the patience to sift through pages individually until they find an answer.

Pro tip: When I’m creating knowledge base articles, I’m sure to use searchable keywords in both my post titles and copy. This makes my pages easier to find since they'll include the same terms and phrases that visitors are searching. I also avoid using internal acronyms or abbreviations, instead picking terms that my customers are familiar with.

3. Include space for live support options.

FAQ pages are intended as an initial support option for customers looking for an immediate answer to a quick question or problem. It shouldn't replace your knowledge base or your entire support team, but rather supplement your support channels as an additional, lightweight resource.

When customers do have questions that extend beyond the range of your FAQ page, you should have options available that directly connect them with your support team. You could add a link that opens a new support ticket or a chatbot widget that allows customers to live chat with support.

You’ll create a better customer experience by offering your customers the chance to get additional help without requiring them to navigate back to your homepage.

Pro tip: If you are looking for a quick chatbot builder to try out, HubSpot’s free chatbot builder software is a great option.

4. Design your FAQ page.

The next step is designing your FAQ page. This is an important aspect because have you ever been on a page that was either impossible to navigate or just didn’t present information well? I know I have.

To help you design your FAQ page and work through your FAQ format, I’m going to share a bunch of tips later on in the post. If you want to skip there now to read, you can. Otherwise, continue with me here through these basic how-to steps and we’ll revisit the design aspect later.

5. Publish the FAQ page on your site.

Once your FAQ page is ready, it‘s time to publish it to your website. Most companies will provide a link to the FAQ page in their website’s main navigation bar, so no matter where they are on the site, visitors can go directly to the page if they need help.

If you have a knowledge base, then you may want to add the FAQ page as a section of this resource. Make sure your FAQ page is extremely searchable and includes plenty of keywords that will make it easily accessible to customers searching your website.

Pro tip: Software like Content Hub and its free website builder can help you easily create an FAQ page to publish on your site.

6. Monitor the FAQ page's performance.

With your page up and running, customers should be more successful in finding solutions to common problems. To find out if that‘s the case, you’ll need to revisit the customer data that you used to create an online FAQ page in the first place.

Here are the questions I like to ask as I review the topics and tags from support tickets:

• Are there any differences between now and before the FAQ?
• Does it look like more questions are being answered directly through my FAQ page?
• Are the same problems affecting your customer base?
• Or, am I noticing case volume for my most common problems decreasing? I

If I’m seeing this type of positive change, then you know my FAQ page is effective.

7. Update content and add more solutions over time.

Be on the lookout for opportunities to add new questions to your FAQs. Did your company release a new product or feature that’s driving a lot of support questions? Or have you seen an influx in questions related to a recent UI update?

While these may not make sense to add to your main FAQ, you may need to create topic-specific FAQ documents for things like product launches. These topic-specific FAQ documents also help your support team provide consistent information in their customer interactions.

Designing an FAQ page may seem like a piece of cake, but it's easy to get carried away with your design and over-complicate the page.

When you create an FAQ page, there are some standard best practices that you should implement in order to provide a great customer experience. These tips are designed to help you get started with creating your own FAQ page.

1. Be clear and concise.

When it comes to text on your FAQ pages, “the more the merrier” does not apply. Too much text can end up being confusing, causing readers to have to search for the answer they need. I’ve found that rather than writing long and eloquent paragraphs, it's best to be straightforward and brief when providing answers.

2. Ensure pages are up to date.

It’s important for every FAQ page you have to be up to date and accurate. As your organization faces product launches and updates, your FAQ pages should reflect these changes as well. This means your team needs to consistently review each page and revise it after launching new features.

3. Include a search bar.

When building your FAQ page, you should consider ways to make it easy for your customers to quickly find their answers.

Customers often come to an FAQ page with a single question in mind and are forced to scroll through tens or hundreds of other questions to find theirs. If you can provide access to a search bar, you’ll allow customers to quickly locate their question or topic.

I’ll also show you some examples below of how companies are using chatbots to help customers search for specific answers.

4. Organize questions by category.

Make sure there’s a method to your madness when you list out your questions. Consider listing your questions by topic or category to account for customers with multiple questions on related topics.

For example, I like to divide up questions into overarching topics like products, features, billing, etc.

5. Quick link your top questions.

It's good to have categories laid out on the landing page of your FAQ section. However, there are likely some questions that are more popular than others.

To save customers even more time, these top questions should have their own section and a link to their answer at the top of your FAQ page. That way you can maintain your categorical organization while making your most commonly asked questions more accessible.

6. Stick to the basics.

You may be tempted to spruce up your FAQ pages with fun colors, themes, or humor. While this can be effective (depending on your organization and its branding), just remember that customers come to your FAQ pages for the information, not the design.

Pro tip: I think it's best to stick to a basic format and simple design. And don’t forget to consider accessibility when building out your FAQ page. Be mindful of things like color contrast for fonts and backgrounds as well as making images or videos accessible to all audiences.

FAQ Page Examples

Here are some of my favorite examples of well-executed FAQ pages for more inspiration as you work on your own page.

1. Zappos

Zappos saves visitors a lot of time with its simple and easy-to-read FAQ page. Questions are separated into larger categories that make for simple searches. While there's no search bar specific to the FAQs, the ease of viewing all questions on a single page makes for an equally accessible experience.

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2. Dropbox

Dropbox checks all the boxes with its thorough but uncomplicated FAQ page. The page has a clear search box that encourages visitors to utilize the tool over scrolling for their question. Below the search bar are many topics to help readers find answers quickly.

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3. Bank of America

Bank of America's FAQ page is excellent. First, before accessing the page, it allows you to select your state of residence. Then, it visually separates the categories into squares which I think helps break up the view and makes it easier to look at.

The topic categories are large and easy to read and include relevant hyperlinked subcategories. You’re also shown trending topics, and have access to a search bar if you prefer to search by keyword.

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4. Quince

While Quince’s FAQ section is nothing fancy, I applaud the level of detail in the questions and answers they have provided (you can tell they used their support ticket data to curate this list!).

They provide jump links on the left-hand side to help you find topic categories, and when you click the down arrow next to each question, you’re presented with a very concise answer.

They also make it easy to find their contact information (listed at the bottom of the category menu on the left-hand side) so you can reach out to them if your question isn’t represented in this list.

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5. Logitech

I recently bought a webcam for my work-from-home setup and was impressed with Logitech’s help center and FAQ site. I like that their categories are actually sorted by product, so you can easily navigate to get help for the specific product you purchased.

You can also find links to popular FAQs as well as some product-specific FAQs. If you were to scroll down, you’d also see quick links for things like product registration or returns and refunds, as well as contact information if you need to reach out for support.

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6. Anthropic

I wanted to highlight a company in this list that’s doing help and FAQ in an innovative way, and I think Anthropic fits that bill.

I love that they’ve integrated their help docs and FAQ into their chatbot experience, which means you can search directly in the chatbot for topics or keywords. When it finds content related to your search, you can click on it and view it in an expanded chat window which allows you to easily navigate back and forth between articles and the search results.

I think this experience is great because it empowers customers to search for help on their own and if they can’t find it, they’re easily able to start a chat or open a ticket, all within the same chatbot interface.

It’s worth noting that you can also use the standard experience of the search bar within the web page, as well as clicking into a topic within one of the boxes.

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7. Etsy

Etsy succeeds in having an FAQ page that's informative, straightforward, and aesthetically pleasing. You can toggle your help view between articles about shopping on Etsy or Selling on Etsy.

They’ve also included Featured articles with their associated topic name for easy access. Below that, they include additional articles — and I like that they included iconography to make the categories even easier to identify.

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8. eBay

eBay’s FAQ Format is definitely different than most others I’ve seen, and I like what they’ve done here. When you land on their main help page, if you’re logged into your account you’ll be greeted with tailored articles on what you may need help with. (I personally love this approach.)

eBay also recognizes the need for different levels of support between buyers and sellers, so on their main page you can click into the overall category you need help with, like Buying, Selling, Your Account, etc., and then see tailored information based on that category.

Once you click into a category, eBay presents a uniquely designed experience in that you’ll click the arrow to continue scrolling to the right (whereas most pages scroll up or down). Then, you can easily reference the clickable links to the articles under the “On this page” category if you don’t feel like scrolling. At the very bottom of the page, they offer the option to search for more articles or contact an agent for help.

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9. Adobe Creative Cloud

Adobe Creative Cloud has an FAQ page with a search bar at the top and an option to chat with support if you need more help (which I love). I appreciate that they’ve broken the main screen view into sub-areas like General FAQ, FAQ by plan, Basics, etc. They’ve also included an additional menu on the left that allows for deeper topic exploration and easy access to common answers.

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10. McDonald's UK

The McDonald's UK FAQ page is simple and well-organized, which is no small feat considering their FAQ page hosts 951 questions. You can search for your question in the search bar or hit the caret icon to open up the menu for filters and check off desired categories (which you’ll see I’ve done here in my screenshot). This presents you with boxes that contain FAQs related to that category as well as the corresponding answers.

I personally like how they’ve created spatial separation by putting the questions and answers into boxes. I find this to be easier on the eyes than seeing lines of text across the screen.

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11. Libby

Libby’s FAQ page is a great example of a simple and to-the-point FAQ format. Frequently asked questions are linked on the main page, a search bar is available at the top of the page, and if you scroll to the bottom you’ll see a link to Contact Support.

You can also toggle the language to translate the articles into over 17 different languages, so kudos to Libby for being inclusive of their global audience here. This simplified format is a great option for companies who have a fairly simple product offering or user experience.

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12. WhatsApp

WhatsApp has managed to make their FAQ page feel fun but not overwhelming or cluttered. There's a clear search bar that allows you to type in keywords. Below are the broad topics along with corresponding icons, and at the bottom of the page they’ve listed popular articles. You can view all questions within a topic by clicking the appropriate box.

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13. Canva

Canva’s help center has all the key elements required of an FAQ page: a search bar, common topics you can browse by, and even suggestions for popular topics.

What I really like about their FAQ format is that their search functionality is advanced enough to allow you to search for phrases (like “brand kit” or “remove background”) versus just a singular keyword.

Why is this important? Having a search function that can surface relevant content for you based on a combination of words means that you can be more specific with your search terms (and thus get more tailored results). This provides a better customer experience and allows customers to self-serve more efficiently.

I also like their “Solve your issue” wizard, which presents step-by-step options to help narrow down a problem and then presents helpful content accordingly.

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14. Wikipedia

Wikipedia may be the textbook definition of simple FAQ pages, as its FAQ index is formatted very similarly to its articles. You can search through all the FAQs at the top or view overarching topics within the categories of “General” and “Specific.” Each topic brings you to a separate page that lists all the questions and their answers.

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15. G2

I set out to find a company that was running their FAQ or help center on GPT, because I wanted to see what impact using an LLM would have on the design and experience of an FAQ page. G2 is a great example of how this is being done today.

In my opinion, G2 takes an innovative dual approach to their FAQ support page. They offer the traditional experience of searching for articles by topic, clicking on categories or suggested articles, and then surfacing relevant help docs in response.

But they also offer Monty, their chat widget who runs on GPT. You can see that I asked Monty a bit of an obscure question and the bot immediately gave me guidance within the chat. When I searched the help docs for that same question, I didn’t really find anything, likely because I wasn’t using the right keywords or search terms.

When I did ask Monty a more common question that matched keywords, the bot wrote out specific step-by-step instructions on how to solve my issue and linked to the help article those instructions came from.

I personally love this approach because it allows customers to ask more nuanced questions that the bot can then decipher and use to provide helpful information in response.

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16. Shopify

Shopify‘s FAQ page is an example of one FAQ page that doesn’t necessarily require a search bar. Since there isn't a surplus of questions — just 14 in total — visitors may not need to search their question at all. You can click one of the four topics on the left-hand side or scroll down to view all questions and answers on the same page.

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17. Zoom

Zoom’s overall help page allows you to search for your own topic, click on a dedicated category, or visit one of their featured articles or top resources. Within the “Getting Started” Category, they have a simple FAQ article that covers frequently asked questions for Zoom beginners.

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Zoom also encourages users to join their Community to find answers to commonly asked questions from other Zoom users. The community includes forums for different Zoom features to help you find the discussion that’s relevant to your specific question.

18. Otterbox

Otterbox’s no-frills FAQ page covers four main categories with quick links that allow you to easily jump to a category’s list of Q&A. There’s no interaction needed from the user to see the answer for each question, since they are both displayed outright.

While the search bar isn’t specific to the FAQ page, it does a nice job of separating the search findings out so you can easily see the results that are content versus the search results that are products. They also offer the option to chat if you need more support.

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19. Microsoft

Microsoft’s Education division has created an FAQ page that allows you to easily surface information across five of their main products. At the top left of the page, you can change the view to show questions related to different products, such as Microsoft 365, Teams, Windows, and more. Based on the view you’ve chosen, you’ll see a number of frequently asked questions and can click the plus sign next to a question to see the answer.

Additionally, you can toggle on the option to “Expand all” questions and answers if you’re using something like control+F to search for a term within the page. Lastly, while you can’t fully see it in this screenshot below, their AI-powered chatbot assistant is ready and available in the right-hand corner if you need additional help.

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20. The Honey Pot

The Honey Pot’s FAQ page is short and sweet, you can search for topics or click on the section you need clarification on in the center of the page. They’ve also got easy access to chat with someone if you need more help.

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Make Your FAQ Page Answer the Questions

An FAQ page is a resource that can save your employees time and quickly provide customers with the information they need. As I’ve seen while working in the customer service industry — and on the customer side myself — an FAQ page is worth the effort it takes to build and keep up to date.

I hope you use this list to build your own FAQ page. If you focus on answering common and pertinent customer questions, you’re sure to see a return.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in March 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

7 May 2025, 12:30 pm

Survey Logic — How to Survey Your Audience and Unlock Real Insights 

As a customer, I’ve taken plenty of surveys for my favorite brands, and the best ones always have survey logic. Before I started working on this post, I always assumed this flow was coincidental. The survey seemed to magically change based on my responses. Spoiler alert: that’s exactly what was happening.

Thanks to survey logic, the best surveys feel connected, the question order makes sense, and the experience is smooth — almost like a real conversation. These types of surveys make it easier to give thoughtful answers because each question seems to build on the one before it.

Savvy teams use survey logic to adjust questions based on how respondents answer. In this article, let’s explore the basics of survey logic and the different types of logic that make surveys smarter and more engaging.

Table of Contents

• What is survey logic?
• Types of Survey Logic
• Survey Logic Rules
• Survey Logic Triggers
• Benefits of Survey Logic
• Survey Logic Best Practices

What is survey logic?

Survey logic is a feature where surveys adapt to a respondent’s behavior. The order of pages may change. The question order may shift, and notifications may appear. The goal is to create a survey with a logical order, improving the experience and the quality of responses.

“I see survey logic as a tool that transforms a list of generic questions into an engaging and relevant conversation,” says Eylül Nowakowska Beyazıt, director of customer success at surveying company Survicate. “It allows us to ask the right questions to the right people.”

Survey logic improves the quality of data that is collected by ensuring respondents are only asked relevant questions. This leads to surveys with improved response rates and data accuracy, making results more actionable for businesses and researchers.

Here’s an example of survey logic in action:

Think of your survey as an engaging chat versus an interrogation. “In our day-to-day interactions, we adapt our questions based on the behavior of who we’re talking to. Survey logic empowers us to do just that,” Beyazıt says.

Now that we know what exactly survey logic is, we can explore the different types of survey logic.

Types of Survey Logic

1. Skip Logic (Conditional Branching)

Think of your survey like a branching tree. Certain responses lead to more relevant questions. Less relevant queries are tossed out. Survey logic can help you create these branching paths in your surveys.

A respondent’s survey direction depends on their answers to specific questions. This ensures that respondents are only asked questions that are relevant to them.

Keep in mind that skip logic can only move respondents ahead in the survey. Only future questions are altered based on responses.

2. Branching Logic

Branching logic is a more generalized term that encompasses various ways to route respondents through a survey. Skip logic is one specific form of branching, but branching logic can also include directing respondents to different paths based on their demographics, preferences, or other criteria.

Here is a link to Anna Szabo’s tutorial on how she created a Salesforce survey with survey logic. She explains in depth how she used branching logic o her advantage.

3. Randomization Logic

I’ve definitely taken surveys where I could predict the next question before even reading it. That’s where randomization logic comes in. It mixes up the order of questions or answer choices to keep things fresh for each respondent.

This not only makes the survey feel less predictable but also helps remove biases that come from seeing options in a set order. In my opinion, it’s a great way to get more honest and thoughtful responses since people aren’t just picking the first option out of habit.

4. Display/Relevance Logic

Display logic helps you show additional questions or information based on a respondent’s answer. For instance, if a customer expresses interest in lip gloss, the survey might display more detailed questions about the kind of lip gloss they like.

Jeff Sirkin, founder of Sirkin Research, refers to the importance of screener questions.

“We always need to make sure that we’re using screener questions... So it’s not just a single question about your title or your role,” he says. “We want to make sure that it’s very specific to what it is that the survey is about.”

5. Quota Control Logic

As a survey creator, you can use quota control logic to set quotas or limits for specific groups of respondents. Once a quota is met, the survey is closed for that particular group.

For example, let’s say I have a product that appeals to both young parents and college students. I may have more than enough responses from parents. If another parent takes the survey, they’ll receive a notification that ends the process sooner. I can then focus on gathering data from college students.

6. Piping Logic (Data Insertion)

I love when a survey feels like it’s actually speaking to me rather than just running through a list of questions. This advanced survey feature personalizes the experience by reusing respondents’ answers in later questions.

For example, if someone enters their name as “Erica,” the survey can greet them with “Hello, Erica!” This makes the experience more engaging because it feels like a real conversation. In my opinion, small details like this can make a big difference in keeping people interested and willing to complete the survey.

7. Termination Logic

Termination logic helps you determine when a respondent wants to exit the survey. For example, if a respondent selects “I do not wish to continue” or provides certain disqualifying responses, the survey can be set to end.

These different types of survey logic can be combined and applied to create complex survey designs. This allows you to tailor the experience to your specific research objectives and the characteristics of your respondents.

Personally, I also love how this feature allows me to respect the respondent’s time and decision, preventing them from feeling stuck in a survey they don’t want to complete.

Properly implemented survey logic ensures that respondents have a more engaging and relevant survey experience while creators collect accurate and meaningful data.

So, survey logic is not just a “nice to have” if you want to create effective surveys.

Survey Logic Rules

Why do you need survey logic rules? First, they make surveys more efficient by guiding respondents to relevant questions based on their answers. Second, they create a more personalized experience, ensuring participants only see questions that apply to them.

Each rule consists of two key elements:

• Criteria — the condition that must be met, for example, a specific response to a question.
• Action — what happens when the criteria are met, like showing a follow-up question or skipping to a different section.

You can set up rules using:

• Single-question branching. A rule based on just one question. For example, if a respondent answers “Yes” to “Do you own a car?”, a follow-up question about car brands appears.
• Multi-question branching. A rule that considers multiple criteria. For example, if someone selects “Yes” for “Do you own a car?” AND “Electric” for “What type of car do you own?”, they get a question about EV charging habits.

You can mix and match multiple criteria using AND/OR logic:

• AND means all conditions must be met. For example, if a respondent is between 25-35 years old AND selects “Frequent traveler,” they see a question about travel preferences.
• OR means any one of the conditions can trigger the action. For example, if they select “Business traveler” OR “Frequent traveler,” they get the same follow-up question.

Once your criteria are met, you can apply different actions to guide respondents through the survey smoothly.

1. Display a question.

This survey logic rule shows a follow-up question only if it’s relevant to the respondent. Let’s say I’m sending a survey for a line of products, including options for pets. If a respondent selects “Yes” to “Do you have pets?”, they’ll see “What type of pet do you have?” instead of unrelated questions.

2. Skip to a new page.

This rule directs respondents to a specific section based on their answers. For example, if a user selects “Beginner” in a tech skills survey, they skip past advanced-level questions and go straight to beginner-friendly ones.

Pro tip: Avoid sending users back to a previous page, as it can create loops that prevent them from completing the survey.

3. End the survey and show a thank-you page.

Here, the survey ends early and shows a customized thank-you message, if relevant.

If a respondent doesn’t qualify for a study (e.g., selects “No” for “Do you work in the tech industry?”), they see a message like, “Thank you for your time! Unfortunately, this survey is for tech professionals.”

4. End the survey and redirect to a URL.

With this rule, the respondent is sent to a specific website when the survey ends. A survey panel company might redirect disqualified respondents to another available survey that better fits their profile.

Survey Logic Triggers

Survey logic triggers are the criteria that activate specific actions and trigger certain rules in a survey.

Let’s assume that I’m running an employee satisfaction survey. My goal is to follow up with respondents differently, depending on their feedback. I am particularly interested in learning about the reasons why some employees might rate their job satisfaction as “Low.” I’m using a scale of 1-5, where “1” and “2” answers are the lowest scores.

So, I create triggers for these “1” and “2” replies, and display a follow-up question, “Can you share what aspects of your job contribute to your dissatisfaction?” I also set up an automatic notification to HR any time a respondent replies with a low score, so that they can follow up proactively.

Survey logic triggers make surveys “smarter” and more insightful, by adjusting the experience based on how people respond. They focus on each individual case and make sure you don’t deter people’s attention.

For example, the survey might show or hide certain questions and close once enough responses are collected. The survey can even send notifications when a key response comes in. These triggers help keep surveys both relevant to you as someone who runs them and more engaging for respondents.

Benefits of Survey Logic

Survey logic plays a valuable role when designing surveys. Here are some key benefits of using survey logic.

1. Improved Relevance

Survey logic helps you give your responders relevant questions to make the experience, well, logical.

Imagine filling out a feedback form for a retail store. You are asked, “Have you tried our new range of denim shorts?” You reply, “No.” How would you feel if the next question was, “How would you rate the quality of our new range of denim shorts?”

That would be annoying, right?

Survey logic removes this pain point for your participants. The fewer pain points there are, the more accurate data you’ll receive.

2. Reduced Survey Fatigue

Long, complicated surveys bore respondents, and when that happens, they leave. In fact, here’s a scary stat: One in five customers will stop doing business with a company if its surveys are too long.

That’s where survey logic comes in. Showing or skipping questions based on previous answers helps create shorter, more focused surveys. The result? A better experience for your customers and higher completion rates for you.

3. Higher Response Rates

Online surveys often have a wide range of response rates, from as low as 2% to as high as 30%. It largely depends on how you draw the sample and how you recruit participants.

Response rates tend to be higher when participants have a vested interest in the topic. Survey logic can help with this by personalizing the experience, tailoring questions based on previous answers, skipping irrelevant sections, or directing respondents to the most relevant content.

This makes participants more likely to complete the survey, boosting response rates.

4. Data Accuracy

By asking only relevant questions to each respondent, survey logic helps ensure that data is accurate and meaningful. When you use survey logic effectively, you collect cleaner and more structured data. This makes it easier to analyze, draw insights, and make informed decisions.

5. Customization

Survey logic enables you to customize the survey experience. You can create personalized paths for different segments of your audience, ensuring each group is asked questions that address their unique perspectives.

For example, let’s say you want to carry out an employee engagement survey. However, not all employees are the same. You may want to customize your survey for different segments of employees based on their roles, locations, departments, or other criteria.

And guess what? Personalizing web surveys can boost response rates by 8.6% — that’s pretty impressive.

How do you do that effectively and efficiently? Yes, you got it right, through survey logic!

6. Personalization

​​Survey logic helps personalize surveys by using respondents’ names or tailoring follow-up questions based on their answers. This kind of customization makes a big impact — 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences.

A more personal approach doesn’t just boost engagement; it also leads to higher-quality responses and more valuable feedback for your brand.

With HubSpot’s customer feedback software, you can easily create custom surveys that capture meaningful insights. Choose from various question types, use flexible templates, and send surveys via web link or email. Then, seamlessly share findings with your team to strengthen customer relationships and improve retention.

Now, let’s explore best practices for using survey logic.

Survey Logic Best Practices

Here’s what Beyazıt of Survicate had to say about using survey logic:

“If used correctly, survey logic can help you transition from gathering feedback to taking action by seizing the power of the moment. It helps you craft surveys that … create dynamic conversations tailored to each respondent’s unique perspective.”

Looking to unlock the power of survey logic? Here are the best practices and expert tips to help you get it right.

1. Plan your survey carefully.

Before implementing survey logic, have a clear understanding of your research objectives and the specific data that you need to collect. Plan your survey questions, logic, and branching paths accordingly.

2. Keep it simple.

While survey logic can be powerful, avoid overcomplicating your survey. Excessive branching or complex skip patterns can confuse respondents. Try to make your surveys simple and clear.

“I once worked with this online shop, and they got so wrapped up in creating the ‘perfect’ survey that they ended up leaving out a chunk of their customers,” says Sudhir Khatwani, founder at The Money Mongers. “It just goes to show, sometimes you can overthink things and end up missing the forest for the trees.”

Pro tip: Don’t add hide-and-skip logic functions together. Skip logic is used to skip questions based on respondent choices. Hide logic removes questions that may or may not be relevant based on the specific responses. Using both of them in one survey could result in a disorderly flow of questions.

3. Test your survey.

Always thoroughly test your survey with a small group of participants before launching it to a larger audience. This helps you identify any issues with the logic, wording, or flow of questions.

Be sure that your survey settings work the way you want and that your questions are not biased, leading, or confusing.

4. Don’t overwhelm respondents.

A long list of questions can leave your respondents overwhelmed. This is especially true if your survey involves several branching logical conditions. Use more pages and spread out information, instead of cramming everything on one page.

“One question per page keeps the flow going; stacked questions on the same page can feel overwhelming,” says Maya Kislykh, head of content at Bluestone PIM.

Page number aside, however, I’m sure you’re wondering — what’s the ideal number of questions? According to 42% of respondents in a HubSpot survey, there should be anywhere between 7 and 10 questions.

5. Consider mobile responsiveness.

More and more people access the internet on their smartphones. This means your survey must be responsive so it looks great (and includes your intended survey logic) on all devices. Test the survey on various devices and browsers to ensure compatibility.

I recommend choosing a survey creation software that has mobile design basked in. Looking for a place to start? Hubspot’s survey tool can help.

6. Monitor survey progress.

While you are collecting data, I recommend monitoring your survey progress and completion rates. If you notice a high dropout rate at a particular question or section, investigate the reason why. It’s possible that the survey logic is causing confusion or frustration.

Regularly check the survey data to verify that the logic is functioning as intended and that the collected data is accurate and complete.

7. End your survey right.

How you conclude your survey is just as important as the questions you ask throughout. If your respondent makes it all the way to the end, you can gather more information to follow up later.

“[You can] add an email gate on the final question page, as participants are typically more engaged at that stage and more likely to provide their contact details,” says Kislykh.

For those who don’t want to complete the survey, you can let them go. Always include an option for respondents to exit the survey at any point if they choose to do so. I find this respects their autonomy and prevents complaints.

The Future of Survey Logic

Today, we have surveys that adapt to respondent behaviors. These conditional elements already surface better insights and lead to higher completion rates. So what’s next?

“If you ask me where surveys are headed… Well, I reckon we’re on the brink of some cool stuff,” Khatwani says. “Imagine a survey that adjusts in real time, tapping into past data and predicting the best next question. That’s the future, and I’m here for it.”

Editor's note: This post was originally published in November 2023 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

6 May 2025, 4:03 pm

How I create representative samples when running surveys 

Talking about statistics and representative samples might not sound like the most exciting topic. I can get it. But stick with me, because getting this right is hands down the most critical part of making smart, customer-focused decisions.

Through my years of working with customer data – sometimes learning the hard way – I’ve landed on a practical way to build survey samples that genuinely mirror the customers I need to hear from. It’s shifted how I operate, moving away from guesses based on potentially skewed data toward strategies built on a more solid foundation.

So, let’s ditch the textbook feel. I want to walk you through how I approach this, the methods I use, and why it matters so much – just like I’d explain it if we were hashing out how to really listen to our customers.

In this article:

• What is a representative sample?
• The Importance of Representative Samples in Customer Surveys
• Representative Sample Methods
• How to Get a Representative Sample
• Use Cases for AI Agents in Surveying
• My Final Thoughts: Listening to the Right Voices

What is a representative sample?

Let’s demystify this term “representative sample.” When I use it, I’m talking about a smaller group of people carefully picked from a larger group (your population) in a way that accurately mirrors the key characteristics of that entire larger group.

If your population is your whole customer base, your representative sample is a slice chosen so it looks, feels, and behaves like the whole pie, just scaled down.

Source

Think of it like a blood test. Your doctor doesn’t need to drain all your blood to understand your health – they take a small, representative sample because they know that sample accurately reflects the composition of the whole.

Similarly, if your customer base is 40% enterprise clients and 60% small business, a representative sample should maintain that same 40/60 split.

What makes a good representative sample?

A good sample aims to mirror the population across multiple relevant dimensions. This could be things like demographics (age, location), firmographics (company size), behavioral data (purchase habits, product usage), or even attitudes (past satisfaction levels).

The goal is to create this miniature reflection so that the feedback you get from the sample is highly likely to be the same feedback you’d get if you could ask everyone.

It’s about achieving generalizability – the ability to confidently apply insights from your sample to the broader population you care about. Without representativeness, you’re just getting some opinions, not necessarily a reliable pulse of the whole group.

This matters because customers notice when brands don’t seem to understand them.

Research frequently shows a gap between how well companies think they know their customers and how understood customers actually feel. A Koros study found that businesses typically miscalculate the number of times customers have poor experience by around 38%.

The Importance of Representative Samples in Customer Surveys

So why the fuss? Why the extra effort to get a sample that truly represents? Because I’ve seen the alternative: resources wasted on initiatives based on feedback from the wrong slice of customers.

Basing important decisions on feedback from a skewed sample is like asking only your friends if your new business idea is good. You’ll likely get overly positive feedback that doesn’t reflect the broader market reality.

Getting the sample right delivers these crucial benefits.

Guarantees Accuracy and Reliable Insights

This is the big one for me. When your sample accurately reflects your customer base, the data – the scores, the trends, the comments – are far more likely to be true.

A representative sample forces you to confront the whole picture, good and bad. This is critical because inaccurate data doesn’t just mislead, it can actively harm.

Estimates suggest poor data quality costs the U.S. economy trillions annually, impacting everything from marketing spend effectiveness to strategic planning. Organizations can lose between 15% to 25% of their annual revenue due to data errors, including missed sales opportunities and compliance fines.

Practically, this means your metrics like NPS and CSAT become trustworthy indicators.

I’ve found that when I trust the data’s accuracy because the sample was solid, I can diagnose issues much more effectively. If a representative sample shows a satisfaction dip among a specific user segment after an update, that’s a clear signal.

Skewed data might completely hide that.

This accuracy isn’t just a nice-to-have — it drives real value. Industry analysts like Forrester have quantified this, suggesting even single-point improvements in CX scores (which rely on accurate measurement) can equate to millions in revenue for large enterprises.

You need accurate data, rooted in good sampling, to even measure that progress reliably.

Saves Significant Time and Resources (Cost Efficiency)

Let’s be practical. Surveying every customer is usually out of the question – too expensive, too slow. Representative sampling is the efficient alternative.

By studying a smaller, carefully chosen group, you get statistically valid insights without the massive overhead. My experience consistently shows that the time spent planning the sample saves far more time and money than dealing with the consequences of bad data later.

Consider that analysts estimate data scientists spend a huge portion of their time, sometimes up to 80%, just cleaning and preparing data. Starting with a well-defined, representative sample approach can streamline this entire process.

Think about the costs: platform fees, team hours, analysis time. A representative sample, often needing just a few hundred well-chosen responses, drastically cuts these compared to a consensus attempt.

This efficiency translates to speed.

Being able to gather trustworthy insights quickly allows businesses to adapt faster. As Aptitude Research found, companies using quality data sources make decisions nearly 3x faster than those using poor data.

A representative sample helps ensure you have quality data, enabling agility.

Enables Confident, Data-Driven Decision-Making

Ultimately, we gather feedback to make better choices about products, marketing, support, and strategy. When those choices are informed by data from a representative sample, you can act with greater confidence.

Research backs this up. A study by McKinsey indicated that companies extensively using data-driven decision-making are 5% more productive and 6% more profitable than their competitors.

Presenting findings backed by a solid sampling plan carries more weight. It shifts the conversation from “Here’s what a few people said” to “Here’s what our customers likely think, based on a reliable sample.”

This confidence is key for getting buy-in.

If representative data clearly shows a pain point that affects a significant, valuable segment, the case for investing in a solution becomes much stronger. It reduces risk. Launching something based on feedback from only enthusiasts is a gamble. Testing with a representative group gives a more realistic forecast.

Given that making a wrong strategic bet can be incredibly costly, grounding decisions in representative data isn’t just good practice – it’s smart risk management.

Companies that consistently make customer-centric decisions based on solid data tend to see higher customer lifetime value and reduced churn rates. For instance, predictive analytics have been shown to reduce churn by 10% to 30% and increase CLV by up to 50%, as businesses leverage data-driven insights to address customer needs and enhance satisfaction proactively.

Representative Sample Methods

So, how do we actually build a representative sample? It’s not random guesswork. It involves specific techniques designed to give everyone (or key groups) a fair chance of being included, minimizing bias. These are generally called “probability sampling methods.”

Here are the main ones I’ve worked with in a business context.

Simple Random Sampling (SRS)

This is the classic setup where every single person in your target group has an equal chance of being selected. Think drawing names from a hat.

• How I approach it: Requires a complete list of the target population (the sampling frame). Then, use a random method (like a software random number generator) to pick individuals until the target sample size is reached.
• Example: If I need to survey 300 users for a specific HubSpot tool from a clean list of 5,000 eligible users, I’d use a tool to randomly select 300 unique IDs from that list.
• Practical note: SRS is unbiased in theory, but its big dependency is that perfect sampling frame. Getting to a truly complete and accurate list of all target customers can be very challenging in dynamic business environments. Flaws in the list mean the sample won’t be perfectly random.

Systematic Sampling

This one is a bit more structured. In this case, you’d select individuals from an ordered list at regular intervals, after a random start.

• How I approach it: Get the ordered list. Calculate the “sample interval” (k) by dividing population size (N) by desired sample size (n). Randomly choose a starting number between 1 and k. Select that person, then select every kth person after that.
• Example: From a list of 8,000 support interactions sorted by date, needing a sample of 400. Interval (k) = 8000 / 400 = 20. Randomly choose a starting number, say 12. Select interaction #12, then #32, then #52, etc.
• Practical note: Often easier than SRS, especially with digital lists. Works well unless there’s a hidden cycle in the list that matches the interval (e.g., every 20th customer signed up during a specific problematic promo). Always worth a quick check for such patterns.

Stratified Sampling

This method is often my go-to for customer surveys because it handles diversity so well. It involves dividing your population into distinct subgroups (“strata”) based on important characteristics, and then drawing a random sample (SRS or systematic) from within each subgroup.

• How I approach it: Identify key segments relevant to the survey (e.g., based on subscription plan, CLV, usage level, and industry). Determine the proportion of the total population each segment represents. Then, sample randomly from within each segment, usually ensuring the sample size for each segment matches its proportion in the population.
• Example: For a SaaS product with 60% “Standard” users, 30% “Premium,” 10% “Enterprise.” For a sample of 500, I’d ensure I randomly select 300 Standard (60% of 500), 150 Premium (30% of 500), and 50 Enterprise (10% of 500).
• Practical note: This guarantees representation from all key groups, even small ones, and often yields more precise overall results. It’s excellent for understanding segment-specific needs, crucial for personalization efforts which customers increasingly demand.

McKinsey research shows that personalization can reduce customer acquisition costs by as much as 50%, increase revenue by 5% to 15%, and improve marketing ROI by 10% to 30%. The main prerequisite is having the data to accurately define and size these segments.

Cluster Sampling

This is useful when the population is naturally grouped or geographically dispersed. You divide the population into groups (clusters), randomly select some clusters, and then survey all individuals (one-stage) or a random sample of individuals (two-stage) within the selected clusters.

• How I approach it: Identify natural clusters (e.g., sales territories, store locations, website visitor cohorts by day). Randomly choose a sample of these clusters. Then collect data from people within those chosen clusters.
• Example: A company wants feedback from attendees of its 50 nationwide workshops. Instead of sampling all attendees, they could treat each workshop as a cluster, randomly select 10 workshops, and survey all attendees from just those 10.
• Practical note: Can be much more cost-effective for large, spread-out populations. However, it might be less statistically precise than other methods if people within clusters are very similar to each other. Often requires a larger total sample size to achieve the same confidence level.

Choosing the right method involves balancing your goals, population, list quality, and practical constraints. There isn’t always one perfect answer, but understanding the trade-offs is key.

How to Get a Representative Sample

Knowing the methods is step one. Executing well is step two. Here’s the practical process I follow.

Step 1: Define your target population with laser focus.

I can’t stress this one enough – be absolutely clear about who this survey is for. Vague targets lead to vague results. You can consider asking:

• Who specifically are we trying to understand? (e.g., active paying customers? Trial users? Churned customers?)
• What defines them? (e.g., plan type? Usage threshold? Time as a customer? Location?)
• Who should be excluded? (e.g., employees? Competitors? Very new users?)

Write down a precise definition. For example, “Paying customers in the U.K. on the ‘Professional’ plan who have used Feature Z in the last 90 days.” This clarity guides everything else.

Step 2: Calculate your ideal sample size.

How many responses do you need for reliable results? Don’t guess, consider:

• Population size (N). How many people fit your Step 1 definition?
• Margin of error (e). How much uncertainty is acceptable (e.g., +/- 5%)?
• Confidence level. How sure do you need to be (usually 95%)?
• Expected variability (p). How diverse do you expect answers to be (use 0.5 if unsure)?

Use an online calculator. Plug in these numbers. It will estimate the number of completed responses needed.

Remember, this is completed responses. You MUST factor in your likely response rate. If you expect only 10% to respond, you need to invite 10 times the number of people you need responses from. Plan your outreach numbers based on this reality.

HubSpot’s blog offers good resources on thinking through survey sample sizes.

Step 3: Choose the right sampling method.

Based on Steps 1 and 2, choose the method (SRS, Systematic, Stratified, Cluster) that best fits. You can consider:

• Goals. Overall picture versus segment deep-dive?
• Population. Diverse or spread out?
• List quality. Is your frame complete and accurate?
• Resources. What’s your budget and time constraint?

Again, for understanding different customer experiences, I often find that stratified sampling delivers the most actionable insights if the data allows for it.

Step 4: Build your sampling frame.

This is your actual invite list, pulled from your database or CRM based on your Step 1 definition. Its quality is very important.

You’ll want to ensure it is:

• Comprehensive. Includes everyone who should be included. Missing groups equals coverage error.
• Accurate. Correct contact information and characteristics. Studies have shown that email marketing databases, for example, generally degrade by about 22.5% every year, highlighting the need for regular cleaning.
• Up-to-date. Filters out irrelevant contacts.
• No duplicates.

Spending time cleaning and validating this list before sampling is crucial. Use your CRM tools (like list segmentation in HubSpot) carefully.

Step 5: Execute the sampling plan and collect data.

Now, it’s time to implement your chosen method precisely. Use randomizers correctly and deploy your survey thoughtfully. Consider timing – HubSpot has explored the best times to send surveys. Make sure to use clear communication.

Monitor the responses. If you’re using stratification, watch if segments are responding proportionally. If a key group lags significantly, consider a polite, targeted reminder to that group to help balance the sample and reduce non-response bias (where non-responders differ systematically from responders).

For example, one study found that only 20% of participants donated data compared to 63% who intended to, indicating a substantial non-response gap that targeted reminders could help address.

Pro tip: Tools like HubSpot’s Customer Feedback Software, potentially using survey templates for consistency, can help manage this process.

Step 6: Evaluate representativeness and adjust if necessary.

Once you’re finished collecting, before analyzing, check your achieved sample against your target population’s known characteristics (from Step 1).

• Does the distribution by plan type, region, tenure, etc., in your responses match the overall population?

If it’s reasonably close, great. If it’s significantly off (e.g., way too many responses from one country), your raw results could be misleading.

In these cases, a very technical person might use statistical weighting, which involves mathematically adjusting the influence of responses to better reflect the true population size.

This is a more advanced step, and while some tools offer features for it, it still requires careful application. It can help correct moderate imbalances but can’t fix a fundamentally flawed sampling process. If you’re going to be using weighting, it should always be reported transparently.

Use Cases for AI Agents in Surveying

AI is definitely making waves in many fields, and survey sampling is no exception. While I don’t see AI replacing the need for a smart sampling strategy, it is growing as a powerful assistant in nearly every aspect of business.

Tools that can help streamline tricky parts of the process, potentially boosting accuracy, and maybe even surface insights we miss, are a huge benefit.

Source

Sometimes, I like to think of it as less automation and more as augmentation. Based on what I’m seeing and industry discussions, here are three clear ways AI can practically lend a hand.

Use Case 1: Automating sampling frame cleanup and maintenance.

• The challenge: As we discussed, building and maintaining a clean, accurate sampling frame (that master list in Step 4) is critical but incredibly time-consuming. Customer data gets old fast, leading to errors, duplicates, and outdated information that can wreck representativeness.
• How AI helps: AI-powered data quality tools work wonders here. They can rapidly scan huge databases to identify and merge duplicate contacts, standardize formatting (like addresses or job titles), validate email addresses, and flag potentially inactive records based on engagement patterns, far faster than manual checks. Some tools can even assist with data enrichment, where appropriate and ethical, of course.
• Implementation and expert insight: This typically involved integrating specialized data cleansing tools or leveraging features increasingly built into CRMs.

The key, as data quality expert Thomas Redman emphasizes, is that while AI automates cleansing, human oversight on the rules and validation is crucial to avoid the “Garbage In, Garbage Out” trap. You set the parameters, let the AI do the heavy lifting on list hygiene, and ensure a much more reliable starting point for drawing your sample, saving significant manual effort.

Use Case 2: Discovering nuanced segments for smarter stratification.

• The challenge: Stratified sampling is powerful, but we often rely on obvious segments (like plan type or demographics). What if there are hidden, behavior-based groups within our customer base whose experiences differ significantly, but aren’t immediately apparent?
• How AI helps: This is where machine learning shines. Clustering algorithms can analyze vast amounts of behavioral data (like product usage clicks, feature adoption sequences, support interaction types, and content engagement) to uncover these “hidden” micro-segments. Maybe it finds a distinct group of “occasional users who are highly influential networkers” or “new users who skip onboarding but heavily used advanced features.”
• Implementation and expert insight: This usually requires data science expertise and certain tools to run clustering analyses on relevant customer data. The resulting segments need human interpretation to determine if they’re meaningful for stratification in a specific survey.

Recent expert analysis confirms that advanced AI clustering not only uncovers hidden micro-segments but also enables agile, real-time segmentation adjustments, leading to more adaptive survey designs.

Use Case 3: Proactively mitigating non-response bias.

• The challenge: Getting enough people, and the right people, to respond is a constant battle. Survey response rates continue to be a challenge across many channels. If the non-responders are systematically different from responders (e.g, less satisfied customers responding less often), it introduces significant bias.
• How AI helps: AI models can be trained on past survey data and customer profiles to predict the likelihood that certain individuals or segments won’t respond to an upcoming survey. It might learn, for example, that customers who haven’t logged in for 90 days are 3x more likely to respond than active users.
• Implementation and expert insight: Using these predictions (generated via custom models or potentially features in advanced survey tools), you can move from simply hoping people respond to proactively managing non-response risk. Some strategies could include offering tailored incentives specifically to predicted low-responders, testing different communication channels or follow-up cadences for these groups, or adjusting messaging to better resonate.

Recent research by the Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions even explored using AI-generated “digital twins” to simulate responses from underrepresented groups, offering a novel way to both understand and fill gaps caused by nonresponse.

Using AI Wisely

Now, as much as I wish it was, implementing AI isn’t just plug-and-play. It requires a thoughtful approach. Here are some things I like to keep in mind when integrating AI into existing processes.

• Good foundational data. I can’t say this enough – AI runs on data. If your underlying customer data is messy, incomplete, or biased, the AI’s output will inherit those flaws. Data quality is job one.
• Human oversight and critical thinking. AI is a tool, not a decision-maker. We still need to define the goals, select the right AI approach for the specific problem, critically evaluate the AI’s output (does the segmentation really make sense for our business?), ensure ethical use (privacy, fairness, avoiding algorithmic bias), and interpret the results in context.

As tech ethicist Tristan Harris often implies, tools shape our choices – we need to understand how AI is shaping our sampling choices and ensure it aligns with our research integrity.

• Transparency. Whenever possible, understand how the AI is reaching its conclusions. “Black box” algorithms can be risky if you can’t explain or validate their reasoning. Look for tools or methods that offer some level of transparency.
• Integration. The most effective AI tools will likely be those that integrate smoothly into your existing workflows – connecting with your CRM data, survey platforms, and analysis tools, rather than requiring completely separate, manual processes.

My take? AI isn’t here to automate away the need for a smart sampling strategy in a representative sample, but it offers some genuinely exciting ways to make executing those strategies more efficient, potentially more accurate, and maybe even more insightful.

It’s about using these powerful tools as leverage, guided by sound research principles and human judgment.

My Final Thoughts: Listening to the Right Voices

Building a representative sample takes deliberate effort. It takes clear definitions, careful calculations, thoughtful method selection, clean lists, and critical evaluation. It’s more involved than just sending a mass email.

But the confidence it brings in business is invaluable. It’s the difference between guessing and knowing (with statistical confidence, at least!). It’s the foundation for making smarter investments, building better products, and creating experiences that genuinely connect with the diverse needs across your customer base.

Companies that truly listen – and representative sampling is fundamental to how you listen effectively – are the ones that build stronger relationships and lasting success. Consider that increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can increase profits by 25% to 95%.

Understanding and acting on feedback from a representative sample is key to achieving that retention.

For me, striving for representative samples isn’t just about better data — it’s about respecting our customers enough to hear them fairly. When you commit to that, you move beyond just collecting feedback to building real understanding. And that understanding, rooted in reality, is probably the most valuable asset any business focused on its customers can have.

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