Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Intro (00:01):
Do you live in a world filled with corporate data? Are
you plagued by siloedapartments? Are your lackluster
growth strategies demolishingyour chances for success? Are
you held captive by the evilmenace, lord lack, lack of time,
lack of strategy, and lack ofthe most important and powerful
(00:22):
tool in your superhero toolbelt? Knowledge.
Never fear hub heroes. Get readyto don your cape and mask, move
into action, and become the hubhero your organization needs.
Tune in each week to join theleague of extraordinary inbound
heroes as we help you educate,empower, and execute. Hub
(00:46):
Heroes, it's time to unite andactivate your powers.
George B. Thomas (00:52):
Oh, yeah. Activate those powers, baby.
Alright. Yeah.
Liz Moorehead (00:58):
So we're back for part two of the service hub
knowledge based conversation.Yeah. I'm excited, but I've
gotta be honest, gentlemen.George, just go ahead and derail
us. What's going on?
George B. Thomas (01:09):
No. No. Not yet. No. No.
Not yet.
Liz Moorehead (01:12):
You can't say.
George B. Thomas (01:13):
No. What?
Max Cohen (01:16):
What's going on, George? Alright. I got it here,
Ellis.
Liz Moorehead (01:20):
We're here.
George B. Thomas (01:20):
We're we're gonna talk about we're we are.
We're gonna talk about theknowledge base and some things
and all that. But but I got I'mexcited. And I gotta talk about
something. I I've gotta sharewith the world something that's
happening this Friday.
Friday, the sixth, twenty twentyfive, Eastern Standard Time.
Max Cohen (01:41):
I'm not available.
George B. Thomas (01:42):
I don't know if anybody has heard yet. And so
I'm letting you know that thereis a HubSpot help call in show.
What? It's gonna start happeningevery Friday from 3PM to 4PM
Eastern. Ladies and gentlemen,listen closely.
One, Mr. Kyle Jepsen will be onthe show.
Liz Moorehead (02:05):
Shut the front door.
George B. Thomas (02:06):
Number two, Rob Jones will be on the show.
Hold on, hold on. Number three,Casey Hawkins will be on the
show. Hey, wait, wait, wait. Andyes, your boy, George B.
Thomas will be on the show. Thefour of us are going to start
showing up on Fridays. You cancall in. By the way, there's a
(02:28):
voicemail. Like if you get likeonline shy, which is kind of
weird, like, but whatever.
But if you get online shy,there's a phone number that
we're going to be dropping laterthis week that you can call in
and you can leave a voicemail towhich we'll then put on the show
that way. Or you can call in andwe'll take your question and I'm
(02:49):
excited because my mind goes tolike, here's the scenario,
right? Somebody asks a questionand Kyle goes, oh, you could
ABC. And then Rob Jones goes,yeah, yeah, yeah. And because of
ABC, you could one, two, three.
And then Casey Hawkins jumps in,oh, yeah. And then you could
XYZ. And I don't know whatnumbers or letters I'll use, but
(03:10):
I'm sure I'll have somethingthat I could put on top of that
and be like, and so just the wayto help these.
Liz Moorehead (03:19):
Oh, there we
Max Cohen (03:20):
go.
George B. Thomas (03:20):
Like we do here, but there. So we're
literally hitting Mondaymornings, Friday afternoons,
helping humans with Hubzard.Okay, I'm done. That was the
derail.
Liz Moorehead (03:33):
Now, question. Where can people watch this
show? Was it LinkedIn you said?Or are
George B. Thomas (03:38):
you So going to go over to Profoundly's
LinkedIn channel. There's moredetails. I don't have it in
front of me. But yes, it'sLinkedIn that you can go and
sign up for or attend or justhit the buttons and
Chad Hohn (03:52):
Whatever the live thing is.
George B. Thomas (03:53):
Profoundly, go find it. This show is gonna be
I'm excited. Did it hit It'sfreaking amazing. That I'm
excited. The sketch.
Yeah.
Max Cohen (04:03):
Me and Chad are gonna call in.
George B. Thomas (04:05):
Yeah. Yes.
Max Cohen (04:06):
Under a under a under a pseudonym.
George B. Thomas (04:09):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What? I'll know it's you.
Spot. I'll know it's you whenyou're like
Max Cohen (04:13):
I'll just call him. What? I need to reset my
password. How do I do that?
George B. Thomas (04:18):
Yeah. Yeah. I I can I can hear Max? This is
more black. Yeah.
Yeah.
Liz Moorehead (04:25):
Yeah. No. I'll call it. I haven't organized my
HubSpot hub data in ten years.What do I do?
Okay.
George B. Thomas (04:36):
Brother, this guy sank. Okay. Let's get into
the good stuff. All
Liz Moorehead (04:42):
right. So we are back for part two of our HubSpot
Service Hub knowledge basedconversation. If you missed the
last episode in this series, Ihighly recommend you go back and
check it out. You do not need tolisten to it in order to dive
into today's discussion, but wegot into a really fascinating
sidebar conversation about whatit means to build a healthy
(05:04):
culture inside of serviceorganizations that I think any
company should listen toregardless as to whether you
have a service team or not. Butwith that said, we're going to
be diving today into thetactics, the applications, the
actual doing of the thing whenit comes to knowledge base.
(05:24):
But first, George, let's say fora moment we've got some
listeners who are jumping intothis conversation midway. What
is the TLDR CliffsNotesdefinition of the knowledge
base? What is it? Where is it?Why is Yeah,
George B. Thomas (05:40):
yeah, yeah. So Service Hub, it's where you can
put information that customerswill need along the way. It's a
place where you as a HubSpotuser can be proactive instead of
reactive. But like, that's a bigpiece that I want to throw out
there. And so you can go intoyour HubSpot Hub.
(06:00):
If you have Service Hub, you canthen see knowledge articles,
which by the way, this is only afraction fraction of the
conversation that you shouldeven be having around Service
Hub in general for your But thenat the end of the day, well,
we'll get into it. We'll getinto what should be in there.
But service hub, knowledge base,multiple things that you should
(06:23):
be thinking about inside ofthere.
Liz Moorehead (06:25):
Love it. Max, Chad, any other CliffsNotes you
want to add to our listeners forour listeners before we get into
it?
George B. Thomas (06:32):
Yeah. I mean, the only
Max Cohen (06:33):
thing I'll reiterate, it's the it's, you know, it's
it's a heat shield. Right? Like,you wanna make sure that your
humans are focused on doing thereally tough work that actually
needs human intervention as muchas you can, and the knowledge
base is like the, you know, thefirst sort of shield to put up
to get those people to stopgetting hit with unnecessary
(06:53):
things. Yeah. Crack their timedown, burn them, or yeah.
George B. Thomas (06:56):
It feels like it would hurt.
Max Cohen (06:58):
It would hurt.
George B. Thomas (06:59):
Ouch. Yeah.
Chad Hohn (07:01):
Reentry. That's something. Mhmm. Yeah. I mean,
for for me, I think, also, Ijust wanna reiterate the
difference between, like,service hub versus support
tools, which is like, you know,Intercom, Zendesk, whatever.
If you're on HubSpot, but youhave those other tools, you
(07:24):
still don't necessarily have asperfectly integrated or well
knit view of your customersupport interactions along with
all their other interactionswith your business if you're on
HubSpot. Right? Even other toolslike Zendesk or whatever that
are out there, your ticketsaren't gonna be perfectly linked
(07:45):
or properly associated or all ofthe data of your communications
back and forth logged inHubSpot. And so I think Service
Hub is really like, you know,again, HubSpot's offering in the
place. And as we mentioned lasttime, it really is trading blows
with the big players out there,if not excelling in certain
areas and while they're notexcelling in certain areas or
(08:06):
they are excelling in otherareas still.
But they're they got a ton ofnew features coming out all the
time in Service Hub. It isreally one of the most heavily
advancing hubs, I think. They'repouring a lot of resources into
it. I've been working with thehelp desk team the past number
of, actually a couple years now.And they've they've they're
(08:27):
really cool.
They really got a a big heartfor the tool over there.
George B. Thomas (08:31):
Which which I'm glad to see because there
were years where we were like
Chad Hohn (08:36):
We have a conversations inbox that hooks
to tickets.
George B. Thomas (08:39):
Yeah. Is Service Hub gonna become
something? Well, it's something.It's something. And of course,
part of that is knowledge base.
Liz Moorehead (08:47):
Love it. Alright. Well, let's dig in, guys. First
question I have for you. Howshould organizations decide what
content belongs in theirknowledge base versus what
doesn't?
Max Cohen (09:01):
Yeah. I mean, the I think it's it's funny because, a
lot of people kind of, like,approach their blog without, you
know, kind of understanding thisthis fundamental point here.
Often oftentimes, people arejust writing about their own
product in their blog and how todo stuff and how it works and
(09:23):
everything when what they shouldbe writing about or goals and
challenges that people actuallyhave. And, the the content that
they wanna be writing, right,which is all that, is the exact
stuff that belongs in theknowledge base and not
necessarily the blog unless it'slike a very, you know, bottom of
the funnel decision stage pieceof content around your your
actual product. Right?
(09:45):
But, you know, it's again, thisis really a place where it's
like, you wanna know how to do xy z for your specific product.
That content goes here type ofsituation for me at
George B. Thomas (09:56):
least. Mhmm. Yeah. When I sit and think about
this, by the way, try to zoom upto like the 50,000 foot view and
think about like differentknowledge bases that I've seen,
good, bad and ugly. And thereare some organizations out there
that I feel like they think thisis like the digital junk drawer,
(10:17):
where it's like just differentdocuments and like copy and
pasted email replies and like,Oh, I had this brainstorm.
Let me throw that in theknowledge base too. And all of
that starts to equal confusion.And so even having this layer
of, Let me make sure that it'sthis strategic place. Let me
(10:37):
make sure it's this likeself-service powerhouse, kind of
like Max was leaning into like,so people aren't getting hit by
plasma. The words you want tothink of is self-service
powerhouse, because by the way,we'll talk about this in a
little bit, but like thedifferent places it could be
shown and used.
And so when I think about whatbelongs there, we can boil down
(11:01):
to something very simple. It isthe content that helps humans
help themselves. Right? It's anyof those reoccurring questions
that you get. It's any way thatyou can smooth out the friction
or save humans time or save yourhumans inside your organization
(11:21):
time from answering thatquestion for the forty seventh
time.
And so like, it needs to teach,It needs to kind of lead. It,
it, it, think troubleshooting,think problem solving. This is
not a place and, And again, Maxleaned into it. You're not
(11:43):
trying to get people bought in.You're not trying to get people
to convert.
Although what's fun is theamount of conversions that can
happen from knowledge articlesis quite insane if you're
measuring that. And by the way,did you know that it's now in
the campaign stool? I'm saying.That's not why we're here.
Sorry.
I'm just saying.
Max Cohen (11:59):
Well, I mean, also, it's like you're projecting how
good your support is on yourproduct, which is something
people evaluate. Right? Right.Like, if they go, oh, man, this
thing looks big and crazy, butthen they go, oh, wow. All the
every single thing I couldpossibly imagine that I needed
to be taught to use this isopenly available, easy for me to
find, and really kinda letspeople take a sneak peek of your
(12:19):
product without having to get ademo or something like that.
Like, it can be used as amarketing tool indirectly.
George B. Thomas (12:24):
Oh. Mhmm. Without a doubt. I would love to
see the numbers and then I'llshut up because I want to hear
what Chad has to say, but also Ihave some questions that maybe
the listeners could be askingthemselves. I'll circle back
around to that.
But before I shut up, I wouldlove to see the amount of data
around HubSpot's knowledgearticles that actually ended up
to conversions, that ended up inpositive ROI. Because I hope
(12:49):
that the reason that knowledgebase actually ended in a
campaigns, the campaigns tool,is because some one or some
army, small army of humans, hascollected a campaign of
knowledge articles, which is alot by the way, into some type
of internal HubSpot campaignwhere they can be like, Oh,
(13:11):
shoot. I feel like I shouldLike, swear there for Oh, shoot,
7,900,000.0 worth of, like,income or influenced income
based okay. I'll shut up. Chad,what are your thoughts?
Chad Hohn (13:24):
Well, I I was thinking about, you know, just
as well going back to thequestion. Right? Maybe one of
the things that shouldn't go inthe knowledge base is really
just, like, if it's proprietaryinformation. Right? If you have
some stuff that should be behinda password for subscribers or
(13:45):
users only that are almost likea level of trade secret or if
you have any kind of contractualor NDA type language with the
sales of your products forlarger organizations, might be
pretty relevant.
Right? But outside of that, it'sreally anything that can be
helpful because it's just like II second exactly what everybody
(14:06):
else was saying is, like, peoplewill evaluate what's in there on
the public facing side, just toreally know how helpful is your
tool or whatever service oroffering you're selling, like,
even if you're only sellingservices. Right? A knowledge
base is still helpful. Like,what does x package look like
(14:26):
when interacting with my brand?
Right? And really even beingable to get that question
answered and to train your your,customer service agent on that
information as well. Right?Your, your HubSpot AI agent that
can assist your support reps.Right?
Super, super helpful. So, like,the more you put in there, the
(14:50):
better it can answer questionswithout you having to manually
CSV upload or, you know, attachother documentation to it.
George B. Thomas (14:58):
Yeah. I love this. Okay. So I want the
listeners, viewers, humans, oh,shoot. Humans.
To have some type of kind offilter to apply mentally before
they, dare I say, write thearticle or look in an article
that AI has written to fill thegap based on some functionality
(15:21):
in HubSpot or definitely beforewe hit publish. And so a couple
of questions, you can jot thisdown in your notepad that you
can ask yourself before you hitpublish. One is, is this content
relevant to a customer'sexperience or a customer's goal?
Yes or no? Okay, check, yes.
Does it prevent frustration orreduce support volume? By the
(15:46):
way, the frustration of theexternal human or reduced
support volume of our internalteam. If yes, okay, check, we're
good. Would a new user or apower user or even a prospect
benefit from this content?Because by the way, I can only
imagine the amount of humansthat have stumbled into
knowledge articles before theyeven stumbled into the HubSpot
(16:08):
sales funnel.
Okay? Does it reflect how we,whatever your organization is,
talk as a brand? Not just how wewrite, but how we talk. Again,
Liz could probably wax poetic onthe importance of voice and
tone. Knowledge articles isn'tsomething you just turd out.
Right? Like you take time andyou make it something good. All
(16:29):
right. Those are some filters,some questions that you should
be asking about. Then, yes, yes,yes, yes.
Okay. Publish.
Liz Moorehead (16:38):
No. I love what
Max Cohen (16:39):
you mentioned there, George.
Liz Moorehead (16:40):
And we did touch upon this, I think in the first
part a little bit, but it isworth co signing here once more.
When we think about ourmarketing content or our sales
enablement content, in theory,we should all be thinking about
what is in some ways the userexperience of the content,
right? Voice, tone, visualstructure, things like that. And
(17:04):
I've noticed when I've looked ata lot of knowledge bases, a lot
of those thoughts just gocompletely out the window. It is
literally just like here is thebasest version of this answer
stripped of any sort ofexperience, any sort of
humanity.
(17:24):
And that's something that youeverybody needs to be mindful
of. Like, one of the reasons whyI was excited to see things like
knowledge based articles end upin campaigns is it has been a
maxim of every business fordecades that the place where you
can get the most revenue is fromwhere? The customers you already
have. And yet we do not give alot of thought to the experience
(17:46):
they have, not just from arevenue producing standpoint,
but also a delight standpoint.We want the humans we serve with
what we do ourselves better thananybody else to have a good
experience with us.
That includes the experiencethey have when you are answering
their questions. That is part ofyour product. That is part of
(18:10):
your service. That is how it isviewed.
George B. Thomas (18:13):
It's interesting because my brain
goes to two interesting placesbefore you head into the next
direction that we're headinglist. One, I've often sat back
and wondered if They Ask YouAnswer is truly the amazing blog
content creation process that ithas been in. What happens when
(18:34):
you apply They Ask You Answer toyour knowledge articles? I just
want you to, if you know whatI'm talking about, I want you to
think about that.
Liz Moorehead (18:41):
Here's It's the most literal interpretation
George B. Thomas (18:43):
of Oh my ask god. You Yeah. It's it's I mean,
anyway, but I don't think peoplemake that connection of like,
well, we've been using it foryears for blogging. How about we
use some of that stratagem stuffover there for the not Here's
the other thing that I wanna saytoo, and then I'll again be
quiet and we'll move on. Please,by all that is holy, make it
easy to find.
(19:05):
Please make sure that when it'seasy to find, it's relevant. And
I am speaking to HubSpot and somany other organizations right
now. Please, when it's easy tofind and relevant, can you make
it accurate? Let me talk aboutwhat I mean. There's nothing
worse than changing your entirenavigation of your SaaS software
(19:30):
or adding new features to an oldfeature and you go to a
knowledge article to find outabout it and you immediately go,
Well, this is outdated.
Please, by all that is holy,easy to find, relevant and have
a strategy to keep them updatedas your things change. And not
(19:54):
everybody listening or watchingthis as a SaaS software company.
So that's what I'm saying thingschange. But as your things
change, make sure that there's astrategy to keep the knowledge
articles accurate. Okay.
I think you get my point.
Liz Moorehead (20:07):
No, I get it. I love it. And I actually want to
stick with this thread a littlebit because we started moving
away from the what and the whatnot of what goes in your
knowledge base but let's talkabout once you have that
content, once you have thosebanging knowledge base articles
out there where are some of theoverlooked opportunities to
(20:30):
integrate that content intoother parts of the experience?
Because I think sometimes whatcan happen, right, is you create
this mecca, this giant mountainof beautiful knowledge based
content, and then you just sitthere like, well, we're writing.
Come find us.
But that's not necessarily howit should work. There should be
a distribution strategy aroundit. Right?
George B. Thomas (20:53):
Yeah. What are you guys' thoughts? Yeah. You
gotta make
Max Cohen (20:56):
it you gotta make it like a an actual tangible usable
tool for your for your salesreps. Right? So, like, you gotta
think about all the little funkyfunky little tricky ways that it
integrates with everything thatHubSpot already has. Right? I
remember one of the originalreasons that I, you know, like,
thought the the the knowledgebase was so cool is that back, I
(21:19):
think, when it, like, had cameout, I feel like it launched
with the ability when you werewriting an email to just be able
to click a button and insert aknowledge base article.
Like, you could search yoursearch your articles from this
little, like, drop down. Right?And even something like that
where it's just like, oh, Idon't gotta go, you know, take
time and, like, go find thearticles and and, like, go,
(21:43):
like, look into it and, like,Google it, look into it, grab
it, get the link, and then comeback to it. Like, I could
literally just, you know, as I'mon the phone with someone, be
like, oh, yeah. I'll email youthis knowledge base article.
Oh, let me see if we have aknowledge base article on that.
Right? Now we're way past that.Right? Like, we've got knowledge
or these these customer agentsgetting trained on the
information.
(22:03):
You know, we've got all thesethese tools to help you, like,
write and create the content.But, like, you know, I think the
the the big part is is, like,train your team on how to use it
as a weapon in combatingcustomer issues. Right? And find
all these little places whereyou can, like, surface this
stuff. Whether it's, you know,kinda like what I just said,
your your your folks who areworking with people having the
(22:26):
ability to reference it and sendthat stuff to people right away
through the HubSpot interfaceinstead of having to actually go
to the knowledge base and findit that way.
But the other thing is, like,not everyone is gonna know know
you have a knowledge base. Like,I feel like us in the in the
marketing tech space are arelike, we intuitively know that I
(22:47):
can type in company nameknowledge base, and there's
probably a knowledge base we cango find. Not all customers are
like that, though. That's like avery marketing tech brain thing
that we all have that not therest of the world has. Right?
That we don't think is, like, soobvious. So it it comes down to,
like, make it easy to find.Right? When someone comes to
your website and they starttalking to your chatbot, right,
(23:09):
or whatever it is, the littlething that pops up, yo, you can
build your knowledge base intothat now. And when I say build,
I mean, check a button and haveit show up.
Right? Like, you gotta givepeople easy ways to find it.
Right? Whether that's puttingit, like, front and center in
your, like, top navigation orbig CTA button somewhere on your
website or as part of youronboarding journey to whatever
(23:31):
product you have, you'repointing people to there. Right?
Like, don't just assume peopleare gonna find it on Google.
Right? Sure. There will bepeople that do that, but not
everyone's gonna do it. Youknow?
So, like, find different waysthat HubSpot can help you put it
in front of people. And it's notjust your customers, it's your
internal folks as well. So theycan easily access it
ergonomically and use it as aweapon.
George B. Thomas (23:53):
Yeah. So I wanna jump in here and then just
for a quick second, I might flipback around after you, Chad, but
I wanna give you a chance totalk. But because Max, you
brought up, and I'm gonna putthese together, and I don't mean
any disrespect to a customeragent, but let's say chatbots or
You're
Max Cohen (24:13):
about bot to be hella disrespectful.
George B. Thomas (24:15):
And customer agent, right? Like I'm going to
put that in a bucket, that livechat, chat bots, or customer
agent. I just want everybody torealize, like, if you look at
the knowledge article aboutCustomer Agent, which by the way
now is a standalone or soontoday, tomorrow, I don't know,
soon, by the time you'relistening to this dang on it,
(24:37):
it'll be standalone. Let's justput it that way. But when you go
to the article on customeragent, and you go to the best
practices section, it says whenworking with customer agent,
it's recommended that you usecontent sources that, and the
number one on the list of one,two, three, four, five, six
(24:58):
things contain common userqueries, comprehensive
information, and are regularlyupdated.
For example, FAQs and knowledgebase articles. If you go over to
another one where it's like, addcontent sources, it literally
says click the sync HubSpotcontent drop down menu and
(25:19):
select HubSpot content. You cansync knowledge base articles,
website pages, landing pages,and blogs. So like, we're not
even talking about how maybehistorically this was a nice to
have if you gave two shitsabout, oh, if you gave two craps
about your customer, sorry
Max Cohen (25:39):
It wasn't me. It wasn't me.
George B. Thomas (25:40):
Please, please Apple, don't make us explicit
Max Cohen (25:43):
because I'm I'm not trying to doing Morse code to
get an apology. Yeah,
George B. Thomas (25:46):
yeah, yeah. Help! If you gave two craps
about your customer, like now itis a very foundational needed
piece to get a pretty amazing AIassistant
Intro (26:01):
to
George B. Thomas (26:02):
actually work right. Okay. I'll shut up, Chad.
What are your thoughts?
Chad Hohn (26:05):
Well, I was gonna, I think, tap on, what Max was
talking about, which was theputting it in front of both your
humans and, you know, the humansthat use your tool or product.
And that I, you know, I I don'tknow if people know necessarily,
because they don't necessarilyperuse the old API docs all the
time. But there is a chat widgetSDK. Right? So software
(26:29):
development kit where you can,if you have a SaaS product, not
just like put the widget like onyour website, but actually get
into the widget behavior eventsand like allow users to see all
their open support threads withyour business and start new
(26:50):
threads.
And that also allows thecustomer agent to serve up KBAs
to them with natural languagequeries, just like asking
ChatGPT but trained on yourstuff. Right? And so, like, if
you actually have a SaaS productand you're running your support
through HubSpot, it will reallylet you serve your customers
(27:12):
where they're at, which is inyour product, right, without
them having to email or call ortext or whatever, you know, with
your team. So very, very, Ithink, helpful if you're
especially SaaS.
George B. Thomas (27:27):
I love that in product kind of help widgets
that you're talking Here'sanother place I want you to
think about, because you couldhave in automated email replies,
like you could add additionalvalue. For instance, if you're
using Hub Spot, you're listeningto this podcast. You're using
Hub Spot. I'm just saying. Youhave something that is smart
(27:49):
content.
Imagine adding a hidden sectionthat only people who are
customers see based off of thembeing a list of customers that
are, Did you know? And it havinglike two or three knowledge
articles that might be relatedto the thing that they've
actually gone into a funnelaround or downloaded or whatever
(28:10):
place it is. But think aboutautomated emails and smart
content to be able to deliverthese knowledge articles in
places. If you're doing any typeof onboarding and you don't have
links to your knowledge articlesfor people to get back. Like I
literally use HubSpot projectstool when I'm training new
(28:31):
humans on HubSpot and most of myprojects that I, cause I, and
here's why I can share it frommy portal to other portals.
And so most of my projects havelike videos we've done, but also
then a plethora of knowledgearticles that I know exist, but
I can curate for a training oronboarding flow, the information
(28:54):
that they might want to dig inor go deeper based off of the
training that they just had.Okay. So you have to think about
where are all the places, whereall are the interactions
happening, and what knowledgebased articles make sense to
show up in those spaces andtimes.
Chad Hohn (29:13):
Well, there's two things I was thinking about
while you were talking there,George. And I was really
interested thinking, you know,how we have the customer agent
or sorry. Well, we have customeragent, obviously, but we also
have, like, Breeze workflowactions. Right? Yep.
And one of those Breeze workflowactions, you could just, like, I
think possibly on aconversation, started event
(29:35):
because you can like startconversation based workflows,
possibly get the data from thefirst email that comes in, you
know, and try and, like, parseout what their inquiry is really
about with that. But also thecustomer agent now can reply to
emails, and I don't I haven'tmessed with the configuration of
it yet. But I'm wondering ifthere would be a helpful way for
(29:58):
it to, like, have a specialblock that is specifically
related to the knowledge basearticles relevant to their
inquiry if it can find any.Right? Yeah.
Interesting. So, I mean, there'sa couple of things, like, maybe
you could try and actuallyextract that information out,
right, and try and give themdynamic responses based on what
(30:20):
they're talking to you about.
Liz Moorehead (30:21):
I also think there's a good opportunity just
to be this nerd for a second.There's an opportunity to just
directly link them in yourmarketing and sales enablement
content, particularly if you'redoing more bottom of the funnel
stuff. You know, like, if you'rewriting about what are your
first ninety days like with ourcompany? Mhmm. You know, these
are the most common questions weget.
You can then link to thosearticles to show this is how we
(30:44):
support you throughout thatprocess. I mean, whenever you
think about any piece of contentthat you're creating, I mean,
obviously, if it's moreeducational, top of the funnel,
not really dealing with theproduct or service, like let's
not go too crazy. We don't needa kitchen sink. But if you're
really starting to think aboutways in which you show early on
(31:05):
and often how much support andcare is a part of the product or
service that you sell, thebetter off you're going to be.
Tells that story earlier.
It makes people feel safer andmore secure earlier. They feel
more confident in a potentialpurchase that they might be
making with you. You know, I'veworked at a company where we had
(31:27):
knowledge based articles, andthey would often be included
when we were talking withprospects before they had signed
on the bottom line. Like, thisis actually a question we get a
lot and obviously it's going todepend on your x y z a b c
circumstances, but these are thesome of the ways in which we can
help you. So there are ways inwhich to organically include
(31:48):
this content in the compmarketing and sales
conversations you're having.
You know, again context mattersbecause if you're not striking
it at that right balance of itis relevant, the intent matters,
it's just gonna look like you'regiving a knowledge pile on. But
just think about the ways inwhich you could start telling
(32:09):
that story earlier in a way thatis relevant, intentional, and
purposeful in the moment thatyou're talking. So I know we
only have a few minutes lefthere, but I want to throw this
out there. I know you guys havealready started talking about
some interesting ways andoutside of the box ideas in
terms of how knowledge basedcontent could be used. But have
we seen any other creative oradvanced ways teams are using
(32:33):
knowledge base to go beyond thebasics?
Max Cohen (32:35):
I mean, it the other thing to remember is that, like,
we're we're back when knowledgebase first came out, I think the
biggest limiting factor was thatyou could only have one
knowledge base. Right? Youcouldn't have multiple ones. So,
like, one, keep in mind, youcould have multiple knowledge
bases. Right?
So, like, whether that's havingdifferent ones for different
product lines that you have orif it makes sense. Right? If
(32:57):
you're doing multi brand stuffin HubSpot, it's kind of an
obviously up there. But theother thing too is, like, you
can put those knowledge bases ondifferent domains. Right?
You can put them behind likeSSO. Right? You can use them for
like internal company stuff.They don't have to be public
facing. Right?
(33:17):
So, you know, I've seen somecompanies kind of like build
their like company intranet offof like, knowledge bases and
just having, you know, all thatstuff be gated membership
content that can only be seen byfolks who are on a list of
contacts that have the internalcompany as their email address.
Right? So, you know, thinkoutside of the box. It's a lot
(33:37):
more flexible than it used tobe, you know, and it doesn't
have to just be for yourcustomers. Like your employees
to an extent need a knowledgebase too as well.
Right? So just keep that inmind.
George B. Thomas (33:47):
So so there's a couple of things I'll throw
out here Because again, I don'tknow how in the weeds with the
service hub or knowledge base ingeneral, people who might be
listening. Like you might justbe one of those guys or gals
that just has Marketing Hub orjust has Sales Hub or just has
(34:09):
Marketing and Sales Hub. So Ithink when I get this question,
Liz, from you, my brain goes tolike, one, did you know that
like there's a new knowledgebase? And by the way, if you
have the old knowledge base, youcould go see if you can migrate
to the new knowledge basebecause you're going to be able
to do some customization becausethere's now customization tools
(34:33):
in the knowledge base. Causethat was like a big issue of
like, you can't make it likesuper dope, right?
Chad Hohn (34:39):
It was like old HubSpot forms. Everyone looked
the same about, just about,right? Outside of a couple
colors.
George B. Thomas (34:45):
Yep, yep, exactly. Here's the other thing
too, is like, you need to thinkabout like private con And
again, kind of where Max washeaded or what Max was talking
about, like a cousin sisterbrother of this is like the idea
of private content. And like, sothere can be like the SEO valued
(35:07):
kind of what we've beenoverarchingly talking about if
somebody can Google it. But likeimagine there could be a deeper
level private content knowledgebased stuff happening as well.
But here's the thing, if wedon't talk about like how
HubSpot can actually writeknowledge articles for you now
based on finding the gaps.
(35:29):
Like if you don't have thatturned on or in your brain using
that, I think that's a definitebonus that we could think about.
Yeah, that's where my braingoes.
Chad Hohn (35:43):
I I once, saw a team using they were using there was
actually, like, the websitewidget inside of their SaaS
product to tell page usageinside of their because their
their SaaS product, even on themobile app, was also just an
embedded website, essentially.So you embed a website in the
(36:04):
native mobile app for, like, appstores and stuff. They were
using that widget to track pageusage to almost do kind of like
an Amplitude or Pendo productusage sort of analytics to be
able to tell what help articleswere going to be most relevant
(36:26):
along with inquiries that theywere getting. This was like
years ago before we had any, youknow, like chat widget SDK or
other types of things that wewould, you know, now have in the
HubSpot docs and in the HubSpottools. But, I think that was,
like, a really interesting waythat they were leveraging native
(36:46):
HubSpot stuff to build up thecorrect, most high value content
for their users by seeing whattheir what pages their people
are on and, what like, also,were able to track some error
logging to it as well, like inin some some capacity, drop some
notes on the contact records.
(37:07):
The these were, like, errorissues that we were able to see.
The support reps understood thisperson's had error logs
recently, if that makes sense.Right? Yeah. Oh, nice.
When they go to their ticket,it's real really helpful. Oh,
This person has like 10 errorsin the last twenty four hours.
George B. Thomas (37:23):
Yeah. I love that. Oh, before, because I know
we're running out of time, Ihave to say one thing. We could
have gotten through this entireepisode, And we've used the word
knowledge based articles, whichmy worry is that people are
stuck in a mindset of it's onlytextual information. So one
(37:46):
other thing that I wish Hub Spotdid more of, and I hope you as a
listener will do more of isembedding rich media, video,
interactive modules, GIFs.
Uh-oh. I just sparked somethingin Max brain. Hang on. Gotta
Max Cohen (38:02):
be very excited.
George B. Thomas (38:02):
Yeah. Like, I I wanna see more like, your boy
needs you to show me. Like, Ithink that's why I loved
creating tutorials so much isbecause that's my love language
is just show me how to do thething. Like, don't necessarily
want to read if I can watch. Andso make sure that you're kind of
leaning into that.
(38:23):
How do we create a mediaexperience? By the way, I'm also
leaning into this because in thefuture, I totally want to do an
episode where we unpack the newvideo platform inside of I've
mentioned that just in passingto a couple clients and also
folks that I've been on callswith. And as soon as I say video
(38:43):
platform in HubSpot, I get, oh.So a, you have a video platform
in HubSpot that you could beediting and then using these
videos in your knowledgearticles. Max, you sat up real
quick when I said that.
Max Cohen (38:58):
I mean, I I did a cool thing. I we we have this,
like, new feature in EventHappily that we've been kind of,
like, building out, and itinvolves, you know, a field that
without getting too much detail,you have to create this, like,
JSON string and put it into afield, and it does this, like,
really cool stuff. Right?
George B. Thomas (39:17):
Hashtag
Max Cohen (39:17):
money. But no one likes to write JSON strings,
including me. Right? They'relong and hard to write. Know,
like I kinda like
George B. Thomas (39:23):
Chad does. Chad actually probably does like
the right JSON strings.
Max Cohen (39:27):
Yeah. Go ahead. Into it. So I went on ChatGPT, and I
had ChatGPT build me a generatorthat would automatically
generate these JSON stringsbased on selections I'd make in
a form and some data that wouldput into it. And then I took
that, and I told ChatGPT to giveme the code in an embeddable
format.
(39:48):
And then I went on to theknowledge base where I wrote an
article that explained thisfield, and then I embedded the
tool to generate the JSON thingfrom ChatGPT right into the
knowledge base article. So,like, literally, it explains how
the property works, and then itgoes, you don't wanna write
JSON. We have a little tool foryou. Boom. It's like, dude, I'm
(40:10):
not a coder, but I was able to,like, build that, which one, AI
is sick.
Yeah. I'm starting to understandit. I get it. Right? Boom.
But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It'sconverting. Dagger.
Chill up. Chill up.
George B. Thomas (40:20):
Chill up. Oh my god.
Max Cohen (40:24):
But it's the the point there is, like, you can
embed content into knowledgebased articles. Right? So, like,
you're not just limited to textor video or pictures. There's
other stuff that you can dothere. And especially with tools
like ChatGPT, right, the thingsthat you can create and embed,
(40:44):
they could be tools as well.
Yeah. It doesn't have to just bewhat you might be used to being
able to, like, slap onto aWYSIWYG editor website page.
George B. Thomas (40:52):
Right? Max, keep that I love you.
Max Cohen (40:54):
I love you too.
George B. Thomas (40:55):
It's a whole new world. Max, so there's two
bought
Max Cohen (40:59):
a PS five, so I'm pretty stoked about that.
George, you know, my favoritepart about that thing was you
basically answered question Ialways ask you at the
Liz Moorehead (41:06):
end of every episode. What's one thing you
want somebody
Max Cohen (41:09):
to take away from this? And I think that was
probably one
Liz Moorehead (41:11):
of the most important things. You
Max Cohen (41:13):
know? Mhmm.
Liz Moorehead (41:14):
Think about the different types of media. Think
about the different ways to tellthe story of helpfulness. Yeah.
So you gotta help all thosehumans out there.
George B. Thomas (41:24):
At the end of the day, it comes down to this.
Help the humans.
Liz Moorehead (41:30):
Oh, yeah.
George B. Thomas (41:32):
Okay, hub heroes. We've reached the end of
another episode. Will Lord Lackcontinue to loom over the
community or will we be able todefeat him in the next episode
of the hub heroes podcast? Makesure you tune in and find out in
the next episode. Make sure youhead over to the hubheroes.com
to get the latest episodes andbecome part of the league of
(41:55):
heroes.
FYI, if you're part of theleague of heroes, you'll get the
show notes right in your inboxand they come with some hidden
power up potential as well. Makesure you share this podcast with
a friend. Leave a review if youlike what you're listening to
and use the hashtag hashtag hubheroes podcast on any of the
socials and let us know whatstrategy conversation you'd like
(42:18):
to listen into next. Until nexttime, when we meet and combine
our forces, remember to be ahappy, helpful, humble human,
and of course, be looking for away to be someone's hero.
Do you live in a world filled with corporate data? Are
you plagued by siloedapartments? Are your lackluster
growth strategies demolishingyour chances for success? Are
you held captive by the evilmenace, lord lack, lack of time,
lack of strategy, and lack ofthe most important and powerful
(00:22):
tool in your superhero toolbelt? Knowledge.
Never fear hub heroes. Get readyto don your cape and mask, move
into action, and become the hubhero your organization needs.
Tune in each week to join theleague of extraordinary inbound
heroes as we help you educate,empower, and execute. Hub
(00:46):
Heroes, it's time to unite andactivate your powers.
George B. Thomas (00:52):
Oh, yeah. Activate those powers, baby.
Alright. Yeah.
Liz Moorehead (00:58):
So we're back for part two of the service hub
knowledge based conversation.Yeah. I'm excited, but I've
gotta be honest, gentlemen.George, just go ahead and derail
us. What's going on?
George B. Thomas (01:09):
No. No. Not yet. No. No.
Not yet.
Liz Moorehead (01:12):
You can't say.
George B. Thomas (01:13):
No. What?
Max Cohen (01:16):
What's going on, George? Alright. I got it here,
Ellis.
Liz Moorehead (01:20):
We're here.
George B. Thomas (01:20):
We're we're gonna talk about we're we are.
We're gonna talk about theknowledge base and some things
and all that. But but I got I'mexcited. And I gotta talk about
something. I I've gotta sharewith the world something that's
happening this Friday.
Friday, the sixth, twenty twentyfive, Eastern Standard Time.
Max Cohen (01:41):
I'm not available.
George B. Thomas (01:42):
I don't know if anybody has heard yet. And so
I'm letting you know that thereis a HubSpot help call in show.
What? It's gonna start happeningevery Friday from 3PM to 4PM
Eastern. Ladies and gentlemen,listen closely.
One, Mr. Kyle Jepsen will be onthe show.
Liz Moorehead (02:05):
Shut the front door.
George B. Thomas (02:06):
Number two, Rob Jones will be on the show.
Hold on, hold on. Number three,Casey Hawkins will be on the
show. Hey, wait, wait, wait. Andyes, your boy, George B.
Thomas will be on the show. Thefour of us are going to start
showing up on Fridays. You cancall in. By the way, there's a
(02:28):
voicemail. Like if you get likeonline shy, which is kind of
weird, like, but whatever.
But if you get online shy,there's a phone number that
we're going to be dropping laterthis week that you can call in
and you can leave a voicemail towhich we'll then put on the show
that way. Or you can call in andwe'll take your question and I'm
(02:49):
excited because my mind goes tolike, here's the scenario,
right? Somebody asks a questionand Kyle goes, oh, you could
ABC. And then Rob Jones goes,yeah, yeah, yeah. And because of
ABC, you could one, two, three.
And then Casey Hawkins jumps in,oh, yeah. And then you could
XYZ. And I don't know whatnumbers or letters I'll use, but
(03:10):
I'm sure I'll have somethingthat I could put on top of that
and be like, and so just the wayto help these.
Liz Moorehead (03:19):
Oh, there we
Max Cohen (03:20):
go.
George B. Thomas (03:20):
Like we do here, but there. So we're
literally hitting Mondaymornings, Friday afternoons,
helping humans with Hubzard.Okay, I'm done. That was the
derail.
Liz Moorehead (03:33):
Now, question. Where can people watch this
show? Was it LinkedIn you said?Or are
George B. Thomas (03:38):
you So going to go over to Profoundly's
LinkedIn channel. There's moredetails. I don't have it in
front of me. But yes, it'sLinkedIn that you can go and
sign up for or attend or justhit the buttons and
Chad Hohn (03:52):
Whatever the live thing is.
George B. Thomas (03:53):
Profoundly, go find it. This show is gonna be
I'm excited. Did it hit It'sfreaking amazing. That I'm
excited. The sketch.
Yeah.
Max Cohen (04:03):
Me and Chad are gonna call in.
George B. Thomas (04:05):
Yeah. Yes.
Max Cohen (04:06):
Under a under a under a pseudonym.
George B. Thomas (04:09):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What? I'll know it's you.
Spot. I'll know it's you whenyou're like
Max Cohen (04:13):
I'll just call him. What? I need to reset my
password. How do I do that?
George B. Thomas (04:18):
Yeah. Yeah. I I can I can hear Max? This is
more black. Yeah.
Yeah.
Liz Moorehead (04:25):
Yeah. No. I'll call it. I haven't organized my
HubSpot hub data in ten years.What do I do?
Okay.
George B. Thomas (04:36):
Brother, this guy sank. Okay. Let's get into
the good stuff. All
Liz Moorehead (04:42):
right. So we are back for part two of our HubSpot
Service Hub knowledge basedconversation. If you missed the
last episode in this series, Ihighly recommend you go back and
check it out. You do not need tolisten to it in order to dive
into today's discussion, but wegot into a really fascinating
sidebar conversation about whatit means to build a healthy
(05:04):
culture inside of serviceorganizations that I think any
company should listen toregardless as to whether you
have a service team or not. Butwith that said, we're going to
be diving today into thetactics, the applications, the
actual doing of the thing whenit comes to knowledge base.
(05:24):
But first, George, let's say fora moment we've got some
listeners who are jumping intothis conversation midway. What
is the TLDR CliffsNotesdefinition of the knowledge
base? What is it? Where is it?Why is Yeah,
George B. Thomas (05:40):
yeah, yeah. So Service Hub, it's where you can
put information that customerswill need along the way. It's a
place where you as a HubSpotuser can be proactive instead of
reactive. But like, that's a bigpiece that I want to throw out
there. And so you can go intoyour HubSpot Hub.
(06:00):
If you have Service Hub, you canthen see knowledge articles,
which by the way, this is only afraction fraction of the
conversation that you shouldeven be having around Service
Hub in general for your But thenat the end of the day, well,
we'll get into it. We'll getinto what should be in there.
But service hub, knowledge base,multiple things that you should
(06:23):
be thinking about inside ofthere.
Liz Moorehead (06:25):
Love it. Max, Chad, any other CliffsNotes you
want to add to our listeners forour listeners before we get into
it?
George B. Thomas (06:32):
Yeah. I mean, the only
Max Cohen (06:33):
thing I'll reiterate, it's the it's, you know, it's
it's a heat shield. Right? Like,you wanna make sure that your
humans are focused on doing thereally tough work that actually
needs human intervention as muchas you can, and the knowledge
base is like the, you know, thefirst sort of shield to put up
to get those people to stopgetting hit with unnecessary
(06:53):
things. Yeah. Crack their timedown, burn them, or yeah.
George B. Thomas (06:56):
It feels like it would hurt.
Max Cohen (06:58):
It would hurt.
George B. Thomas (06:59):
Ouch. Yeah.
Chad Hohn (07:01):
Reentry. That's something. Mhmm. Yeah. I mean,
for for me, I think, also, Ijust wanna reiterate the
difference between, like,service hub versus support
tools, which is like, you know,Intercom, Zendesk, whatever.
If you're on HubSpot, but youhave those other tools, you
(07:24):
still don't necessarily have asperfectly integrated or well
knit view of your customersupport interactions along with
all their other interactionswith your business if you're on
HubSpot. Right? Even other toolslike Zendesk or whatever that
are out there, your ticketsaren't gonna be perfectly linked
(07:45):
or properly associated or all ofthe data of your communications
back and forth logged inHubSpot. And so I think Service
Hub is really like, you know,again, HubSpot's offering in the
place. And as we mentioned lasttime, it really is trading blows
with the big players out there,if not excelling in certain
areas and while they're notexcelling in certain areas or
(08:06):
they are excelling in otherareas still.
But they're they got a ton ofnew features coming out all the
time in Service Hub. It isreally one of the most heavily
advancing hubs, I think. They'repouring a lot of resources into
it. I've been working with thehelp desk team the past number
of, actually a couple years now.And they've they've they're
(08:27):
really cool.
They really got a a big heartfor the tool over there.
George B. Thomas (08:31):
Which which I'm glad to see because there
were years where we were like
Chad Hohn (08:36):
We have a conversations inbox that hooks
to tickets.
George B. Thomas (08:39):
Yeah. Is Service Hub gonna become
something? Well, it's something.It's something. And of course,
part of that is knowledge base.
Liz Moorehead (08:47):
Love it. Alright. Well, let's dig in, guys. First
question I have for you. Howshould organizations decide what
content belongs in theirknowledge base versus what
doesn't?
Max Cohen (09:01):
Yeah. I mean, the I think it's it's funny because, a
lot of people kind of, like,approach their blog without, you
know, kind of understanding thisthis fundamental point here.
Often oftentimes, people arejust writing about their own
product in their blog and how todo stuff and how it works and
(09:23):
everything when what they shouldbe writing about or goals and
challenges that people actuallyhave. And, the the content that
they wanna be writing, right,which is all that, is the exact
stuff that belongs in theknowledge base and not
necessarily the blog unless it'slike a very, you know, bottom of
the funnel decision stage pieceof content around your your
actual product. Right?
(09:45):
But, you know, it's again, thisis really a place where it's
like, you wanna know how to do xy z for your specific product.
That content goes here type ofsituation for me at
George B. Thomas (09:56):
least. Mhmm. Yeah. When I sit and think about
this, by the way, try to zoom upto like the 50,000 foot view and
think about like differentknowledge bases that I've seen,
good, bad and ugly. And thereare some organizations out there
that I feel like they think thisis like the digital junk drawer,
(10:17):
where it's like just differentdocuments and like copy and
pasted email replies and like,Oh, I had this brainstorm.
Let me throw that in theknowledge base too. And all of
that starts to equal confusion.And so even having this layer
of, Let me make sure that it'sthis strategic place. Let me
(10:37):
make sure it's this likeself-service powerhouse, kind of
like Max was leaning into like,so people aren't getting hit by
plasma. The words you want tothink of is self-service
powerhouse, because by the way,we'll talk about this in a
little bit, but like thedifferent places it could be
shown and used.
And so when I think about whatbelongs there, we can boil down
(11:01):
to something very simple. It isthe content that helps humans
help themselves. Right? It's anyof those reoccurring questions
that you get. It's any way thatyou can smooth out the friction
or save humans time or save yourhumans inside your organization
(11:21):
time from answering thatquestion for the forty seventh
time.
And so like, it needs to teach,It needs to kind of lead. It,
it, it, think troubleshooting,think problem solving. This is
not a place and, And again, Maxleaned into it. You're not
(11:43):
trying to get people bought in.You're not trying to get people
to convert.
Although what's fun is theamount of conversions that can
happen from knowledge articlesis quite insane if you're
measuring that. And by the way,did you know that it's now in
the campaign stool? I'm saying.That's not why we're here.
Sorry.
I'm just saying.
Max Cohen (11:59):
Well, I mean, also, it's like you're projecting how
good your support is on yourproduct, which is something
people evaluate. Right? Right.Like, if they go, oh, man, this
thing looks big and crazy, butthen they go, oh, wow. All the
every single thing I couldpossibly imagine that I needed
to be taught to use this isopenly available, easy for me to
find, and really kinda letspeople take a sneak peek of your
(12:19):
product without having to get ademo or something like that.
Like, it can be used as amarketing tool indirectly.
George B. Thomas (12:24):
Oh. Mhmm. Without a doubt. I would love to
see the numbers and then I'llshut up because I want to hear
what Chad has to say, but also Ihave some questions that maybe
the listeners could be askingthemselves. I'll circle back
around to that.
But before I shut up, I wouldlove to see the amount of data
around HubSpot's knowledgearticles that actually ended up
to conversions, that ended up inpositive ROI. Because I hope
(12:49):
that the reason that knowledgebase actually ended in a
campaigns, the campaigns tool,is because some one or some
army, small army of humans, hascollected a campaign of
knowledge articles, which is alot by the way, into some type
of internal HubSpot campaignwhere they can be like, Oh,
(13:11):
shoot. I feel like I shouldLike, swear there for Oh, shoot,
7,900,000.0 worth of, like,income or influenced income
based okay. I'll shut up. Chad,what are your thoughts?
Chad Hohn (13:24):
Well, I I was thinking about, you know, just
as well going back to thequestion. Right? Maybe one of
the things that shouldn't go inthe knowledge base is really
just, like, if it's proprietaryinformation. Right? If you have
some stuff that should be behinda password for subscribers or
(13:45):
users only that are almost likea level of trade secret or if
you have any kind of contractualor NDA type language with the
sales of your products forlarger organizations, might be
pretty relevant.
Right? But outside of that, it'sreally anything that can be
helpful because it's just like II second exactly what everybody
(14:06):
else was saying is, like, peoplewill evaluate what's in there on
the public facing side, just toreally know how helpful is your
tool or whatever service oroffering you're selling, like,
even if you're only sellingservices. Right? A knowledge
base is still helpful. Like,what does x package look like
(14:26):
when interacting with my brand?
Right? And really even beingable to get that question
answered and to train your your,customer service agent on that
information as well. Right?Your, your HubSpot AI agent that
can assist your support reps.Right?
Super, super helpful. So, like,the more you put in there, the
(14:50):
better it can answer questionswithout you having to manually
CSV upload or, you know, attachother documentation to it.
George B. Thomas (14:58):
Yeah. I love this. Okay. So I want the
listeners, viewers, humans, oh,shoot. Humans.
To have some type of kind offilter to apply mentally before
they, dare I say, write thearticle or look in an article
that AI has written to fill thegap based on some functionality
(15:21):
in HubSpot or definitely beforewe hit publish. And so a couple
of questions, you can jot thisdown in your notepad that you
can ask yourself before you hitpublish. One is, is this content
relevant to a customer'sexperience or a customer's goal?
Yes or no? Okay, check, yes.
Does it prevent frustration orreduce support volume? By the
(15:46):
way, the frustration of theexternal human or reduced
support volume of our internalteam. If yes, okay, check, we're
good. Would a new user or apower user or even a prospect
benefit from this content?Because by the way, I can only
imagine the amount of humansthat have stumbled into
knowledge articles before theyeven stumbled into the HubSpot
(16:08):
sales funnel.
Okay? Does it reflect how we,whatever your organization is,
talk as a brand? Not just how wewrite, but how we talk. Again,
Liz could probably wax poetic onthe importance of voice and
tone. Knowledge articles isn'tsomething you just turd out.
Right? Like you take time andyou make it something good. All
(16:29):
right. Those are some filters,some questions that you should
be asking about. Then, yes, yes,yes, yes.
Okay. Publish.
Liz Moorehead (16:38):
No. I love what
Max Cohen (16:39):
you mentioned there, George.
Liz Moorehead (16:40):
And we did touch upon this, I think in the first
part a little bit, but it isworth co signing here once more.
When we think about ourmarketing content or our sales
enablement content, in theory,we should all be thinking about
what is in some ways the userexperience of the content,
right? Voice, tone, visualstructure, things like that. And
(17:04):
I've noticed when I've looked ata lot of knowledge bases, a lot
of those thoughts just gocompletely out the window. It is
literally just like here is thebasest version of this answer
stripped of any sort ofexperience, any sort of
humanity.
(17:24):
And that's something that youeverybody needs to be mindful
of. Like, one of the reasons whyI was excited to see things like
knowledge based articles end upin campaigns is it has been a
maxim of every business fordecades that the place where you
can get the most revenue is fromwhere? The customers you already
have. And yet we do not give alot of thought to the experience
(17:46):
they have, not just from arevenue producing standpoint,
but also a delight standpoint.We want the humans we serve with
what we do ourselves better thananybody else to have a good
experience with us.
That includes the experiencethey have when you are answering
their questions. That is part ofyour product. That is part of
(18:10):
your service. That is how it isviewed.
George B. Thomas (18:13):
It's interesting because my brain
goes to two interesting placesbefore you head into the next
direction that we're headinglist. One, I've often sat back
and wondered if They Ask YouAnswer is truly the amazing blog
content creation process that ithas been in. What happens when
(18:34):
you apply They Ask You Answer toyour knowledge articles? I just
want you to, if you know whatI'm talking about, I want you to
think about that.
Liz Moorehead (18:41):
Here's It's the most literal interpretation
George B. Thomas (18:43):
of Oh my ask god. You Yeah. It's it's I mean,
anyway, but I don't think peoplemake that connection of like,
well, we've been using it foryears for blogging. How about we
use some of that stratagem stuffover there for the not Here's
the other thing that I wanna saytoo, and then I'll again be
quiet and we'll move on. Please,by all that is holy, make it
easy to find.
(19:05):
Please make sure that when it'seasy to find, it's relevant. And
I am speaking to HubSpot and somany other organizations right
now. Please, when it's easy tofind and relevant, can you make
it accurate? Let me talk aboutwhat I mean. There's nothing
worse than changing your entirenavigation of your SaaS software
(19:30):
or adding new features to an oldfeature and you go to a
knowledge article to find outabout it and you immediately go,
Well, this is outdated.
Please, by all that is holy,easy to find, relevant and have
a strategy to keep them updatedas your things change. And not
(19:54):
everybody listening or watchingthis as a SaaS software company.
So that's what I'm saying thingschange. But as your things
change, make sure that there's astrategy to keep the knowledge
articles accurate. Okay.
I think you get my point.
Liz Moorehead (20:07):
No, I get it. I love it. And I actually want to
stick with this thread a littlebit because we started moving
away from the what and the whatnot of what goes in your
knowledge base but let's talkabout once you have that
content, once you have thosebanging knowledge base articles
out there where are some of theoverlooked opportunities to
(20:30):
integrate that content intoother parts of the experience?
Because I think sometimes whatcan happen, right, is you create
this mecca, this giant mountainof beautiful knowledge based
content, and then you just sitthere like, well, we're writing.
Come find us.
But that's not necessarily howit should work. There should be
a distribution strategy aroundit. Right?
George B. Thomas (20:53):
Yeah. What are you guys' thoughts? Yeah. You
gotta make
Max Cohen (20:56):
it you gotta make it like a an actual tangible usable
tool for your for your salesreps. Right? So, like, you gotta
think about all the little funkyfunky little tricky ways that it
integrates with everything thatHubSpot already has. Right? I
remember one of the originalreasons that I, you know, like,
thought the the the knowledgebase was so cool is that back, I
(21:19):
think, when it, like, had cameout, I feel like it launched
with the ability when you werewriting an email to just be able
to click a button and insert aknowledge base article.
Like, you could search yoursearch your articles from this
little, like, drop down. Right?And even something like that
where it's just like, oh, Idon't gotta go, you know, take
time and, like, go find thearticles and and, like, go,
(21:43):
like, look into it and, like,Google it, look into it, grab
it, get the link, and then comeback to it. Like, I could
literally just, you know, as I'mon the phone with someone, be
like, oh, yeah. I'll email youthis knowledge base article.
Oh, let me see if we have aknowledge base article on that.
Right? Now we're way past that.Right? Like, we've got knowledge
or these these customer agentsgetting trained on the
information.
(22:03):
You know, we've got all thesethese tools to help you, like,
write and create the content.But, like, you know, I think the
the the big part is is, like,train your team on how to use it
as a weapon in combatingcustomer issues. Right? And find
all these little places whereyou can, like, surface this
stuff. Whether it's, you know,kinda like what I just said,
your your your folks who areworking with people having the
(22:26):
ability to reference it and sendthat stuff to people right away
through the HubSpot interfaceinstead of having to actually go
to the knowledge base and findit that way.
But the other thing is, like,not everyone is gonna know know
you have a knowledge base. Like,I feel like us in the in the
marketing tech space are arelike, we intuitively know that I
(22:47):
can type in company nameknowledge base, and there's
probably a knowledge base we cango find. Not all customers are
like that, though. That's like avery marketing tech brain thing
that we all have that not therest of the world has. Right?
That we don't think is, like, soobvious. So it it comes down to,
like, make it easy to find.Right? When someone comes to
your website and they starttalking to your chatbot, right,
(23:09):
or whatever it is, the littlething that pops up, yo, you can
build your knowledge base intothat now. And when I say build,
I mean, check a button and haveit show up.
Right? Like, you gotta givepeople easy ways to find it.
Right? Whether that's puttingit, like, front and center in
your, like, top navigation orbig CTA button somewhere on your
website or as part of youronboarding journey to whatever
(23:31):
product you have, you'repointing people to there. Right?
Like, don't just assume peopleare gonna find it on Google.
Right? Sure. There will bepeople that do that, but not
everyone's gonna do it. Youknow?
So, like, find different waysthat HubSpot can help you put it
in front of people. And it's notjust your customers, it's your
internal folks as well. So theycan easily access it
ergonomically and use it as aweapon.
George B. Thomas (23:53):
Yeah. So I wanna jump in here and then just
for a quick second, I might flipback around after you, Chad, but
I wanna give you a chance totalk. But because Max, you
brought up, and I'm gonna putthese together, and I don't mean
any disrespect to a customeragent, but let's say chatbots or
You're
Max Cohen (24:13):
about bot to be hella disrespectful.
George B. Thomas (24:15):
And customer agent, right? Like I'm going to
put that in a bucket, that livechat, chat bots, or customer
agent. I just want everybody torealize, like, if you look at
the knowledge article aboutCustomer Agent, which by the way
now is a standalone or soontoday, tomorrow, I don't know,
soon, by the time you'relistening to this dang on it,
(24:37):
it'll be standalone. Let's justput it that way. But when you go
to the article on customeragent, and you go to the best
practices section, it says whenworking with customer agent,
it's recommended that you usecontent sources that, and the
number one on the list of one,two, three, four, five, six
(24:58):
things contain common userqueries, comprehensive
information, and are regularlyupdated.
For example, FAQs and knowledgebase articles. If you go over to
another one where it's like, addcontent sources, it literally
says click the sync HubSpotcontent drop down menu and
(25:19):
select HubSpot content. You cansync knowledge base articles,
website pages, landing pages,and blogs. So like, we're not
even talking about how maybehistorically this was a nice to
have if you gave two shitsabout, oh, if you gave two craps
about your customer, sorry
Max Cohen (25:39):
It wasn't me. It wasn't me.
George B. Thomas (25:40):
Please, please Apple, don't make us explicit
Max Cohen (25:43):
because I'm I'm not trying to doing Morse code to
get an apology. Yeah,
George B. Thomas (25:46):
yeah, yeah. Help! If you gave two craps
about your customer, like now itis a very foundational needed
piece to get a pretty amazing AIassistant
Intro (26:01):
to
George B. Thomas (26:02):
actually work right. Okay. I'll shut up, Chad.
What are your thoughts?
Chad Hohn (26:05):
Well, I was gonna, I think, tap on, what Max was
talking about, which was theputting it in front of both your
humans and, you know, the humansthat use your tool or product.
And that I, you know, I I don'tknow if people know necessarily,
because they don't necessarilyperuse the old API docs all the
time. But there is a chat widgetSDK. Right? So software
(26:29):
development kit where you can,if you have a SaaS product, not
just like put the widget like onyour website, but actually get
into the widget behavior eventsand like allow users to see all
their open support threads withyour business and start new
(26:50):
threads.
And that also allows thecustomer agent to serve up KBAs
to them with natural languagequeries, just like asking
ChatGPT but trained on yourstuff. Right? And so, like, if
you actually have a SaaS productand you're running your support
through HubSpot, it will reallylet you serve your customers
(27:12):
where they're at, which is inyour product, right, without
them having to email or call ortext or whatever, you know, with
your team. So very, very, Ithink, helpful if you're
especially SaaS.
George B. Thomas (27:27):
I love that in product kind of help widgets
that you're talking Here'sanother place I want you to
think about, because you couldhave in automated email replies,
like you could add additionalvalue. For instance, if you're
using Hub Spot, you're listeningto this podcast. You're using
Hub Spot. I'm just saying. Youhave something that is smart
(27:49):
content.
Imagine adding a hidden sectionthat only people who are
customers see based off of thembeing a list of customers that
are, Did you know? And it havinglike two or three knowledge
articles that might be relatedto the thing that they've
actually gone into a funnelaround or downloaded or whatever
(28:10):
place it is. But think aboutautomated emails and smart
content to be able to deliverthese knowledge articles in
places. If you're doing any typeof onboarding and you don't have
links to your knowledge articlesfor people to get back. Like I
literally use HubSpot projectstool when I'm training new
(28:31):
humans on HubSpot and most of myprojects that I, cause I, and
here's why I can share it frommy portal to other portals.
And so most of my projects havelike videos we've done, but also
then a plethora of knowledgearticles that I know exist, but
I can curate for a training oronboarding flow, the information
(28:54):
that they might want to dig inor go deeper based off of the
training that they just had.Okay. So you have to think about
where are all the places, whereall are the interactions
happening, and what knowledgebased articles make sense to
show up in those spaces andtimes.
Chad Hohn (29:13):
Well, there's two things I was thinking about
while you were talking there,George. And I was really
interested thinking, you know,how we have the customer agent
or sorry. Well, we have customeragent, obviously, but we also
have, like, Breeze workflowactions. Right? Yep.
And one of those Breeze workflowactions, you could just, like, I
think possibly on aconversation, started event
(29:35):
because you can like startconversation based workflows,
possibly get the data from thefirst email that comes in, you
know, and try and, like, parseout what their inquiry is really
about with that. But also thecustomer agent now can reply to
emails, and I don't I haven'tmessed with the configuration of
it yet. But I'm wondering ifthere would be a helpful way for
(29:58):
it to, like, have a specialblock that is specifically
related to the knowledge basearticles relevant to their
inquiry if it can find any.Right? Yeah.
Interesting. So, I mean, there'sa couple of things, like, maybe
you could try and actuallyextract that information out,
right, and try and give themdynamic responses based on what
(30:20):
they're talking to you about.
Liz Moorehead (30:21):
I also think there's a good opportunity just
to be this nerd for a second.There's an opportunity to just
directly link them in yourmarketing and sales enablement
content, particularly if you'redoing more bottom of the funnel
stuff. You know, like, if you'rewriting about what are your
first ninety days like with ourcompany? Mhmm. You know, these
are the most common questions weget.
You can then link to thosearticles to show this is how we
(30:44):
support you throughout thatprocess. I mean, whenever you
think about any piece of contentthat you're creating, I mean,
obviously, if it's moreeducational, top of the funnel,
not really dealing with theproduct or service, like let's
not go too crazy. We don't needa kitchen sink. But if you're
really starting to think aboutways in which you show early on
(31:05):
and often how much support andcare is a part of the product or
service that you sell, thebetter off you're going to be.
Tells that story earlier.
It makes people feel safer andmore secure earlier. They feel
more confident in a potentialpurchase that they might be
making with you. You know, I'veworked at a company where we had
(31:27):
knowledge based articles, andthey would often be included
when we were talking withprospects before they had signed
on the bottom line. Like, thisis actually a question we get a
lot and obviously it's going todepend on your x y z a b c
circumstances, but these are thesome of the ways in which we can
help you. So there are ways inwhich to organically include
(31:48):
this content in the compmarketing and sales
conversations you're having.
You know, again context mattersbecause if you're not striking
it at that right balance of itis relevant, the intent matters,
it's just gonna look like you'regiving a knowledge pile on. But
just think about the ways inwhich you could start telling
(32:09):
that story earlier in a way thatis relevant, intentional, and
purposeful in the moment thatyou're talking. So I know we
only have a few minutes lefthere, but I want to throw this
out there. I know you guys havealready started talking about
some interesting ways andoutside of the box ideas in
terms of how knowledge basedcontent could be used. But have
we seen any other creative oradvanced ways teams are using
(32:33):
knowledge base to go beyond thebasics?
Max Cohen (32:35):
I mean, it the other thing to remember is that, like,
we're we're back when knowledgebase first came out, I think the
biggest limiting factor was thatyou could only have one
knowledge base. Right? Youcouldn't have multiple ones. So,
like, one, keep in mind, youcould have multiple knowledge
bases. Right?
So, like, whether that's havingdifferent ones for different
product lines that you have orif it makes sense. Right? If
(32:57):
you're doing multi brand stuffin HubSpot, it's kind of an
obviously up there. But theother thing too is, like, you
can put those knowledge bases ondifferent domains. Right?
You can put them behind likeSSO. Right? You can use them for
like internal company stuff.They don't have to be public
facing. Right?
(33:17):
So, you know, I've seen somecompanies kind of like build
their like company intranet offof like, knowledge bases and
just having, you know, all thatstuff be gated membership
content that can only be seen byfolks who are on a list of
contacts that have the internalcompany as their email address.
Right? So, you know, thinkoutside of the box. It's a lot
(33:37):
more flexible than it used tobe, you know, and it doesn't
have to just be for yourcustomers. Like your employees
to an extent need a knowledgebase too as well.
Right? So just keep that inmind.
George B. Thomas (33:47):
So so there's a couple of things I'll throw
out here Because again, I don'tknow how in the weeds with the
service hub or knowledge base ingeneral, people who might be
listening. Like you might justbe one of those guys or gals
that just has Marketing Hub orjust has Sales Hub or just has
(34:09):
Marketing and Sales Hub. So Ithink when I get this question,
Liz, from you, my brain goes tolike, one, did you know that
like there's a new knowledgebase? And by the way, if you
have the old knowledge base, youcould go see if you can migrate
to the new knowledge basebecause you're going to be able
to do some customization becausethere's now customization tools
(34:33):
in the knowledge base. Causethat was like a big issue of
like, you can't make it likesuper dope, right?
Chad Hohn (34:39):
It was like old HubSpot forms. Everyone looked
the same about, just about,right? Outside of a couple
colors.
George B. Thomas (34:45):
Yep, yep, exactly. Here's the other thing
too, is like, you need to thinkabout like private con And
again, kind of where Max washeaded or what Max was talking
about, like a cousin sisterbrother of this is like the idea
of private content. And like, sothere can be like the SEO valued
(35:07):
kind of what we've beenoverarchingly talking about if
somebody can Google it. But likeimagine there could be a deeper
level private content knowledgebased stuff happening as well.
But here's the thing, if wedon't talk about like how
HubSpot can actually writeknowledge articles for you now
based on finding the gaps.
(35:29):
Like if you don't have thatturned on or in your brain using
that, I think that's a definitebonus that we could think about.
Yeah, that's where my braingoes.
Chad Hohn (35:43):
I I once, saw a team using they were using there was
actually, like, the websitewidget inside of their SaaS
product to tell page usageinside of their because their
their SaaS product, even on themobile app, was also just an
embedded website, essentially.So you embed a website in the
(36:04):
native mobile app for, like, appstores and stuff. They were
using that widget to track pageusage to almost do kind of like
an Amplitude or Pendo productusage sort of analytics to be
able to tell what help articleswere going to be most relevant
(36:26):
along with inquiries that theywere getting. This was like
years ago before we had any, youknow, like chat widget SDK or
other types of things that wewould, you know, now have in the
HubSpot docs and in the HubSpottools. But, I think that was,
like, a really interesting waythat they were leveraging native
(36:46):
HubSpot stuff to build up thecorrect, most high value content
for their users by seeing whattheir what pages their people
are on and, what like, also,were able to track some error
logging to it as well, like inin some some capacity, drop some
notes on the contact records.
(37:07):
The these were, like, errorissues that we were able to see.
The support reps understood thisperson's had error logs
recently, if that makes sense.Right? Yeah. Oh, nice.
When they go to their ticket,it's real really helpful. Oh,
This person has like 10 errorsin the last twenty four hours.
George B. Thomas (37:23):
Yeah. I love that. Oh, before, because I know
we're running out of time, Ihave to say one thing. We could
have gotten through this entireepisode, And we've used the word
knowledge based articles, whichmy worry is that people are
stuck in a mindset of it's onlytextual information. So one
(37:46):
other thing that I wish Hub Spotdid more of, and I hope you as a
listener will do more of isembedding rich media, video,
interactive modules, GIFs.
Uh-oh. I just sparked somethingin Max brain. Hang on. Gotta
Max Cohen (38:02):
be very excited.
George B. Thomas (38:02):
Yeah. Like, I I wanna see more like, your boy
needs you to show me. Like, Ithink that's why I loved
creating tutorials so much isbecause that's my love language
is just show me how to do thething. Like, don't necessarily
want to read if I can watch. Andso make sure that you're kind of
leaning into that.
(38:23):
How do we create a mediaexperience? By the way, I'm also
leaning into this because in thefuture, I totally want to do an
episode where we unpack the newvideo platform inside of I've
mentioned that just in passingto a couple clients and also
folks that I've been on callswith. And as soon as I say video
(38:43):
platform in HubSpot, I get, oh.So a, you have a video platform
in HubSpot that you could beediting and then using these
videos in your knowledgearticles. Max, you sat up real
quick when I said that.
Max Cohen (38:58):
I mean, I I did a cool thing. I we we have this,
like, new feature in EventHappily that we've been kind of,
like, building out, and itinvolves, you know, a field that
without getting too much detail,you have to create this, like,
JSON string and put it into afield, and it does this, like,
really cool stuff. Right?
George B. Thomas (39:17):
Hashtag
Max Cohen (39:17):
money. But no one likes to write JSON strings,
including me. Right? They'relong and hard to write. Know,
like I kinda like
George B. Thomas (39:23):
Chad does. Chad actually probably does like
the right JSON strings.
Max Cohen (39:27):
Yeah. Go ahead. Into it. So I went on ChatGPT, and I
had ChatGPT build me a generatorthat would automatically
generate these JSON stringsbased on selections I'd make in
a form and some data that wouldput into it. And then I took
that, and I told ChatGPT to giveme the code in an embeddable
format.
(39:48):
And then I went on to theknowledge base where I wrote an
article that explained thisfield, and then I embedded the
tool to generate the JSON thingfrom ChatGPT right into the
knowledge base article. So,like, literally, it explains how
the property works, and then itgoes, you don't wanna write
JSON. We have a little tool foryou. Boom. It's like, dude, I'm
(40:10):
not a coder, but I was able to,like, build that, which one, AI
is sick.
Yeah. I'm starting to understandit. I get it. Right? Boom.
But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It'sconverting. Dagger.
Chill up. Chill up.
George B. Thomas (40:20):
Chill up. Oh my god.
Max Cohen (40:24):
But it's the the point there is, like, you can
embed content into knowledgebased articles. Right? So, like,
you're not just limited to textor video or pictures. There's
other stuff that you can dothere. And especially with tools
like ChatGPT, right, the thingsthat you can create and embed,
(40:44):
they could be tools as well.
Yeah. It doesn't have to just bewhat you might be used to being
able to, like, slap onto aWYSIWYG editor website page.
George B. Thomas (40:52):
Right? Max, keep that I love you.
Max Cohen (40:54):
I love you too.
George B. Thomas (40:55):
It's a whole new world. Max, so there's two
bought
Max Cohen (40:59):
a PS five, so I'm pretty stoked about that.
George, you know, my favoritepart about that thing was you
basically answered question Ialways ask you at the
Liz Moorehead (41:06):
end of every episode. What's one thing you
want somebody
Max Cohen (41:09):
to take away from this? And I think that was
probably one
Liz Moorehead (41:11):
of the most important things. You
Max Cohen (41:13):
know? Mhmm.
Liz Moorehead (41:14):
Think about the different types of media. Think
about the different ways to tellthe story of helpfulness. Yeah.
So you gotta help all thosehumans out there.
George B. Thomas (41:24):
At the end of the day, it comes down to this.
Help the humans.
Liz Moorehead (41:30):
Oh, yeah.
George B. Thomas (41:32):
Okay, hub heroes. We've reached the end of
another episode. Will Lord Lackcontinue to loom over the
community or will we be able todefeat him in the next episode
of the hub heroes podcast? Makesure you tune in and find out in
the next episode. Make sure youhead over to the hubheroes.com
to get the latest episodes andbecome part of the league of
(41:55):
heroes.
FYI, if you're part of theleague of heroes, you'll get the
show notes right in your inboxand they come with some hidden
power up potential as well. Makesure you share this podcast with
a friend. Leave a review if youlike what you're listening to
and use the hashtag hashtag hubheroes podcast on any of the
socials and let us know whatstrategy conversation you'd like
(42:18):
to listen into next. Until nexttime, when we meet and combine
our forces, remember to be ahappy, helpful, humble human,
and of course, be looking for away to be someone's hero.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Brothers Ortiz
The Brothers Ortiz is the story of two brothers–both successful, but in very different ways. Gabe Ortiz becomes a third-highest ranking officer in all of Texas while his younger brother Larry climbs the ranks in Puro Tango Blast, a notorious Texas Prison gang. Gabe doesn’t know all the details of his brother’s nefarious dealings, and he’s made a point not to ask, to protect their relationship. But when Larry is murdered during a home invasion in a rented beach house, Gabe has no choice but to look into what happened that night. To solve Larry’s murder, Gabe, and the whole Ortiz family, must ask each other tough questions.