In the modern business market, companies look to use their website to the fullest and rely on them to attract new leads. No matter if a business organization focuses its efforts online or not, the importance of online efforts and business websites becomes greater and greater every day.
This is why companies are constantly looking to improve their websites and make sure that their visitors have the best experience possible when they browse their sites. The competition is fierce and all of them implement various solutions that optimize websites for an amazing user experience, and one of those solutions includes context-sensitive software.
So what is the context-sensitive self-service help and how can it improve your website to do better? A context-sensitive website gives users valuable information and helps without the need for them leaving the site or the page.
This means that the context of their browsing, shopping or visit is never changed. Simply put, context-sensitive help software allows users to get exact and quick answers to questions such as “what does this do?” or “Why do I need this?” Additionally, this kind of help can give additional information about products or objects and help explain its context.
How Context-sensitive Help Works?
Embedded help
In most cases, it offers short and concise information and it doesn’t require too much time to read. However, there is a different type of context-sensitive help called embedded help that doesn’t offer just basic information to users. They offer in-depth explanations to users by recognizing what they need or by giving guided tours straight on the interface.
Besides the fact that context-sensitive help is very useful for users and it reduces the chance of them getting confused and losing their focus, they still might get obstructed when an additional pop-out window appears within the text that’s helping them.
This is why embedded help is so good since all of the contextual help which users require is located inside the task flow.
When Should You Use Context-sensitive Help?
A lot of users don’t want to think when they are browsing a site or using an online interface. They will usually look at the first solution that was available and helps them solve the problem. In the case of mistakes, most of them will ignore a traditional help text and won’t bother to go to a user manual that might be found as a part of the application.
Remembering all the steps that must be taken from the manual and switching context is a very tough thing to do, it also takes away a lot of time and beginner users could really struggle with it. The user becomes distracted with the need to complete a task instead of actually learning the exact things which are needed to do it.
Given the fact that user manuals can easily interrupt someone and make them lose their focus, the need for a format that appears straight away and gives intuitive information appears. The reason why context-sensitive help is so effective is because it provides specifics about some topic and its current state, meaning that there is no need for digging around.
Contextual self-service help helps visitors save time
Contextual help is very effective for improving solutions which display information about products. A user can get all the information he or she needs right on the spot, no need to call customer support or go and search online to find the answers you need. The whole process is simplified and by implementing a similar solution for your website you will instantly create a strong force for your customer support, as most questions won’t even get to them.
When a visitor is going through a guide or a user manual he or she will read all of those things until they come upon something that is unclear. In normal circumstances that person would have to open a new window and look for answers online. But with properly implemented context-sensitive help that user will simply have to hover over the unclear area to get a manual or Q&A which address the issue in the right context. Simple access to the right information without wasting time.
Context-sensitive tools are convenient
These solutions are so good for the experience of the visitors that most of them will not even notice them or be aware that they are, in fact, using them. A solution like this is very intuitive and works without intrusion, meaning that visitors will use them along the way without even giving any actual thought or meaning to them. The whole concept is so natural that most people think that this is all about the design of the website.
The concept of contextual self-service help is created to align with the browsing and learning experience, while at the same time seeming invisible and providing important and relevant information. Tooltips, Popups, and Lightboxes are some of the most effective variations.
Visitors Won’t Make Mistakes
This is clearly a bad thing for any business organization, as it might cause a lot of bad atmosphere around it, however, it will never happen if you implement a tool like this. With context-sensitive help, people will always have a clear picture of what they are reading or buying and no mistakes will happen.
Conclusion
Not only is context-sensitive help good for customer service and customer support, but it can also help increase sales and reduce the number of people leaving shopping carts and your whole website. This software is a must-have for any serious business organization.
David is a Technical Support Executive with a combined experience of more than 7 years. He is currently working with ProProfs.com – a Knowledge Base software. David enjoys reading, writing and is an active blogger.