Month after month, your HR team gets hit with the same questions on Slack—like, “Wait, where’s the claims form again?” Hey, where can I see how much leave I have left? Remind me what insurance plan did I end up choosing? If any of this rings a bell, rest assured, you’re definitely not the only one. Recent research finds that employees lose about a fifth of their workday just hunting for information, and Studies show that 60% of support tickets for HR teams tend to be the same questions popping up again and again. It’s a frustrating loop: HR teams end up wasting hours on repeat questions, leaving little time for the big-picture projects that actually move the business forward.
The answer? Start using a knowledge capture tool for HR. It’ll completely change the way your team records, shares, and keeps track of important workplace info. Instead of making you write everything out by hand like old-school knowledge bases, today’s knowledge capture tools create step-by-step guides on the fly as your team goes about their usual work, so employee questions drop off and HR finally gets some time back.
There’s a basic problem with most customer support documentation: it expects people to turn walls of text into clear steps they can actually follow. Most support teams lean on old-school knowledge bases packed with dense text, drawn-out email threads, and phone calls that often leave customers scratching their heads in frustration.
The stats paint a pretty stark picture. Studies reveal a troubling pattern: companies sticking with old-school support methods see their ticket numbers climb every year, while support teams lose nearly a fifth of their work week just hunting down or trying to rebuild missing documentation. At the same time, customers aren’t willing to wait around and industry reports show that 61% now expect their issues to be resolved even faster, and they want support that feels more tailored to them.
When customer expectations and the way support is delivered don’t line up, it sets off a frustrating cycle that just keeps feeding on itself. When customers can’t find straightforward answers, they end up submitting more tickets. Support teams get buried under the extra workload, response times slow to a crawl, and everyone’s satisfaction takes a nosedive. You end up with customers who are fed up, support teams running on fumes, and costs that just keep climbing.
The shift toward visual documentation represents more than just a trend—it's a fundamental reimagining of how knowledge transfer works in customer support contexts. Visual process guides tap into how our brains instinctively process images much faster than words, making it easier for people of all skill levels to pick things up and learn what they need to do.
If you want people to actually understand and remember something, visuals make a world of difference. When researchers looked at how visual aids are used in educational settings, they found that three out of four people said visuals made the material clearer. Even more crucial for customer support, visual aids really shine when you’re helping people with all sorts of backgrounds, whether they’re tech-savvy or just getting started, or whether they’re comfortable with written instructions or not.
When companies start using visual support, they quickly notice big gains in all the metrics that matter. Companies that have adopted visual customer support tools are cutting their resolution times by as much as 46%. Even better, using visual guides doesn’t just cut support tickets by as much as 60%, it also bumps up customer satisfaction scores by around 20% at the same time.
Here’s why these improvements happen: visual guides make it much easier for customers to help themselves. Give people clear, step-by-step visuals to follow, and they’ll often fix problems themselves, reducing the need to reach out to support. It’s a win all around: customers feel more in control, support teams can finally tackle the tricky problems, and everyone ends up happier with the whole experience.
Curious what a difference visual documentation could make for your support team? Curious to see how it works? Try Tracework free and watch as your team’s know-how is instantly turned into clear, visual step-by-step guides—no extra effort required.
Rolling out visual process guides isn’t something you can do on the fly Iit takes careful planning and a thoughtful approach to make it work. Here’s how you can make the biggest difference without throwing your current support operations into chaos.
Start by taking a close look at your support tickets to spot which problems keep popping up again and again. Zero in on those recurring issues that rack up at least 50 tickets each month: especially the ones where customers can follow simple, safe steps on their own to fix things. Some of the usual trouble spots? Setting up accounts, resetting passwords, figuring out basic issues, and just finding your way around different features.
Take a look at your current support data and sort your processes by asking three questions: How often does this issue come up? How tricky is it to solve? And could customers handle it themselves if they had the right guidance? Begin by tackling the common, moderately tricky problems, especially the ones customers can safely handle on their own without needing a support agent to step in.
Great visual guides don’t drown you in words – they use screenshots, a few helpful notes, and just enough text to make each step easy to follow. Every guide should tackle just one process or issue at a time, breaking down even the most complicated tasks into clear, step-by-step instructions that lead users smoothly from figuring out what’s wrong to actually fixing it.
The key is contextual capture and documenting processes as they actually occur in real work environments rather than creating idealized versions that don't match user experiences. Today’s documentation tools let you record workflows as they really happen (even as you jump between different apps and browser tabs) so the guides you create actually match what users experience.
Add moments in your visual guides where users can pick different routes, depending on what’s happening in their particular case. Point users in the right direction with easy-to-spot arrows, highlights, callouts or anything that draws their eyes to the most important parts of the screen. Use as few words as possible, but make sure you’re still giving people the context they need.
Customers should be able to find and access visual guides wherever they interact with your brand. Make sure your guides are easy to find such as add them right into your knowledge base, weave them into the parts of your product where people need help, and set things up so customers can search for answers using the same words they’d use to describe their issue.
Think about using progressive disclosure. For example, start customers off with simple overviews, then let them dig deeper into detailed visual instructions only if they need more guidance. This way, users don’t get bogged down with too much detail up front, but they can still dig into all the info they need when things get complicated.
A lot of organizations end up sabotaging their own visual documentation which most of the time is by making mistakes that could have easily been avoided. The biggest mistake? Making guides in a vacuum, without ever watching how real customers actually use your product. When documentation isn’t grounded in real-world use, it tends to leave out important steps or guess wrong about what users actually know.
Another common pitfall is cramming too much information into one visual guide, making it needlessly complicated. The best visual guides zero in on one task or problem at a time, instead of trying to cover every single feature all at once.
It’s all too common for companies to let their visual documentation fall out of date as their products change and grow. Text-based documentation can usually get by even if it’s a little out of date, but visual guides can quickly become confusing or downright misleading as soon as something in the interface changes. Make it a habit to regularly review and update your visual content, so it always stays accurate and up to date.
All too often, teams put together visual guides without really thinking about the different ways people might use them, whether that’s on various devices or with unique accessibility needs. Make sure your visual guides look great and function smoothly on both desktop and mobile, and don’t forget to add alt text so people using screen readers aren’t left out.
Q: How much time does it actually take to put together a useful visual process guide?
A: These days, putting together a basic visual guide is surprisingly quick. Just walk through the process once, and modern documentation tools will snap screenshots and build out the steps for you in about 10 to 15 minutes. If your guide needs a bit more customization, expect to spend anywhere from half an hour to an hour polishing it up.
Q: Which kinds of support problems are best solved with visual guides?
A: Visual guides are especially helpful when you need to walk someone through software tasks, manage accounts, handle simple troubleshooting, or find your way around different features. They don’t work as well when you need to explain big-picture concepts or handle problems that call for a more personal touch.
Q: So, how can you actually tell if your visual process guides are working?
A: Keep an eye on the numbers that matter, like how many tickets drop for documented processes, whether customers are happier, how quickly issues get resolved, and how often people can solve things on their own. In most cases, organizations start noticing real results within just a month or two of rolling things out.
Q: Do visual guides need to take the place of written documentation entirely?
A: Visual guides don’t replace written instructions – they just make them better. Show people how to do things with visuals for step-by-step tasks, but stick with written documentation when you need to explain big ideas, outline policies, or cover anything that needs more in-depth context.
Visual process guides are changing the game in customer support by finally bridging the gap between how teams share information and how customers actually want to get it. When companies use visual documentation, they not only see fewer support tickets and happier customers, they also make it easier for people to solve problems on their own.
The results speak for themselves, when companies start using visual support strategies, they see major gains across the board, and their customers walk away happier, too. The technology and methodologies exist today to capture, create, and distribute effective visual guides without requiring significant technical expertise or resource investment.
Transform your customer support operations with automated visual documentation. Tracework's AI-powered platform captures your team's expertise and converts it into step-by-step visual guides that customers can actually follow. Start your free trial today and discover how contextual documentation automation can reduce your ticket volume while boosting customer satisfaction.
