Business Background

Smart Ident is an Austrian e-platform that handles the complete regulatory processes required for the onboarding of new customers. This includes facial recognition to authenticate users, identification of documents, and qualifying electronic signatures to confirm identity proof. Their clients are mainly from the banking, financial, insurance, gambling telecom, and healthcare industries, besides government bodies. They have around 30 clients so far and are market leaders in the regulatory compliance sector in the country.

Business Requirement

Smart Ident being a tech platform with a lot of APIs and software development kits (SDKs) was looking for a documentation tool to host their customer-facing user guides. They needed a tool to host all the information that customers require to implement their software quickly. They were also particular that the tool offered private access, so their trade secrets could be protected.

Smart Ident initially experimented with the idea of hosting their documentation on API development platforms such as Swagger and Mulesoft.

However, it required massive investment in terms of finance, time, and resources.

says Founder of Smart Ident, Bernhard Reiterer.

Smart Ident later decided to adopt Adobe PDF to host their documentation. Though it made the documentation look attractive, Bernhard said Adobe PDF posed some inherent challenges,

• Lack of version control, made it difficult to refer and revert to older versions of the document.
• The system of having to email documents to all their customers felt outdated.
• Having to email and re-email fresh versions of the document to customers after every change was cumbersome.
• There was also no effective means to safeguard the information within the document. Once the document was emailed to customers, it was a challenge to control its subsequent distribution and destination.

All these issues prompted Smart Ident to look for a documentation platform or online knowledge base. They were specific that the platform has an easy-to-use editor, which allows even non-technical staff to key in and review documentation, and the capabilities to ensure their technical writing is largely error-free. Reiterer said,

We also felt that a documentation platform looked more professional.

Additionally, Smart Ident’s team were looking to expand their documentation with elements like guidelines, hints, tips and a help section.

Business Solution

After studying various platforms in the market, they chose Document360. After using the product for more than 30 months, they believe the following features make it a perfect fit for their requirements:

• The WYSIWYG editor made the creation of content extremely simple. They could just copy and paste their articles and the editor would automatically format it. It could detect any grammatical errors, making the content error-free.
• The WYSIWYG editor also made it easy for non-technical staff to create, make edits, and peer-review articles, thus also ensuring quality control.
• The features enable the Smart Ident team to collaborate seamlessly on content, by putting their release notes in draft and allowing other team members to make changes or review it.
• Version control and version history gave them the option of reverting to older versions and tracking changes.
• The AI-powered search functionality allows their customers to find information quickly.
• The categories tab on the left makes the site easy to navigate for even first-time visitors.
• The Custom CSS and Javascript gave Smart Ident the freedom to change fonts, images, and colors, resulting in the documentation site mimicking the company’s brand guidelines.
• The rich analytics provided by Document360, helps Smart Ident know which of their customers have visited the documentation site and the information searched by them, so support can be provided accordingly.

Bernhard Reiterer, Founder, Smart Ident says

The feedback from our customers on our support site has been only positive. They all like the site and find it very valuable.

Business Impact

Bernhard says customer onboarding has become more seamless and faster after their documentation site went live. Document360, with its private access feature, has also ensured that Smart Ident’s documentation which has some of its proprietary knowledge stays safe.

Their success so far has prompted Smart Ident to decide to expand their documentation in the future. Bernhard says,

We plan to make our APIs more interactive, add many video tutorials for integrations, have a detailed FAQ section, and have an entirely managed customer portal

Conclusion

For a startup like Smart Ident, Document360 was a perfect solution because it could be built and managed with limited resources. It did not require technically trained people to operate and manage. Easy navigation also made it popular with customers, ensuring Smart Ident’s customer support team was not overwhelmed. Smart Ident did not have to unnecessarily expand their team to manage customer onboarding as they grew.