Why Your Driving School Needs a Help Center 

Driving schools are multifaceted businesses. Not only do they need to satisfy their customers’ needs, but they need to operate professionally and with safety in mind at all times. 

With so many things to juggle at once, having a driving school help center where customers can go to get all their questions answered in one place is a must.

If your driving school doesn’t already have a help center, this post will explain why you need to set one up.

First things first, what is a help center?

Put simply, a help center is a public website customers can visit to find answers they need about your services.

As you probably already know, driving schools get the same support questions via email, phone, etc… over and over again. All that time rehashing out the same answers could be well spent on other projects and initiatives. 

Even better news, parents and students actually want to help themselves. They are more technically savvy than ever and have come to prefer the do-it-yourself approach to solving their issues and answering their own questions by first seeking answers to their FAQs online.

Efficient Operations And Management

According to Zendesk, 67% of respondents said they prefer to use a self-service option over speaking with a representative. 

What’s more, a whopping 91% said they would use a company’s help center to meet their customer service needs.

Despite this, most driving school owners do not consider how, by reducing the reliance on live customer support, the business could run smoother and more efficiently.

Indeed, by setting up a driving school help center, you can remove unnecessary run-arounds while guaranteeing client satisfaction just by having a permanent help center in place to answer repetitive questions 24/7. 

That said, here is everything you need to know about driving school help centers and how they will help your business!

The 5 Benefits of Driving School Help Centers

1. Increase Customer Satisfaction

Increase parent and student satisfaction by providing better service and meeting the needs of customers who prefer self-service.

2. Round The Clock Availability

24/7 availability. Unlike human customer support, a help center is always available whenever your customers need answers to their urgent questions. 

3. Cost Efficient

Reduce costs and increase efficiency by reducing repetitive customer service questions so owners and office staff can focus on more strategic tasks.

4. Better Customer Support

Faster customer support. Your office staff can use the help center while talking to customers and send articles to assist and lower response times.

5. Highly Effective

Help centers help keep information neat and tidy all in one convenient place. A detailed help center can also help you train new office staff quicker and keep everyone on the same page.

Setting Up Your Driving School Help Center

Nowadays, it is easier than ever to set up a driving school help center. 

Best of all, there are existing software programs already available that can remove the hassle of setting up a help center and with plans that cost as little as $149 per year (that’s only $12.50 per month!).

KnowAll is one of the best WordPress-based dedicated themes/plugins that results in fewer support tickets and happier customers. They have plans starting at $149 a year, making it one of the most budget-friendly options for driving schools as well.

Choosing The Best Software

Another option for knowledge base (aka help center) software is Document360. Build FAQ pages, user guides, and outline standard operating procedures with ease. They are a great option for driving schools, with plans starting at only $49 a month.

Thanks to these all-in-one services, you can get a help center live on your website within a few hours!  

The key to success with a help center is to start off small, publishing answers to 4-5 common questions.  Then over time, adding fresh content on a consistent basis (ideally weekly). 

That way, it’s possible to have all of your frequently asked questions, plus more, clearly documented within your help center and readily available for whomever needs it. 

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How to Organize Your Driving School Help Center

So what can you include in your help center? For starters, I would recommend creating a category for every service your driving school provides. 

For example, if you offer Driving Lessons, Online Drivers Ed and Road Tests, each of these services would then have their own category consisting of common customer questions (and each question would be its own article within the category).

The possibilities for categories and articles are endless, but the below category suggestions should be enough to get you thinking about how you want to organize your driving school help center.

Category #1: Top 5 FAQS

• How do I contact the office?
• When is your office open?
• How can I schedule a driving lesson?
• Where do I login for my online drivers ed program?
• How do I schedule my road test?

Category #2: Driving Lessons

• How can I purchase driving lessons?
• Where do I reschedule a driving lesson?
• How do I cancel a driving lesson?

Category #3: Online Drivers Ed

• How do I purchase your Online Drivers Ed program?
• Can I start my driving lessons before I finish Online Drivers Ed?
• Do I need a permit to start Online Drivers Ed?

Category #4: Road Tests

• Where can I purchase your road test service?
• How do I reschedule a road test?
• Can I cancel a road test?

Promoting Your Driving School Help Center

Now that you’ve published your help center, congrats! Having this done will improve your output and customer service.

Step 1

Add your help center to a prominent area of your website. Ideally, at the top of the page in the main navigation. If you add your help center to the footer or bury it in your website, it will have WAY less of an impact.

Step 2

Add your help center link to your email signature, such as: “Visit our Help Center for answers to your FAQs!”

This way, every email your office sends out directly promotes your help center by raising awareness that it exists. After some time, more and more customers will become aware of this amazing resource for them to use 24/7.

Step 3

Promoting your help center in other key emails such as transaction emails when customers place orders on your website.  

For example, in Drive Scout you can customize the transaction email for every product you offer and then include custom copy to promote your help center while reducing confusion from online enrollment.

Improving Your Driving School Help Center

Step 4

Encourage your Office Staff to remind customers about your help center with each phone call. Consider having them even send customers a link to specific articles when relevant.

Step 5

Update your phone system to boost awareness of your new help center. 

For example, when customers are on hold or if they receive a voicemail, you can mention your help center and this might motivate the parent or student to seek the answer to their question without ever talking to your office staff.

PRO TIP: If your student’s login via their online portal to view how much they paid or to review scheduling information, you could also promote your help center here too.  

For example, when students log in to their online profiles within Drive Scout, you have the ability to customize the login screen and add hyperlinks to critical areas of your business like a help center.

Best Practices for Managing & Updating the Help Center

Once you’ve successfully launched your driving school help center, consider doing the following maintenance tasks at least twice a year (or as needed):

1. Pull the “searches with no results” report in your help center software

This report will show you past searches parents and students have made that did not yield a proper search result. 

For example, you might have had 10 customers search for “discount code” but nothing was in the help center discussing this topic. If so, you might consider publishing a brief article on your available discount codes to reduce the phone/email inquiries related to this matter.

2. Frequently update new and existing articles

Routinely ask your office staff about which articles need to be added, removed or edited to ensure your help center is updated and always providing the best, most relevant information.

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Examples of Noteworthy Help Centers

You have probably already seen examples of great help centers by large brands and businesses from your own online queries. Below are a few of our favorites to take note of. 

• Aceable
• DriversEd.com
• NETFLIX

Final Thoughts

With all that said and done, I am excited for you to get to work on building your driving school help center!

You can always expand your help center to include more resources and tips in the future. 

I hope you enjoyed this guide about driving school help centers. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out at any time.

In review, we’ve learned:

1. What are the benefits of a help center?
2. How do I create a help center? 
3. What should I include in my help center?
4. How do I promote my help center?
5. Best practices for managing and updating your help center
6. Examples of great help centers