TrackFlo cuts support tickets in half with a self-serve help center

Meet TrackFlo

TrackFlo is a tracking operations platform for freight brokers. It automates the work of collecting locations, ETAs, and proof of delivery from carriers, and gives tracking teams one board to manage load exceptions. Taylor Diem is the Chief Technology Officer.

The product has grown with its customers. Logistics is full of edge cases, TrackFlo serves several different user types, and every brokerage’s data is walled off from every other brokerage. That makes the software powerful, and it makes it hard to explain.

“Over the years our product has become more complex. It’s in the logistics and supply chain space, so a lot of functionality, different user types. All our customers can’t see each other’s information, so it can be a bit tricky.”

A help center that never got written

Before Ferndesk, TrackFlo did not have a documentation problem so much as a documentation absence. The team is small, the release cadence is fast, and writing articles by hand never made it to the top of the list.

“We simply didn’t maintain our help center because it was just too much work for a small team, and we were releasing so much all the time that it was really hard to maintain it. We just had some things, but it really wasn’t comprehensive and wasn’t helpful.”

Every question a customer could not answer on their own became a support ticket. For a small engineering team, that is time taken directly away from shipping.

Getting off the ground with Fern

TrackFlo needed a structure that fit a multi-tenant logistics product, and then it needed the articles to fill it. Ferndesk handled both. It modeled the help center around how TrackFlo actually works, and Fern drafted the bulk of the initial documentation so the team could launch quickly instead of starting from a blank page.

“Ferndesk did a great job of modeling everything that we needed to get our help center off the ground. And then Fern helping create documentation was absolutely huge, because it allowed us to go fast.”

Fern, working alongside Claude, produced the first pass of the content. Taylor reviews and refines it over time rather than writing everything up front.

“Fern, alongside Claude, helped build the bulk of the documentation to get started. And then I kind of refine things as I go.”

Half the tickets

The help center turned documentation into a real support channel. TrackFlo now points customers at the built-in Q&A first, so they can ask questions against the knowledge base before they reach the team.

“I have seen a 50% decrease in support tickets during the implementation. A lot of that is that we’re training our customers to use the Q&A so that they can ask questions against the knowledge base before they come to us, which is huge.”

This was net new for TrackFlo. Documentation went from something the team could not afford to do to a central piece of how they support customers.

“I think it’s become a central part of our strategy of helping our customers become more self service.”

Taylor also calls out the working relationship with Ferndesk, which matters for a small team adopting a new tool while shipping fast.

“It’s an awesome help desk tool, and the founder, Wilson, is really responsive to ideas and bug fixes and feedback. So it’s been great overall.”