Making a business case for documentation, post 5 - Learn how documentation saves costs
Ravi Murugesan — 
Lana Novikova This is the fifth post in a series about making a business case for documentation. We discuss how good documentation can also lead to cost savings in this post.
When making a business case for documentation, adding a section that explains how the organization can save costs is sure to make a strong impact. This post explains some cost-saving aspects you can explore.
Reducing support load and response time and enhancing self-service capabilities
Well-structured, comprehensive documentation significantly reduces organizational support costs while improving the overall user experience. Users can be directed to help articles rather than engaging in lengthy support interactions, improving efficiency, and using resources effectively:
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Decreased support tickets: Users can find solutions independently, reducing the volume of support requests. For example, Kovai.co recorded a 36% decrease in their customer support tickets after they released a customer knowledge base. And at Crisp, they noticed a 40% decrease in customer support requests after releasing theirs.
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Improved self-service: Users solve issues without contacting support, leading to faster problem resolution and increased satisfaction. For example, in a recent industry survey, 81% of respondents agreed that they prefer finding answers in documentation portals on their own without having to reach out to support (Frost & Sullivan survey commissioned by Zoomin, April 2020).
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Cost savings: Self-service through documentation is significantly cheaper than live support. Forrester Research has found live agent interactions cost $6-$12, while self-service is as low as $0.25, potentially reducing costs by 95%. By tracking the number of issues resolved through documentation compared to the total number of support tickets raised over a specific period, you can assess the impact of your documentation efforts.
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Efficient resource allocation: With fewer routine inquiries, support teams can focus on complex issues, improving overall service quality.
By investing in quality documentation, organizations can simultaneously reduce support costs and enhance user empowerment, leading to improved efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Reducing onboarding costs
By providing detailed and user-friendly documentation, new team members can quickly get up to speed with essential information and processes, thereby reducing the time and resources spent on onboarding. This results in higher productivity while ensuring that new hires are equipped with the necessary knowledge.
Facilitating work-from-home efficiency
Especially pertinent with the move to remote work culture, comprehensive documentation empowers work-from-home team members. While remote work eliminates the possibility of quick in-person queries (aka shoulder tapping), well-structured and accessible online documentation can fill this gap, ensuring that team members can find information without a delay. This is particularly relevant for global teams spread across different time zones.
Time-to-market efficiency
Documented architecture and solutions significantly contribute to decreasing the time-to-market for new developers. This not only saves time for team leads during the onboarding process but also facilitates faster knowledge sharing among team members. Clear and complete architectural specification increases product quality by helping reduce issues caused by misunderstandings.
For instance, in both open source projects and enterprises, developers see about a 50% productivity boost with easy-to-source documentation (The 2021 State of Octoverse - Creating Documentation, GitHub).
Text of article ©2025 Ravi Murugesan, Lana Novikova
Released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)