Item: Guru
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Guru

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

In my role, I need to be able to know nearly everything in order to support both internal stakeholders and external customers. Before Guru, finding information was extremely time-consuming, and you never knew if what you found was actually up-to-date since our company is a constantly evolving start-up. Thanks to Guru, my team has been able to create a fast and reliable knowledge base, and others within the org are jumping in as well. Guru has revolutionized how we create and access knowledge, increasing our efficiency, accuracy, and collaboration by leaps and bounds.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Guru is easy to use and user-friendly.
Guru makes finding information quick and easy.
Guru's AI features keep getting better!
Guru's Chrome and Slack integrations make it easy to access and create knowledge without leaving your workflow.

Cons

I wish the Starter plan had a little more functionality, like the ability to use Zapier and some limited analytics.
The Chrome extension periodically has glitches.

Most Important Features

Verification by a specific person on a specific date.
Chrome and Slack integrations.
A smart searching algorithm for finding information.

Return on Investment

Guru has increased my team's ability to quickly and accurately answer questions, increasing efficiency by 40%.
Guru has decreased new hires' ramp-up time to productivity.
Guru has given us a centralized location to create and access knowledge so that policies are consistently communicated and enforced.

Usability

Guru has been a game-changer for my team!

Alternatives Considered

No other products like Guru have been tried by my team.

Key Insights

Do you think Guru delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Guru's feature set?

Yes

Did Guru live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Guru go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Guru again?

Yes

Other Software Used

HubSpot CRM, Google Workspace, Fathom, Slack

Likelihood to Recommend

Our company uses Guru for internal-facing knowledge. It's very helpful to use when answering emails, having a phone conversation, or meeting over Zoom because you can access information so quickly, that the other person may not even be able to tell you didn't know it off the top of your head. Guru is great for bringing institutional knowledge out of people's heads so that it's available to access and not locked into a silo. This reduces the need for asking questions, which interrupts others' work and then wastes time waiting for an answer. Guru is very helpful when onboarding a new team member, because it makes information easy to find and gives them a central place to find answers to their questions or remind them of processes and procedures.

Using Guru

Users and Roles

35 - Customer service, account management, project management, operations, customer success, virtual assistant

Support Headcount Required

1 - Attention to detail, communication, organization, writing, and proofreading skills are required to support Guru.

Business Processes Supported

Organization and documentation of knowledge
Enabling support teams to rapidly reference accurate information
Centralizing information and eliminating knowledge silos

Innovative Uses

Creating flow charts utilizing dropdowns for scripting around specific scenarios
Creating "example of" cards to easily reference sets of clients with something specific in common

Future Planned Uses

Employee onboarding

Likelihood to Renew

Guru has revolutionized the way my team works and I would never willingly give it up!

Evaluating Guru and Competitors

Products Replaced

Yes - My team specifically was using a Google site as our knowledge base, and it was really not helpful. The site was poorly organized and out of date, making it difficult and slow to find information that might not even be correct.

Key Differentiators

Ease of Use

I had used Guru in the past and knew how easy it was to use and to learn. I wanted something quick and simple that would be easy for my team to learn and to scale if other teams wanted to join in.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

I didn't try any other products; I knew from past experience that I wanted Guru. I might have demoed some other products for comparison's sake, and possibly cost effectiveness, if I had to do it over again.

Guru Implementation

Implementation Rating

When it was just for my own team, I found implementation to be very easy without too much preparation. However, when scaling it out to a broader org, I found I needed to prepare more than expected and there has been both a learning curve for users and some resistance to actually using it.

Implementation Details / Implementation Partner

Implemented in-house

Implementation Phases

Yes - Guru was first implemented on my own small team, with under 10 users. Once we felt comfortable with it and began to see the impact, we began to get inquiries from other internal teams, and a few teams were added at a time until our entire customer success org was added.

Change Management Lessons

Change management was a minor issue with the implementation - Some people have resisted the use of Guru, and that resistance has not been well-handled due to leadership not pushing or encouraging it enough.

Implementation Issues

Resistance to using the system
Resistance to participating in keeping information up to date

Guru Training

Training Types Used

Online Training

In-Person Training

Online Training

The online, on-demand training available was very good. I do wish we had done live online training as an org so that everyone had the same opportunity to learn the value and best practices. I completed the online, on-demand trainings personally, then turned around and taught the org, but I wish I had let the Guru experts do the heavy lifting for me!

Configuring Guru

Product Configurability

Just right

Configuration Lessons

It depends on what tier you have and what systems you want to integrate. The options are endless at the higher tiers and limited at the lower tier.

UI Customization

No - we have not done any customization to the interface

Extensibility and Customization

No - we have not done any custom code

Additional Customization Considerations

Not applicable

Guru Support

Support Rating

Guru representatives are friendly, helpful, and quick to respond.

Guru Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response	None

Premium Support

No, it didn't seem necessary.

Bug Resolution

Exceptional Examples of Guru Support

The account manager assigned to my company's account helped me understand the different tiers of the product and put together a slide deck to help me pitch it to my leadership team.

Using Guru

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar	None

Easy Tasks

Browser extension
Creating, editing, and verifying content
Organizing content
Searching for content

Difficult Tasks

None

Mobile Interface Availability and Impressions

Yes - The mobile interface works well for my needs.

Guru Reliability

Scalability

Very easy to scale, though it can be costly as you add more users.

Reliability and Availability

I have never encountered an outage with Guru in the year+ we've had it. I also never encountered an outage at the previous company where I used Guru. It has been extremely reliable.

Performance

There is some occasional slowness, or multiple refreshes before content will load. This doesn't happen frequently, though, and I don't get complaints from teammates about it.

Integrating Guru

Ease of Integration

Guru is very easy to integrate into Google Chrome and Slack.

Systems Integrated With

Google Chrome
Slack

Very easy to do. Both integrations are seamless with full functionality in creating and searching content.

Future Integration Plans

Plan to integrate with our company's proprietary AI database search functionality

Yes

Integration Lessons Learned

At the lower plan tier, integration options are fairly limited. At the upgraded tier level, there are far more integration options.

Relationship with Guru Technologies

Pre-Sale Experience

Very easy!

Post-Sale Experience

It was pretty easy, though the original account manager stopped checking in for a few months and it turns out she had left the company and no one had taken over our account. Once I reached out, I had a new account manager reach out right away and was very communicative and helpful. However, check-ins have stopped again so I'm not sure if we still have the same account manager.

Key Negotiation Points

They gave us 2 weeks to try the upgraded tier to see if it would be worth it to upgrade permanently, where they typically only give 1 week.

Contract Terms and Pricing Model

Guru is somewhat expensive compared to what our org is typically willing to spend on software solutions. Additionally, there is a price difference per seat when paid monthly versus annually, which was a big downside for us as my company didn't want to commit to an annual cost.

Dealing with Guru Technologies

Don't hesitate to reach out to them even if you're not sure who to reach out to. I got a response from the CEO when I responded to a marketing email inquiring about promotional pricing - definitely wan't expecting that!