The comprehensive guide to headless CMS technical support

Highlights

You’ll learn everything about technical support in headless CMS:

• Definition: Technical support assists you with the installation, configuration, and integration of a headless CMS
• Benefits: Easy transition to headless CMS, faster troubleshooting, better onboarding
• Real-world example: Contentstack delivered technical support that allowed Leesa and Pella to achieve a seamless headless CMS transition, resulting in organic traffic and faster content delivery

Enjoy a seamless transition to a headless CMS with the right technical support. Contentstack offers multichannel, customized, and responsive support, leading to 98% customer satisfaction. Talk to us today.

Keep reading to learn more!

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Recent reports state that 57% of businesses already use a headless approach, while another 31% plan to consider a headless CMS by the next year. The reasons are not far-fetched.

A headless CMS allows you to deliver content and digital experiences to multiple digital channels, and it has cloud-native features, allowing it to grow with your business.

Unlike a traditional CMS, it only focuses on the back-end content repository and relies on APIs to connect with any front-end framework. That decoupled design offers some complexity. Hence, you need robust technical support during and after implementation.

Understanding headless CMS technical support

Headless CMS technical support is crucial as organizations bed into a new headless CMS setup. Migrating to a headless CMS can throw up technical issues like integration problems, performance bottlenecks, and security vulnerabilities.

Hence, vendors must provide assistance on security, API troubleshooting, developer assistance, and proactive monitoring. For instance, Extu enjoyed Contentstack’s comprehensive customer support with API integration, documentation, and customer service throughout the pilot stage until they went live. 

Key considerations for technical support in headless CMS

Several aspects of customer support help usher in the transition to a headless CMS, and here are the most important ones to consider.

• Vendor support: Find out how fast the vendor resolves issues and their level of support. Review their service level agreements (SLAs) to understand how they work. Community forums are also essential to vendor support, as they are good platforms to ask questions and get help.

• API integration: Ensure that the CMS you choose can smoothly transfer data between different platforms using application programming interfaces (APIs). Also, check that the APIs are secure and functional.

• Scalability: Find out if the headless CMS solution can also grow with your business as you expand. Such CMS must have a horizontal scaling architecture to manage extra storage and traffic spikes as you grow.

• Security: Ensure the headless CMS vendor complies with regulatory and industry standards, such as GDPR and ISO/IEC 27001:2022. Also, ensure that the vendor offers security management protocols. For instance, Contentstack offers a reliable virtual private cloud and industry-standard AES-256 algorithm for encryption.

• Disaster recovery and data backup: As data security is a critical issue, also consider what plans headless CMS vendors have in the case of a security breach. A resilient system must have data recovery plans that reduce any loss should the system come under attack.

• Multichannel support: Check that technical support mechanisms are available on multiple channels, such as phone, web chatbots, social media, and others. 

• Content delivery optimization: To improve headless CMS efficiency, use a powerful content delivery network (CDN) and hosting provider. Contentstack offers robust CDNs and a front-end framework to automate deployment.

Best practices for effective headless CMS technical support

Consider below best practices for effective technical support.

Comprehensive documentation: Documentations are a point of reference and help troubleshoot. It should highlight the APIs, integration processes, and troubleshooting steps. 

Proactive monitoring and alerts: Monitoring tools allow you to detect and deal with issues early. Automate the process by setting up alerts.

Regular software updates: Software updates ensure you are not behind on the latest trends, whether in terms of security or tech shifts.

Ongoing maintenance and support strategies

Ongoing monitoring helps detect problems early, allowing you to address them before they develop into something more serious. 

Your CMS will be secure and efficient with regular updates and monitoring. Technical support also involves training your team to understand how the system works so they can troubleshoot problems. 

Headless CMS implementation roadmap

This roadmap shows the steps, milestones, and collaborative approach needed to successfully transition into a headless CMS configuration.

1. Define your goals: Speak with your It team and developers to understand your technical maturity and what you would require going forward. That allows you to develop the right business case for a headless CMS.
2. Choose the right platform: The right platform is secure, flexible, and scalable. Contentstack is MACH-enabled and offers responsive customer support and a vibrant community.
3. Set up the backend: The backend is the system's backbone. Set up secure APIs for data integration and microservices interaction. Also, ensure your back end can work with your front end.
4. Develop the front end: Headless CMS allows you to build user interfaces in the front end using any tech stack that works for you, be it Angular, React, Vue.Js, Etc. Ensure the front end is fast, intuitive and user-friendly. Contentstack offers fully automated and simplified front-end hosting.
5. Test the system: Run functional, stress, and other performance tests to ensure all features work well. Run load tests to ensure the system can handle high traffic and usability tests to ensure you can deliver a seamless user experience. 

Challenges and solutions

Here are common challenges in headless CMS implementation and strategies to deal with them.

 

Key milestones and benchmarks

A successful headless CMS implementation requires the input of all stakeholders and a defined goal. For example, you may want to deliver omnichannel experiences, faster publishing, a better user experience, localization, or all of that.

Create the right business case, get stakeholders' input, and opt for a MACH-enabled headless CMS. Next, set up the content repository, secure APIs, and a user-friendly frontend interface. Conduct thorough testing and monitor performance. 

Implement logging and automated alerts to track performance. Create a regular review mechanism to track metrics and user feedback to improve system performance.

Collaborating with IT and marketing teams

Migrating to a headless CMS is a complete business strategy that requires marketing and IT alignment. Ensure that both teams collaborate and share information. Regular meetings keep everyone aligned and ensure a smooth implementation.

Future trends in headless CMS technical support

AI and automation

With increasing AI adoption, headless CMS will automate many aspects of tech support, leveraging predictive analytics. Although they already do that with web chatbots, they may extend it to monitoring and troubleshooting, programming the system to automatically deal with performance issues as they come up. 

Integrated DevOps practices

Integrated DevOps practices in headless CMS technical support will become more mainstream. Vendors will automate deployment pipelines, continuous integration (CI), and continuous delivery (CD) and deliver rapid updates. For instance, they can deploy automated testing frameworks to catch bugs early.

Case studies

Leesa

Leesa struggled with low organic traffic as developers were dealing with too many content requests. They lacked the freedom and speed required to deliver high-impact content.

Switching to Contentstack allowed them to fix the problems. Along with its headless CMS, Contentstack provided the right support to ease into the new headless architecture.

Hear from Richard Bilton, the Director of Technology. "Contentstack has been fantastic. I don’t know of any other customer support team willing to jump on a video call and code with us and help us fix a challenge. In my world, it’s never happened before.”

Read more about Leesa’s organic traffic success after switching to Contentstack.

Pella

Pella faced the usual issues with a monolithic CMS, such as slow content delivery, the inability to customize layouts, and predefined templates that were not flexible.

With Contentstack’s headless CMS and technical support, they could decouple content management from presentation. That allowed them to reduce development time by 50% and increase publishing by 230%.

Tod Hilton, the Front-End Web Developer, summarized their feelings. "Contentstack is the best decision we ever made."

Read more about how Pella opened new doors with a headless CMS.

FAQ section

What is headless CMS support?

It means the technical assistance and resources given to the users and developers to troubleshoot or manage the headless content management system, like installing, configuring, and integrating the headless CMS with other systems and various front-end technologies. 

Is a headless CMS just an API?

No. A headless CMS is not an API in itself. It is a content management system that separates the back end from the front end and connects both systems via APIs.

Is a headless CMS just a backend?

No. It is more than a back end. It is a complete CMS that is concerned with content storage and provides the facilities to deliver content in any form to all kinds of digital devices.

Is headless CMS just a database?

No, Headless CMS is not just a database. A headless CMS consists of a CMS interface and backend that stores and delivers content via APIs

Learn more

Traditional CMSes struggle to scale content delivery, and they do not offer the kind of customization and personalization that makes a difference for businesses.

Hence, many organizations are switching to a headless CMS.
However, that comes with some technical challenges that require the right support.

Contentstack offers unmatched customer support to support your digital transformation. It includes documentation, web chat, and specialized technical support for your headless CMS. Enjoy a seamless transition to a headless CMS with Contentstack. Talk to us today.