Can I assume you're making a custom collision for your stairs? If so, what type of material are you assigning to the stair collision? There are several materials you can assign that are specifically for stairs, StoneStairs and WoodStairs being two of them. If you, as the player, cannot climb the stairs, my guess is you don't have stair specific material assigned to the collision. I've been there before. Also, I've built some pretty steep stairs in the past and haven't had any trouble climbing them. I haven't actually witnessed NPCs using the steep stairs, but I know Dogmeat can climb them, and he is more or less an NPC. Stair helpers are more for NPCs than for the player. Here is a great tutorial for stair helpers as well as nav mesh cuts:
BTW, I typically space my stair treads at 16 generic unit intervals, more or less the same as vanilla stairs.