Today’s consumers expect immediate access to helpful information and quick solutions to queries or issues.
Research shows that 73% of customers prefer to access a company’s website and find solutions for any issues independently. To meet this demand for self-service knowledge, businesses must offer customers simple-to-find, relevant information about their products and services. This is where the online knowledge base comes into play.
Knowledge bases can prove a valuable asset to your business when developed and used correctly. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explain why a specific knowledge management system and strategy is crucial for businesses, discuss the key components of knowledge bases, and explain how creating your own can benefit your business.
So, what is a knowledge base?
In short, a knowledge base is an index of content - a library of information - made up of articles, where users can search for information about your products and services.
You’ll find knowledge bases in various forms, from web portals to frequently asked questions (FAQs), help centers, wikis, articles, troubleshooting guides, and other resources focusing on specific aspects of a business, product, or service.
The purpose of a knowledge base is to empower the user to find their own solutions to questions, queries, or issues in a quick and effective manner.
Internal and external systems
Knowledge bases can be either internal or external. Internal knowledge bases, also known as an employee intranet or company wiki, serve to support employees within a business and may store company private or confidential information - only accessible to staff.
Internal knowledge bases can be flexible to meet business needs, including a wide variety of knowledge assets such as FAQs for employees, company policies and handbooks, best practice guides for sales strategies, handling customer issues, and dealing with internal conflict. Human resources may also use these systems for recruitment purposes, interviewing, and employee assessment information for managers.
External knowledge bases, also called customer self-service knowledge bases, are publicly facing systems that capture knowledge for customers, so they can effectively use your offered product or service. These systems can also include troubleshooting, information around billing, shipping, and returning products, help requests, company history, and store or office locations.
An external self-service platform can reap benefits for both employees and customers. It can help customers learn more about a product or service without the need to speak to a customer service agent or technical support, empowering customers with the knowledge they need. And this process can free up customer agents’ time to deal with the most complex tasks.
It is through the adoption of innovative software that knowledge bases can be most effectively constructed and used. These powerful online knowledge base tools support businesses to store, organize and share information and update it regularly. Identifying the right knowledge base software for your business can help you optimize operations, improve productivity, and enhance overall customer satisfaction.
Why a knowledge management strategy is good for business?
Staying ahead in the ever-evolving business world requires organizations to adopt effective knowledge management. A strategic approach to capturing, storing and disseminating information about products and services will help support your business goals and objectives.
External hubs empower customers to solve their own queries, offering them more efficient resolutions and freeing up your customer service agents.
The right strategy can help position your brand as an authority online and even bring more customers your way as they search for relevant information before purchase, while also ensuring a positive experience for those customers you already have.
A strong strategy for your internal knowledge base can help improve business processes, boost innovation, and enhance overall decision-making. By enhancing collaboration and facilitating communication between teams, you can create a joined-up approach to problem-solving and reduce error rates.
Adopting a suitable knowledge management strategy will help a business better utilize its knowledge resources and help highlight and address knowledge gaps, leading to better training tools and more efficient knowledge transfer, ultimately boosting your organization’s productivity.
From the overall business perspective, you’ll save time and money on training processes and have a centralized source of knowledge that can be reused and easily updated regularly.
Your knowledge management strategy is your framework to become more efficient, innovative, and competitive by effectively leveraging the knowledge and expertise of employees and other stakeholders.
Whether internal or external, to properly implement a knowledge management strategy, the process should involve identifying vital knowledge areas and investing in appropriate tools and technology specifically designed to capture, store, and share knowledge.
From AI-powered platforms to employee empowerment, incorporating the most innovative techniques and tools will revolutionize the way you harness, store, and use your most valuable asset - knowledge.
Once you’re clear on the direction of your strategy, then comes the process of implementation. There are numerous ways you can formulate a knowledge base, depending on your target audience, and business goals and objectives. However, to really get to grips with understanding the purpose of each type as part of a wider knowledge management strategy, we need to delve deeper into discussing what a knowledge base actually is.
Benefits of using a knowledge base
All organizations can benefit from sharing knowledge and information. As they say, “knowledge is power,” giving it the potential to be a hugely valuable business asset, especially when managed well. An online knowledge base gives businesses a solid structural framework to coordinate the information they need to share, whether the system is internally or externally facing.
Five benefits of an internal knowledge base:
A well-structured internal knowledge center arms employees with the information they need to do their jobs properly. Integrating a self-service system for staff helps to preserve business knowledge in the long term, improves communication, supports better knowledge transfer, and leads to happier employees.
Easy access to information:
A purpose-built internal knowledge management system makes it easier for staff to find specific information when they need it. With a well-organized and searchable repository of knowledge base articles, employees can quickly locate relevant documents, procedures, guidelines, and other resources. This streamlined access to information saves time, enhances efficiency, and enables employees to make informed decisions with confidence.
Improved communication flow:
A specifically tailored internal knowledge base enhances communication flow within an organization by providing a centralized platform for sharing information. Employees can easily access and contribute to the knowledge system, fostering collaboration and ensuring that relevant updates and insights about specific products, services, or practices are effectively disseminated throughout the company.
Knowledge transfer:
An employee intranet can play a crucial role in facilitating knowledge transfer within an organization. It allows experienced employees to capture and share their expertise, insights, and best practices in a structured manner with others from across the organization. This promotes continuous learning, fosters collaboration, and ensures that critical knowledge is preserved and accessible to all employees.
Employee engagement:
By providing employees with easy access to information, a comprehensive internal knowledge base empowers them to perform their jobs more effectively. When employees have the necessary tools and resources at their fingertips, they feel more engaged and confident in their roles. This leads to increased productivity, job satisfaction, and overall employee happiness.
Faster onboarding:
Effective knowledge management can help organizations deliver the most important information new employees need to get started in their roles. An organized self-service training system will reduce the need for new employees to repeatedly as the same questions to critical staff, which will stop unnecessary workflow interruption.
Five benefits of an external knowledge base:
When considering the customer experience, an external knowledge base plays a crucial role in empowering customers by offering self-service options, comprehensive information, and quick problem resolution. By offering instant solutions and reducing support wait times, this investment will enhance your overall customer experience, leading to increased satisfaction and brand loyalty.
Customer satisfaction:
By offering customers instant access to relevant information through a self-service portal, this enables quick problem resolution, reducing dependency on support staff. Knowledge bases empower customers with the information they need ensuring a more seamless customer experience.
Customer analytics:
So, what kind of data is provided in a knowledge base? Numerous software products provide customer analytics capabilities, enabling organizations to monitor crucial metrics like the popularity of articles and track customer search keywords. This valuable data can be leveraged to enhance future content strategies. For instance, if analytics reveal a surge in customer searches for a specific topic not currently covered, content teams can proactively create articles to address that information gap.
Reduce customer support costs:
Implementing an external knowledge base with self-service options can significantly reduce customer support costs. By empowering customers to find answers on their own, fewer support tickets are generated, resulting in reduced staffing needs and lower operational expenses. The cost-effective nature of a knowledge base enables organizations to allocate resources more efficiently while still delivering excellent customer support.
Minimize customer wait times:
A decent knowledge base that is properly organized will avoid long waiting times to speak to a customer support agent because customers will have all the information they need, right at the click of a mouse.
Knowledge base data
The type of information included in your knowledge base will depend to some extent on whether you’re creating public-facing content or internal articles to support your employees..
Generally speaking, a knowledge base can include many types of content and data including:
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How-tos: Step-by-step instructions on using your products and services
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Answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs)
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Video demonstrations
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Glossaries and lists of definitions
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Company information
Knowledge base metrics
Once you’ve built and launched your knowledge base, you’ll need to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of this tool, to find out if you are meeting the needs of users. Here are some important metrics to consider, most relevant for public-facing systems:
Article views
As you develop and grow your knowledge base, the number of articles will gradually increase. Assessing which articles are viewed the most can help you find out if your articles are meeting customer or employee needs. For example, a “getting started” article gets the highest views, but your customer service team continues to be saturated with onboarding questions. This could be a sign that this article should be reviewed.
Search metrics
Measuring what users are specifically searching for, you can begin to more clearly understand their needs and identify potential content gaps. You can also request feedback from users to highlight any missed queries.
Customer satisfaction (CSAT)
It is crucial to gather feedback from users to assess their satisfaction. This can be done through surveys or post-interaction feedback ratings. Monitoring CSAT provides insights into how well the knowledge base meets customer expectations and can help identify where improvements are needed.
Self-service success rate
This metric determines the percentage of user issues or inquiries that are successfully resolved through self-service within the knowledge base. This metric helps gauge the effectiveness of your system in addressing user needs, without the need for additional support.
Updates
Monitoring when the most recent update in the system was added is a vital way to assess whether your articles remain relevant. If your updates are more than a few years old, it is unlikely that the information present correlates with your current products or services, which can negatively impact a customer’s perception of your business.
Choosing the right knowledge base systems
With so many options out there, choosing the best knowledge management system for your business can be a challenge. Fortunately, armed with the appropriate information and criteria, this process will become much easier.
Options for new systems range from knowledge base software and FAQ software to enterprise solutions.
We suggest you first consider whether your current content management system (CMS) could serve as your knowledge base host. If you’re using HubSpot or another system to manage your website content, it's quite likely that you could also use it for self-service content.
If you’re using WordPress, you can easily find knowledge base solutions as plugins, without investing in a whole new system.
However, if you’re looking for a flexible tool, you may need to invest in a specific knowledge base solution. There’s plenty out there, so it is a case of evaluating which solution meets the criteria your business needs. Ask questions like:
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How much does a solution cost?
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What features are included?
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Does the system include a community forum function?
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Can you access the required analytics?
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Can this solution integrate well with other tools currently in use within the business?
As for any decision-making process, it is crucial to consider the pros and cons of any system to find the best solution that is tailored to your specific business needs.
Final thoughts
Investing in a new tool always requires careful consideration. Getting to grips with what a knowledge base is and understanding why you need one to successfully manage information makes it much easier to present your business case.
Creating a helpful knowledge base that is easy to use, and serves as a support for customers, employees, or both - can do wonders for your business. An effective knowledge base is a true friend for customer service and when built and maintained well, will make your business more efficient.