Within any company, knowledge is key – and knowledge base resources are no exception. A knowledge base offers a great opportunity for businesses to boost the effectiveness of their operations, support customer service and improve profit margins.
However, getting a knowledge base off the ground can be quite daunting – there’s so much to consider! For that reason, it's important to hone in on best practices. In this essay, we will look at fifteen helpful knowledge base tips designed to give your business the edge on creating and maintaining an profoundly effective knowledge base.
So let’s get right into it: what strategies can help you make the most out of implementing knowledge bases?
Define scope
Creating knowledge base content can seem like a daunting task at first, but it’s important to take the time to define your knowledge base structure and scope before you start writing articles. Start by focusing on certain topics that would make up your knowledge base structure and then go into more detail with each one.
This will help keep things manageable instead of inundating yourself with too much knowledge base content right out the gate. Setting a clear scope will make the whole knowledge base article writing process smoother and more organized.
Know your audience
It is essential to gather feedback from your target audience when creating a customer facing knowledge base. Doing so will provide you with invaluable insights into their needs, interests, and expectations. With this information, you can ensure that you include relevant information in the customer facing knowledge base that will help your customers find the answers they’re looking for quickly.
Knowing exactly who you are speaking to also allows you to adjust your tone of voice accordingly and use language they’ll understand. In short, taking the time to get to know your audience helps ensure that your knowledge base contains content that meets their needs and helps them use it more effectively.
Choose appropriate types of content
Knowing how to choose the right types of content for your knowledge base can mean the difference between seeing success and simply giving lip service. A well-rounded knowledge base should include a variety of content, such as how to guides, text documents, videos, podcasts, webinars and more – whatever is most appropriate based on audience needs and desired topics.
Doing your due diligence in selecting the types of content that make sense for your situation will create a helpful resource rather than a cumbersome one.
Utilize automation
Technology is constantly advancing, and one of the advantages is automation. Automation can be used to streamline many of the tasks associated with knowledge base management. For example, automated responses can be used to handle repetitive enquiries and tasks, freeing up staff to focus on more complex issues.
Automation has made knowledge base management much simpler. Automated responses have been a great addition to knowledge base software since they can handle many of the mundane tasks support teams deal with on a daily basis, such as frequent user queries or knowledge sharing.
An internal, knowledge base tool can further reduce the time spent on customer support tasks by giving customers access to previously created solutions at any time of day. Automating these processes not only saves staff time and energy but also gives customers solutions quickly.
Prioritize quality over quantity
When creating knowledge base content, it's essential to prioritize quality over quantity. An abundance of content can be confusing for your customer base, and it can do more harm than good if the information is incomplete or inaccurate. Instead of offering a large number of articles and videos, focus on crafting fewer pieces with precision and detail. Not only will customer satisfaction increase with high-quality knowledge base articles and videos that are comprehensive and accurate, they won't have to sift through mountains of lackluster content to find what they're looking for!
Quality content is guaranteed to leave a lasting impression with your customer base, no matter how small the amount may be.
Implement effective search
Having an effective search bar for a knowledge base is essential. Sure, you can search for the topics you need manually, but having a search bar and an easily searchable knowledge base will make finding answered to your questions a much smoother process.
By creating an optimized search function, users can search the exact phrase or words they're looking for and get the most accurate information in a timely manner. Without it, users would be stuck spending so much time trying to find the articles that have answers they need and might even give up on trying to using search engines at all.
Implementing search functions in a knowledge base encourages users to reach out to support team when they need help.
Make content easily accessible
Having a knowledge base that's easily accessible to your customers is one of the most important tips when it comes to knowledge management.
No matter what device they're using or how strong their connection is, you want your content to be available at the click of a button. You can make sure this happens by making sure your online knowledge base is properly optimized for all types of search engines and is safe to access from various devices and operating systems.
This way, you can help guarantee that your customers are able get the info they need when they need it most.
Another way of making your knowledge more accessible is to offer a live chat knowledge base.
Analyze knowledge base performance
Data-driven decisions can be one of the most effective ways to improve knowledge base content. Knowledge base analytics provide you with invaluable knowledge about your knowledge base, such as knowledge base metrics and customer feedback.
With knowledge base analytics, you can learn which topics are being accessed the most, if there are any potential trends heading in particular directions, as well as what topics may lack enough detail or need more attention.
This allows knowledge bases to become much more useful for both customers and customer support teams.
Keep content up to date
Keeping content fresh and up-to-date is essential for knowledge management.
It can be time consuming to keep on top of this, but it makes a massive difference to your knowledge base. Making sure that any new developments are incorporated promptly not only keeps things accurate, but it also stops users from wasting their time with out-of-date info.
Follow tip 9 and you’ll thank yourself for keeping knowledge base content fresh and current!
Enable feedback and Q&A
Allowing customer feedback is a must for any business that wants customer experience to succeed. It not only gives customers the opportunity to share their thoughts and experiences, but it also serves as a valuable source of information for businesses.
By getting customer feedback, you can identify any improvements that need to be made or determine customer needs so you your marketing team can offer targeted solutions tailored to the individual customer's needs. Not only will this improve customer satisfaction and loyalty, it'll also increase customer engagement with your brand.
Listening to customers is vital if your business is going to grow and prosper.
Offer different levels of access
It's critical to keep your knowledge base updated and secure, which is why it's essential that you offer different levels of access.
Having different tiers of access will support teams to quickly locate the right information by providing a segmented view and allowing only the relevant personnel to view and edit. Not only does this allow customer support team and teams to stay on top of their tasks, but it also ensures accuracy and data security within your knowledge base - everyone accessing the correct information at the right time.
Monitor content quality
It's essential to have a knowledge base with trusted, high-quality content that can be relied upon.
Regularly using knowledge base homepage checking for accuracy and relevancy is key - after all, if the knowledge base isn't up-to-date, your customers won’t get the answers they need. Additionally, ensuring documentation is unbiased and logically structured will provide a strong basis for customers to make well-informed decisions.
To summarize, having a knowledge base with reliable, accurate content is not only ideal from a customer service team' perspective - it speaks volumes about your company's commitment to professionalism!
Leverage user-generated content
User-generated content is a valuable asset to knowledge bases. Not only does it provide users with additional information to enhance their knowledge, but it also gives them the opportunity to engage in meaningful conversation.
By allowing users to share their stories, opinions and knowledge of the topics presented in your knowledge base, you're creating an engaging atmosphere that encourages further exploration and discussion.
This helps your knowledge base thrive by bringing people together and building a greater sense of self service and community around its content.
Publish regularly
Keeping knowledge base articles fresh is essential to building and maintaining self service content and an interested user base.
Publishing new content regularly ensures everyone can have access to the most up-to-date knowledge available, sparking user curiosity and inspiring further research within the knowledge base. If left unchecked, knowledge bases become stagnant and outdated quickly; publishing content on a regular basis provides knowledge base users with timely and relevant information that allows them to think critically about the subject matter at hand.
Ultimately, it’s important to publish regularly in order for your knowledge base to stay relevant and grow as more industries digitize.
Measure and improve
No knowledge base tool is perfect, and that's why it's important to regularly measure which sections of your knowledge base tools your customers are visiting, how often they're searching for certain topics, and how much time they spend on specific content.
This way, you can identify gaps in user knowledge and develop new content to fill in those gaps. Transparency is key: by tracking knowledge base metrics such as usage, search trends, and time spent on certain topics you can easily visualize any potential issues and make adjustments accordingly.
Keeping an eye on these performance measures will ensure the success of your knowledge base.
Conclusion
A knowledge base is a powerful tool, but it requires a lot of effort to ensure that it is effective. By following these fifteen tips for running and developing an effective knowledge base, businesses can ensure that their knowledge base is efficient and provides value to their users.
If you want to start your journey with a knowledge base software, you can try KnowledgeBase for free. It's easy and you can quickly build your internal knowledge base and a help center for your customers.
