Maximizing Knowledge Management: Creating an Effective Base

Not all knowledge base solutions are created equal and may not be suited to your business.

Its important to assess your needs and requirements before investing in software.

Types Of Knowledge-Base Systems

Knowledge bases can be classified into five types. These include:

1. Internal Knowledge Base
2. Hosted Knowledge Base
3. Self-hosted Knowledge Base
4. Open Source Knowledge Base Software
5. Knowledge base of customer service

Internal Knowledge Base

Your organization creates an internal knowledge base for your employees only to use as they need.

How To Use An Internal Knowledge Base

The possibilities of using an internal knowledge base are endless. You can make the most out of your knowledge base by bringing in important information such as:

1. Answers to frequently-asked questions (FAQs), ranging from employee benefits, onboarding protocols and brand guidelines to customer communications and brand guidelines
2. Handbooks and policies of companies
3. Guides and best practices for handling customer complaints, handling sales strategies and resolving coworker conflict
4. Information about the organization and its important contacts
5. Managers can use this information to learn about recruitment, employee evaluation and interviewing.

Your employees will be able to find answers faster if you maintain an internal knowledge base that is well organized, searchable and easily accessible.

Your company can focus its communications on critical and new information with the help of internal knowledge base software.

The time spent on training new employees and introducing them to company policies, procedures, and practices could be reduced significantly. Your customers will appreciate the quick response of your sales team to their concerns and questions. You will also know that all your employees collective knowledge is available in a safe searchable location.

How Does The Internal Knowledge Base Work?

Software for an internal knowledge base helps your employees to do their jobs better by providing them with a single place where they can find the resources they require.

A solid internal knowledge base will decrease repetitive searches, integrate into employee workflows, and promote collaboration and contribution, which will decrease employee annoyance and boost productivity.

Other examples of software which could be classified as internal knowledge base software are documents, spreadsheets, web portals (CMSs), FAQs or wikis.

You can ask yourself the following questions to help you select the right software for your team:

1. This software allows us to share information with anyone who needs it.
2. How easy is it to notify people of important articles?
3. Can you quickly determine when an article was updated? Will the software encourage SMEs to regularly update outdated information?

Hosted Knowledge Base

The hosted knowledge base is a database that stores and organizes information for your team (internal), as well as your customers (external).

Self-hosted Knowledge Base

This type of knowledge database is hosted by your own organization. This gives you greater control over security, uptime, and privacy.

However, you will also be responsible for any concerns or issues.

Want More Information About Our Services? Talk to Our Consultants!

Open Source Knowledge Base

Open-source knowledge base software is available to everyone and can be either free or not.

Open-source software for knowledge bases can be useful if you want to give software developers and programmers the freedom to customize it according to your business needs.

Open Source Knowledge Bases: Examples

1. Documize
2. eXo
3. MyBase
4. OpenKM

Knowledge Base Of Customer Service

The customer service knowledge base organizes the information so that it is easy to use and access for your customers.

It is also known as a customers knowledge base and contains publicly available knowledge about a company or product. This is not the place to put confidential or private data, as its a public or customer facing site. Find out more about the external knowledge base here.

What is Customer Service Knowledge Base Software?

The software is specifically designed for non-expert external users to easily navigate and find the information they need.

The software, which is maintained by internal experts should be publicly accessible or embedded in a webpage thats aimed at customers.

Knowledge Bases Are Beneficial

Software designed to be used in a knowledge database has distinct advantages over other solutions, such as long documents, PDFs or internal wikis.

1. Spend Less Time Searching For Information- Software created expressly for knowledge bases makes it simpler to locate specific knowledge when needed. It improves the efficiency of contact centers by allowing agents to solve customer problems on their first call. This improves the productivity of all employees by making it easier for them to find information to perform their tasks.
2. Faster Onboarding- New employees no longer have to ask a lot of questions during their first few weeks. They can self-serve with a quality knowledge base and stop interrupting the most important staff.
3. Easy Maintenance- Documents, spreadsheets and version control are prone to becoming outdated. This can cause confusion and duplication. Knowledge bases let users update specific items (instead updating and republishing an entire document) as needed. A good knowledge base will include a way for users to see quickly if information is reliable, as well as an automated reminder to remind SMEs that their information should be kept up to date.
4. Roles- Knowledge bases provide granular editing and access. Some other solutions, such as Google Docs or Google Drive, can be restricted in this manner. However the settings are often more difficult to maintain.
5. Intended for Use in Workflow- A quality knowledge-base solution is intended to provide answers when and where you need them. Other solutions require extensive context switching and searching. Gurus Chrome Extension, Microsoft Teams and Slack Integrations, for example, allow users to access knowledge without having to leave the apps they are already using.

What Makes For A Great Knowledge Base?

1. Organization That Is Clear And Concise: A great knowledge base will be well-organized, easy to navigate and have intuitive categories and subsections to help users find the information they are looking for.
2. Information That Is Up-To-Date, Accurate And Relevant: A great knowledge base regularly updates its information to ensure it is accurate and current. This is done through both automated updates and reviews by subject experts.
3. A user-friendly Interface is Key: the knowledge base should be designed with end users in mind. Its interface should be easy to use and allow the user to find the information quickly.
4. Search Functionality: A great knowledge base will include a robust search feature that allows users to quickly find the information they are looking for. The search function should provide relevant results based upon the users search.
5. Collaboration Tools: With tools like wikis and forums that allow users to contribute to the base, a great knowledge base will promote cooperation and knowledge-sharing. This keeps the information current and relevant while also encouraging a culture that encourages collaboration and continual learning.

Read More: Latest Trends in Enterprise Software Development & Processes

How Do I Select A Knowledge-Base?

Decide whether you require an internal or external knowledge base. Think about your knowledge management techniques.

These two factors combined should help you determine your technical requirements.

1. A content management system is the best choice if you host an externally-facing help center, which needs to be updated between 1-4 times per year.
2. A database that is only accessible from computers on premises is the best choice if your knowledge should only be available in one or two offices.
3. A wiki may be the best solution if you want to create an internal knowledge base that is updated by only a few users once a week but read by many.
4. A web portal is the best choice if you want to create an internal knowledge base that can be updated and read by multiple people on a monthly basis. Look for a web portal that has an extension in the browser if these people use multiple apps.

Why You Need To Have A Knowledge Base

Knowledge management solutions allow subject matter experts to "brain dump" and organize their expertise in an online resource, which they can update and edit as they please.

So, team members can ask questions and get answers directly from the source without bothering the SME. A verification feature, such as Gurus, tells users the information is reliable and current, eliminating the need to check with an SME.

What To Do If You Are Unsure If A Knowledge Base Is Needed

A central access point that shows who has read what information is vital for a People Ops Team to ensure everyone is reading the correct benefits information.

The knowledge base can help.

The same is true for a manager who wants to swiftly onboard new hires and for a team member who requires details on their pay, benefits, or corporate policies.

Internal knowledge base software can help your organization save time, increase productivity, and improve the accuracy and cohesion of information disseminated among employees.

How To Build A Knowledge Database In 7 Easy Steps

Step 1: Research To Determine The Knowledge Base Needs

Understanding the value of a knowledge database is one thing. Determining the purpose of your knowledge base for your organization can be a challenge.

To begin, you must determine what need the knowledge base will fill. Consider your audience. Are you looking to use your knowledge base for your employees or your customers? When you have decided on the audience you wish to target, you can then research knowledge gaps.

1. What are the most frequently asked questions by your employees and customers?
2. What department receives a constant stream of requests for information?
3. How long does it take you to respond to questions from employees and clients?
4. Does your companys productivity suffer because it cant effectively share information?
5. What would be the consequences if certain employees of a company left and took their knowledge along with them?

Answers to these questions will help determine if a knowledge database is needed and how to structure it.

Step 2: Identify The Type Of Knowledge Base

You must first determine which type of knowledge database will best suit your needs. Six types of knowledge base are common.

Consider the audience that the knowledge database will serve. Also, consider how accessible the knowledge base should be for the public. Finally, decide whether the knowledgebase will be hosted on your server or by a third party.

Step 3: Create A Knowledge Base

The organization is key to creating a structure for your knowledge base. All users should be able quickly and easily to find the information they need.

It is important to develop your knowledge-base structure early on in the process. This will help you organize content and make navigation more intuitive.

You can organize your knowledge base in a variety of ways:

1. If you have different types of users or customers, it is useful to organize your knowledge base according to role. Users would have the ability to access knowledge specific to their needs. A HR knowledge base, for example, could be organized to include sections that are geared towards contractors, full-time and part-time workers.
2. If you want to organize your knowledge base by activities, it is a good idea if your audience will be using the knowledge base and they need information on specific actions. A knowledge base for a travel agency, for example, may be organized according to activities such as planning a trip, booking tickets and contacting a representative.
3. Stage/ Experience of User - When you organize your knowledge base by stage or experience, your users can quickly match their information to their needs.Stages like getting started, service upgrades, or user tutorials could be used to organise a knowledge base for an internet service.
4. You can also organize your knowledge base based on product types. A furniture company, for example, may organize its knowledge base into living room furniture and bedroom furniture. It could also organize it by kids furniture and office furniture.

As your content is added to, edited or archived, it will continually change. It is therefore important that your categories are broad enough to include a variety of content which can be further sub categorized according to topic or theme.

Step 4: Establish Smes To Create Content

Content that is engaging and interesting, tailored to your audiences needs, should be constantly added to your knowledge base.

To ensure that the knowledge base content is accurate, useful, and of high quality, subject matter experts and/or editors should develop it. This is how the process might work:

1. The manager of the knowledge base determines what content is needed for each category. The manager defines the purpose, primary messaging, keywords and call to action of each article. The manager is also responsible for setting deadlines and assigning content to SMEs.
2. The Knowledge Base Manager will provide the SMEs with the necessary instructions to help them create the content. SMEs must also check edited content to ensure accuracy.
3. Editors check the content submitted by SMEs for grammar, spelling and style.

You will probably have multiple SMEs writing content for your Knowledge Base. A style guide will help you ensure that your content has a consistent look, tone and feel, regardless of the person who wrote or edited it.

You may have a style manual in your marketing or communications department that contains guidelines on punctuation, branding style, formatting and more.

Step 5: Write Down Knowledge Resources

To ensure that both are achieved, provide them with writing instructions that cover the following basics: For both, give them writing instructions that cover the following basics:

1. Clarity: Use headlines that are action-oriented to let your audience know what you will be explaining at a glance. Clarify all technical or jargon terms.
2. Readers like content that is easy to read. This means that paragraphs need to be short, and text blocks should be broken into sections with bullets, headings, or numbers lists, if applicable.
3. Increase engagement by including images, charts or infographics in your content. You can also use videos as standalone content.
4. Useful: Link to relevant articles in your knowledge base. Your audience will be able to easily locate other resources that answer their questions.
5. Value: Each piece of content you include in your knowledge base should provide a solution or an insight that is valuable.

Step 6: Upload Your Resources To The Shared Platform

A shared knowledge platform is a system of software that allows information from your knowledge base to be easily transferred to the people who need it.

You will choose a shared platform that includes the tools to extend the functionality of your knowledge base. The shared platform software, for example, could include search, file sharing and analytics, reporting and user feedback.

You should choose a shared platform that can scale to your growing knowledge base.

Step 7: Update Your Content Frequently

To keep your knowledge base relevant and useful, you will need to update content regularly. You can rely on the built-in analytics of your knowledge base system to assist.

You will be able to better understand:

1. What type of information are people accessing?
2. Search traffic for popular articles has changed
3. First published and last updated date of an article

Plan to periodically have your CRM companies review all of your material throughout the year to update, improve, or retire it as necessary.

You should also plan to update content whenever your companys policies, products or services change.

Read More: Must-Have Features of Custom CRM Solutions

Knowledge Base Management And Best Practices

The first half of the battle is developing your knowledge base. A superb knowledge base needs to be managed and updated frequently in order to effectively serve your customers.

These recommended practises will enable your knowledge base to benefit your clients the most and give them the information and support they require.

1. Know Your Audience

Buyer personas arent just for marketing. They can be used by other departments as well. Refer to your customer data when creating your knowledge base.

Use the same trends you used to determine your knowledge-base topics to help you write and position your articles.

Your knowledge base articles should be written with the same amount of thought as your sales copy and blog posts.

Establish a tone and writing style that will appeal to and engage your target audience while providing all the information they need. If your audience cant comprehend the information you provide, they will contact customer service- defeating the purpose of providing a proactive knowledge base.

2. Stay Informed About Your Brand

Your knowledge base is another way to reflect your brand. If you dont keep your knowledge base consistent in terms of your brand voice, colors and design, it will give customers a confusing experience when they are trying to learn about your products and services.

You should write a style guide for your knowledge base. Give strict layout and writing guidelines for knowledge base articles.

This will maintain your knowledge base consistent and expert no matter who is updating the information or producing articles.

3. Consider Accessibility

Accessibility standards are not just for websites. Your knowledge base is also important. Include alt text with all images, videos, and screenshots in your articles.

Check if there are any colors that might be difficult to distinguish against certain backgrounds and buttons.

Use large, clear fonts to separate lists and headers. Tables of contents can be hyperlinked to assist readers in navigating long articles.

Before launching, make sure your knowledge base is compatible with mobile devices.

4. Every Time A New Product Is Launched Or Updated, Update Your Knowledge Base

Your knowledge base should be updated if your company, products, services, brand, or branding changes. Over time, if you ignore your knowledge base, it will become useless and customers will notice.

You should update your articles in your knowledge base just as you would train your staff to provide customer service on new products or services. It is also important to create new articles when introducing new features or products.

Heres a hint: Explain major concepts or features only once. Then, when you create new articles that refer to the concept, simply link back to that article.

You can avoid updating content multiple times by using this method.

5. Share Your Knowledge With Everyone

Its not just used for when you need it. A good knowledge base can also be used to explain sales presentations and convert leads.

Its primary function is to answer customer questions and offer support, but it has value in other areas.

Consider linking to an article in the knowledge base that explains the feature, rather than the product page, when you are writing a post on your blog.

It not only provides a more detailed explanation of the feature but also allows readers to see your product in action.

6. Effectiveness Can Be Measured

It is difficult to determine the effectiveness of knowledge bases. How can you tell if your customers are happy to leave your knowledge base article with answers and new knowledge in their heads, or if they are frustrated, without answers and contemplating switching to a competitor after reading it? How can you be sure that you are creating the best content for your customers and answering all their questions?

You can measure the effectiveness of your knowledge base in a number of ways. Include a simple, one-question survey at the end of each article.

You dont need to make these surveys complicated. Asking "Was the article helpful?" is enough. Customers can then click thumbs up or down based on how helpful they thought the article was.

Second, give customers an email or phone number to ask questions or provide feedback.

Ask your customers if they think your knowledge base works. Lets take a look at some companies who are doing it right.

Want More Information About Our Services? Talk to Our Consultants!

The Conclusion Of The Article Is:

Building a knowledge base can help you scale up your customer service and customer success efforts - without adding new customer support staff. It can also help reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction and boost ROI for your customer success team.
It can also help you focus on proactive initiatives such as customer empowerment and education, rather than simply reacting when support tickets are raised. This can be a major organizational win.

It is important to answer the most common and important questions that customers ask.

References

1. 🔗 Google scholar
2. 🔗 Wikipedia
3. 🔗 NyTimes