A knowledge base should not be a stone tablet, written once and fixed in place. Especially in the software world, information becomes outdated or incomplete constantly, so you will need to revisit it regularly. Nominate a person or a team to own the knowledge base or some portion of it , and be sure they have the time and capacity to work on it. Over time, your team can extend your knowledge base, updating existing content and adding new content or new formats for existing content , building an information resource that will save plenty of time for your customers and your team.
Planning, designing, creating, and maintaining a knowledge base can feel daunting. However, every article you write might represent hundreds or thousands of future customer questions answered without needing your help.
A great knowledge base can also be an incredible tool for training new staff and an excellent SEO resource that draws in new potential customers. Time spent well on building your knowledge base will pay off for years to come.
After running a support team for years, Mat joined the marketing team at Help Scout, where we make excellent customer service achievable for companies of all sizes. Connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn. Want to learn what Help Scout can do for you? See for yourself with a free trial — we'll happily extend you if you need more time.
Try for free. And when they have additional questions, others in the community are right there to help. A knowledge base, supported by a strong knowledge management program, ensures new hires are trained with the latest information and get consistent guidance. That translates to a better work environment and lower costs. Once you put a good knowledge base in place, backed by a plan for knowledge management, customers and employees find answers themselves.
Beyond implementing a strong knowledge management system, here are tips on building and maintaining a knowledge base. Then look at your customer satisfaction and productivity goals; if your organization could do better, a knowledge base is a great place to start. This is no easy task -- content is everywhere.
Collect FAQs and answers from any department that provides service. And we mean any department, like the guys who build trade shows, the people in IT, HR. Teams across the organization all can and should contribute to your knowledge base.
And they should be part of the knowledge management process that maintains it. Create a style guide, so that all of the information you pour into your knowledge base looks and sounds the same. This covers the entire visual presentation including font, type size, colors, and even images. Figure out how your company or organization talks. The people in marketing can help. Make sure you have the right tools for hosting and managing your knowledge base. Everything from the frequency of content changes to how customers typically interact with your information should be part of your decision.
And easy to use. Allow contributors to use speed-templates to upload data. Use labels and search terms to categorize information and make articles easier to find. Organize the content to fit your organization and then be careful to maintain it. It should be designed to emphasize ease of access and findability, not simply for information storage.
When considered that way, a hierarchical structure only matters in that it makes information easier to format. Related pieces of information should be connected either via hyperlink or tagging or both to give a fuller context. Whatever structure works for your company is what you should use. The most important thing to keep in mind when building an internal knowledge base is to keep the content relevant, easy to understand, and easy to find.
Information should be short and relevant to prevent confusion in its interpretation. If possible, avoid burying information in longer, multiple topic pages or documents.
Where you can, create information on a single topic. Discover why shorter knowledge is easier to use. See how Guru captures, transforms, and delivers knowledge when you need it.
Why Guru? With Guru's collaborative knowledge management solution, answers find you. Product enablement. The latest product information, delivered to reps in their workflow. Internal communications. Teams stay connected with anytime access to expert-verified information. Employee onboarding. While there are many other tools that should be used to help with optimizing knowledge management-related processes , it's your knowledge base that plays the most pivotal role.
Without a knowledge base acting as a central hub for your organizational knowledge, your efforts to gain full control over this info will be spread way too thin. Developers typically take one of the following approaches when it comes to providing their software:.
For a detailed overview of the benefits and potential negatives of each solution, check out the following article : Open Source Knowledge Base vs SaaS — Which is Better? Okay, technically you could just upload a few informational documents into the database and call it a day.
So, if your goal is to build a robust and effective knowledge base that actually provides value to your audience , there are a number of best practices you need to follow. Here, the focus is on onboarding new users and enabling them to get started as quickly as possible. The point is, the content you write for your knowledge base should revolve around the information your audience needs to know in order to enhance their overall experience.
Essentially, your content categories should be based on a hierarchy, allowing your audience to dig deeper and deeper into a specific topic with little to no friction. And, as we mentioned earlier, this is no more evident than in the creation and maintaining of an effective knowledge base. That is, the creation of your knowledge base should involve input from team members from a variety of departments. For example, your sales team will know what kind of information prospective customers need to know before they make a purchasing decision.
With such suggestions in mind, your team can focus on writing knowledge base articles that proactively answers these pressing questions for your prospects. As we alluded to earlier, not only can prospective customers use your knowledge base on their own, but your sales team can also use it to find pertinent information when trying to close a sale. Focusing on customer service and support teams, these individuals will have direct knowledge of the most common problems and issues current customers face when using your product or service.
Similarly, since your technical teams have the most in-depth understanding of the actual process of using your products or services, their input is vital to the creation of your knowledge base. In fact, because knowledge base documents are typically more technical in nature, tech teams often take the reins completely when actually creating them.
First of all, in the same vein as the sales team, your marketing team will know what information to focus on to keep prospects informed and to build their trust. Moreover, your marketing team will know how to best present your knowledge base to your target audience in a way that makes them feel welcome and comfortable.
Now, where your marketing and design teams really come in is in the presentation of your knowledge base. Basically, you want your knowledge base to have just enough personality for your brand to shine through, while not detracting from the more functional nature of the content with the database.
Take a look at the following knowledge base example from Gumroad:. Overall, the content of this document takes a more serious and informational tone. In terms of aesthetic appearance, you want to take a similar approach.
The majority of people don't just browse around a knowledge base for the heck of it. Whatever the case may be, you want to ensure your knowledge base user is able to get exactly what they need with as little effort as possible. This, of course, goes hand-in-hand with content organization—but it goes a step further.
There are a number of ways you can make your knowledge base more navigable, such as:. Not only does this specific page explain exactly what first-time users need to do to get started with the product, but it also provides multiple opportunities for newcomers to dig deeper whether it be to find the answers to further questions, clarify certain information, or mitigate any problems they experience along the way.
0コメント