What's a knowledge database? Here's what you'll need to make one
As a company grows with more staff and customers is the higher the likelihood is that employees will require assistance at some point whether it's working the function of your product or service as well as training new employees or even training your employees already on the latest items.
One of the problems you could encounter with growing is that your support staff and your internal management team can quickly become inundated with frequent queries. The solution is to create a information base.
What exactly is a knowledge base?
A reliable knowledge base provides self-service resource that contains company and customer support documentation used to answer customer questions, provide tutorials, help in troubleshooting and usually for onboarding education.
What are the benefits and uses of the knowledge base?
Specific benefits and use cases of knowledge bases are contingent upon the type of business or sector you're working in. We'll be looking at some of the examples later. However it is important to note some general suggestions you could make, regardless of the type of organization you're managing.
Benefits of having a knowledge base
The primary reason for a knowledge database is that it can serve two main purposes:
- Customer education. These days, when a customer has a question the first thing they'll search for an answer is on your site. A good knowledge base can help those 90% of your customers who prefer use a self-service.
- Education of employees. Expanding teams anywhere in the business can be a daunting task for any HR and legal representative. A knowledge base is a place to save important information about training (for new and existing staff) to ensure that the essentials are covered.
The benefits of having a base of knowledge
There are many benefits to both sides of the coin with building and maintaining an impressive information database.
To customers:
- Better customer experience. Have you ever thought the problem was easy to resolve, but you're stuck trying to figure it out over the phone or by email? If customers can help themselves through a database of knowledge, they get their queries answered immediately.
- 24/7 customer service. Speaking of immediacy, another pain point customers often experience is the inability to contact customer services after hours. Knowledge base solutions solve this issue since it is available 24/7, with real-time support.
for managers:
- Cost of training is lower. Once you have a reliable information base that is frequently updated and maintained You can be sure that it will answer any questions that your new employees have as well as provide basics training. It can also help reduce the time (therefore expense) of providing in-person training.
Higher resolution rates. Users who are quick will increase your resolution rates considerably. Additionally, they will open more support tickets for those whose questions are genuinely more complicated.
Knowledge base examples
In both my roles as an employee and an individual customer I've been able to find several solid knowledge bases in my time across various industries. Although they differ in design however, they share common traits such as a search bar, organization by topic and contact details for when you are unable to find a solution in the database. Below are some excellent examples (with pictures) of knowledge bases that are currently in use.
Toggl Track
If you're into productivity software, you might have come across Toggl Plan which is a tool for tracking time that helps you determine where your time reallygoes. Currently, their knowledge base is divided into topics and then the subtopics that are related to the product.
In addition, they offer a different knowledge base for each of their products that could be an advantage or disadvantage according to your own perspective.
ManyChat
If you've ever encountered a chatbot that was powered by Facebook Messenger and Instagram, there's a strong chance that the website or page on social media utilized ManyChat to build the bot. Chatbots can be quite daunting for some people, ManyChat knows this and therefore has a vast expertise base in order to improve their user experience.
The topics range from basic use of their products through more sophisticated topics, such as the use of plugins, widgets, as well as API development tools.
The Video Library is a place for your company videos to play with the latest search features and an information structure.
How to create a knowledge basis of your own
You now know the importance of a knowledge base as well as the reasons why they're amazing, and have seen a few examples, are you inspired to build one of your own? If so, stay!
Knowledge bases are able to vary a bit depending on the specific requirements of the business (and its clients) In this article, we'll outline the steps you'll have to take when creating one for the first time.
How can you incorporate video in your learning base
Many people consider themselves visually-oriented and would rather know exactly what you're speaking about, rather than read about it. It's a good idea to incorporate video (and video transcriptions/captions for accessibility) into your knowledge base wherever possible.
The content you already have can be converted into videos and embed them in the same place (and place them into the Video Library) to help provide customers with a choice on what they would like to study.
If this is the case, it's usually worth having a dedicated "knowledge management" team or someone who helps make and manage the content of these videos.
Internal knowledge base vs . external knowledge base
Speaking of visual learners, to show the distinctions between knowledge acquired from external and internal bases, we've created the infographic below to help you understand the key issues.
Cases to use as internal reference
I've mentioned points about the internal use of knowledge bases before and it's a great solution for staff to be onboard as well as for training new and existing employees. But, you should be specific in this case.
For staff onboarding:
- Internal knowledge bases are an excellent place to discuss about employee benefits, product or services, or the company's rules and regulations.
- An internal directory can let new employees feel more comfortable in asking the right person for assistance if their information base doesn't cover their questions.
- The base can also be used to store blank the HR and legal documents needed for reviewing and onboarding, saving the time of both parties.
for trainers:
- Standardizing workflows can assist with initial staff training and also serve as a guideline for those who are unable to remember the details (happens to us all).
- Knowledge teams are able to create video tutorials that show how you can make use of each of the corporate systems, as well as the most common issues to be solved.
- In the event that you launch a brand new service, product or feature, make use of the internal base to save demonstrations, as well as important bullet points to know.
What is the most effective knowledge base software?
In short, it is dependent on your needs the software will provide different features that can meet those needs. In general, to find out the best fit for you ask yourself the following questions:
- What does the software run? How much is it within our budget?
- Does it allow different levels of accessibility to certain users?
- Does it look easy to navigate?
- Does the software include any measures or features for reporting?
- Are we required to be worried about the integration?
- Are we in need of community forum function?
Answering these questions will allow you to narrow down the list of options.
FAQs from the Knowledge Base
What is a knowledge base consist of?
Company documentation and customer support pieces that could be written informationgraphics, flow charts, infographics, videos, screenshots -- basically any type of information. What is a self-serve portal?
Self-service portals are the home page for your knowledge base. It's where your customers as well as staff can search for answers to their inquiries and look up information. What's another term for Knowledge base?
Other words that refer to knowledge base are:
- Help desk
- Database
- Wiki's How can you handle an information base?
Contributions to a knowledge base are usually set by a specific Knowledge Management Team. You can, however, select other team members to participate in (and keep track of) the knowledge base.
Learn more today.
This article has guided you through what a information base actually is, what the advantages from having one, some examples, as well as the steps to make one for yourself. Perhaps, you're now inspired to give the gift of autonomy in knowledge to your staff and customers!
You can create one yourself with the help of a professional developer or use an amazing ready-made application like's Video Library.