Ever feel like your customer support team is running on a hamster wheel? Your dedicated agents are working overtime, but those inquiries keep rolling in. To make matters worse, there’s little spare time to ensure that the information you’re providing across agents and channels is consistent.
If that sounds familiar, it’s time to build a customer support knowledge base. A well-designed knowledge base acts as a round-the-clock assistant that helps buyers find answers independently. It not only reduces the load on your support team, but also improves the customer experience in a myriad of ways.
Let’s get right to it! We’ll talk a little more about why you need a customer support knowledge base, then walk you through a quick and easy method for creating one.
Why a Knowledge Base Is Essential for Excellent Customer Service
A knowledge base is a comprehensive self-service information hub, where customers can find answers to their questions. It might contain startup instructions, how-to articles, troubleshooting guides, and other valuable information about your products or services.
Maybe you already have a support team, and even some FAQs on your website. Do you really need a knowledge base too? The answer is a resounding yes, and here’s why:
- Empowers customer self-service. Customers with a self-sufficient bent or no time to wait for a reply can find answers independently. This reduces direct support interactions, and frees up your team to handle complex/unique issues.
- Improves response times. Quick access to solutions minimizes wait times and reduces customer churn. Plus, your support agents can use the knowledge base to provide faster and more accurate responses.
- Ensures consistency. A centralized resource guarantees that all customers receive consistent information. Again, it also helps your support team stay on the same page and provide reliable answers.
- Offers 24/7 availability. Unlike human support, a knowledge base provides assistance that caters to all time zones and schedules.
- Reduces support costs. By resolving simple queries, a knowledge base decreases support tickets and calls. This facilitates more efficient resource management.
- Enhances SEO. A well-structured knowledge base improves your website’s search engine optimization. This helps more potential customers discover your products or services.
- Scales with your business. A knowledge base can easily be updated and expanded as your company grows and your products evolve.
By investing in a robust knowledge base, you’re not just compiling FAQs. You’re creating a valuable resource that improves the customer experience while providing aid to your overworked team.
Key Features of a Successful Customer Support Knowledge Base
To build an effective knowledge base, one that serves both your customers and support team, consider incorporating these essential features:
- User-friendly search functionality. Implement a search system that includes auto-suggest and filters. This helps customers quickly pinpoint the information they need.
- Well-structured content. Organize your knowledge base into clear categories, and make strategic use of headings and visuals. This way, users can find information even when browsing without a specific query in mind.
- Easy-to-understand language. Craft your articles using concise language that’s suitable for all users. Customers should be able to easily comprehend and apply the information they discover.
- Comprehensive coverage. Aim to address a wide range of customer needs by including FAQs, product documentation, and how-to articles. The more types and variety of content you offer, the more likely customers are to find solutions.
- Regular updates. Keep your knowledge base current by regularly reviewing and updating its content. The information is only useful if it reflects your latest policies, products, and services.
- Mobile responsiveness. Design your knowledge base to be accessible on all devices. This flexibility allows customers to find help whenever and wherever they need it.
- Analytics and feedback mechanisms. Implement tools to track article views, search terms, and user feedback. These insights help you continuously refine your knowledge base.
- Integration with other support tools. Connect your knowledge base with your help desk or live chat software. This creates a seamless customer experience, and allows your team to easily reference and share knowledge base articles during interactions.
By focusing on these key elements, you’ll create a knowledge base customers will actually find useful. If this seems like a lot to manage, don’t worry – it’s easier than you might expect.
A Step-by-Step Guide To Building Your Customer Support Knowledge Base
Creating a customer support knowledge base might seem daunting. But with the right approach and tools, it’s a simple process. Let’s walk through the steps for building a resource that truly serves your customers and enhances your support operations.
Step 1: Use Customer Insights To Define Your Knowledge Base’s Focus
You know your customers best. That expertise is essential for shaping your knowledge base. What’s useful to your unique buyers might be very different from your competitors.
Start by reviewing your existing customer data and support interactions to identify the key areas your knowledge base should address. Consider the following:
- What are the most frequent questions or issues your support team handles? These topics should be at the forefront of your knowledge base.
- What level of technical expertise does your customers typically have? If they’re not very tech-savvy, you might need to focus on clear, step-by-step guides for basic features.
- Are your buyers interested in customization? If so, you might want to prioritize resources on personalizing your product or service.
- How important are integrations to your customers? You might need to create detailed guides on connecting your product with other tools they commonly use.
By analyzing your support tickets, customer feedback, and common pain points, you can identify knowledge gaps and prioritize the most crucial information.
If you don’t have the information you need to figure out what’s most important to your customers, ask them! A simple survey can be very revealing – your audience knows what they need, and they’ll probably be happy to tell you.
Step 2: Plan Your Knowledge Base’s Structure and Content
After identifying your customers’ needs, it’s time to lay the groundwork for your knowledge base. A well-organized structure is crucial for helping users find information quickly and easily.
Create a Logical Hierarchy
Start by brainstorming categories that cover broad topics relevant to your product or service. Then break these down as needed into subcategories for more specific subjects. This hierarchy will guide users from general queries to detailed information.
Here’s an example of what this structure might look like:
A clear structure helps customers navigate easily, and makes your knowledge base more effective. Plus, it helps you identify resources you might want to add. Remember to align your categories with how customers typically think and inquire about your products or services.
Develop a Content Calendar
With your structure in place, it’s time to plan for content creation by:
- Listing needed articles based on your category structure
- Prioritizing articles based on frequency of customer inquiries
- Assigning writing responsibilities to team members based on their expertise
- Setting realistic deadlines for each piece of content
This preparation sets the stage for effective customer self-service. It also gives you a process you can follow long-term.
Avoid the temptation to include everything you can think of right now. You can expand your knowledge base over time, but it’s best to start with a solid core of key resources. This will ensure that your knowledge base is immediately useful.
Step 3: Set Up Your Knowledge Base
It’s time to bring your customer support knowledge base to life! You can put one together manually using a website-building tool (or whatever architecture your business’ website runs on).
But this task is a lot easier with a dedicated knowledge base tool. You’ll get the options and templates you need right away – all you have to do is add in the structure and content.
There are various options available, ranging from standalone knowledge base software to all-in-one customer service platforms. The latter is useful because it allows you to connect your knowledge base to the rest of your support operations.
Groove is our own support helpdesk, designed for small businesses that want to improve and streamline customer service. Among its many features, it includes a complete knowledge base solution. Integrating your knowledge base with a robust helpdesk offers several key benefits:
- Seamless information flow between your knowledge base and support tickets
- Simplified management, with a single platform for all customer support needs
- Improved efficiency, as agents can easily reference and share knowledge base articles during customer interactions
Creating Your Knowledge Base in Groove
Best of all, it couldn’t be simpler to get started. After signing up for a free trial, log into your Groove account and navigate to the Knowledge Base section.
Select Create your knowledge base, and give it a name:
With that, you’ve unlocked your knowledge base menu. Under Look and feel, you can choose a theme that aligns with your brand, and enable or disable article feedback ratings.
Then it’s time to review the Settings:
Here, you can:
- Set up your domain or subdomain
- Configure visibility settings (public or private)
- Enable analytics for your articles
With that done, you can put your structure in place. Under Categories, you’ll create the topics your articles will be grouped into:
Then you can start adding articles, using the intuitive editor to format text, add images, and embed videos as needed.
Step 4: Write High-Quality, Customer-Focused Content
Now that you’ve set up your customer support knowledge base, it’s time to create! Let’s build a knowledge base article from scratch:
- Click on Articles in the side menu, and select Create article.
- Enter a clear and descriptive title that reflects the main topic.
- Write away! Don’t forget to select the category the article will appear under before you publish it.
While you craft your article, you’ll find several tools to enhance your content:
- Text formatting: Use headings, bold/italic formatting, and lists for structure and emphasis.
- Visual enhancements: Insert images, embed videos, and add tables to illustrate concepts clearly.
- Linking and navigation: Create internal and external links, and use anchor links for easy navigation.
- SEO optimization: Customize URLs and add meta descriptions for better search visibility.
These features allow you to create a comprehensive, user-friendly knowledge base that caters to various learning styles.
In addition, keep these writing guidelines in mind:
- Use clear and concise language. Write at your customers’ level, explain technical terms, use active voice, and keep the content brief.
- Incorporate visuals effectively. Use screenshots, diagrams, and videos to guide users and explain complex concepts.
- Focus on solving customer problems. Address pain points directly, provide actionable steps, and include troubleshooting tips. By anticipating and answering related questions, you’ll create a more comprehensive resource that reduces support tickets.
- Organize content for easy consumption. Start with an overview, use descriptive headings, include a table of contents for longer articles, and end with clear next steps.
In other words, keep your content customer-focused, clear, well-organized, and consistent. Don’t be afraid to take your time with this step. It’s better to have a small number of well-designed resources than a large collection of surface-level or disorganized articles.
Step 5: Publish and Promote Your Knowledge Base
Your content is ready, so it’s time to make your knowledge base accessible and integrate it into your support channels!
In Groove, navigate to your knowledge base settings. By default, under the General settings, you’ll see that your knowledge base is live and visible to the public. But if you want to restrict access, you can set up authentication methods under Access control:
The next step is to ensure that customers can easily find and use this new resource. That means promoting it on your website. A few great ways to do that:
- Add a prominent “Help” or “Support” link in your website’s main navigation.
- Create a dedicated support page that includes a brief introduction to your knowledge base, a search bar for quick access to articles, and links to popular categories or frequently asked questions
- Include a floating help button on all pages, which links directly to your knowledge base.
- Add contextual links to knowledge base articles throughout your website, especially in areas where customers might need assistance.
To make the most of your knowledge base, you can integrate it with your other support channels. For example, you might train your support team to include relevant knowledge base links in their responses. Groove makes it easy to insert article links into support tickets.
If you use a chatbot, you could also configure it to suggest relevant knowledge base articles based on customer queries. For best results, include an option in your chatbot menu to browse the knowledge base directly.
These strategies encourage customer self-service, and improve overall support efficiency.
Step 6: Maintain and Update Your Customer Support Knowledge Base
A successful knowledge base is an ongoing project. Regular updates ensure that your content remains accurate, relevant, and valuable. So before we wrap up, let’s explore how to maintain and optimize your customer support knowledge base.
Regularly Review and Update Content
To keep your knowledge base current and effective, you can:
- Schedule content reviews. Assign team members to periodically review specific sections or articles. Groove’s content management features track ‘last updated’ dates, so no article becomes outdated.
- Update existing articles. As your product evolves, so should your knowledge base. Periodically revise its information to reflect current features, remove outdated content, and improve articles based on customer feedback and support ticket trends.
- Create new articles. Address emerging customer questions and document new features to keep your knowledge base comprehensive and up to date.
Integrate with Product Development
Collaboration between your support and development teams is key to maintaining an effective knowledge base. Consider:
- Including knowledge base updates in your product release checklist
- Involving support team members in product planning meetings to anticipate documentation needs
- Preparing draft articles for upcoming features, and updating existing content to reflect changes
- Coordinating knowledge base updates with product releases, so customers always have access to the most current information
Track Analytics and Gather Feedback
Groove offers tools to monitor your knowledge base performance and collect user feedback. This is essential for continuous improvement. You can:
- Set up article ratings. Enable this feature to gather immediate feedback from users.
- View collected data. Access reports and review metrics such as most viewed articles and highest/lowest rated articles.
- Act on feedback. Regularly review low-rated articles and analyze unanswered searches to identify areas for improvement.
Based on the insights gathered, you’ll be able to revise unclear content and create new articles to fill knowledge gaps. You can even reorganize your knowledge base structure, if down the line your initial plans aren’t working as expected.
Your support knowledge base is a dynamic tool that needs regular attention. By keeping it updated and responsive to feedback, you’re going above and beyond for your customers.
Start Your Knowledge Base Journey with Groove
Well, there you have it! You’ve seen how a well-crafted customer support knowledge base can be a game-changer for your small business.
It’s not just about answering questions – it’s about improving the customer experience and giving your support team some needed breathing room.
Ready to get started? Groove makes it easy to create and maintain your knowledge base, seamlessly integrating it with your other support channels.
Sign up for a free trial, and see how Groove transforms your customer service!
