What is a Knowledge Base? How to build a knowledge base for your business

When internal information, user guides, or customer answers are scattered across multiple places, employees can easily waste time searching and handle tasks inconsistently. A Knowledge Base helps businesses centralize knowledge, standardize content, and support users in looking up information faster on their own. This article will help you understand what a Knowledge Base is, what content it includes, and how to build an effective knowledge repository.

1. What is a Knowledge Base?

A knowledge base is a centralized, scientific, and systematic repository of data and information. Organizations often use a knowledge base to store and manage information related to their products, services, and processes. The main goal of a knowledge base is to provide a synchronized, standardized source of information for the organization’s audiences, including employees, customers, and other stakeholders.

A knowledge base is considered a “self-service digital library” because it facilitates knowledge sharing and transfer by collecting, organizing, and communicating information to those who need it, helping users easily access and find the information they require. Essentially, the purpose of any knowledge base is to help end-users find solutions to their problems without having to depend on others.

2. Types of Data in a Knowledge Base

Data in a knowledge base can come from anywhere. Typically, based on purpose and information source, knowledge base data is divided into three types: internal knowledge bases, customer support knowledge bases, and public knowledge bases:

• Internal knowledge base: Used by organizations to store information related to operational activities, such as policies, procedures, and workflows.
• Customer support knowledge base: Used by companies to provide self-service solutions for customers, allowing them to find answers to common questions and issues without needing to contact the support department, such as product user guides, troubleshooting steps, etc.
• Public knowledge base: Designed to target a broader audience, including potential customers, partners, or the general public. The data in this knowledge base typically provides public information about the company’s products, services, organization, and field of operation.

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3. What are the Benefits of a Knowledge Base?

• Enhance Customer Experience and Satisfaction

One of the biggest benefits of a knowledge base is that it can reduce the workload of the customer service department and improve customer satisfaction. By giving customers access to a diverse source of information, they can find answers to their problems more quickly and easily without having to wait for a response from the support department. This not only saves time but also improves the customer experience as they can find information right when they need it.

• Standardize Information Sources

Another significant benefit of a knowledge base is that it can help organizations standardize their processes and ensure that everyone is accessing and utilizing the same consistent source of information. This is especially important for companies with staff working in different headquarters and branches, as it helps ensure that everyone is following the same set of principles and work procedures.

• Improve Operational Efficiency

A knowledge base can also help improve an organization’s overall efficiency by providing a centralized information repository that everyone can easily access. This helps reduce the amount of time employees spend searching for information and can help ensure that everyone is using the most up-to-date information source.

The less time your employees spend acquiring the knowledge they need, the more time they have to focus on completing their main tasks, thereby enhancing overall performance and work quality.

• Save on Training Costs

A knowledge base can reduce training and onboarding costs by providing a centralized information repository that employees can access to learn about specific topics on their own.

For example, if an organization is introducing a new software system, it can create a knowledge base to store detailed instructions on how to use the system. This can save time and the cost of direct training for all employees on the new system. Instead, employees can access the knowledge base as needed to learn how to use the system.

3. 6 Steps to Build a Knowledge Base System for Your Business

Step 1. Define the Purpose and Scope of the Knowledge Base

Determine the purpose of the knowledge base, what type of information will be included, and who the intended audience is. To clearly define the target audience and the scope of the knowledge base system, businesses can start with the following questions:

• What questions or topics are customers most interested in?
• Is the customer support department frequently overloaded with information requests?
• How long does it take for employees to respond to customer requests?
• Are there any knowledge/skill “gaps” that would appear if a position becomes vacant or an employee leaves the company?

Step 2. Identify the core elements of the knowledge base

The core elements that every knowledge base system needs include:

• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

The first place users will go when they have basic questions about products, services, or business processes is the FAQ section. This should be a list of the most frequently searched questions.

• Search bar

Sometimes users come to the knowledge base with a specific problem/question. In this case, a search bar will help them easily find and access the issue they are looking for. The knowledge base’s search bar should predict what the user is typing and provide a list of results.

• Contact support

Even when a business provides an extensive knowledge base, users may sometimes not find what they are looking for or may still need further assistance. Integrating a quick link for customers to contact the support department should be a core element of the business’s knowledge base.

Step 3. Build the knowledge base structure

A knowledge base is not just about collecting and storing information; businesses need to care about its usability. Building a structure for the knowledge base will help the business organize content and allow users to easily gather data and navigate through articles. There are many different creative ways to organize your knowledge base structure. A common type is a structure that depends on the audience your knowledge base will serve.

For example: If the business is building an internal knowledge base, the system’s structure can be based on the user audience as follows:

• General knowledge base for the entire organization
• Onboarding training
• Human Resources
• Marketing
• Customer Support
• Product Development

For a customer-facing knowledge base, design a suitable structure based on search needs or consumer behavior. The structure of a customer support knowledge base can be organized by product type, by user role (beginner, advanced, expert), or by customer journey (getting started, upgrading accounts, and product guides).

Step 4. Prepare knowledge resources

To build a repository of knowledge resources for the knowledge base, create articles that provide knowledge according to the following criteria:

• Clear: Use titles based on search behavior to help users immediately know the content covered in the article. Explain all jargon or technical terms in clear language.
• Easy to understand: Readers prefer content that provides information quickly. This means paragraphs should be short and broken down with headings, subheadings, bullet points, or numbered lists where applicable.
• Visual: Include images, charts, infographics, or videos within the content or as standalone content to increase engagement.
• Helpful: Ensure you link to related articles in your knowledge base. This will help users easily find other resources that fully answer their questions.
• Valuable: Each piece of content in the knowledge base should provide a valuable solution or insight.

Step 5. Choose the right knowledge base software

Finding knowledge base software that suits your business can be a major challenge, regardless of your organization’s size. The right software can help a business improve service quality and enhance employee performance. On the other hand, unsuitable software can lead to a frustrating user experience, and even worse situations than if the business had no knowledge base at all. So, how do you choose the best knowledge base software that aligns with your business’s needs and strategic direction?

Start by looking for software with the right features that can help your business easily build a user-friendly knowledge base system; help teams easily create and organize content, and help end-users easily find the information they are looking for. Furthermore, a suitable solution will help you address the initial needs and expectations for a knowledge base, such as improving customer service, enhancing workflows, etc.

Some features to consider when choosing a knowledge base platform for your business:

• User-friendly content creation and formatting: The knowledge base platform should come with an easy-to-use editor that allows the content creation team to add, format, and manipulate text as well as image and video files.
• Advanced search functionality: With a large volume of stored information, it is essential for the knowledge base to provide an advanced search tool so users can find the information they are looking for easily and quickly.
• Smart analytics: Evaluating how content is being used can help the business improve the quality of information in its knowledge base – thereby turning the knowledge base into a valuable asset for the business.

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Step 6. Update and optimize content regularly

Updating and optimizing information content needs to be done regularly to ensure the knowledge base remains relevant and useful to users. Using the analytics tools built into the knowledge base software system, the business can collect feedback from reports to serve as a basis for improving its knowledge base system.

Additionally, the company should plan to update and refresh relevant content whenever company policies or products/services change.

In the article above, 1Office has provided readers with an overview of what a Knowledge base is and a strategy for building a database to help optimize resources and improve business performance. For a consultation and a trial of the market-leading business management software 1Office, please contact us using the information below:

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