5 steps to building a knowledge base that eases customer support

What is a knowledge base?

A knowledge base is a valuable resource for both customers and team members, serving as a central location and repository of information that caters to different customer needs. It typically includes information like FAQs, instructional articles, video tutorials, troubleshooting guides, and more, all aimed at providing comprehensive self-serve solutions. This means customers will be able to solve problems independently, reducing the workload of support staff. 

There are two main types of knowledge bases: human-readable knowledge bases and machine-readable knowledge bases. Human-readable knowledge bases are designed for direct customer interaction, offering content for humans to access in an easy-to-understand format, such as articles and video tutorials. Machine-readable knowledge bases cater to software applications containing data accessed and analyzed by AI to create solutions.

Why is building and maintaining a knowledge base important in customer service?

For several reasons, building and maintaining a knowledge base is crucial in customer service. First, it significantly enhances customer satisfaction by providing quick and easy access to information. This self-service capability allows customers to resolve issues independently without waiting for customer support assistance. Also, a knowledge base can efficiently address common questions and problems, reducing the volume of support tickets and calls. This speeds up resolution times and frees up your customer service team to focus on more complex inquiries, improving overall service quality.

A well-maintained knowledge base is also scalable to your business's growing needs, as it can be continuously updated with new information and capabilities. It is an effective tool for customers, offering detailed insights into your offerings and how to get the most out of them. Regular updates and expansions of the knowledge base content ensure it stays relevant and valuable, reflecting the latest product updates and customer feedback.

Benefits of having a well-designed and maintained knowledge base

Customer self-service

A well-designed and maintained knowledge base is important for customer self-service, which brings numerous benefits to both the users and the company. For customers, the ability to self-serve is a significant advantage, as it provides them instant access to solutions and information without needing to contact customer support. For businesses, customer self-service facilitated by a knowledge base significantly reduces the load on customer support teams. When customers find answers independently, it leads to fewer support tickets and calls. This cuts operational costs and allows customer service representatives to dedicate more time and resources to solving complex issues rather than responding to routine queries.

Centralized information storage

A knowledge base provides a central location for information, making this information easily accessible so businesses can ensure consistency in the information provided to customers and employees. This means everyone has access to the same accurate and up-to-date information. It also streamlines training and onboarding processes by providing new employees with a centralized resource to learn about the company's products, services, and customer handling protocols. 

Cost savings

As customers can use a knowledge base to solve problems independently, businesses can dramatically reduce their volume of incoming support requests. This leads to fewer resources needed for customer support operations, such as lower staffing requirements and reduced training costs. A knowledge base also contributes to cost savings by minimizing the need for individual training sessions for new employees. Instead, they can rely on the comprehensive, always-accessible content in the knowledge base to get up to speed with company processes, product details, and troubleshooting procedures. 

Scalable to customer service needs

As businesses grow and customer bases expand, the demands on customer service resources can increase. A comprehensive knowledge base is scalable and can handle this increased demand without increasing support staff. This ability to scale helps organizations manage larger volumes of customer interactions more efficiently, maintaining high levels of service quality without significant additional costs. A knowledge base can also easily be updated and expanded to include new information, products, or services as a company evolves. This flexibility ensures that the knowledge base grows with the business, continuously meeting the needs of both customers and staff. 

Helps create consistency across support

A knowledge base provides a centralized, easily accessible repository of information, ensuring that all support agents are equipped with the same accurate and up-to-date information. This means consistent responses to customer inquiries, regardless of which agent handles the case or what channel the customer uses to reach out. Consistency in customer service enhances the credibility and reliability of the support provided.

How to build a knowledge base that is valuable to customers

​​If you want to develop a knowledge base that solves your customers’ problems, it must be consistent, easily browsable, and up-to-date. Follow the steps below to build a knowledge base to help your customers and service reps.

Step 1: Choose the right knowledge base software

When picking a knowledge base software, you shouldn’t just choose the first free option you can find. You must ensure the platform has the necessary features to power an easily usable customer portal. 

Essential knowledge management software features that you need to look for are:

• Article/tutorial templates

• Formatting options

• Search function, tags, and categorization (for easy navigation)

• Version control and multiple language options

• SEO optimization

• Helpdesk & chatbot integration

Although we’re biased, the Freshdesk knowledge base tool is a great choice for any company. It has all the features above, and you can curate knowledge base content with our rich text editor and quickly add in the attachments you need.

Plus, adding meta information to optimize your content and make it more discoverable is a breeze with our automatic indexing. You can also easily control content visibility in Freshdesk, making it simple to keep your private and public knowledge bases separate.

Step 2: Choose knowledge base topics

It’s easier to select topics for your knowledge base than it sounds. All you have to do is search for trends in the questions you usually receive. 

Search through old tickets to find frequently asked questions

If your customer support team is getting several of the same questions repeatedly, start writing knowledge-based articles to answer them.

Search old tickets and record the number of queries related to particular problems. If a large percentage of queries are related to a recurring issue, like resetting a password or how a specific product feature works, record those topics and write content that solves those issues.

Use analytics for further insights.

You can learn a lot from what people search for on your site. You can do this on Google Analytics too:

• Head to “Behavior” and click “Site Search.”

• Then, click “Overview” to look at the common terms people are searching for.

You can also compare specific periods and sort results by “Absolute Change” to check out trends that have risen over time.

Step 3: Develop the knowledge base articles

Once you’ve lined up your topics, it’s time to start planning and writing the content. Here are a couple of tips to keep in mind while developing content: 

Use visual aids (screenshots/ GIFs/ videos)

Visual aids alone can improve learning by 34.3%4. And the more interactive an exercise is, the more it helps with retention and understanding. Creating and managing a knowledge base using video is something a modern-day support strategy must include. 

For those reasons, it’s always good to include more than just text in all of your knowledge base articles. Experiment with video tutorials, GIFs, pictures, and diagrams to give customers a visual of what you’re explaining.

Try apps like Skitch or Preview to add additional instructions to your images or draw attention to specific elements, as Drip does in their knowledge base.

Use custom templates to improve the agent-side workflow

Speed up new article creation with custom templates. This feature is available in most knowledge base software and allows you to:

• Improve consistency by saving and reusing specific formats of content.

• Speed up article production by filling in the basics.

• Ensure easy navigation by adding a Table of Contents, links, and other elements.

Step 4: Structure your knowledge base

If you don’t structure your knowledge base documentation, your customers won’t be able to find what they need quickly (or at all). Most knowledge bases are structured with a basic home page for all of their support-based articles.

It’s also a common practice to include the most popular knowledge-base articles on the home page. This example of Evernote’s knowledge base homepage demonstrates that clearly:

Here are four simple steps using which you can categorize your knowledge base the right way

i) Group articles from the same topic

The first step is to sort articles and group similar topics together. The Freshdesk knowledge base is a good example of this. All of the articles on “Solutions” are grouped into different categories such as ‘’Setting up support channels’’ and ‘‘Bringing in your Customer Base’’, and so on.

Next, sift through the most popular articles in your knowledge base and make them prominent on your homepage for easy access, like Evernote did. The brand also offers a community program where users share tips, tricks, and information about their software.

ii) Add a search bar

The next element that every knowledge base needs is a visible search box.

With a search box, your users can easily access the information they need in seconds instead of sifting through different categories to find the specific article they’re looking for. Add a search bar to the top of your knowledge base, like this one from MyEducator.

This functionality turns your knowledge base into a customer support “search engine.” Rather than trying to navigate categories or tags, customers can type in a few keywords to access what they need.

Pro tip: Don’t forget to integrate your knowledge base with any live chat options you might offer, as well. Alternatively, if you don’t offer live chat support, you can deploy a help widget or even a chatbot on your knowledge base. This way, if your customers can’t find what they need in your knowledge base, they can immediately connect with a customer service representative from the same page.

iii) Cross-link relevant articles

One of the easiest ways to make your knowledge base more effective is to cross-link related articles. That will enhance overall user experience. This process is pretty straightforward. You don’t need any complex features to interlink other articles within each new one you write.

Here’s how Adobe does it within their knowledge base articles:

You should link to further content for any terms, features, or tools that the customer needs to use to solve an issue.

iv) Tag each article for easy discoverability

To ensure the content is easily searchable, incorporate keywords and tags in your knowledge base articles just like in blog posts. You should also adjust your title to reflect problems customers will likely search for solutions to.

Step 5: Maintain your knowledge base

A knowledge base is never finished. Content management should be done on a continuous basis to keep the information up to date.

Update articles whenever necessary

It can be easy to assume that once you’ve created knowledge base articles about your product or service, you won’t need to update them for a long time. However, the truth is that a knowledge base needs to be continually reviewed and updated as your company, products, and features change.

If a customer finds the article they need, follows every step, and then finds out that the information is outdated, they won’t be happy. That’s why you need to update your support portal with every new product release, process change, or feature that you introduce.

Track customer feedback and make changes accordingly

Make sure that your knowledge base always reflects common questions and tickets. Do weekly or monthly checks to make sure that you’re covering trending issues.

The team at Guru says6, “…you need to ensure that your team constantly updates its KB to reflect any new ‘trending’ queries they may be receiving on a weekly/monthly basis.

For example, if you found that you received over 100 queries over the past month about how to renew a contract with your company, you could then compose an all-encompassing blog post or article that clearly highlights how to do this.

That way, when future customers have similar queries, they should be able to proactively find the answer on your website, thus deflecting the need to contact a human agent.”

Best practices for building and maintaining your knowledge base

Ensure knowledge base matches brand

A knowledge base is often one of the first points of contact between your company and your customers, so it's important that it accurately reflects your brand’s voice, tone, and visual style. Using the same color schemes, fonts, and logos and maintaining a consistent tone of voice in articles helps create a seamless user experience that aligns with what customers expect from your brand.

Leverage internal linking across pages

Internal links connect various articles and resources within the knowledge base, guiding users naturally from one piece of content to another based on their search queries and interests. This improves navigation and improves the user experience by making related information readily accessible. From an SEO perspective, internal linking boosts the visibility of your knowledge base by helping search engines better understand the structure and hierarchy of your content.

Ensure an easy-to-understand interface

With a clear and straightforward navigation system, users should be able to find the information they need without difficulty. Categories should be organized, and search functionalities should be comprehensive, including filters and predictive search capabilities that help users quickly locate specific content. The interface should also provide a seamless experience across all devices, whether accessed via desktop, tablet, or smartphone.

Cover all essential topics

A knowledge base should address any needs and questions. This includes everything from basic setup and troubleshooting to advanced features and best-use practices. By providing detailed articles and guides on a wide range of topics, you can cater to the needs of different user segments, from beginners to advanced users. To achieve this, regularly collect feedback from customer support interactions to identify common issues or questions that are not currently addressed in the knowledge base.

How can AI transform your knowledge base

Artificial intelligence is a complete game-changer for customer service. Implementing a smart “virtual customer assistant” can reduce support calls, emails, and chats by 70%7.

Launching an AI-enabled chatbot can go a long way in improving the self-service experience you deliver too. Let’s explore how the combination of an AI and a knowledge base can help you provide a better customer experience and improve agent productivity.

Answers customer questions in seconds

Instead of the customer having to search for the answer manually, an AI-powered bot can deliver an accurate response in seconds.

Chatbots remove the need for painstakingly searching the knowledge base for an answer. For example, if a customer is wondering how long it takes to process a refund, it can deliver a clear, single-sentence answer.

You can see how successful your bot is at answering these questions with easy-to-understand analytics.

But that’s not all.

Helps new support reps offer better support with real-time knowledge base recommendations

Knowledge bases can be hard to navigate for new support reps, and it can slow down support ticket resolutions.

Imagine a brand new technical support rep trying to navigate the knowledge base to figure out complex technical issues. Even “regular” support involves some rare and complex requests, like how to process a damaged item.

Imagine if every new support agent had to confirm these kinds of requests with senior staff. It would slow every ticket down considerably.

Plus, if there’s no support system in place, it’s easy for new reps to make mistakes. That can have grave consequences (32%7 of customers will stop being your customers after just one bad experience). With intelligent recommendations, AI enables your agents to answer quickly and correctly to earn lasting customer loyalty. 

Improves key customer service metrics

In our customer happiness benchmark report 2019, we noticed clear trends between using bots and an improved level of service.

First response times were a lot faster. Companies with bots needed only 13 hours for their first responses. That’s 6 hours less than competitors.

And customers were significantly happier.

Companies with bots had, on average, 7% higher CSAT scores than companies without them.

However, you may worry that developing a chatbot on your own will require a significant investment of time and money.

The beauty of it is that you don’t have to. With a no-code chatbot builder, you can design and deploy a chatbot without a million-dollar budget or AI team.

An AI that’s already integrated with your knowledge base and helpdesk

You don’t always need to develop an AI or set up custom integrations from scratch to get these benefits. Freddy AI for CX is a mix of an AI-powered customer-facing chatbot and a virtual assistant for your reps that can be deployed in no time. Freddy AI seamlessly integrates with your helpdesk and improves customer satisfaction and agent experience by:

• Answering questions based on knowledge base data and following up with relevant messages or questions after analyzing the intent of the query.

• Providing instant resolutions to complex issues without requiring agents to step in.

• Enabling agents to solve tickets a lot faster and more consistently (Assist Bot).

• Increasing agent productivity by automating backend support processes.

Knowledge base tools and software

When it comes to setting up and maintaining an effective knowledge base, choosing the right tools and software is essential. These platforms not only help in organizing and managing your content but also improve the user experience through advanced features like search functionalities, analytics, and integration capabilities. Before choosing a knowledge base software, consider whether it integrates seamlessly with your existing customer support tools and CRM systems. Ask yourself if the software can scale according to your business growth and handle your content needs without performance issues. Evaluate if the software offers customization options that align with your brand identity and provide the flexibility to enhance user experience according to specific customer feedback and business requirements.

When selecting knowledge base software, key features to look out for include a comprehensive search function that quickly delivers relevant results and the ease of content management, which includes features for editing, updating, and organizing articles to keep the knowledge base current and user-friendly. Additionally, analytics capabilities are important as they help track user engagement and identify content gaps, allowing for continuous improvement of the resource based on actual user needs and behaviors.

To learn about the best knowledge base software, see our blog about the Top 15 knowledge base software. 

Start building and enhancing your knowledge base today with Freshdesk!

As a comprehensive cloud-based solution, Freshdesk simplifies the creation and management of knowledge bases, ensuring that businesses can deliver effortless customer experiences. It seamlessly integrates various functionalities, including a robust ticketing system, a dynamic knowledge management solution, and additional features that collectively boost agent productivity and enhance customer interactions.

With Freshdesk, creating detailed, helpful self-service resources is straightforward. The platform includes a rich text editor, enabling technical writers and support agents to easily craft articles complete with videos, images, and attached files—all from a single interface. Freshdesk also simplifies content creation through customizable templates for FAQs, how-to guides, and user manuals, which save time and ensure consistency across your resources.

Moreover, Freshdesk is designed to cater to a global audience. It supports multiple languages and versions of articles, making it easy for customers worldwide to find relevant, understandable information regardless of the product version they use or the language they prefer. The software's robust content management system allows for quick updates across multiple articles and languages, enhancing efficiency. Additionally, its SEO capabilities ensure that your knowledge base is discoverable, driving traffic and helping users easily find the answers they need. Freshdesk also offers extensive customization options, from branding your knowledge base with your logo and colors to employing advanced CSS customizations for a unique look and feel. This flexibility helps maintain brand consistency and user engagement across all customer touchpoints.