Best Knowledge Base Software
Buyer's Guide
Are you confused about why you repeatedly receive tickets for common queries despite having extensive self-help content on your website? It may be because your knowledge base is disorganized, unintuitive or difficult to navigate. It also indicates you’re in dire need of knowledge base software.
If knowledge is power, then knowledge base software will make your company Superman. 52% of companies use a knowledge base to empower customer service teams, according to HubSpot. So if you’re looking to deliver exceptional, engaging customer service, it’s high time you get on the knowledge base train!
However, singling out an appropriate solution may seem as daunting as climbing Mount Everest. But fret not because we have all the gear you need to make the right decision. In this buyer’s guide, we’ll explain what the software is, its benefits, features and the latest industry trends. Then, we’ll delve into top-rated products and equip you with the right questions to ask vendors. So, let’s start climbing!
Executive Summary
- Knowledge base software helps companies collate their self-help content for easy access.
- You can reduce ticket volume, increase agent productivity and collaborate with multiple authors.
- The system offers generic features like multilingual support, document versioning and content control. Its advanced capabilities include custom widgets and embedded AI.
- While evaluating different solutions, make sure to ask pertinent questions to yourself and vendors.
- What Is Knowledge Base Software?
- Deployment Methods
- Primary Benefits
- Implementation Goals
- Basic Features & Functionality
- Advanced Features & Functionality
- Current & Upcoming Trends
- Software Comparison Strategy
- Cost & Pricing Considerations
- The Most Popular Knowledge Base Software
- Questions To Ask Yourself
- Questions To Ask Vendors
- In Conclusion
What Is Knowledge Base Software?
Knowledge base software is a help desk solution that lets you create, manage and share self-help content. It allows you to organize a centralized repository of data, also known as a knowledge base, about your company and its policies and offerings.
A knowledge base (KB) stores frequently asked questions (FAQs), tutorials, guides and how-to articles in a searchable format. It enables your customers and employees to troubleshoot issues themselves without the help of any support staff.
Essentially, the software aims to ensure an audience can access organizational information they require at their convenience. It helps enhance customer support by providing self-service options and smoother internal operations like onboarding. Additionally, you can leverage automation and machine learning to offer relevant content to customers.
Knowledge base software lets you create two types of knowledge bases: external and internal. Customer-centric knowledge bases, also called internal knowledge bases, capture information that helps customers use products and services. They include knowledge on:
- FAQs
- Products and features descriptions
- Articles on ordering, billing, shipping and returns
- Step-by-step guides to troubleshooting issues
Internal knowledge bases, on the contrary, serve as a centralized hub to store employee- or company-related knowledge. They cover a diverse range of topics like:
- Onboarding and training material
- Process documentation and SOPs
- Company details like annual reports, handbooks and contact information
- Sales and marketing collateral
- Legal documents
- FAQs, scripts and templates for customer support teams
Knowledge base systems are configurable to make your data public, private or both. Internal KBs are usually private and require login credentials for access. External KBs are public and accessible by anyone through search engines.
Deployment Methods
Knowledge base solutions typically offer two deployment modes: cloud-based or open-source. While cloud-based deployment has a higher adoption rate, it’s worth assessing your specific needs to determine which model suits you the best.
Cloud-based
This deployment type is hosted on the internet and managed on a public or private cloud server. It’s available on a monthly subscription charge, and the vendor is responsible for maintenance, data security and other fixes.
If you need the solution up and running in no time, then SaaS is your best bet because there’s no hardware installation required. As soon as you purchase the tool, you’ll receive your login credentials (based on the number of user licenses purchased).
Cloud-based knowledge base tools have a fixed monthly licensing fee, making them ideal for small businesses with limited capital. They also offer enough customizations and flexibility for companies looking to scale in the future.
Since the provider hosts the platform, you don’t have the right to change the code. Think of it as booking an Uber from one place to other.
Open-source
Open-source or self-hosted solutions are more like being gifted a car on your birthday. You got it for free, but you’re still responsible for its upkeep.
This deployment approach gives your team access to the code without charge. The term “open-source” refers to the original code that’s free of cost and modifiable by businesses. You can then customize the software according to your requirements. It also means you are responsible for hosting and maintaining the platform.
It’s a viable option for businesses that wish to completely control their knowledge base’s modules and user interface. Additionally, it gives you way more flexibility than cloud-based solutions to customize and develop the tool as you see fit.
However, since hiring an in-house IT staff for maintenance and development is necessary, it’s only suitable for businesses with heavy pockets.
Primary Benefits
Providing quality self-service options is the key to driving sales and improving customer satisfaction. It also paves the way to reduce agent dependency so they can prioritize de-escalating issues that require a human touch. Zendesk’s CX trends reaffirm these statements. Here’s what the study found:
- 89% of customers spend more with organizations that allow them to find answers to their queries online without contacting an agent.
- 70% of customers expect companies to have a self-service portal.
- Merely 15% of agents are satisfied with their workload.
Implementing knowledge base software enables you to solve the expectations and hindrances mentioned above. Here are some other advantages you can get out of the system:
Enhance Customer Experience
In this fast-paced world, customers don’t prefer being put on hold for hours just for a simple query. They’d rather solve the issue at hand themselves. Empower your customers to resolve ordinary problems on their own by providing access to the help center.
Moreover, a knowledge base is available 24/7, even on weekends and holidays. This means your customers don’t have to wait for a weekday to get the answer to their questions. With information readily available at their fingertips, customers are more likely to have a positive customer experience.
Reduce Ticket Volume
Usually, customers ask recurring questions. Instead of answering the same question repeatedly, KB systems offer real-time auto-suggestions based on the query typed in the search bar.
Customers can also dive deeply into your knowledge repository for specific topics. This helps them resolve issues by themselves, thus reducing case volumes.
Optimize Support Agents’ Efficiency
Being a customer support agent is like being a store manager at the closing time during the Christmas season. Except for customer support reps, it’s all year round. They have to deal with dissatisfied customers and solve issues day in and day out. That’s a lot to have on someone’s plate. Here’s what Netomi’s State of Customer Service report found:
- 33% of people have screamed at a customer support agent.
- 44% of customers have experienced an agent becoming agitated.
Knowledge base software solves these problems by providing automation capabilities that help agents quickly find helpful resources relevant to a customer’s issue. It ensures speedy resolution and takes some responsibility off agents’ shoulders. Integrations with chatbots offer automated responses to customers, thereby freeing agents from spending time answering repetitive problems.
Improve Onboarding and Training Processes
Onboarding new employees or training staff is arduous, especially if all your guides and documentation are scattered. Unify all your office-related documents under one roof to break down organizational silos. Employees can easily access these learning materials and familiarize themselves at their own pace.
Stay Up to Date
Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither are knowledge bases. They require continuous updates based on relevancy or accuracy. Use built-in reporting and analytical modules to get insights into your most and least engaging articles and alter the content accordingly.
Implementation Goals
| Goal 1 Collaborate Easily |
Instead of going back and forth with your peers on different channels, teams can build the knowledge base together within the system. Use document version and content control functionalities to ensure everyone’s on the same page. |
|---|---|
| Goal 2 Be More Efficient |
Easy access to how-to articles and guides makes things relatively easier for both customers and employees. With less time spent on finding answers, your staff can be more productive and focus on the task they set out to accomplish. |
| Goal 3 Get Organized |
Organizing isn’t just for neat freaks; it also aids quick access to pertinent material. Knowledge base solutions help you logically organize information, making it easier for viewers to find what they’re looking for. |
| Goal 4 Become User-friendly |
You could have enough content in your knowledge base to fill a library, but it will be redundant if your viewers find it difficult to navigate. You can make the interface user-friendly by adding tags, custom fields and hierarchical links. |
Basic Features & Functionality
| Content Authoring | Without content, your knowledge base is just an empty shell. Easy-to-use editors enable your team to create documentation. Authors can use it to add text, insert images and videos, format content and more. |
|---|---|
| Search Engine | Deliver relevant information to viewers through a search engine. Advanced search functionalities allow readers to look for content they need based on keywords and categories. Also, intuitive capabilities auto-complete questions as readers type into the search bar. |
| Customizations | Remember how we accessorized our school bags with our names or our favorite bands? This feature is a lot like that! Tailor your knowledge base to align with your company’s identity and add brand-centric details like logos, fonts, designs and themes. You can customize your KB’s interface, pages and layouts. Some systems also allow you to set up a custom domain. |
| Collaborative Authoring | Multiple authors can work simultaneously on a project, communicate and review documents via live commenting. |
| Content Versioning | Picture this: four people are working on the same article but are unaware of the updates other members have made, which ultimately leads to overlapping and duplicate content. Sounds like a recipe for disaster! With version history, you can edit your article and automatically save it along the way (just like Google Docs!). It allows collaborators to see what changes you’ve made. You can also revert to the older version if the need arises. |
| Content Control | Make sure only authorized personnel can access documents by setting up viewing, formatting and authoring permissions. |
| Multilingual Support | If you’re a global brand, you’ll likely have customers worldwide. And you must cater to all of them in their preferred language. Multilingual capabilities allow you to localize content. You can develop your knowledge base in multiple languages, enable multilingual searching and add different content to every language. |
| Mobile-optimization | Ensures readers can browse the knowledge base content through multiple devices like mobile, tablets and laptops. |
Advanced Features & Functionality
| AI and Analytics | Some KB systems offer built-in reporting and analytical tools to improve your content. You can track frequently read articles, poor-performing content and most-visited pages. You can also access metrics like total searches, failed keywords, number of guides created and total reads. Machine learning capabilities help identify gaps in knowledge content by prompting editors to update it based on accuracy and relevancy. |
|---|---|
| Integrations | Facilitate smooth operations by integrating with existing tools like CRMs, G Suite, help desk software and more. |
| WYSIWYG Editor | A few systems come with a built-in WYSIWYG editor to provide content contributors with advanced editing capabilities. You can create and edit tables, configure styles, add multimedia content, and more. |
| Custom Widgets and Filters | Provide visitors instant access to relevant content by grouping several articles in a widget. You can also develop multiple, searchable custom data fields for easy browsing. |
Current & Upcoming Trends
The knowledge base software industry is witnessing paradigm shifts faster than the introduction of newer iPhone models. Here are some of the trends you should look out for:
Cloud Is Here To Stay
Cloud adoption is soaring to new heights every year. Almost 63% of companies said they run more than 25% of their workloads in the cloud. And the trend is seeping into knowledge base systems as well. Cloud-based KB solutions one-up on-premise deployment due to lower costs and higher flexibility.
Automation for the Win
AI and automation have penetrated our lives. 56% of customers say they can think of one example of AI they use daily.
Modern KB solutions are becoming increasingly intuitive and easier to use. Intelligent search bars and automated content capabilities deliver contextual content to visitors based on keywords or visitors’ search history. Moreover, using AI in customer service also saves time, provides 24/7 support and lowers operating costs.
Mobility Is Key
Mobile technologies are rapidly evolving at the speed of light. That’s why most knowledge base systems now come with a mobile app. It allows your customers and employees to easily access the information they need, no matter where they are.
Software Comparison Strategy
The knowledge base software market is burgeoning. It’s projected to reach $58.81 billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 12.67% from 2021-2028, according to Verified Market Research. The same report also mentions how factors like improved governance, fewer training times and increased customer satisfaction are likely to fuel the industry growth.
As is evident, there’s plenty of fish in the market. To catch the right one is a Herculean task. Start with making a requirements checklist of all the capabilities your business needs. Here are some of them to consider when you draft your list:
- Flexibility: While a solution may look like the perfect fit for your business presently, that might not be the case in the future. Buying a platform likely to cater to your needs for the coming 18-24 months is ideal. You should also ensure whether the solution is ideal for creating internal or external knowledge bases.
- Usability: You could buy a top-notch solution, but it will be redundant if your team has difficulty adopting it. Make sure the system's interface is user-friendly, and its modules are easy-to-follow. Since the primary purpose of KB software is to create content, you should ensure the solution you pick has an easily operable editor that allows your employees to add, edit and format text.
- Cost: If you’re an up-and-coming organization, it’s not advisable to go big. Look for solutions that specifically cater to small-scale businesses. Or, you can opt for free KB systems that offer core features with a limited number of users.
- Integrations: Pick a platform that seamlessly integrates with your existing tech stack. Integrating with tools like survey creation, ticket management, marketing automation, CRMs and messaging apps is helpful.
- Analytics: Assess whether you need a system with built-in analytical capabilities or your existing AI system can do the job.
While the checklist is a major step, you shouldn’t forget the small stepping stones you’ll need in your software selection journey. To ensure you’re confident with your choice, you should:
- Browse through review sites to get honest feedback.
- Consult your peers in the industry who use the same or similar system.
- Request vendors for free trials and demos to make sure your employees are comfortable with the technology.
Cost & Pricing Considerations
The base cost for knowledge base software depends on several variables like:
- Mode of deployment.
- The number of user licenses purchased.
- The plan you buy like standard, premium, enterprise and so on.
- Any add-ons or integrations required.
If you need minimal features, some KB systems like Guru and Stack Overflow offer a free plan for a certain number of users. Other platforms like Slite provide a free version up to a specific number of support documents created. You'll need to buy a package for extensive functionalities like unlimited document creation, content grouping and long-form articles.
Other variables that influence the total cost of software are:
- Certification and training costs.
- Customizations.
- Support packages.
- Implementation and migration charges.
If you’re not willing to splurge on a standalone knowledge base solution, investing in help desk software with knowledge management capabilities is also viable.
The Most Popular Knowledge Base Software
A tent and sleeping bag are essential for camping; likewise, a list of the top-rated vendors in the market is crucial for the software selection process.
This section delves into the best knowledge base software according to our analysts. For a more detailed comparative analysis, visit our Jumpstart Platform to review products based on their scores.
Freshdesk
Freshdesk is a customer service solution that helps businesses deliver engaging interactions across every channel. It streamlines the knowledge base creation process with approval workflows and content versioning.
Agents can reply to tickets with KB articles. Its in-house AI Freddy provides customers relevant answers from the information repository. You can create KBs for multiple products and customize them accordingly.
Multilingual support in Freshdesk.
Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce Service Cloud is an AI-powered software that provides customer support across touchpoints like emails, messaging apps, voice calls and websites. Salesforce Knowledge allows you to create, manage and share a knowledge base with customers, visitors, partners and agents.
You can customize pages, set up access rules and develop personalized processes. Use the Lightning Knowledge Migration tool to import existing informational content into the knowledge base.
Knowledge management in Salesforce Service Cloud.
Zendesk
Zendesk helps reduce ticket volumes and frees up agents’ time through self-service tools. Create a personalized, mobile-optimized help center for FAQs, product details, policies and more.
AI-powered capabilities allow you to recommend relevant articles in support tickets. You can create multiple knowledge bases to cater to different audiences, regions and brands. For more information, see our Ultimate Zendesk Review.
Team publishing in Zendesk.
LiveAgent
LiveAgent is an omnichannel customer support platform that provides online self-service capabilities and a ticket management system. You can create customer-facing and private knowledge bases with the built-in WYSIWYG editor.
Customize the knowledge base by adding personalized themes, logos, titles, headers and footers. You can also include community forums and customer feedback boxes in the self-help center.
Customizable Support Portal in LiveAgent.
HubSpot Service Hub
HubSpot Service Hub is a customer service software that offers functionalities like omnichannel messaging, customer portals, live chat and inbound calling. You can create a repository of helpful articles and FAQs.
Personalize the knowledge base with brand-specific themes and categorize content for easy browsing. You can improve documentation and identify gaps by tapping into the built-in reporting and dashboard module.
Knowledge base insights in HubSpot Service Hub.
Questions To Ask Yourself
Use these questions as a starting point for internal conversations:
- Do we need to build a knowledge base for customer service or employees? Or both?
- How many users will work on the system?
- What level of customizations do we want?
- Do we need a scalable solution?
- Do we have any budgetary limitations?
Questions To Ask Vendors
Use these questions as a starting point for conversations with vendors:
About the Software
- How efficient is the system in handling multiple knowledge bases?
- Does it display articles in the app?
- Does it offer advanced search capabilities?
- Is there a version control system?
- Are knowledge base pages customizable?
About the Vendor
- What kind of customer support do they offer?
- Is knowledge base software their primary offering?
- Do they offer migration and implementation services?
- Are they compliant with data privacy regulations?
- Are there any specific industries or business sizes they specialize in?
In Conclusion
Like the quarterback position in football, knowledge base software is essential to the success of your customer service experience. With the right solution, you can empower your customers to look for answers themselves and reduce your agents’ workload, allowing them to focus on more pressing matters.
But picking the ideal knowledge base software requires you to jump through some hoops. Drafting a requirements checklist, inquiring about vendor’s eligibility and requesting free trials are some of them. Hopefully, this buyer’s guide can help you navigate the inundated market to pick out a knowledge base tool that fits you like a glove.
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