Knowledge management and self-service customer support is crucial in the banking sector. Choosing the right knowledge base is just as important in helping customers as it is in sharing information internally. Heavy regulations and compliance needs mean that banks have to put a lot of thought into the type of knowledge base they choose.
Many banking knowledge bases are outdated and fail to serve customers the information they need to be successful with your products and services. Internally, employees are relying heavily on documents and intranets, without the ability to centralize information and access a web-based system.
“As consumers we live in an on-demand, self-service world,” says D.J. Haskins, in The Financial Brand. “Netflix, Amazon, Uber, Airbnb have all rewired our brains so that we not only expect to be able to watch or shop on-demand but get answers to questions the same way.” In a technology-rich environment, customers expect banks to invest in the latest software that enables them to self-serve.
How to know when you need a new knowledge base
A knowledge base is an important tool for storing and sharing organizational knowledge. A lack of knowledge base or outdated software is an important sign that you should be looking for a new knowledge base. Many problems crop up when you need a new knowledge base.
Your call center is overwhelmed with customers seeking answers to easy questions
Your employees are unable to find the documentation they need to perform their roles.
Employees are spending too much time answering questions from colleagues
Employees and customers can’t get the answers they need because your organization is relying on tribal knowledge, or has multiple versions of truth.
Customers are failing to adopt mobile or online banking because it is too difficult
Customers may want the option of live chat, phone call, or face-to-face conversation, but often they just want quick and easy answers to their questions. Customers asking “How do I reset my password?” are classified as tier 1 questions that can be handled best through a help page, but without this capability, customers are forced to call your team. This is all known as reactive customer service, requiring well-trained support reps to be able to help your customers.
Similarly, employees don’t want to waste time asking around for the information they need. Although it’s good to have the option of in-person conversation, a knowledge base would be a better resource for employees who have questions. “Knowledge management is generally defined as the process of producing, presenting, storing, transferring, applying and protecting organizational knowledge,” says Özlem Yaşar Uğurlu and Duygu Kızıldağ. A knowledge base is an important Knowledge Management resource for your company.
Also Read: How to Create Effective Bank Policy and Procedure?
Benefits of a knowledge base
Banks can benefit tremendously with a knowledge base in two areas: internal knowledge management for employees searching for information, and external customer-facing knowledge to support online and mobile banking.
Without a knowledge base, customers and employees are left in the dark. Customers are often given no choice but to contact your call center. Considering that 54% of consumers do their banking in the evenings and weekends, this is often when your call centers are closed and customers are unable to reach a representative.
A knowledge base, on the other hand:
Offers 24/7 support for customers searching for information on your products and services
It’s fast, with customers able to search for the resources they need
A knowledge base can help an unlimited number of customers at any given time
Frees up more of your customer service reps who can help the customers who need it
Assists employees by centralizing information all in one place, giving them more time to focus on their jobs
Documentation can be easily updated in the user-friendly CMS
Reduced time spent searching for information or duplicating content
Easier content management process with the ability to assign the approval process to the correct employees
Improved employee morale and confidence as they have access to the resources they need
Faster training of new employees who have access to a central source of truth
With all these benefits, it’s hard to see why more banks aren’t investing in both customer-facing and employee knowledge bases. This isn’t a reason to remove your “contact us” function from your website, but a way to expand your organization’s resources to help more customers.
Also, Check out our blog on Call center knowledge base
What to look for in your banking knowledge management
There are many products and services out there but they are often part of a larger software set. For example, you can opt for Zendesk, Intercom or Help Scout, but the knowledge base is part of a wider ticketing system. It’s better to go for dedicated knowledge base software that you can get up and running out of the box.
Your knowledge base should offer easy maintenance of content with audit history. It should come with a well-designed front-end website that can be adapted to suit your company’s branding and design guidelines. It should integrate with your company website as a subdomain or linked to a subfolder as /help, for example.
You should have the ability to purchase multiple logins for the team you have working on your content. Your knowledge base should also be responsive, adjusting to any user’s screen size including mobile and tablet.
You need the ability to make your knowledge base private if you’re creating an internal knowledge management site, and it should require access to a login page.
Check out our video on Knowledge Base for Financial Institution
Knowledge base features
Your knowledge base should come with a set of basic features that enable you to help your customers and employees. We’ll go through some of them now.
Web-based content
Your knowledge base should offer robust web-based content that enables your procedures, policies, product information and guides to be removed from PDF documents and hosted online.
WYSIWYG editor
No messing around with code – your content authors and editors should have a WYSIWYG editor for producing content easily.
Versioning
You should be able to create a new version of an article while retaining access to the earlier version. You should be able to have multiple versions of an article live at one time.
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Your knowledge base users should be able to search easily for content, including within the body of an article with intelligent search.
Review
The ability to assign an article to a colleague for review within the knowledge base system.
Commenting
Being able to collaborate with colleagues on content by tagging them in comments, and alerting them to changes that need to be made.
Embeddable widget
So customers can access your knowledge base wherever they are on the site, and get served relevant information to the page that they’re on.
Analytics & reporting
How you measure the success of your content and track your knowledge base’s performance. Your software should come with an analytics dashboard showing you what customers are searching for, popular articles, and so on.
Knowledge base and content strategy
A knowledge base is nothing without an internal content strategy. Technology is only one part of the equation. It requires organizational resources to create, edit, and share content that is relevant and timely.
You should nominate a team of individuals as knowledge champions who are responsible for creating and updating your knowledge base content. They should be responsible for all your policies and procedures, while Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) can be assigned to document review using your knowledge base system.
When building your customer support knowledge base, consider basic problems that customers are contacting your agents about. These topics can form the foundation of your knowledge base. Categorize your articles into sections that make sense for your products and services. Consider creating a list of FAQs that you can surface on your knowledge base’s homepage.
Combining your knowledge base with a centralized content strategy is key to success.
Final remarks
By now, you should be thoroughly convinced that a new knowledge base is the way forward for your bank. You’ll be helping your customers to be more successful with your products and services, and leading the way in Customer Experience.
“Customers want answers now, not tomorrow. They expect you to attend to them at their every need, without delay. And the longer it takes to respond, the more likely it is that the customer will leave,” according to SuperOffice.
When it comes to employees, you’re boosting productivity and raising morale by documenting answers all in one place. You’re enabling them to do their jobs without wasting time searching for information that can be accessed through your knowledge base. A single source of truth is the best way to serve your employees, taking information out of documents and ensuring it can be accessed in a centralized repository.
Take your time when considering what software to use, as you’ll be investing time and resources to build your knowledge base from the ground up. Take Document360 for a free spin.
An intuitive knowledge base software to easily add your content and integrate it with any application. Give Document360 a try!
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