The ultimate guide to help center knowledge base software

You’ve probably heard of a knowledge base. They are useful for providing help to your customers seeking answers, and you can think of them as a help center knowledge base. Instead of waiting around indefinitely for your support staff to get back to them, customers can engage in self-service and find answers for themselves.

In an era when customer service is becoming increasingly important as a differentiator for business, there is more and more pressure to provide customers with the self-service options that they need.

According to research, 40% of customers fully prefer self-service compared to interaction with a human. That’s a huge proportion of your customer base that you can’t afford to ignore.

What is help center knowledge base software?

Help center knowledge base software is a centralized repository of information aimed at helping users answer questions and troubleshoot basic problems. It contains documentation such as user guides, FAQs, troubleshooting guides, reference material, and more.

Your knowledge base software allows you to easily collect information together and organize it for a specific audience – ie your customers.

The benefits of help center knowledge base software

Customers expect an immediate response when they reach out to companies online. Customers say that the most important thing that companies can do for them is to value their time. A help center knowledge base is instantly accessible and doesn’t require customers to wait in queues.

Help center knowledge bases can help an unlimited number of customers at once, allowing you to significantly expand your customer support operations without hiring more agents.

Your knowledge base never needs to sleep, allowing you to provide 24/7 support to your customers even when your agents are offline. Your knowledge base doesn’t need to take vacation or go on sick leave – it always can be relied on to help your customers.

By providing them with the self-service capabilities they expect, you can increase customer satisfaction for your customers. There’s no need for them to submit a ticket and they can solve problems on their own terms.

A help center knowledge base will enhance the customer experience. Your customers will be able to get more out of your products and services when they have access to useful and informative content. You can also attract new customers by providing in-depth answers to their questions, without their having to reach out to a sales rep.

Important features of help center knowledge base software

When you invest in knowledge base software, you will see how it differs from related software like Content Management Systems (CMS). This software is specialized to allow you to create a super helpful self-service knowledge base for your customers, containing better Information Architecture and capabilities for collaborative authoring.

There are many features that you should look out for when choosing your help center knowledge base software.

Intuitive WYSIWYG editor that easily allows you to create content
A prominent search bar that enables users to quickly discover content
A hierarchy of categories to organize your content arranged in a clear navigation menu
Extensive customization options allowing you to personalize your knowledge base
Collaborative authoring with review process to help you work on your content
Multiple role permissions so you can control who has access to what content
The ability to tag articles for search to surface content more quickly
Integrations with popular software such as Slack or Microsoft Teams

If you choose the right knowledge base software, you will have access to a powerful authoring experience allowing you to quickly and collaboratively create content that will enormously benefit your customers. You will be able to build a robust help center knowledge base that can seamlessly improve the customer experience.

Also Read: What Is Call Center Knowledge Base Software and Why Is It Useful?

Top help center knowledge base software

There are many popular knowledge-base solutions out there but we’ve brought you a selection of the top software options.

Document360

First, we’d like to introduce our very own knowledge base software Document360. It has been developed with our target audience in mind, resulting in an amazing documentation solution that enables you to create a knowledge base for your customers.

Document360 focuses on providing a great authoring experience. There is an advanced portal for content producers with top-of-the-range editor, category manager, analytics and more. The front-end of Document360 is a simple knowledge base site with state-of-the-art search and it’s optimized for viewing on any device.

Document360 integrates with all your favorite apps, providing a seamless workflow so you don’t have to jump around to different windows. For example, Document360 integrates with Slack so you can access your knowledge base directly from the workspace, and author articles – all without leaving Slack.

In case you need any more convincing, Document360 also offers a knowledge base assistant that delivers in-app help to the right customer at the right time, enabling you to deflect incoming support tickets and automate your support team.

Help customers help themselves instantly with a Knowledge Base.

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Helpjuice

Another popular help center knowledge base solution is Helpjuice. Theirs is a simple software interface that allows you to get started on authoring content without having to sit through a long demo teaching you how to use the tool.

Helpjuice also offers a Google-like search which they are constantly improving based on how people actually search in knowledge bases. The software comes with a plethora of themes so you can customize your knowledge base and make it look unique, as well as part of your company’s brand. Helpjuice’s team is generous in helping with customization options and they will support you in building the knowledge base of your dreams.

Also Read: Helpjuice Vs Document360: Which is better Knowledge Base Software?

The software includes extensive analytics that enable you to find out what your users are searching for, who these people are, what you should be writing in your knowledge base, and more.

KnowledgeOwl

KnowledgeOwl is a popular knowledge base software that means you can quickly get started with your documentation and it provides an intuitive authoring experience. Get set up with your account and immediately start using the WYSIWYG content editor to create your articles.

You can wow your customers with user-friendly and accessible knowledge base content built based on KnowledgeOwl’s tried and tested themes, layouts and category types. Tag your content to enable customers to find what they’re looking for more easily.

You don’t have to worry about any unwanted users accessing your knowledge base, as you can take advantage of KnowledgeOwl’s user and reader management. You can give specific permissions to different users based on their needs.

KnowledgeOwl also has a contextual help widget that you can embed on your website or app, so users can find answers without switching contexts.

Help Scout

Help Scout is a help desk software company that also offers a knowledge base for your business. The software has been designed so that you can quickly and easily insert text, images, hyperlinks, tables, and videos to articles. You can select a category for your article, add related articles, and optimize for SEO.

Beacon allows your customers to view your knowledge base articles on any page of your company’s website. You can also embed your knowledge base articles on any web page so that they feel like part of your website.

Help Scout’s knowledge base is fully optimized for desktop, tablet and mobile so customers can access your knowledge base on any device. Every site also contains SSL support to give your customers peace of mind. You can build multiple knowledge bases and manage them all behind the same login.

Also Read: Most Popular Online FAQ Tools & Software Compared

How can you build an effective help center knowledge base?

A knowledge base requires a lot of thought behind it in order for it to be successful. It’s not a project that can be completed overnight and then never thought about again – it’s an intensive undertaking that requires a team effort.

You could just upload a few articles to your knowledge base and hope for the best. But this definitely isn’t the best approach if you want to truly help your customers with a help center.

If your aim is to build a powerful and helpful help center knowledge base for your users then there are a few best practices you should follow.

1. Identify the purpose behind your knowledge base

Before you actually get down to the business of creating your knowledge base, you’ll need to think about why you actually want to build it in the first place. What is the purpose of your knowledge base?

The content you write for your knowledge base should revolve around exactly what customers need to know when it comes to your products and services.

Ask yourself:

What priorities do our customers have?
What are some of the most common questions and problems our customers have?
How do our customers use our products and services to make their lives easier?

Think about the ways that your knowledge base may be able to nurture prospects into becoming future customers. You can provide information that will help customers to understand whether they would be a good fit for your company, and help your marketing and sales teams in the process.

An intuitive knowledge base software to easily add your content and integrate it with any application. Give Document360 a try!

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2. Put thought into arranging your content

While the best knowledge bases are full to bursting with helpful content, it’s all a bit pointless if you don’t arrange your content in a sensible way so customers can find what they’re looking for. Use Information Architecture to help customers navigate your website.

Instead of arranging your content in a way that reflects your company and your priorities, think about what would make most sense to your customers searching for information.

Your knowledge base content should fit into hierarchical categories that allows your audience to dive deeper into particular topics that interest them.

3. Author content as a team

You shouldn’t be creating your help center knowledge base on your own. Your knowledge base should be built with input from others from a variety of teams to ensure you have the best product and company knowledge available for your customers.

You’ll need input from Sales, Marketing, Development, Customer Support, and Product in order to provide the right content for customers.

The main team you will be working with is Customer Support, since they are the closest to your customers and have in-depth knowledge of the kinds of issues that customers deal with on a daily basis. Your support team is a rich source of knowledge base content and writing documentation can be a good career progression for support reps.

Work closely with your Subject Matter Experts to create outstanding content for your help center knowledge base.

4. Develop your content over time

Like we said before, your knowledge base is not an easy project that can be completed in a few days and never thought about again. Your knowledge base, in fact, is never actually “complete” and requires constant iteration in order to keep it relevant and helpful for customers.

When your company releases a new version of your product, you will need to go through and update all the documentation relating to how to use your product. Screenshots will need to be updated and you’ll need to document all the new features.

Your knowledge base analytics should be able to tell you the search terms that your customers are looking for, so you can identify new topics for documenting. Keep an eye on articles that have been rated as “unhelpful”, and consider revising the content to make it better for your customers.

Final remarks

You’ll be in no doubt that your company needs a help center knowledge base, in order to build a strategy of customer self-service and enhance the customer experience. No business can afford to be without one, even though it takes a substantial effort to set up.

Make sure you understand the type of software that you’re looking for and that it contains all the relevant features you require. Try out some of the knowledge base solutions we have recommended, all of which are a great fit for providing a help center knowledge base.

Follow our best practices when implementing your software to increase the chance that your help center will be successful. Always keep your customer at front of mind when building your knowledge base, and you’ll be well on your way to creating an awesome self-service strategy.