What Is a Knowledge Base?

What Is a Knowledge Base?

A knowledge base is a collection of information that answers a range of common questions likely to be asked.

Its purpose is twofold: to provide your staff with a database of answers and to provide self-service information to customers who might otherwise call your contact centre or helpdesk.

Your knowledge base may be stored on your systems where staff can access the information or published on your website or portals where customers can easily access it. The information can also come in several different forms:

• FAQs: These will be simple chunks of information answering the most common queries.
• How-to Guides: Usually, a step-by-step guide to assist customers.
• Articles: These may be short-form pieces that give a wider explanation of a product.
• Videos: These may show a product in action or can be a watchable version of a how-to guide.
• Manuals and Glossaries: Information relating to different terms around your products or services.

Thanks to RingCentral

The Benefits of Installing a Knowledge Base

Installing a knowledge base that you keep well managed can have many benefits to your contact centre and the wider organization, as Micah Peterson, VP of Product Management at ProcedureFlow, explains.

• Lowering time to competency
• Reducing call escalations
• Ensuring consistent service
• Spreading information across the business
• Customer self-service

Due to the great value that each of these benefits can bring to an organization, the knowledge base has become one of the most in-demand technologies in the contact centre.

Knowledge Base Features

Let’s take a look at the more basic features that any reputable vendor would include in their proposition:

• A search function
• An authorship tool
• An open comments category
• Knowledge scores
• A knowledge leaderboard

Your knowledge base should contain each of these functions. However, if you want to achieve more from your knowledge base, here are some other features that you should look out for:

• A search engine with natural language processing
• Key performance indicators (KPIs) that detail the effectiveness of knowledge articles
• Knowledge flows
• Real-time knowledge suggestions
• Customer self-service