Introduction
Digital customer interaction has increased by 58% globally. Do you know when it all started? During the pandemic! Yes, the Coronavirus forced people to isolate and locked the whole world in their homes. It gave a huge rise to online shopping, web surfing, looking for information that you didn’t need, and sometimes it also led to productive things like starting an online business from your own home. With nothing else going on, people started doing things that they usually put on hold, and it came full circle when most of the activities involved searching for information online.
This is where customer support comes in.
The business industry’s always adapting to keep up with the times, trends, and tides. Keeping that perspective in mind, today’s businesses are all about online shopping, social media marketing, web-based ad campaigns, and customer support. A well-executed business plan always has effective customer support at its core. It has been proven time and again that a great customer support experience sets a business apart from its competitors. Not only that, but it also helps retain customers thus creating a strong and loyal customer base.
Online customer support has been on the rise ever since the technology allowed people to find and order any product imaginable with a single tap on their phone screens. This translated into lots of queries and information searching online and that’s how the idea of having a knowledgebase was born.
What is a knowledgebase?
In pursuit of serving customers and providing the best customer support possible, it is important to address the common issues facing them. For this to work, one of the best things is to imagine being a customer for the product or service you’re offering. This mindset will allow you to see the problems, understand the customer pain points and overall provide a better view of what should be done as a solution. Speaking of solutions, a knowledgebase provides a wide array of solutions with articles on different topics related to the business.
“A knowledgebase is an informational tour of your business, divided into different categories and groups to cater to the customer queries varying from general information to the more specific troubleshooting articles and how-to guides.”
That being said, writing an effective knowledgebase article takes skill, precision, and most importantly the right content. It is crucial to avoid getting lost in the vast amount of available (but not necessary) information regarding the topic and to stick to the content that will resonate with your customers the most.
The very basic standard for qualifying as a good knowledgebase article is that it conveys the relevant information. But the thing that makes it an excellent tool in information sharing and gets you clicks is its ability to reduce or in rare cases, eliminate, the need for contacting the customer support team. The end goal here is to save the customers’ and your own time in answering the most commonly asked questions. Simply put, it is kind of a self-service option where you help your customers help themselves.
Building a knowledgebase
Before starting writing an article for your knowledgebase, there are some key points to be mindful of so that your article fulfills its core purpose of educating and providing support to your customers. This will set the right tone for the voice you want to create for your brand.
Let’s have a look at the things that lay the foundation of a knowledgebase:
The audience
To get started with what to write and/or come up with an idea to explore for your knowledgebase article, you first need to understand the point of writing it and who you’re writing it for.
It should be noted here that anyone with a smartphone and a WiFi connection could end up on your website. It means that your article should address a wide range of people which effectively takes us to the use of language.
The use of tech jargons or heavy vocabulary might be understandable for the engineers or developers you hire but will not help make things easier for your customers who want information about your product. It should be a point in each of your knowledgebase articles to use simple and clear language.
Remember, your customers are the obvious audience; what you should be rooting for is to convert as many audience members into one of your retaining customers.
This is what our audiences can find in our writing:
- Relatability
- Warmth
- Accessibility
The right content
The next and cardinal thing to get right while writing a knowledgebase article is the content. What makes it tricky is writing an informational piece, using credible sources to validate your point, putting in the effort to cover all aspects of the topic, and then editing it fiercely because most of the information needed to be cut out.
To write content is one thing but making and molding it into the right content is something that you should strive to achieve. The right content is easy to understand, engages audiences with its simplicity, and conveys the intended message while covering different aspects of the topic.
Identify problems and pain points
The whole idea behind creating a knowledgebase is to address problems and identify common pain points faced by your customers. The best way to identify the commonly occurring problems is to take notes of the customer support queries.
It is considered best practice to have regular meetings with your team and jot down frequently asked questions. This will also help the product development department to take note of the problem and find ways to reduce or eliminate it in the coming versions.
Access
The location of your knowledgebase determines the level of support your customers might have a chance of receiving from your end. You should dedicate a space for your knowledgebase right on your website or your customer support hub so that your customers can easily find and access it.
It also needs to be accessible on different devices like smartphones, tablets, and iPads. It should be highly responsive for your customers to navigate through easily.
Format
A knowledgebase is meant to help your customers when you can’t guide them verbally. Therefore, it needs to follow a format that speaks for itself. You can either choose a visual format like videos and infographics. Or you can choose articles and blogs. Either way, the point is to engage your audience and help them get information or solutions to their problem.
It is better to make use of a format that supports both visual elements and reading materials to target a wide range of audiences.
Structure
After deciding on a location and formatting of your knowledgebase, there comes the decision to structure it. There are numerous ways to structure your knowledgebase, some of which are:
- Categories and subcategories: Divide it into categories and subcategories.
- Sequential: Structure it in a progressive or chronological order.
- Workflow/processes: Based on workflows and different mechanisms, provide solutions as the problems arise.
- Keep it simple: Last but not the least, use numbered or bullet list and avoid walls of text. There are multiple ways of going about a problem. With knowledgebase articles, the tip is to help your customers to adopt the easy route and stay to the point.
Whether you want to build a knowledgebase from scratch or revamp the existing one, we have you got covered at SlickFlo. Drop us a line at slickflo.co@gmail.com and let’s talk about the next steps!