Support Knowledge Base Management Best Practices

What is the purpose of a knowledge base?

• A knowledge base is how you communicate with customers. It’s understanding your customer’s pain and analyzing their capability of using your product. A knowledge base guides your customer towards a solution through documentation.
• The goal is to create documentation so good that your customers don’t need to contact your support team. The way you support your product is as important as the product itself.
• This is especially important for complex products that customers will get to know over time.
• As technical products and Software as a Service (SaaS) have become common, the business support strategy has evolved to encompass a long-term relationship with customers.
• A killer knowledge base is key to your customer support strategy. It’s anticipating problems and questions before they happen. It’s not a wall to keep your customers away from support.

Write an effective article using best practices

Writing documentation is all about creating the customer experience. Self-service content needs to build trust with your customers and should be treated in the same way as your marketing materials.

Coming up with your article

• Keep sight of the motivation for customers to visit your knowledge base. They’re likely to be in distress, frustrated, and trying to solve a problem. 
• Don’t drive them crazy with flowery or confusing content.
• When you write your article, make sure you have the information you need. Reach out to subject matter experts in your team to provide you with the material.

Structure the article thoughtfully

• State the solution upfront. Don’t make your customers search for it or skip to the end. Then, include the logical steps your customers need for those who want the information step-by-step.
• Write clearly and simply so your readers easily understand the information. You need to focus on solving their specific problem. Order your points logically and keep to one point per paragraph. This helps with understanding.
• Use subheadings to signpost readers and enable them to scan your article to the point that helps them.
• Write your titles intuitively, including the keywords that your customers will be likely to use.

Edit your support article

• Once you’ve written your article, walk away and leave it for a day. Come back to it with fresh eyes and edit what you’ve written. Better yet, ask someone else to give feedback on whether your article solves the problem.
• Your content has to be so good that it keeps your customers coming back for more. Make them see your knowledge base as their first stop for troubleshooting. If your customers trust your knowledge base, they’ll be more likely to come back.

Appropriate use of color and branding

• Color is a key part of designing your knowledge. It doesn’t have to be in your brand colors but should have continuity with your brand. Stick to a maximum of two base colors, plus one more color to highlight key elements.
• Colors should be bold, not bright. Consider calming colors — blue or green — in your knowledge base to soothe angry customers.

Keep it up-to-date

• If your content is neglected over time, it will be nothing. You need to be an active curator of your documentation so it continues to serve your customers’ needs.
• Create new articles for your knowledge base as you roll out new features for your product.
• Make it a policy never to repeat information in different articles. Hyperlink to the relevant article instead. Then, you only have to update one single article if and when that information changes.

Appoint a support knowledge leader

• You support team is your most valuable asset in managing your knowledge base. Frontline staff know exactly what problems your customers are having, and can help you keep your content on point.
• Support staff members with the most potential can be nominated as knowledge leaders. It’s an opportunity for them to take on more responsibility, and use their natural skills to create the best content.

Usability standards

• Use different font sizes to direct your customers’ attention, including headers and paragraph tags.
• It’s best practice to include a table of contents at the beginning of long articles, and include bullet points to break up the text.
• Your knowledge base must be mobile-friendly and accessible to visually-impaired customers.
• Don’t use color as the only way to navigate. Include alt text that is available to screen readers.