Articles

Mistakes to Avoid When Building External Knowledge Base

by Vaishali Gopi Digital Marketer

Companies deploy many tactics and measures to meet customer needs and keep them satisfied. For offering great service and support to the customers, businesses resort to measures like automation deployment, using help desk software and developing knowledge base etc. Regardless of size of your company and its industry, developing a knowledge base for the customers can be really helpful. If the company website has a knowledge base meant for customers, replete with content like FAQ, how to articles, videos and tutorials- it can be beneficial for both parties.

Benefits of using an external knowledge base

  • The customers will be able to find solutions to commonplace problems and resolve various queries easily.

  • Usage of relevant and updated content in the knowledge base helps improve SEO ranking of the website.

  • The support agents will have to deal with less workload and their efficiency goes up.

  • Eventually, it will help in boosting customer satisfaction and enhancing company image.

Major mistakes to evade when developing external knowledge base

Developing a knowledge base for the customers in company website can be really beneficial. However, it is also important the external knowledge base is developed properly. It should not be developed without planning. Randomly placing some articles and links is not going to cut much ice! Certain mistakes should be evaded when developing it to ensure the customers find it useful.

  1. Sticking to the old-fashioned way

There was a time companies resorted to using a FAQ section to help customers resolve common queries. There is nothing wrong if you keep a FAQ section in the company’s external knowledge base. However, you should not be limited to that only! The FAQ section is likely to grow over time and the customers should not have to face hassles in fining what they are looking for. So, you should not miss out adding a search feature inside the external knowledge base.

  1. Not giving attention to design

The knowledge base section in your company website should not be drab looking. Attention must be paid to easy navigation, legibility while designing the section. An ill designed knowledge base may repel the customers easily. The category listing should be done in a logical and coherent manner. It would be prudent to keep links of related articles near an article for convenience of the customers. Things like color scheme and graphics should be chosen aptly to make it appear in sync with main website.

  1. Not highlighting its presence

Basically, companies create and update the knowledge base sections for their customers and also for reducing workload on the support agents. So, it is important that the customers get to know about existence of the knowledge base! To ensure the customers can access and learn about existence of external knowledge base, a number of measures can be deployed. The link to the knowledge base should be present in every page of the company website, in a prominent way. The link can be given in each service ticket response as well. Additionally, the presence of the knowledge base can also be highlighted in automated email responses sent to the customers.

  1. Not including contact details

While the external knowledge base is created with the purpose of helping customers find answers to the commonplace queries and help them troubleshot, that may not be enough always. It is not uncommon for the customers to face a situation when they just can’t find answers in the knowledge base. At such junctures, they need to contact the support team- by email, phone or chat. So, the required contact information should be included in the company’s knowledge base section.

  1. Not developing content that customers find useful

The content of an external knowledge base should be developed with the needs of customers in mind. The articles should not be too elaborate and the language should be easy to understand. Using excessive technological jargons is not recommended. You have to remember that some customers may not be much tech savvy! The answers to problems faced by customers should be written in matter of fact way- without much elaboration about things that are not relevant. For troubleshooting articles, a chronological, step by step method should be adopted. Some of the articles can be lengthy, but you should ensure the content is broken into paragraphs, bullet points and sub headings are used for enhanced legibility. In fact, it would be good to use info graphics to explain complex troubleshooting processes inside the articles. Sometimes, using links of videos and PDF documents in the section can be useful for the customers. That can be handy when the procedure is too large to be covered in static text and images in this section.

  1. Trying to promote service/products in the knowledge base

While the ultimate aim of a company is to enhance sales and revenue- the knowledge base is not the means to do it. Based on situations, online channels, social media profiles and live chat service can be deployed for enhancing sales. However, the same is not applicable for knowledge base section. The reality is your company customers seek the knowledge base section hen they have queries in mind or when they are facing any trouble. That is not the ideal time to offer them promotions and offers. The knowledge base has no place for sales and promotion-oriented stuffs.

  1. Not SEO optimizing the content

You may have used relevant and useful content in the company’s external knowledge base section but skipping SEO part can be detrimental. The reality is a section of customers will look up for answers to product and service related issues in Google before they access the knowledge base section. If the knowledge base is not optimized enough for SEO, it will get lower ranking in online search results. Usage of proper and relevant keywords in the content is must.

  1. Not including a feedback option

While you may have included content that you think would be enough to help customers fulfill their needs in knowledge base section, the reality may be different. A section of customers may not be able to find answers to their questions in the section. They can definitely contact the support team but it would be wise on your part to include a feedback form or field for such customers. This way, they can specify their queries and later you can augment the knowledge base with content to fulfill customer needs better.

  1. Not optimizing it for mobile devices

No matter what services and products are marketed by your company, a section of its customers use mobile devices for web browsing related tasks. So, it is only natural that these customers will use such mobile devices to access the knowledge base section for either resolving their queries or troubleshooting needs. So, the section has to be well optimized for mobile devices for enhanced user convenience.

Summing it up

With careful planning, it is not too hard to avoid common mistakes companies make in developing the external knowledge base. The companies need to think from the perspective of the customers when developing this section and customer priorities should be analyzed well. Focus has to be given on suability, easy access, and inclusion of relevant content. The design or layout also plays a pivotal role here. A suitable knowledge base software should be used to develop the section.




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About Vaishali Gopi Freshman   Digital Marketer

6 connections, 0 recommendations, 20 honor points.
Joined APSense since, April 17th, 2018, From Chennai, India.

Created on Aug 20th 2018 04:06. Viewed 319 times.

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