7 Ways To Use A Knowledge Base To Boost Customer Service

Is your customer support team a waste of time ? I have no doubt that the answer to that is “far from it”, however, research shows that around 80% of customer support queries are simple, repetitive ones that can be handled by tech. This is where a knowledge base makes an entry! With budgets tighter than ever before, many businesses are looking to cut costs and so, in this article, we’re looking at seven ways to implement a library of content to boost customer service.

What Is A Knowledge Base?

In a nutshell, this term refers to a central hub for storing and sharing information with your customers. This can include everything from product details and industry news to FAQs (frequently asked questions) and is usually located on either a company’s website or as an option during telephone enquiries.

Why should you use a knowledge base? There’s a very good chance that your talented customer support staff are answering the same questions over and over during any given work day. Not only is this a waste of their precious time but it’s also, quite frankly, incredibly boring for your employees.

Implementing this valuable tool base means that a significant number of your customers will be able to get the information that they need without having to bother your staff who are no doubt a little tired of telling people that your new cereal bar is vegan friendly. This then frees up their valuable time for customers who have more complex enquiries and therefore do actually need to speak to a real live human. Time, as they say, is money - and it really is a little outdated to still be paying employees to repeat the same info constantly.

How to Use Your Knowledge Base To Boost Customer Service

As well as saving your business time and cold hard cash, an AI customer support knowledge base can also supercharge your customer support and, in this section, we’ll tell you just how it can do that:

1.    Get to know your audience

When you get to work on building your customer service hub, you will naturally start to think about the kind of stuff that your customers will want to know. This automatically leads to a drive to figure out just who exactly your customers are. In a lot of cases, this process leads businesses to finally put together a customer profile - a kind of model of the person who is most likely to be interested in your product or service. This can be an incredibly valuable tool as, once you have your customer profile, you can then build your brand around this - targeting your marketing, advertising, product descriptions and, of course, your knowledge base toward that person.

2.    Fast workers

If your customer support team tends to be busy a lot of the time, this usually means that customers and potential customers are spending a long time on hold while they wait their turn to speak with somebody. Unfortunately, more often than not, people will simply give up (because their time is money too) and, right there, you may just have lost a sale. These days, consumers are an impatient bunch and, when they want something, they want it fast. By making all of the necessary information available in one easy to find space, people can find the answers that they need without going through the support team and are therefore much more likely to make a purchase or a further enquiry.

3.    Free and easy

With most people trying to keep costs down these days, spending ages on hold can seem like an unnecessary expense and one that many won’t choose to take. An online resource for content not only gets the job done fast but it’s also free.

4.    New seekers

One of the great things about a knowledge base is that it can also serve as a bit of sneaky SEO (search engine optimisation). By including the key words and phrases relating to your products or services, your website will show up organically in internet searches; giving you access to potential new audiences who are looking for what you’re selling.



Blog posts and articles work really well here too as long as they’re informative and relevant.

5.    Crack the credibility code

Nothing says “dodgy” better than a company that seems reluctant to share details. Making comprehensive guidance available to the public is a fantastic way of building and maintaining trust as this, quite literally, shows that you’ve got nothing to hide. An example of this might be the inclusion of step by step instructions or full disclosure regarding ingredients, contents and place of manufacture.

6.    Keep it consistent

With the best will in the world, you can’t monitor every customer support call to make sure that guidance is consistent - but you can absolutely do this with a central information resource such as a knowledge base.

7.    Fundamental feedback

I’ll let you into a secret - your customers don’t want to “stay on the line to answer a few questions” about the support they received.



They are, however, usually willing to leave feedback online - and a form allowing them to do that can be included in your knowledge resource.

How To Optimise Your Knowledge Base

Choosing to include this type of central resource as part of your customer service is a marathon, not a sprint. In order for it to work, you need to take the time to ensure that you’ve included every scrap of information that people might be looking for - and then to make sure that the details are accurate. Don’t be tempted to simply collate all of your content and upload it to your website as you need to make sure that the language and context is easy to understand for your audience.

If your hub is going to include a lot of written content and / or graphics, it's well worth investing in the services of a professional writer or graphic artist to really make your knowledge base shine.

Finally, you will need to keep on top of your base to make sure that it stays relevant and so regular audits and updates should be put in place as standard.

Conclusion

Creating a central library of guidance and know-how  is a really efficient way of giving customers what they want, while saving money and freeing up the time of your employees - and so should be moved to the top of your company’s to-do list.  Start planning your next move now…