Imagine a situation where one of your customers is possibly in a tricky situation.

They have a burning question about your product at 2 am on a weekend. What do they do then? Should they be allowed to wait till the weekday to get on a call with your team? Of course, they shouldn’t.

That's why they need a customer service knowledge base. A need that you already recognized.

Hence, you are on this blog.

As you know, having a comprehensive self-service knowledge base at your customer’s fingertips means they are armed with the right information to conquer any challenge anytime, anywhere.

Also, convenience isn’t the only factor. It’s more so about transforming the way your customer sees your product and learning how advanced and easy it is to operate especially in a tech-driven era.

Now read on to know how having a knowledge base in your customer service line up can be a win-win for both you and your customers.

Self-service guarantees customer independence

As obvious as it sounds, a self-service knowledge base saves your customers’ time and effort, making them more independent than relying on your team’s availability. In fact, 40% of customers worldwide prefer this self-service feature over human contact. So, by offering a comprehensive customer service knowledge base, you cater to this preference of accessing a convenient platform where redressals are just a few clicks away.

This self-service approach not only enhances customer satisfaction but also improves operational efficiency. With readily accessible information, your customers can troubleshoot any hindrances and learn more about your product usage.

Makes it easy on the customer service front

Your customer service team can focus on more complex tasks as a knowledge base will take a significant load off their shoulder. By furnishing a wealth of information, you can avert numerous support requests, allowing them to address higher-value issues. In addition to improving your team’s productivity, you also reduce the risk of employee burnout and turnover.

Customers’ instant access to the knowledge base lets the support team manage workloads without any overlapping and cater to individuals with more undivided attention on pressing matters. This proactive approach not only streamlines operations but also cultivates a culture of continuous improvement within the support ecosystem.

Centralized hub of information

By consolidating all relevant content that your customers need access to, your customer service knowledge base serves as a centralized hub of information. In many company websites, information tends to be scattered which makes it difficult for the visitors to find what they need.

It also acts as a collaborative space for employees that enables content creation and a better understanding of the product. With everyone on the same page, employees can share insights, update content, and collaborate more efficiently, also helping your new joiners to know more about your company. This ensures consistency and accuracy across your team, nurturing internal cohesion and productivity.

One-stop access to useful insights

While user guides and training materials can be shared with users in various formats, they often lack the depth of insight provided by an online customer service knowledge base software. With a knowledge base, you can gain a deeper idea of:

• Most searched information by users
• Redundant content
• Employee engagement rates
• Critical product-related issues
• Bottlenecks that prompt user searches
• Satisfaction levels with both provided information and your products

These insights will help you make informed decisions and effectively streamline support processes. Leveraging such best practices not only addresses user concerns but also enhances the overall customer experience and operational efficiency.

Improves customer experience

In customer service, knowledge base is your front line. It's the first level of support that you can provide to a customer. Functioning as a comprehensive repository of information, it offers customers a centralized hub for resolving queries and accessing much-needed insights.

Your customers can easily find answers to their queries without any hassle through a user-friendly interface and intuitive navigation. This streamlined access to information not only saves time but also improves the overall user experience, bringing forth brand loyalty and satisfaction.

Customers will gain confidence in troubleshooting issues independently. By consistently meeting their information needs and facilitating seamless interactions, you also tend to cultivate loyalty and advocacy among your customer base. Ultimately, a well-maintained knowledge base becomes an indispensable tool for delivering exceptional customer service and driving long-term success.

Helps with SEO ranking

A not-so-talked-about benefit of a knowledge base for a public-facing company is its impact on SEO. Creating a better online presence is not an easy task, and search engines value knowledge. A customer service knowledge base is exactly that – information, tutorials, and guides accumulated over time, creating a giant repository for search engines to understand what you do.

It does the dual job of supporting your customers with necessary information while also enhancing your SEO efforts by providing valuable data online. Maintaining a robust content repository can surprisingly aid in high-quality knowledge base content. If your branded content is engaging and resonating with your audience, you won’t even need to outsource SEO efforts to external agencies.

With well-crafted, keyword-rich content, your company’s visibility will double up organically through higher rankings on search engines.  You can attract organic traffic through your vast knowledge base that expands your online visibility, potentially expanding your customer base. This ultimately paves the way for more revenue generation.

Gain a competitive advantage

A comprehensive knowledge base also shows your expertise and commitment to customer support, helping you gain better visibility in your industry. By providing a centralized repository of valuable insights and resources, you can distinguish your business from that of your competitors. More than just enhancing your brand visibility, this establishes your company as a thought leader within your industry.

Customers are usually drawn to businesses that prioritize knowledge-sharing and offer authoritative guidance. This allows you to attract and retain more customers, significantly reducing customer churn. In turn, you can solidify your position as the industry leader, driving market differentiation. A knowledge-centric approach can thus help you outshine your competitors and stay ahead of the curve.

Reduces customer service costs

You can considerably reduce the expenses that you have budgeted for customer service operations. There are two main reasons for this:

• Minimizes the need for extensive agent intervention
• Mitigates the overhead costs associated with managing a high volume of inquiries

With this, you can allocate resources more efficiently and direct investments toward more operations that require more strategic planning. So, by streamlining customer service processes and optimizing resource utilization, you can achieve greater cost-effectiveness while maintaining high standards of service delivery and customer satisfaction.

Brace the Power of a Well-Curated Knowledge Base

The future of a customer service knowledge base is limitless. Whether you are a startup or an established enterprise, investing in a customer service knowledge base is not limited to just being a smart move. It is also a strategic imperative. By harnessing the power of technology and embracing a customer-centric mindset, you can leverage these platforms to make way for new opportunities, drive innovation, and keep leaping ahead in a highly volatile market space.

So, buckle up and get ready for the ride as the future of customer service knowledge bases is bound to be an exhilarating one!

In a world where customer expectations are constantly evolving, businesses must stay ahead of the curve to deliver exceptional customer experiences.

As we enter 2024, the customer support landscape is poised for significant changes, driven by technological advancements, shifting consumer behaviors, and the ongoing quest for efficiency and personalization.

Imagine a world where there is no need for 24 to frankly infinite hours of wait times or not having to go through clunky phone lines followed by an ordeal of corporate protocol that does not get you anywhere.

The future is here - AI in customer service is all the rad right now and we are entering the golden age of customer service. With this article witness and enjoy the glory of modernized customer service with us.

Embracing AI and Automation in Customer Support

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing customer support, offering businesses the opportunity to enhance efficiency, personalize interactions, and streamline processes. In 2024, AI is set to play a pivotal role in shaping the customer support landscape. Let's delve into the key trends and statistics:

Personalization and AI Integration: The focus in 2024 is on the intersection of personalization and AI, reshaping customer interactions for a more tailored and efficient support experience.

Integration of Social Media and Messaging Apps: Incorporating social media, messaging apps, and digital platforms into customer support strategies is crucial for modern businesses to enhance response times and customer engagement.

Proactive Customer Support: Businesses are shifting from reactive to proactive customer support strategies, anticipating and resolving concerns before customers reach out, significantly enhancing overall customer satisfaction.

Automation and Chatbots: Automation is becoming a key player in transforming customer interactions, streamlining processes, and improving efficiency in customer support.

The Impact of AI on Customer Engagement

• 80% of executives have reported improvements in customer satisfaction and overall contact center performance due to conversational AI implementations (Zendesk).
  
• Globally, the conversational AI market is expected to reach nearly $14 billion by 2025, indicating significant growth in this sector (Knowmax).
  
• 57% of business leaders believe that conversational chatbots offer a large return on investment with minimal investment (Knowmax).
  
• By 2027, chatbots are projected to become the primary customer service channel for approximately a quarter of organizations, showcasing the increasing reliance on AI-driven solutions in customer service (Zendesk).

As businesses embrace AI and automation in customer support, they are poised to deliver more personalized, efficient, and proactive experiences to their customers. The integration of AI technologies will continue to drive innovation and transformation in the customer support landscape in 2024 and beyond.

Harnessing the Power of Data and Analytics

In 2024, customer data will be the lifeblood of effective customer support strategies. By harnessing the power of data analytics, businesses can gain valuable insights into customer preferences, behaviors, and pain points.

This knowledge enables them to deliver highly personalized support experiences that resonate with customers on a deeper level.

Key statistics highlighting the importance of data-driven personalization:

• 80% of buyers are more likely to purchase when brands offer personalized customer experiences (Freshworks).
• 86% of consumers expect seamless communication across multiple channels with customer support agents (Nextiva).
• 42% of adults prefer to resolve their issues over the phone, compared to digital channels like knowledge bases (38%) and email (20%) (Nextiva).

As businesses prioritize personalization in 2024, leveraging customer data will be crucial for delivering tailored support that exceeds customer expectations.

Centralizing Data for a Single Customer View

To effectively personalize support, businesses must break down data silos and create a centralized view of customer information. By consolidating data from various touchpoints, companies can gain a comprehensive understanding of each customer's journey and preferences.

• Only 12% of self-service support platforms are highly integrated; for most organizations, only 20% of service issues are resolved (Nextiva).
• Two in five U.S. consumers say they've used three or more channels to reach a company's customer service team (Nextiva).
  

In 2024, businesses that invest in data centralization and governance will be better equipped to deliver seamless, personalized support across all customer interactions.

By harnessing the power of data and analytics, businesses can unlock the full potential of personalization in customer support. As we move into 2024, data-driven insights will be the key to delivering exceptional customer experiences that drive loyalty and growth.

The Future of Customer Support: Trends to Watch in 2024 and Beyond

As customer expectations continue to evolve, businesses must adapt by offering seamless support across multiple channels. In 2024, omnichannel support will be the norm, with customers expecting consistent and efficient service regardless of the platform they choose to engage with.

Key omnichannel support trends to watch:

• Reaching a business via the phone remains the most popular customer service channel method (Nextiva).
• By 2025, proactive customer service teams will outnumber reactive customer service interactions (Nextiva).
• Two in five U.S. consumers say they've used three or more channels to reach a company's customer service team (Nextiva).
  

As businesses adapt to this omnichannel reality, investing in technologies that enable seamless cross-channel support will be crucial for delivering exceptional customer experiences in 2024 and beyond.

The Rise of Proactive Support

In 2024, customer support will shift from a reactive to a proactive approach. By anticipating customer needs and resolving issues before they arise, businesses can enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.

By 2025, proactive customer service teams will outnumber reactive customer service interactions (Nextiva).

As businesses embrace proactive support strategies, leveraging data analytics and AI will be key to identifying potential issues and delivering timely, personalized solutions.

The Rise of Social Media Customer Support

Social media has become an indispensable channel for customer support, with customers increasingly turning to platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp to seek assistance. The statistics are telling:

• 67% of customers find it convenient to contact support on social media (Insights for Professionals).
• 76% of clients expect a response within 24 hours on social media (Insights for Professionals).
• Customer inquiries over platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and WeChat or Line surged by 36% in 2021 (Insights for Professionals).

These numbers underscore the importance of social media in customer support, highlighting the need for businesses to prioritize quick, efficient, and personalized support on these platforms. As we move into 2024, social media customer support will continue to play a vital role in shaping the customer experience.

Stay tuned for the next segment, where we'll explore the role of AI and automation in customer support, and how businesses can leverage these technologies to enhance efficiency and personalization.

Embracing the Future of Customer Support

As we look ahead to 2024, the customer support landscape is poised for significant transformation. By embracing the trends and technologies outlined in this article, businesses can position themselves for success in the years to come.

From leveraging AI and automation to delivering personalized, omnichannel support, the key to success in 2024 will be adaptability and innovation. By staying ahead of the curve and prioritizing the customer experience, businesses can build lasting relationships with their customers and drive growth in an increasingly competitive market.

Exploring a new city without a map can make you feel like flying blind. Similarly, diving into a new software product without a guide can leave you lost!

But if you are smart to know - Product Documentation (PD) and Knowledge Bases  (KB) are trusty guides  for grasping and maneuvering through new software products.

In this blog post, we'll delve into Documentation (hereby referrered to as Product Documentation) vs. Knowledge Base and their differences, and explore when to use each one. Understanding which of these guides to refer to can help you get straight to the solutions you need and  save you loads of time and frustration.

Product Documentation - The Bible

Product documentation is like a holy grail of information about a company's products. It's structured, detailed, and aims to cover everything you need to know about using the product effectively.

It's like a map, guiding users through the intricacies of the product's features, functionalities, and best practices.

Knowledge Base - The Priest

Everyone might have the Bible, but you still need to go to the priest to ask your questions and get some answers. That's exactly the role of a KB.

Knowledge base is like the religious priest who has memorized all the answers to commonly asked questions for best practices, quick fixes,and  troubleshooting.

Maintained by customer support teams, a KB is a repository of solutions to common problems and answers to frequently asked questions. It's less structured than product documentation and focuses on providing immediate assistance to users facing issues.

Product Documentation vs. Knowledge Base

Ever thought about why we keep product documentation and knowledge bases separate 🧐?

It might seem easier to just throw everything into one big bundle of info, right? But here's the thing: these two sources targets different goals and aspects.

Lets understand Product Documentation vs. Knowledge Base better:

Still Confused?

Let's compare the product documentation and knowledge base of the popular software product - Postman.

Product Documentation Example: Postman

The Postman documentation provides comprehensive guidance on using the Postman API development platform. Here's a summary of what's included:

• Get Started: Introduction to using Postman and getting started with API projects.
• Send Requests: Instructions on how to send requests in Postman to connect to APIs and get response data.
• Write Scripts: Information on using Postman's powerful scripting capabilities to add dynamic behavior to requests and collections.
• Use Collections: Guidance on organizing and grouping requests into collections and running them together.
• Use Postman Flows: Introduction to Postman Flows, a visual tool for creating API workflows.
• Use the Postman CLI: Overview of the Postman Command-Line Interface for running collections, sending run results, and more.
• Collaborate in Postman: Tools and features for collaboration within teams, including sharing workspaces and discussing projects.
• Design and Develop Your API: Support for API-first development with the API Builder, including syncing with Git repositories.
• Document Your API: Importance of API documentation and guidance on generating and sharing documentation in Postman.
• Monitor Your API: Overview of Postman Monitors for continuous visibility into API health and performance.
• API Governance and API Security: Features for promoting consistent API behaviors and ensuring API security.
• Administration: Options for customizing team experiences, managing access control, and keeping teams up-to-date with the latest Postman version.
• Use Reports: Postman's reporting features for visualizing data on API usage, performance, and SLA adherence.
• Developer Resources: Resources for integrating Postman with CI/CD workflows and developing with Postman APIs or libraries.
• Integrations: Information on connecting Postman to third-party solutions for seamless data sharing and API development.

If you are non-techincal user, chances are, you skipped reading the above 😅, since none of it made a lot of sense. However if you are from a developer background, then all those points are within your comfort zone.

Breaking down  Product Documentation

When you create product documentation, remember that you are literally creating a Bible. It must encompass all the information about your product. Here is a breakdown of different aspects of information you must include.

For a thorough learning of the product:

• User Documentation: This is the bread and butter for most users, providing instructions on installation, using features, and completing tasks. Highly detailed, sometimes even with detailed diagrams.
• System Documentation: Aimed at developers and IT professionals, this dives into the technical aspects like system architecture, design choices, and how the software works behind the scenes.

To help with daily use of the product:

• Tutorials and How-to Guides: Step-by-step guides that take users through specific functionalities or workflows.
• API Documentation: Detailed information on how to interact with the software programmatically using its Application Programming Interface (API).

For troubleshooting:

• Troubleshooting Guides: Addresses technical issues users might face and provides solutions.
• Error Code Explanations: Descriptions of error codes and messages, along with explanations of their causes and possible solutions.

Additional Information:

• Release Notes: Keeps users informed about new features, bug fixes, and changes in recent updates.
• Version Control Information: Tracks changes made throughout the software's development cycle (relevant for developers).
• Licensing Information: Explains the software's license terms and conditions.
• Security Considerations: Security best practices and recommendations help ensure the product is used securely and protect sensitive data from vulnerabilities.
• Upgrade Instructions: These instructions guide users through the process of updating to the latest version of the product, with backup recommendations, and compatibility considerations.
• Glossary:  A space to define technical terms and acronyms used throughout the documentation.

Knowledge Base Example: Postman Support

Now let us look at the knowledge base of Postman. This is focused on providing quick solutions to common problems and addressing user inquiries.

Here's a summary of what's included:

• Troubleshooting Guides: Step-by-step instructions for resolving common issues and errors encountered by users.
• How-to Articles: Detailed explanations and tutorials on performing specific tasks or actions within the product or service.
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): Answers to common queries and inquiries from users about the product or service.
• Workarounds and Solutions: Alternative methods or temporary fixes for known issues or limitations of the product or service.
• Best Practices: Tips and recommendations for optimizing usage and achieving desired outcomes with the product or service.
• User Guides and Manuals: Simplified versions of product documentation, focusing on essential features and functionalities.
• Updates and Announcements: Information about new features, enhancements, and bug fixes in each product release.
• Community Forums: Platforms for users to ask questions, share experiences, and engage with other users and support staff.
• Support Contacts: Contact information for customer support channels, such as email, chat, or phone support.

While the product documentation for Postman provides comprehensive guidance on using the application, the knowledge base offers quick solutions and troubleshooting tips for specific issues users may encounter.

Together, they form a comprehensive support system to help users make the most of the software product.

Beyond KB and PD

Are these the only two sources for providing support and guidance?

Nope. There are ther sources to help customers like Public discussion forums and Community wikis. These platforms can be trusted more to get straight and unbiased reviews about a product's features and ways of handling them.

You can get tips there in the form of discussions, shared experiences, reviews, and feedback. Even though the opinions on such platforms cannot always be verified, you can get valuable insights and perspectives that may not be available in the official product documentation or knowledge base.

But community wikis and discussion forums shouldn't be the sole source of information, but they serve as supplementary sources of resources to understand products along with product documentation and knowledge bases

Conclusion

In summary, Product Documentation and Knowledge Bases are two helpful guides that help users to easily familiarize with features and functioning of software products.

When we compare Product Documentation vs. Knowledge base: product documentation serves as a comprehensive guide, like the Bible, offering in depth guidance, knowledge bases act as immediate sources of assistance, similar to consulting a priest for quick answers for solving immediate challenges.

Together, they form a powerful support system, ensuring users make the most of their software experiences.

If you are looking to create a new Knowledge Base (powered by AI), Help.center is an apt choice. It's powered by AI. Help.center helps create a simple to use knowledge base and helps end customers to get answers using AI search.

Even in the bustling world of modern business, one thing always holds true: outstanding customer service is the backbone of every business. If you're a business owner, you already grasp the importance of forging solid connections with your customers. Now, picture the opportunity to elevate your customer service and support, to a whole new standard. A workflow where all interactions are streamlined with better efficiency and authenticity.

Let's welcome to the stage, AI

Since the boom of AI & ChatGPT in the last year, the way businesses are done has evolved. AI has made an impact in many business operations & one such industry it has made the most impact in is customer support.

Current AI models like chatGPT are mostly playing around text, where it learns and performs best for requests such as writing new text, rephrasing to better text. It makes sense that this technology will have a direct impact on text based customer communication like email and chat.

AI in customer service acts as your business's personalised assistant, effortlessly handling customer inquiries 24/7. Thanks to the constant advancements happening in the field of Artificial Intelligence, the AI system understands your products or services, guaranteeing precise and informative responses. It generates thoughtful, human-like answers that offer solutions and guidance.

The applications of AI in your business are diverse. From chatbots swiftly addressing routine questions, freeing up your human staff for more intricate tasks, to analysis tools that measure customer satisfaction, AI seamlessly integrates into your customer service toolbox.

What's more, it thrives on data, learning from interactions to fine-tune its responses over time. This not only fosters consistency in communication but also opens the door to personalised interactions.

Realising the impact of AI on customer support, we wanted to build a tool for customer support that takes its roots from a typical email ticketing system and apply the power of AI to boost the support workflow. That's why we built Help.center

Our robust customer support solution constantly improves AI with FAQs directly given by you! Which means if you are not satisfied with how your AI is answering a question, you can add an FAQ for the AI. This trains the AI to give better answers, next time for the same question. From the next time, the AI will answer all related questions based on the information you’ve given.

Customer Support cannot thrive without AI

Every workflow improves over time. Constant evolvement in technology is changing the way we do things. This time, AI is doing that for Customer support. It's swiping the old methods off their feet.

Help.center customers say around 90% of customer queries are being resolved by AI itself. The remaining queries that are more complex are seamlessly forwarded to the company’s ticketing system where humans can resolve the issue. This reduces the workload of your support team massively. Let us look into this in more detail.

Lightning-Fast Assistance

AI empowers you to implement automatic responses for customer queries, ensuring instant replies whenever possible.

More complex issues are efficiently directed to the relevant support agent's inbox, enabling them to provide solutions and assistance more swiftly than ever before.

This not only speeds up problem-solving but also enhances the overall customer experience.

Reliable, Consistent Support

Even when human representatives are unavailable, automation tools ensure that consistent support is always available. With AI-powered customer service bots, your customers can resolve issues at any time, day or night.

With Help.center you can connect your AI chatbot to our ticketing system. Our native integration enables your human-support and AI to function together, seamlessly.

Your customers can easily request help from your support agents.  Alternatively, you may also integrate your AI chatbot to external support systems.

Reduction of Human Errors

We all make mistakes, but AI-based models are designed to be incredibly accurate and precise. The more data they process, the sharper and more precise they become. This means that the more you utilise AI, the better the results you'll achieve.

Enhanced accuracy will help you stay ahead of the ever-changing customer support demands, ultimately leading to a superior experience for your customers.

Reduce costs & agent burnout

Using AI for your customer support can also massively help in keeping your customer support costs low. Without the use of AI, you will need to have multiple support agents for even simple customer issues.

With the use of AI, all simple and fairly complex issues can be handled and solved entirely by AI without the involvement of a support agent. Your customer support team could now be more lean who would only focus on more complex issues that AI cannot resolve itself.

Ongoing Learning and Improvement

AI isn't limited to task execution; it's all about learning and developing. By examining interactions, AI systems gather insights into customer preferences, common problems, and successful solutions.

As time goes by, this allows the system to fine-tune its responses, making it even more skilled at delivering accurate and meaningful information.

AI for customer support - Use Cases

We’ve covered the many advantages of using AI in customer support for your business. Let us now look into the different touch points you can use AI to serve your customers.

Chatbots

We've talked about chatbots quite a bit in this article because they're often the first thing we associate with AI in customer service. That is because they were among the earliest AI tools used to help customers.

Chatbots are designed to understand what a customer is struggling with and then offer steps to fix the problem. This is a time-saver for both your team and your customers because the answers are quick, automatic, and accessible around the clock.

Knowledge Base

While a knowledge base can be very useful as a self-serve support solution, most users find it tedious and time consuming to search through different articles to find a help article for their query. Many times multiple help articles have to be read to get a complete solution for a specific query.

This is where modern AI powered knowledge base software comes into the picture. With help center solutions such as Help.center, users can type their query into the search area and AI comes up with an answer addressing the customer's concern.

The AI searches through the entire knowledge base for articles relevant to the search query and then forms a clear and easy to understand answer for the users query.

Suggested Replies

AI works best when it is assisted by humans. This is exactly why “Suggest Replies” shines as a use case of AI for customer support.

When a customer sends a query to your support team, AI will automatically draft a reply based on previous conversations and the data it is trained on.  The customer support agent can then choose to send the reply, or easily modify the reply and then send it to the customer.
This makes it sure that customer support agents provide the best answers, at the fastest pace.

Conversation summary

Customer support within a company is improved when the conversations between customers and support agents are tracked, and analysed. Conversation summary is one such use of AI in making this process more efficient.

Once a conversation between a customer & a support agent is completed, AI generates a summary of the conversation. This summary can then be viewed by the higher ups to provide feedback on the conversation, or to just quickly get a glance of the conversation.

It’s time you start using AI for customer support

The shift towards utilising AI for customer support is undeniable. AI technology offers unmatched potential in customer support space. With ongoing advancements and innovations, we at Help.center are firmly on the path to delivering a superior support experience that makes the most use of AI with a human touch. Embracing AI in customer support is a step toward a brighter, more efficient future for your business and your customers.

Almost everyone is familiar with the popular quote “Knowledge is Power.” To unlock the power of knowledge for your product, your customers first need a way to access knowledge. We’ve come up with a list of best knowledge base software which will enable your customers to learn more about your product, faster.

What is a knowledge base?

A knowledge base is a directory of helpful content that provides information on how to use a product or service. The articles are divided into different categories for easier access to information. A knowledge base is used for various purposes like answers to frequently asked questions, troubleshooting and feature understanding. A lot of teams also use knowledge bases as an internal portal to help employees find the information they need easily.

Purpose of knowledge base software

As a company, you work very hard to answer the queries of your customers and do not want to let down your customers - the people that trust you and your product. However, there is a high possibility your customers may still be unsatisfied. Yes, despite your efforts towards answering queries that are needless to say, repetitive, customers actually prefer and love getting answers to their problems, on their own.

A knowledge base is used to solve exactly this problem. It provides your customers with a self-serve platform, and with its features your customers can find access to information faster & easily. This enables customers to learn more about your product, its features and even troubleshoot issues themselves, without needing external help. This also makes your company’s support agents more efficient.

Top 10 Knowledge Base Software

1. Help.center

Help.center is easy to recommend because it is a simple and straightforward product, yet a very powerful knowledge base software.

What makes it the best is that it takes an entirely new approach on self-serve customer support. While conventional knowledge base websites rely on keyword search and category navigation taking a lot of effort on the customer's side, Help.center websites use AI to deliver an answer quickly to the customer.

The AI learns all help articles to find answers. This approach of Help.center reduces resolution time and also minimizes the number of support tickets.

You can have a dedicated “<your-domain>.help.center” website which will have the AI search feature for your articles. You can also add an AI chatbot widget to your website where the customers can get their answers in an interactive, conversational way.

Help.center uses openAI’s GPT technology to create an AI that learns from your articles. You can also enter your website and its AI search will start answering the customer queries based on the website content as well! How cool is that? Well, what is even cooler is, help.center’s AI automatically improves its answers to your queries whenever you update the content of your help articles.

It also has a dedicated dashboard where you can see all the AI conversations which gives you complete control over what answers your customers are getting. You can get a view of answers reported by the user. It is also possible to improve the AI answer by giving additional information, and the AI will include it in its next conversations with your customers.

Help.center also gives you the capability of importing existing articles from knowledge bases like intercom, crisp, zendesk and freshdesk in just one click.

Pricing: Generous free plan available. Paid plans start from $19 /month /organization

2. Zendesk Guide

Zendesk is a well known CRM company that makes multiple solutions for sales, service and support. Their knowledge base solution is Zendesk Guide. Zendesk Guide greatly focuses on self service that is convenient. Their help center organizes knowledge base articles which are helpful to customers and customer support agents.

Zendesk Guide lets you arrange articles which helps customers to find what they need. This helps the customer to get the answers that they need without having to send a support email whenever they need help.

You can also use their web widget and mobile SDK to integrate it with your support articles. Zendesk is a good option to host support articles, FAQs and it also lets your agents update their content regularly.

Pricing: Free trial available. Paid plans start from $19 /agent /month

3. Freshdesk Solutions

Freshdesk is a direct competitor and alternative to Zendesk. Freshdesk is a cloud based support solutions software. Their knowledge base feature helps you create a comprehensive knowledge base with an added feature of forums.

Freshdesk helps the support team to get more productive by helping to focus on challenging queries rather than just answering the repeated monotonous questions. It also helps them in reducing the number of outstanding issues this way.

They also provide a customer portal which will let your team organize content and even allow them to change themes for presentation making it user friendly. It has the feature of updating the knowledge base by adding the answers to previous queries.

You can let your customers get their answers across multiple communication channels and as mentioned earlier, forums where the users can get answers from other users on similar issues. This reduces the workload on the support team.

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans from $15 /agent /month

4. Intercom Articles

Intercom is a popular platform and is also among the most expensive of the bunch. Intercom Articles is their take on knowledge bases integrated with their very famous chat widgets.

Intercom does context based article delivery which essentially means when a user texts the widget about a particular query, the intercom widget delivers the article closest to the context used by the customer. The customer can access the support article right from the widget.

When a suitable or satisfactory article is not available, customers can connect with an available agent for better resolution. Intercom also has a good multilingual support article management feature which lets it serve articles and support in multiple languages.

Intercom has a feature known as “resolution bot” which finds a knowledge base article and sends it to the customer based on certain keywords entered by the customer. However, lately Intercom has also introduced its AI enabled feature called “Fin” that gives instant answers to customer queries.
Intercom's Fin feature is on the higher side and is billed per successful conversation. Costs can scale up massively for companies with high customer queries.

Pricing: Free trial available. Paid plans from $74/month

5. Notion

Notion started out as a productivity and note taking software but it is now used by multiple thousands of users and companies for a wide variety of solutions.

Although it is not a direct solution advertised by notion, a knowledge base can be built on notion. What makes it a good knowledge base is its powerful database. It allows you to sort and filter content with ease. It is also very flexible in terms of what and how you want to list and build the system unlike other solutions which have a fixed layout.

Since notion is used by many, it is easier for your customers to navigate and explore the content that they are looking for. With a powerful search engine, your users can quickly find what they're looking for without having to look at several places.

One con of using notion is that its SEO capabilities are limited. Not all pages will be linked as you expect. Also, its search functionality is not very visible which could lead to users taking more time in finding answers.

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans from $8/ team member /month

6. Confluence

Confluence is a collaborative workspace developed by the Australian Software Company, Atlassian. Confluence mainly works on the basis of collaboration across team members and teams. It first starts by helping you father all the information related to the organization in one place.

They claim when the information is all at one place, a.k.a., single source of truth, teams don't have to look elsewhere for any information that they need. This is actually true which helps with maintaining integrity of information in the organization.

Confluence is general workspace solutions which means you'll have to tweak it to your knowledge base requirements. Its structured tree layout lets you create support content adhering to your company's existing knowledge. It has multiple useful features such as page versioning, templates and integrations which will help you expand the features and functionalities of your knowledge Base.

A good use case of Confluence is that companies can create internal knowledge bases for their employees. This is possible with access restriction with which only certain invited members can view the knowledge base.

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans from $5.75 /team member/ month

7. Helpscout

Helpscout is a unique solution which offers a shared inbox model to increase customer retention and satisfaction. Let's dive into its knowledge base software which they say is "built for discovery."

Helpscout claims you can reduce the customer queries by at least 30% with a knowledge base which lets your customers find answers through self service.

Helpscout comes with an easy to use article editor and supports multiple elements like images, links and tables among other available article editor elements. Its editor helps you customize your SEO details too.

You can find out where and what your customers are reading before they are able to find answers. Your customers can reach out to you via email or chat to get the help required. You can also launch a help center website which has an optimized search option and SSL inbuilt.

Pricing: Free trial available. Paid plans from $20 /team member /month

8. Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is a customer support service offered by India based Zoho which started out with CRMs. Zoho offers a low priced offering to your self service solutions.

Along with the regular knowledge base features, Zoho desk has a multi brand help center where you can customize your help center based on the brand that you support and set up different articles for every brand.

You can also customize your portal with HTML and CSS which help you get a consistent look across your existing website, app and branding.

Zoho desk has a communities and forums feature where the users can engage in discussions with other users igniting a discussion on solving problems together which boosts your customer loyalty.

Pricing: Free trial available. Paid plans from $10/ agent/ month

9. Hubspot knowledge base

Hubspot's knowledge base offering is much similar to other competitors in the knowledge software market. It helps your support team's productivity rise by helping your customers discover answers to their questions by looking if the team has already answered it in their articles. That way your team can focus on much more challenging cases.

Hubspot's CRM automatically records which articles have been viewed by the customers so that the team doesn't send duplicate content. You can get help from their analytics to find what your customers are looking for and provide them with the right content.

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans from $ 18 /month for upto 2 agents

10. Slite

Slite is the new kind on the block. The tool allows its knowledge base to be used for multiple purposes such as company wiki, OKRs and onboarding. However, Slite has cons similar to that of Notion when being used as a knowledge base platform for your customers.

A benefit of using Slite is that you can remove expired documents all at one place, which gives your customers the latest answers, always. Their analytics dashboard lets you track which article your team is reading, searching or asking for. You can integrate Slite with slack which lets you access Slite docs right within Slack. You can also sync content from various tools like Asana, Figma and Google Sheets.

There are multiple template options for you to choose from for various use cases. It also comes with an easy to understand documentation that helps you set up Slite with ease.

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans from $8 /team member /month

Comparison table of the best knowledge base software in 2024

Have you ever had an aha moment, where you were able to solve a problem on your own? For example, being able to fix your WiFi router by just reading a help article, without having to connect with a customer support agent. This is the objective of self-service customer support.

Apart from not wanting to call support for help, people also like figuring out things on their own. According to a report by Zendesk, 67% of customers prefer to use self-service options instead of talking to a customer service agent.

This is why it is extremely necessary to deliver high quality self-service customer support solutions where customers can find answers to their questions fast.

What is a Self-Service Solution?

Self-service is an approach in which customers utilize resources to find solutions on their own, without requiring assistance from a customer service representative.

With the objective of catering to large customer bases using relatively small teams, companies have witnessed a notable shift in tasks from being driven by the company to being driven by the customers themselves.

A self-serve solution is a combination of different support channels like knowledge bases, chatbots and portals working together in providing a seamless self-service customer support experience.

5 Reasons to Provide Self-Service

Let's say, you currently have 50 customer support representatives who help troubleshoot customer queries on call. However, the reality is that most of the time your customers need to wait for minutes before they are able to connect with one of your support representatives.

Now, imagine if you had much fewer agents and still wanted to have happier customers. Seems difficult? Let’s look into how we can make that possible.

Better Customer Experience

With self-service portals such as a knowledge base or a chatbot, customers can find information and solutions quickly and conveniently, leading to a positive customer experience. It empowers customers and gives them a sense of control over their interactions with a business.

Empowering customers to help themselves is vital for all businesses. It gives them a sense of control over their interactions with your business. It also gives them the confidence to use your product or service. Knowing that there is a public knowledge base that they can access from anywhere at any time, gives your customers a sense of comfort.

These are some of the reasons how customer experience improves with a self-service portal.

Reduce Support Tickets and Save Time

A majority of customer questions are usually repetitive, or frequently asked. You do not have to use your customer support to repeatedly give the same answers to every customer.

These questions could be an article that the customer can refer to on their own. Additionally, an AI chatbot trained on your knowledge base will also be able to resolve such questions quickly.

Decreased Customer Support Costs

Running a large customer support team is very expensive. Employee salaries and benefits, hiring and training costs add up to a significant expense for a company.

Implementation and up-keep of a self-service solution would also incur expenses, but this amount would be much lesser compared to the costs of running a large support team.

With repetitive and simple issues now being solved by customers themselves, your support team would have lesser calls and inquiries to attend to. You can now operate with a lean customer service team who would also be more productive as their assistance would only be needed with more complex support queries.24/7 support availability

Your employees have working hours, but chatbots & knowledgebase don't. Customers are free to reach out to your self-service solutions anytime, anywhere and get answers to their queries. This leads to improved customer experience as they would not have to wait for the operating hours of your business to be able to connect with a support executive.

Businesses with a distributed customer base, who would use the product at different hours of the day would especially benefit from this.

SEO Benefits

Little is talked about the massive SEO (Search Engine Optimization) benefits of having a self-service support solution.  

Although this does not help in improving your customer service directly, there are many added benefits for your business.

Providing self-serve options can drastically improve search engine optimization (SEO) for your business. By creating comprehensive knowledge base articles and FAQs, your business can rank higher in search results when customers search for related queries.

This would increase the organic traffic and visibility for your company. You would also get discovered by customers using the product / service of your competitors.

Search engines consider your website to be useful when visitors spend more time on your knowledge base. This would improve the SEO of your landing pages considerably.  

What a Great Self-Service Solution Should look Like

The best self-service experience is built when multiple channels work in collaboration with one-another. Let us dig in deeper as to what these channels must include.

Frequently Asked Questions

Depending from business to business, you must either have a list of FAQ’s listed on the support page of your website, or have a dedicated section for frequently asked questions on your website’s knowledge base.

This is the easiest way to help your customers find answers to the most common questions customers have about your business.AI Knowledge Base

While FAQ’s consist of generic questions & information, a traditional knowledge base consists of how-to guides, troubleshooting instructions and other tutorials that dives deeper into how customers can use certain features and make the best use of the product.

With the boom of artificial intelligence in 2023, AI has already impacted a lot of industries. This includes customer support. An AI knowledge base goes a step further than traditional ones by providing solutions to customer queries much faster.

Unlike a traditional knowledge base where customers need to navigate through different pages to reach the right article, an AI powered knowledge base provides an instant answer to the customers search result.

It is also possible to train the AI with custom answers of your own. This will result in improved answers when similar questions are asked by customers from the next time.

AI Chatbot

Chatbots have been present in self-serve customer service for a long time now. Earlier versions of customer support chatbots were not very efficient. It almost always meant that people would need to connect with a support agent after receiving unsatisfactory responses from chatbots.

However, chatbots have improved to a whole new level with the introduction of AI. Just like how AI knowledge bases have made it much easier to get an answer, AI chatbots have taken the conversational flow of customer support to the next level.

Just like how you talk to a support agent over chat, it's now possible to talk to an AI chatbot which will provide you answers based on the help articles present in the knowledge base. Each article is studied by the AI and generates a concise answer to give as a reply for the customer. On rare occasions the chatbot does not provide you with a satisfactory result, a human can help you with your query.

Community Forum

Foster a community by providing a forum where customers can interact with each other and share their experiences and knowledge. This not only helps in problem-solving but also creates a sense of belonging and loyalty among customers.

For instance, Ghost (the platform we’ve used to write this article) has a thriving online community where customers ask questions, and other customers are free to reply with solutions if they’ve faced a similar issue earlier. Moderators also frequently answer questions customers have asked in the forum.

Escalation Options

No matter how much you improve your self-service customer support, it is necessary to have escalation options in incase a customer is not able to resolve their issue themselves.

You must make the pathway of getting support from your team very clear. This could be as simple as having a Contact Us form on your knowledge base website. Or the AI chatbot you are using should be able to provide ways to contact the customer team.

Make sure you choose a self-service product that offers these features. We at Help.center have built a powerful self-serve solution and provide all of these features out of the box.