Knowledge management often presents challenges to businesses in their workflows. When poorly done, it can harm client relationships, lead to poor customer support, and result in lower productivity.
Using a robust knowledge management system (KMS) is essential for the proper management of company documents and information.
Therefore, it is necessary for businesses to set up a well-organized system and a central database for storing and organizing this information.
This will allow for effective use of detailed documentation and other information, making it easier for employees to learn and collaborate.
Additionally, a knowledge base will also enable customers to solve problems independently.
What is knowledge management system?
A knowledge management system (KMS) is a tool used by organizations to capture, organize, store, retrieve, and share information.
A KMS combines all distributed information onto one platform for easy access by support teams and customers.
Using knowledge management software can help keep documents up to date, assist customers in finding their own answers, and manage knowledge access and approval across support teams and departments.
It leads to increased efficiency and productivity among employees.
Knowledge management system examples
Knowledge management system examples include a wide variety of platforms that aid in capturing, organizing, and sharing knowledge.
Online community forum
An online community forum is a digital platform on a company’s website that enables customers to communicate, collaborate, ask questions, share information, get quick help from the support team, and develop relationships in a virtual environment.
These forums function as tools where customers can respond to each other’s queries and solve problems, sometimes faster than the support team can respond.
Research from Higher Logic shows that 55% of online company communities attributed an increase in sales to the community.
In addition, 57% of them attributed an increase in brand SEO to the community, while 72% credit it with increased website traffic.
Businesses that engage their customers through online community forums tend to have a happier core customer base.
By staying updated on advancements in forum technology, support teams can adapt their knowledge management system to incorporate, monitor, and search their forums.
Learning management systems (LMS)
Learning management systems (LMS) are technological platforms that facilitate the organization, delivery, and tracking of educational content, resources, and assessments.
These knowledge management system examples are designed to enhance knowledge by offering trainers, new onboarding teams, and existing support teams centralized access to a wide range of learning materials, tools, and collaborative functionalities.
By seamlessly integrating various educational components, an LMS contributes to the effective management and spreading of knowledge.
Customer portal
A customer portal is platform that provides customers with a secure way to access basic information and forms and contact customer service. Customer portals allow clients to:
- Log in conveniently.
- Interact through discussion forums.
- Access the ticketing system.
- Manage support requests.
- Find answers to their questions.
By offering this portal, businesses ensure that customers have a centralized and organized location that is easily accessible through their dashboards.
This fosters engagement, builds trust, and provides personalized support for prompt issue resolution.
Knowledge base
A knowledge base is a self-service online platform and central repository of information for your customers and support teams.
The system contains answers to questions that are frequently asked, manuals, details about products or services, published articles with troubleshooting guides, and any other information the company finds valuable to put in users’ hands.
Public knowledge base: Is a readily accessible information source for your customers. It can be accessed through your website or your customer portal, if you want to track who is accessing the information.
Internal knowledge base: Is a private data repository available only to employees.
The knowledge base facilitates the internal sharing of knowledge and collaboration among support team members, without giving customers access to info a company might not want public.
By utilizing these knowledge management systems, organizations can enhance their ability to:
- Capture customer inquiries.
- Create new articles when solutions are discovered.
- Store published articles.
- Retrieve knowledge.
A study from Higher Logic showed that if a knowledge base for self-service support was available, 92% of survey respondents claim they would utilize it.
Letting that many customers at least try to find their own answers reduces the number of tickets your support team receives significantly, giving them more time for more complex tickets.
Knowledge management system benefits
The implementation of a knowledge management system yields numerous advantages for organizations.
Keeps information relevant and updated
A knowledge management system helps identify outdated articles so they can be updated with fresh information, avoiding disorganization and clutter.
It keeps important data structured and up to date, preventing customer misdirection and loss of business.
Reduces time for new staff training
Newly hired employees frequently must grasp a considerable amount of information within a limited time period.
To aid them, managers can gather documents on the company’s values, regulations, and more, in an easily accessible knowledge repository.
This can aid new staff members in quickly familiarizing themselves with important training information.
This knowledge transfer helps individuals more quickly understand the organization’s operations, policies, procedures, and best practices, making them productive members of the workforce sooner.
Enhances customer satisfaction
By implementing a knowledge management system, businesses can ensure that troubleshooting knowledge is easily accessible to support agents.
This enables them to access articles made by other agents on issues they’ve solved, letting agents provide solutions to customers more swiftly in the future.
If your company has an internal knowledge base, this can also make customers happy, since they don’t need to wait on correspondence to solve their problem.
Reduces operational costs
When companies incorporate knowledge management into their help desk, they typically benefit from a more intelligent workforce, business guides, and suitable business decisions.
The incorporation of multiple departments’ databases into a comprehensive knowledge management program results in reducing the number of systems and space required for knowledge storage.
A lot of duplicated documents can be eliminated, too. Centralizing a company’s data can lower the overall operating costs.
Provides 24/7 support for customers
Customers often live in multiple time zones or have problems during hours your support team doesn’t work.
The access offered through self-service resources like FAQs, published articles, and help centers provides organized, round-the-clock information.
With your 24/7 support in the form of a knowledge management system, customers can trust your company for assistance whenever required.
Improves your workflows and processes
Knowledge management enables the prompt organization and distribution of information pertaining to a newly implemented process or policy.
By centralizing all relevant knowledge and information in a single platform, employees and customers can easily access and retrieve the information they need to get on board.
How to build a knowledge management system and implement it
To establish a comprehensive and effective knowledge management system, it is best to follow a systematic approach.
Track and analyze customers’ feedback
By tracking and analyzing customers feedback, businesses can identify shortcomings in the current system. If they can’t find the information they’re looking for, find out why.
Perhaps an article has not been written on the subject yet, or perhaps the article doesn’t include as many keywords and synonyms as required to encompass the multiple ways a customer might search for it.
Offering opportunities for feedback within the knowledge system you offer to your clients can help you improve how your system works and address frustrations you may not have otherwise known your customers were facing.
Utilize technology to simplify knowledge management
To enhance your knowledge management system, leverage appropriate technology.
This entails employing software applications, databases, and digital platforms to facilitate the storage, retrieval, and dissemination of information.
Effectively choose and create a knowledge base software, so you can ensure that the content you’re creating gets updated regularly and added to easily.
Choose platforms that suit your needs and work well together.
A lot of knowledge management software is available as part of other business software.
Help desks like BoldDesk let you modify a solution to one customer’s issue into a knowledge article to help any future customers with the same problem swiftly.
Collect the information from a reliable resource
Obtain the information in your knowledge management system from reliable sources.
It is imperative to ensure that the sources chosen are credible, accurate, and up to date, for the sake of the overall quality and reliability of your system.
As a part of the training, you give when implementing your knowledge management system, you should teach your employees how to identify a reliable source.
If they write about a solution to a problem using company documentation and their personal experience, that’s reliable.
If they need to supplement the company’s resources with information from the internet, they need to be sure that information is not only coming from a legitimate source but is properly cited, if necessary.
Show them examples of good sources, how to figure out the legitimacy of a source, and a guide on citations.
Frequently update the knowledge management system
You need to update your KMS regularly with the latest information.
By continuously refreshing and enhancing the knowledge management system, employees and customers stay well-informed of the latest developments, problems and solutions, and best practices for your company’s products and services.
Knowledge management software often comes with settings for article expiration.
Even if you don’t know that the article’s information will expire after a certain amount of time, the expiration notice will tell your team that the article is due to be checked.
Set aside time for your team to do this every so often.
You should also make it a part of your process to update your KMS whenever your company makes an announcement or has a release.
This ensures customers are well informed about new products, services, or policies, minimizing confusion.
Who uses a knowledge management system?
This system is utilized by different individuals, teams, and organizations of different sizes.
Small businesses knowledge management system
Customers of small-scale businesses should be able to find assistance independently.
Small businesses tend to have small support teams, if they have one at all, so saving their time for urgent or complex matters is important.
By providing pertinent documentation for customers seeking solutions to their issues, you enable them to self-serve, eliminating the need for agent intervention.
This enhances customer satisfaction, too, leading to customers more likely to purchase more of your products.
Product onboarding
The process of product onboarding, which can be provided within a knowledge management system, refers to a structured and systematic approach taken to inform and educate new customers about the product’s features, functionalities, and resources.
This strategic process aims to ensure a smooth transition for customers, enabling them to navigate and utilize the product to its full potential.
Enterprise knowledge management system
These systems often cater to large-scale enterprises, helping support teams efficiently manage and leverage numerous knowledge assets to improve solution speed, encourage collaboration, and reduce the team’s workload.
Employees of other departs utilize knowledge bases to access information for marketing, sales, or other purposes, as well.
Customer support team
Providing a knowledge management system to a customer support team improves communication and efficiency.
Consolidating knowledge into a centralized platform allows agents to quickly access solutions for customer inquiries.
Morale is boosted when agents spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time on new projects.
Additionally, it promotes knowledge sharing, collaboration, and cooperation within the support team.
Such open communication allows teams to access updated information and optimize their performance.
Internal knowledge management system
New employees require swift access to information to adapt to their new position within the company.
Creating onboarding guides in your internal knowledge base streamlines knowledge transfer to new hires and existing employees, offering them a centralized resource for further information.
Implement an effective knowledge management system for your business
A knowledge management system’s features vary, but your support team must be informed about all company products, services, and policies to ensure customer satisfaction.
Customers should also be able to access information to resolve their issues independently.
Having an effective KMS facilitates the smooth operation of your support system, pleases customers, and keeps everyone in your company up to date.
BoldDesk offers knowledge management features that can help you improve your customer satisfaction. Try a BoldDesk free trial to see how BoldDesk features could work for your company. Or contact our BoldDesk support team to book a live demo and experience the many capabilities of BoldDesk.
