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SaaS Knowledge Base Guide + Tools To Check Out TODAY

Employers, customers, and business partners are most satisfied with a product when they can quickly and easily find the information they need. This is especially true for SaaS, which can have a steeper learning curve than other products.

You would want your users to know as much as possible about how they’re going to use your product if you want to minimize churn and maximize LTV. One of the best ways to achieve this is to create a knowledge base.

What is a knowledge base for SaaS ?

A knowledge base is a database about your product that has been created in such a way that employees or customers can access the information they need quickly and effectively. It is intended to answer concerns and give solutions as simple and effective as possible.

To assist consumers in getting up and running fast, many websites provide a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ) and answers. Knowledge bases are an extension of this concept, containing knowledge in various forms, such as video and live streaming to answer customer questions in real time.

Just like the FAQ section on our pricing page:

What should be included in a knowledge base?

To decide what you should include in your knowledge base, you should first decide on the categories of your knowledge base.

You can divide your knowledge base into categories, such as FAQs, feature guides, how-to videos, use cases, etc. After deciding on the categories, you can start finding topics to cover.

The most important part of your knowledge base will be FAQ questions. To get these questions, you can work with your sales team as they know what type of questions your ideal customers ask during sales calls.

Then you need feature guides for the frequently used features in your product. You should include videos and images to better teach your users.

To create guides for your features you can use an onboarding tool, such as Pendo or WalkMe.

How does a knowledge base help customer success?

Giving users quickly, 24/7 access to the information they need fosters customer happiness. A significant 70% of customers would rather utilize a corporate website to discover solutions to their issues rather than contacting or emailing the customer support department.

Customers save time by not having to wait for a response from the customer success team. It also saves time for your team members because they no longer have to answer the same inquiries over and over again.

There are several advantages to having a knowledge base, on which your clients may rely when they want assistance. For example:

  1. A strong knowledge base increases retention rate. When your consumers are satisfied, your retention rate rises, resulting in long-term company success, constant sales, and more income.
  2. A knowledge base can assist you in reducing phone calls as these users could have found answers to their questions in your knowledge base instead of calling your customer success team.
  3. You have all of your important information in one location. A good knowledge base is a valuable resource for both your staff and your users.

How does a knowledge base improve productivity?

Creating a knowledge base is like decorating a library of torn and scattered book leaves with neatly arranged bookshelves. For someone working in the initial state of this library, it can take months to find the source they need.

Dozens of information that your employees have to search in their mailboxes can be compared to these scattered leaves.

If you have a knowledge base, when employees need to access specific information, they find a systematic structure to reach the topic they need instead of the tens of pages they have to look at.

When users encounter a basic problem or wonder about a little detail about the software, they also will find the answer in the knowledge base.

This prevents employees from losing time and labor by creating solutions for basic problems repeatedly. At the same time, when they need to do detailed research, they can do it concisely.

From a broad perspective, this contributes significantly to productivity. Employees can divert their energies to other channels and efficiently fill the workforce lacking in these areas.

How do you organize a knowledge base?

Knowledge base enables you to store, exchange, and manage vital information. However, they aren’t merely useful for delivering customer support. You may also utilize your knowledge base to sell and showcase your product by including photos, gifs, and videos.

Furthermore, you are not required to limit your knowledge base articles to solely covering user information or commonly asked topics. You may also publish blog articles that contain vital facts about your sector, such as market trends or predictions for future growth.

Include professional advice, recommendations, or ideas in addition to displaying your items and describing how to utilize them.

What are SaaS Knowledge Base Best Practices?

Let’s take a closer look at the types of things that are typically stored in knowledge bases so you’ll have a better idea of how these tools are beneficial to your customers.

Good UX

A good SaaS knowledge base needs to have a good UX so that users can find answers to their questions easily.

Search Functionality and Self Service

Having search functionality has a ton of benefits for users and your team, such as:

  1. Save Time: When team members can readily find exactly what they need inside the knowledge management base, they get hours back in their week, which is critical to success.
  2. Create on-demand learning: Understanding and staying current with the continual changes that occur with goods and processes is a difficult task. When a teammate has mastered something, such as new software integration, a new training on the future product upgrades is issued. Things are not slowing down, and learning how to be productive and efficient while seeking information is vital for success. Searching for new updates, revisions, competition information, and other vital job knowledge is simple and provides a means of on-demand learning that can be accessed at any time and from any location.
  3. Provide a great customer experience: Improving customer experience begins with more competent representatives. More informed sales representatives begin with simple access to information for studying, practicing, and performing. Simply Googling terms and receiving precise information in a matter of seconds not only demonstrates trust, but also develops a memorable customer-employee interaction. Searchability features are critical for locating explicit knowledge and bringing disparate teams together to implement change.

Navigation

Navigation provides a guide for guiding customers and presenting stages in a knowledge base. The environment is more understandable and besides the benefits of mapping it, it acts as a guide on the system. It is precisely this function that reduces complexity and the formation of dead ends.

Video tutorials

Because 90% of what humans perceive is visual, individuals will process your content more effectively in interactive and graphic formats. Including video lectures, webinars on the subject, infographics, or even screenshots will improve user participation. You may use several forms of content creation tools, such as Loom or Vidyard, to produce knowledge material in various interactive formats.

Best SaaS Knowledge Base Examples

Now let’s take a look at the best Knowledge Base examples to inspire you.

Netflix

Although Netflix has an easy-to-use interface, technological glitches can arise from time to time. For example, if you don’t have adequate bandwidth to play Netflix video or if you try to watch content with an out-of-date browser.

Whatever issue you encounter, Netflix’s extensive knowledge base and 24/7 customer service team will certainly put you on the correct route. You can check out Netflix’s knowledge base and search for the answer to any issue by visiting help.netflix.com.

  • Control My Account. This section offers information about customizing profiles, subtitles, parental controls, and other features.
  • I’m unable to watch. Start here if you’re having troubles with sound or language.
  • Billing Concerns Gift cards, payment issues, and other comparable topics are handled here.
  • I’m now watching Netflix. The articles on this page will help you get started. Shortcuts. These links take you to different options pages inside the Netflix interface.

But in my opinion, the best part is that when you log in with your account, it detects the problems that you may or are still experiencing and offers a solution for you, this is really impressive and effective.

Spotify

Spotify has lots of well-written and easy-to-understand help articles on their knowledge base. You can access the Spotify knowledge base and search for the answer to any issue by visiting https://support.spotify.com/us/.

A unique situation for Spotify is that it leaves a message box and users not only search for a result according to their complaints but also transfer their problems individually and deal with the result personally by customizing it.

Salesforce

Salesforce has an extensive knowledge base that has answers to every question that you might have about their products.

Articles are sorted based on their views and media type.

Slack

Slack’s help center organizes a large amount of content well, employing tabs to separate parts and displaying the articles featured in each category. Customers are shown the top-level categories of the knowledge base, allowing them to browse material.

DropBox

In its comprehensive help center, Dropbox presents the most popular articles alongside the categories you might need help with about Dropbox.

Through these categories, you can access and obtain information on most of the topics you need. In addition, a search bar helps you find the information you need most shortly.

They have also created a community space to discuss their personal experiences.

Canva

The Canva help center presents categories that may need help as headers.

When you enter these categories, you see that they are divided into detailed sub-headings. This allows you to access the information you need without difficulty.

There’s also a search bar available that lets you streamline the search process. In addition, the fact that it provides many valuable articles gives it both an informative and a problem-solving identity.

It also helps those who need help with creativity, not knowledge. There is a link to reach the design school where users can get inspiring experiences.

Brightpearl

Brightpearl help center lists everyday actions at the beginning. After that, you see the categories where you may need help and resources.

Especially due to categorizing frequently used integrations, users can access specific information in a much wider area.

Besides, they created a community center.

They also keep videos that provide training about the software in their knowledge base.

Using the search bar also makes it easy to get results in a quick search.

How do you create a knowledge base?

A knowledge base is useless unless users can discover the correct information, comprehend it, and apply it to their problems. Following a few fundamental knowledge base rules will considerably improve your knowledge base’s usefulness.

Write clear and simple

When customers have a query about how to utilize your product, they turn to your knowledge library. They are looking for solutions. Write clear, simple, and readily consumable information to provide them with the answers they want.

Have a good design

Customers desire fast answers to their inquiries, yet interactions inside your knowledge base provide possibilities to wow them with exceptional design.

Analyze suppor questions and calls

Examine support calls and chat transcripts to see how consumers talk about your products and services and then include those phrases.

Guide your users to your knowledge base

Link to your knowledge base prominently from locations where people may ask for help, and help them help themselves.

Top SaaS Knowledge Base Tools:

Knowledge bases are the key to optimizing churn rate by providing answers to users’ questions at each step of their journey.

Organizing help center articles, creating new ones, and making it visually appealing takes a lot of time. Fortunately, there are awesome SaaS knowledge base tools and software that do all of these very well.

Intercom

Intercom is a platform for customer communications. It reveals who is using your product or website and makes it simple to engage with them directly through tailored content, behavior-driven messaging, and conversational assistance. Create knowledge base articles with ease by utilizing Intercom’s sophisticated editor, which allows you to easily add photos, videos, and buttons through an intuitive interface. You may even build content tailored to particular user categories.

Features

The knowledge base software from Intercom is part of a larger software package that includes tools for lead creation, customer onboarding, and customer support. This knowledge base is a fantastic all-in-one application that includes live chat, help desk, knowledge base, and email automation functions. It’s also well-known for its well-designed chatbots and user-friendly product tours for customer onboarding. That is why Intercom is so useful. **

Pricing

A wireless video intercom costs between $1,000 and $7,000. However, that price doesn’t include the cost of installation or ongoing service fees. Since installers set their own prices, installation costs vary.

Document360

Document360 is a SaaS platform that enables you to create an excellent self-service knowledge base for your clients and internal users – either public or private knowledge bases. The program, which functions as a knowledge base, enables you to generate, manage, and publish content in real-time. Document360 allows you to construct both public and private knowledge bases, so you may establish one for your team and another for consumers. Visitors to your site will be able to view auto-completion recommendations as they write in the search box thanks to its sophisticated search function.

Features

Document360 is one of the simplest tools to use because it is designed just for the construction of knowledge bases. Because of their emphasis on knowledge bases, they can provide the most reasonable pricing on the list. Document360 has sophisticated features such as a Category Manager, a rich and simple Markdown Editor, AI-powered Smart Search, Commenting, Version Control, Enhanced Security, Private Documentation, and Back-up. Integrations with widely used third-party systems offer the user a comprehensive assistance tool.

Pricing

Document360 pricing starts at $59.00 per feature, per month. They do not have a free version. Document360 offers a free trial.

Zendesk

Zendesk, like Document360, allows you to set up an internal help desk to assist your support employees in their work. It, too, offers a whole set of tools designed to make customer service easier. Zendesk has a CRM function that can help you close more sales. Zendesk is a cloud-based help desk management solution that includes capabilities for creating a customer support portal, knowledge base, and online communities. The system includes a front-end portal that can be customized, live chat functions, and connectivity with apps like Salesforce and Google Analytics.

Features

Although there are many popular alternatives to Zendesk available on the market, Zendesk is still one of the simplest tools to use because it is designed specifically for the construction of knowledge bases. Because of their emphasis on knowledge bases, they can provide the most reasonable pricing on the list.

Pricing

Zendesk Pricing | Plans start from just $19/month.

Live Agent

Live Agent enables website visitors or customers to receive real-time support from an online Live Agent user. Customers and visitors may start chat sessions by simply clicking a button, link, or invitation on a webpage. Now, Live Agent users may provide speedier help to end consumers via chat.

Features

LiveAgent is a must-have tool for any virtual business. It is simple to prioritize tasks and manage communications and answers. It’s also a great tool for businesses with various divisions involved in customer support. As a manager, it allows me to easily track the success of my teams.

Pricing

There are three tiers after that with increasing features. They cost $15, $29, and $39/month per agent.

Conclusion

A knowledge base is a company’s hidden weapon for engaging both internal and external users. As a result, using knowledge base software makes sense. While it is feasible to do it yourself, it takes time and does not provide you with the software’s capabilities and insights. There are several knowledge base solutions available that can enable you to deliver a fantastic reservoir of information to your clients, allowing them to understand your product more quickly. As a result, customers will stay longer and your bottom line will improve.

FAQ

What is a customer service knowledge base?

A customer service knowledge base enables your customers to self-serve solutions to commonly asked queries, lowering the high expenses associated with the additional workload for your live customer support employees. When you invest a significant portion of your customer service budget on call center technology and software, it’s critical to ensure you’re getting the most value out of it and providing value to consumers, not just statistics. As the customer continues to take the center stage of any business, a knowledge base is an effective way for any business to focus on improving the customer experience.

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