Internal Knowledgebase Best Practices for SaaS

For SaaS companies, an internal knowledgebase is essential for streamlining operations, improving customer support, and enhancing employee training. This comprehensive guide outlines the best practices for developing and maintaining a robust internal knowledgebase. Here's a quick overview:

• Why It Matters: An internal knowledgebase centralizes critical information, making it easier for teams to access policies, product details, and troubleshooting guides.
• Planning Your Knowledgebase: Start by setting clear goals and selecting the right platform based on features, usability, and cost.
• Content Strategy: Organize and structure your content for easy discovery. Use tags, optimize for natural search queries, and include a variety of materials such as guides, FAQs, and videos.
• Creating Quality Content: Focus on clarity, visual aids, and step-by-step instructions to craft helpful articles and tutorials.
• Management and Updates: Establish a routine for content review and updates, and use metrics to guide improvements.
• User Experience: Enhance discovery with effective search features and an intuitive interface. Consider personalization for a tailored user experience.
• Integrations: Leverage tools like ChatIQ for seamless customer support interactions.
• Continuous Improvement: Gather feedback, utilize emerging technologies, and regularly review analytics for insights.

In essence, a well-structured and easily accessible internal knowledgebase empowers SaaS teams to provide better support, onboard new employees efficiently, and adapt quickly to changes in products or services.

The Role of Knowledgebases in SaaS Support

For companies that sell software as a service (SaaS), having a great internal knowledgebase is super important. It helps the customer support team give top-notch help to users. Since these products can be complex and change often, having all the info in one place is a big help.

Here's why they're great for SaaS support teams:

• Everyone can use the same info - Whether they're working from home or in the office, all team members have access to the same resources.
• Quick learning for newbies - New employees can get the hang of things faster because all the resources are in one spot.
• Better at solving problems - With detailed guides, support reps can fix more issues on the first try.
• Fewer repeated questions - Instead of answering the same questions over and over, they're all written down for everyone to see.
• Smoother work - Having clear steps to follow makes everyone's job easier.
• Helping customers help themselves - With a searchable public knowledgebase, customers can find answers anytime, without needing to call support.

With more customers and higher expectations, SaaS companies need to make sure their teams know their stuff. A good internal knowledgebase is key to making that happen.

Planning Your Knowledgebase

Defining Goals and Metrics

When setting up an internal knowledgebase for your SaaS company, start by figuring out what you want to achieve and how you'll know you're getting there. Think about goals that help your business, like:

• Making work easier for everyone
• Training new employees faster
• Making employees happier
• Cutting down on the same questions being asked
• Answering customer questions quicker

After setting clear goals, decide on the ways to track your progress:

Productivity

• How long it takes to finish important tasks
• How many tasks get done each day

New hire onboarding

• Time spent training before new hires can answer customer questions
• Scores on assessments

Employee satisfaction

• How happy employees are with their jobs
• How often they use the knowledgebase

Support tickets

• How many times the same questions pop up
• How many tickets get solved with the knowledgebase

Customer response time

• How fast you reply to customers at first
• Customer satisfaction scores

Selecting a Knowledgebase Platform

Choosing the right platform for your knowledgebase means looking at:

Features

• Search capabilities
• How you can format content
• How it works with other tools
• Ways to get feedback
• Who can see what
• Connections with other software

Usability

• Easy to understand and use
• Can you access it on mobile
• Can it be customized
• Can you see how well it's doing

Total Cost of Ownership

• Initial costs
• Monthly costs per person
• Costs for setting up and training
• IT costs

Platform	Search	Formatting	Integrations	Per User Per Month
Platform 1	✅	Basic	3	$8
Platform 2	Advanced	Rich	10+	$12
Platform 3	✅	Rich	5	$10

Building Your Content Strategy

To make sure people can find and use your knowledgebase easily, follow these tips:

Structure content

• By topic
• In clear sections
• With smaller parts inside

Organize content

• With tags
• For different types of users
• Based on when it's needed

Optimize content

• So people can find it by asking questions naturally
• With different ways to search
• By matching similar words

Include different types of articles like guides, FAQs, updates, rules, and training materials. Always check how people are using it and what they think to make it better.

Creating Quality Content

Crafting Helpful Articles

When you're writing articles for your knowledgebase, aim to make things super clear and give step-by-step advice.

• Keep your info in order, use short paragraphs, and add headings to make things easy to find.
• Use lists for instructions and add pictures or diagrams to show what you mean.
• Make sure your articles can be found easily by using common words that people might search for.
• Get experts and writers to check your articles to make sure they're right and helpful.

To make your articles really good:

• Answer the questions and solve the problems that many users have.
• Split tricky topics into smaller, easier parts.
• Link to other articles that add more info.
• Keep your content fresh by updating it when things change.

Producing Tutorial Videos

Videos can make it easier for people to get how to do something by showing them step by step.

• Write a script that covers the main steps and things to remember.
• Keep videos short (2-5 minutes) to keep people's attention and make editing easier.
• Use text on the screen to highlight key points.
• Make videos in different styles to match how different people learn.
• Always link back to written guides on the same topic.

Curating Relevant Documentation

Having all your important documents in one place makes it easier to find what you need.

• Keep things like update notes, diagrams, guides, etc., all together.
• Use a standard format for documents to keep everything consistent.
• Organize documents so they're easy to find, maybe by tagging or grouping them.
• Have a process to check documents regularly to make sure they're still right.
• Look at which documents people use a lot and make those even better.

Managing and Updating Content

Content Maintenance Workflows

Keeping your knowledgebase fresh and accurate means checking and updating it regularly. Here's how to do it right:

• Check each section or product every month. Assign experts to make sure everything's still correct and look for ways to make it better.
• Do a big clean-up every three months to get rid of old stuff. Look for links that don't work, missing information, or things that have changed.
• Ask employees what they think regularly through surveys and chats. Find out what they need more or less of in the knowledgebase.
• Look at which articles people read a lot and which they ignore every month. Update the ones that get a lot of visits first.
• Set up alerts to review content whenever there's a big change in products, new versions, or policy changes. Keep content in line with these changes.

To make updating easier:

• Write down the steps for reviewing content so everyone knows what to do.
• Use tools that help manage tasks to keep track of who's doing what.
• Set up automatic reminders for when it's time to check content.
• Plan out when to check different parts of the knowledgebase and write it in a calendar.

User Access and Permissions

To keep things secure but easy to use:

• Give different access based on what job someone has. For example, sales might need different information than the support team.
• Make sure only certain people can see very private stuff, like legal documents or money details.
• Have a system for double-checking before someone can change important content.
• Keep a record of who sees and changes things to track what happens.
• Let users ask for access when they need it, and make it easy to say yes or no.

Leveraging Usage Metrics

Use data on how people use the knowledgebase to make it better:

• Spot which articles are hits so you can update those first.
• Find out which ones no one looks at to decide if they should go or be improved.
• See what different types of users look at to make content that fits their needs.
• Notice when there are searches that don't bring up any results. Make new articles for those topics.
• Link spikes in visits to specific events, like when a new product comes out. Get content ready ahead of time.

By keeping on top of updates, making sure the right people can get to the right information, and using data to guide what you do, you'll make a knowledgebase that really helps employees do their jobs well.

Optimizing User Experience

Enhancing Discovery with Search

Making it easy for employees to find what they need quickly is key. Here’s how to do it:

• Label your content well with titles, descriptions, and tags that tell you what’s inside. This helps people find things faster.
• Use smart search that gets what you’re asking in your own words and shows the best answers.
• Let users filter search results by type of content or team, like sales or tech support.
• Suggest search terms and articles that might help as someone types their question.
• If searches come up empty, note what’s missing and add new content to fill those gaps.

Designing an Intuitive Interface

A simple and clear layout helps everyone find their way around the knowledge base easily.

Here are some tips:

• Group content in a way that makes sense for how people work. Make it easy to dig deeper.
• Keep the look consistent and on-brand. This makes things feel familiar.
• Make sure search bars and links to popular articles are easy to find.
• On the main page, explain what the knowledge base is for and how to use it best.
• Use pictures and colors to break up text and make pages easy on the eyes.
• Make sure it works well on phones and computers.

Personalization and Custom Views

Letting employees tailor the knowledge base to their needs can make it more useful for them. Here’s why:

• People see only what’s relevant to their job, which cuts down on clutter.
• They can bookmark articles or searches they use a lot for quick access later.
• You can send updates to just the right people or teams.
• By watching what users do, you can tweak content to fit their habits.
• Letting users pick their own layout or colors can help them work the way they like.

To do this right, you need to make sure only the right people can see sensitive stuff. Also, testing with real users helps make sure the custom stuff is still easy to use.

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Integrating With Customer Support Tools

ChatIQ: Seamless Handoff and Ticket Routing

ChatIQ helps connect the dots between automated help (like FAQs or automated chat answers) and talking to a real person. If a customer can't find what they need on their own, ChatIQ automatically sends their question to the right support person. This way, customers don't have to repeat themselves, and the support team knows exactly what the issue is right away.

Here's why ChatIQ is helpful:

• Instant handoff - Customers don't have to explain their issue again. Everything they've already said is passed on to the support agent.
• Smart routing - Questions go to the agent best equipped to answer, based on their skills and workload.
• One smooth conversation - Customers have a seamless experience, whether they're getting automated help or talking to someone.

Using ChatIQ means customers get help faster, feel more satisfied, and support teams can work more efficiently.

Using Knowledgebase Insights For Smarter Ticket Management

Looking at what customers search for and read in your knowledge base can make handling support tickets smarter:

• Identify knowledge gaps - Find out what information is missing and add it. This means fewer customers end up needing to ask for help.
• Understand user intent - Knowing what customers are looking for helps send their questions to the right support team from the start.
• Set priorities - Pay extra attention to the most-viewed topics. These are usually the biggest issues for customers.
• Route to the right agents - Send tickets to agents who are experts on the topic, based on what they've helped with before.
• Improve self-service - Focus on making the most popular help topics even better, so more customers can help themselves.

By looking into what customers do and don't find in the knowledge base, companies can get better at solving problems on their own, quickly directing questions to the right place, answering faster, and making customers happier.

Continuous Improvement

Gathering Actionable Feedback

Getting feedback from the people who use your internal knowledgebase is super important for making it better. Here are some easy ways to hear what they think:

• Embedded feedback forms: Put simple forms in your knowledgebase so users can quickly tell you if an article was helpful or not and leave comments. This way, they can give feedback while they're actually using it.

• Interviews and focus groups: Talk directly with different users, like new team members or managers, to really understand what's working and what's not. Ask them for their honest thoughts and any ideas they have for making things better.

• User surveys: Send out surveys now and then to get a bigger picture of how happy people are with the knowledgebase and what the main issues are. Watch how these answers change over time.

• Analytics review: Check the data to see what people are searching for but not finding, which pages get a lot of visits but aren't updated much, and other clues about how people use the site.

The main goal is to find specific things you can improve. Then, decide what changes to make first based on what will help the most and what you have the resources to do.

Leveraging Emerging Technologies

New tech can really help your knowledgebase get better:

• Chatbots: Add a chat feature that can automatically answer common questions. This gives users another way to find help on their own.

• Semantic search: Make the search smarter so it understands what users really mean and shows them the best matches. This helps people find what they're looking for more easily.

• Machine learning: Use smart tech to automatically suggest related articles or tag content in helpful ways. This can help users discover useful information they might have missed.

• Natural language generation: Start creating articles using data and content you already have. Authors can then tweak these drafts, which is faster than writing from scratch.

The key is to keep up with new tech and find ways to use it that make things better without making them more complicated. Always test new features with real users, listen to their feedback, and make changes based on what's actually helpful.

Conclusion

For SaaS companies to give great customer support, quickly teach new employees, and help everyone work better, having a strong internal knowledgebase is key. This guide has shown you the main steps to make a knowledgebase that really helps your business.

Here's a quick recap of the important steps we talked about:

Set clear goals and track them to see if your knowledgebase is helping solve problems faster and making employees happier. Keep an eye on both numbers and what people say.

Organize your info well so it's easy for people to find what they need. Make sure your content matches how people naturally search for things. Have a variety of helpful content like how-to guides, updates, and training stuff.

Keep your content up-to-date with regular checks and updates. Make sure only the right people can see sensitive info. Use data to see where you can make things better.

Make it easy to use by improving search, keeping the design simple and consistent, and letting users adjust things to suit them.

Connect your knowledgebase with other support tools to make sure questions go to the right support person without customers having to repeat themselves.

Always ask for feedback through forms, talking to users, surveys, and looking at data to find specific things to improve.

Use new tech like machine learning to automate and improve your knowledgebase.

By putting effort into your knowledgebase, SaaS companies can help employees serve customers better. This leads to smoother operations, lower costs, and happier customers. Being able to share information quickly and widely is crucial for growing your business.

Related Questions

What makes a good internal knowledge base?

A good internal knowledge base is easy to navigate and keeps everything employees might need to know in one spot. It should be:

• Organized: Information is sorted by topic for easy browsing.
• Searchable: Allows quick searches for fast answers.
• Complete: Covers all necessary employee information.
• Current: Always has the latest, most accurate info.
• Easy to Change: Can be updated quickly when things change.
• Mobile-friendly: Accessible from anywhere, on any device.

What is knowledge base in SAAS?

In SaaS companies, a knowledge base is a digital library for customer support teams. It contains:

• Instructions on using the product
• Common customer questions and answers
• How to fix problems
• Details on policies and prices
• News on new features
• How-to videos

This setup helps the support team fix problems and answer questions more effectively.

What is the best way to structure a knowledge base?

The best way to set up a knowledge base is by:

• Creating main sections for each big topic or product
• Adding subsections for details within those topics
• Organizing articles where they fit best
• Having a search bar and tags to help find things
• Linking articles that are related to each other

This setup helps users either browse by topic or search for specific information.

What is an internal knowledge base for customer support?

An internal knowledge base for customer support is a central place where support agents find all the info they need to help users, including:

• Training stuff for new hires
• Detailed product guides
• How to troubleshoot common problems
• FAQs
• Documents on policies and pricing
• Updates from the company

Having all this information in one searchable spot helps agents answer questions and solve problems faster.

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