Knowledge Base Articles: Types, Creating, and Examples of KB Articles

by ClickHelp — professional help authoring tool

Our modern world is so submerged in good products that such products don’t guarantee success. Loyal customers, on the other hand, can lend eclat to business. So the first thing to do to make customers happy is to have top-rank customer support. Not just for cases when a customer has troubles with a product but also to help customers make the most of a product. Great support helps to retain more customers. And knowledge base articles are an efficient way to improve your customer support.

What Is Knowledge Base Article?

A knowledge base (KB) is a brilliant source of information for users. That is an excellent repository — store, share, and organize the information the way you want and need. You can build it for both external (customers) and internal users (employees). If we talk about customers, it is vital to show them that you are ready to interact with them not only at the beginning of their journey with your product but all the way long. In case of internal users, you act for the sake of your workflow — to teach your employees how to work most effectively and reduce mistakes.

Types of Knowledge Base Articles

A knowledge base comes in many shapes and sizes. But the main two types known are internal and external knowledge bases.

An internal knowledge base prioritizes serving the company and the employees, and an external knowledge base is commonly created for the convenience of product users.

Since external knowledge bases are for customers, the content differs greatly from those on internal knowledge bases.

As for the knowledge base articles — there are many types of those:

• informational;
• troubleshooting;
• how-tos;
• documentation;
• FAQs;
• product descriptions;
• installation guides;
• and other customer service resources related to your product.

Each one of them demands its own unique structure and approach.

What Are the Reasons to Create a Knowledge Base?

The basic reasons to create a KB are the following:

• To take care of your customers. Today, the relations between the customers and vendors include not only the sales process. That is a huge and carefully thought out strategy: customers are happy if after the purchase they get support whenever they need it. You can make them more confident by providing them with relevant information right away. It is not a problem if users do not know how to use a product in detail — they know where to look it up.
• To save your support team from answering the same routine questions every day. In the majority of cases, the support team gets the same requests every day. They spend most of their time giving the same instructions. That is sad and unproductive. They could have done something more urgent and efficient. A knowledge base is a wonderful solution for all sides here. You will definitely reduce the number of tickets. Clients can find the information themselves, and that’s it.
• To unify knowledge among employees. A KB created for internal use provides all the team members with the same information. Everyone acts according to the same instructions. That is a great way to eliminate information gaps, misunderstanding, and errors.

You can check out the following post to get deeper into the theme — Guest Blog: TOP 7 Reasons to Create an Online Knowledge Base.

How to Write Knowledge Base Articles?

In fact, building a KB is not a super difficult task. Anyone can do it if they have the right tools. It depends on the company, but most often a technical writer is responsible for that. The main idea is to collect the most frequently asked questions and to write short but informative articles aimed at solving specific problems. You can ask not only the support team about the hot questions but also the sales managers, or you can check professional communities to learn about the users’ pains.

What you should pay attention to while creating a knowledge base to make it informative and efficient:

• Define the goal of your KB. It can be anything from giving more information about your product to telling your readers about the logistics of your company. Your main intention will influence your KB’s character.
• Involve all the departments of your company. A good KB has not only an informative function but also contributes to the marketing process and helps the sales department to attract customers. The information must be presented in a many-sided way.
• Organize the KB using logic. KB articles should not be arranged randomly. Use a suitable structure to arrange them. It can be a hierarchy or a division into sections. The basic principle here is to make the KB convenient for those who are going to use it.
• Take care of the branding. All the articles should be united by your brand’s style. That will make your KB look more reliable and professional.
• Update your KB. As your product changes and gets upgraded, the information in your KB should be changed as well. Outdated information will only make customers stray away from your product.

Should I Password-Protect My Knowledge Base?

Tastes differ. Some companies prefer to make their information public. Others prefer to limit access to their docs. It depends on their aims. On the one hand, public information can be easily found by potential customers. That contributes to the sales process. But, on the other hand, not only potential customers will use it — your competitors may do this as well. It makes sense to give access to particular types of customers. So, if you want to limit access to information, make sure your knowledge management tool can do it.

In this respect, the Single Sign-On (SSO) technology becomes crucial. With its help, you can solve the access problem: you can give users limited access to your KB, and they will see particular sections they are supposed to see. Moreover, the SSO technology provides a clear authorization process. Users authorized in your product will be automatically authorized in your documentation portal. Check out this post if you want to learn more — Software Documentation in the SaaS World.

Knowledge Base Article Templates

One of the best ways to upgrade the creation of your support articles is to use a standardized set of templates. This will save time for technical writers and ensure that all your articles are consistent throughout the knowledge base. Every type of knowledge base article demands a certain template. Here are four template examples to help you with your KB:

Informational Article Template

Title: About (Feature Name)

Description: Brief description of the product or feature

Links: Anchor links to any topic within the more extensive informational article

Features:

• Feature 1
• Feature 2
• Feature 3
• Etc.

Further reading: Links to related articles

FAQ Article Template

Title: Frequently Asked Questions

Topic (if applicable): Brief description of the topic being covered

Table of contents:

• Section 1

*Question 1

*Question 2

*Etc.

• Section 2

*Question 1

*Question 2

*Etc.

• Section 3

*Etc.

Answers:

• Section 1

*Question 1

*Answer 1

*Question 2

*Answer 2

*Etc.

• Section 2

*Question 1

*Answer 1

*Question 2

*Answer 2

*Etc.

• Section 3

*Etc.

Further reading: Links to related articles

How-to Article Template

Title: How to (task name)

Task: Brief description of the task to be accomplished

Prerequisites (if applicable): Brief description of which products/features/customers the task applies to

Table of contents (if necessary)

Instructions:

• Step 1
• Step 2
• Step 3
• Etc.

Outcome: Brief description of what should be possible once the task is completed

Further reading: Links to related articles

Troubleshooting Article Template

Title: (what is a problem)

Problem: Brief description of the problem to be solved

Overview of possible solutions (if applicable)

Solutions:

• Solution 1
• Solution 2
• Solution 3
• Etc.

Result: Brief description of how to confirm the problem is solved and what to do if it isn’t

Further reading: Links to related articles

Creating Knowledge Base Articles with ClickHelp

To create an effective KB, one should carefully choose the knowledge management software. Your tool should allow you to create and publish content easily, make the review process clear, make the collaboration and teamwork smooth. One of the best solutions for building a knowledge base is using an online documentation platform like ClickHelp. It can offer you all the above-mentioned features and many more options to make your KB awesome.

Conclusion

Creating an informative knowledge base is not a big task if you have the right tool at hand. In a wide variety of tools, make sure you choose the most suitable one. Consider what type of information your users want to get and follow the tips described in this post to succeed in building your KB.

Good luck with your technical writing!
ClickHelp Team
Author, host and deliver documentation across platforms and devices

Originally published at https://clickhelp.com.