How to Choose the Best Knowledge Base Software for Your Business

Nowadays, a solid knowledge base helps provide better support to customers, handle fewer tickets and allow customers to handle issues on their own. Choosing an appropriate and best knowledge base software can make work within your company more effective and enhance the customer experience. With all the options, it’s not always clear which tool will best suit your business.

This is a list of the main points to consider when selecting knowledge base software for your team.

1. Set the Purpose for Your Website

Your first step should be to determine the primary reason for your knowledge base. Will the knowledge base serve both your customers and internal staff or only one of these groups? For example:

• For customers: It is designed to help customers get immediate help and look up quick answers.
• For internal use: It is useful for employee onboarding, process workflows and learning.
• A hybrid solution offers both audience control and ways to divide the content between users.

If you know your business use case, you can focus on selecting the right tools.

2. Pay Attention to How Simple the Software Is to Use

It’s important that the knowledge base is straightforward for anyone using it because it helps everyone. Ensure the editor has a clear layout, makes it obvious what features do and supports the addition of various media. The software should offer a user-friendly way to search for answers right in the front-end.

3. Make Customization and Branding a Priority

What your audience knows about your brand is often a result of your knowledge base. Decide on software that helps you customize thematic elements, upload your logo, use your brand’s colors and edit formats. A branded knowledge base helps keep users confident while using it.

4. Make Sure the Platform Can Safely Integrate

The most effective knowledge base software fits well into your existing technical environment. Find systems that are connected to:

• Customer support tools such as Zendesk, Freshdesk and Intercom. 
• Project management software such as Jira, Trello, HubSpot and Salesforce.

With integrations, teams are able to avoid doing the same task multiple times.

5. Look into Access Controls and Permissions

If you are delivering help via a portal for both employees and customers, the software should have advanced access controls. Preventing unauthorized access to sensitive content can be achieved with the use of role-related permissions, user groups and settings for private or public topics.

6. Look at the Analytics and Reports

Studying the way users interact with your knowledge base lets you improve what it offers. Select an option that provides analytics on search terms, most viewed articles, and unsuccessful search attempts fail. Using these insights helps to adjust documentation and enhance how people use the site.

7. Consider Scalability and Affordability

Growth in your business means you need to continue improving your knowledge base. Select software that is built to manage more data, more users and new team members as needed. Make sure to compare how each company charges—some use a per-user system, some provide flat prices and some are based on certain features.

Final Thoughts

Getting the proper and best knowledge base software is a smart step that can raise your team’s productivity, make your customers happier and organize support processes. Concentrating on usability, personalization, connection with other programs and scalability allows you to get a tool that helps your business and users reach their goals.