Knowledge Management System: Benefits and Examples

Knowledge Management System: Benefits and Examples

Customer experience ·

Customer support is all about being reactive and able to quickly respond to customer queries. But, when the support staff is overwhelmed with thousands of customer support tickets, it can be challenging to assist customers proactively.

For most brands today, providing a positive customer experience is the priority67% of customers convey that their expectations related to customer service have increased over the last years. Similarly, 76% of customers tend to gravitate towards brands that truly understand them and can fulfill their expectations.

Brands that manage to exceed their customer’s expectations enjoy the increased engagement, lower churn rates, customer loyalty, positive brand reputation, and so on. It also allows them to stay ahead in the competition since they will attract and, even more importantly, retain more customers.

A knowledge management system (KMS) can be a game-changer in providing a powerful customer experience. Knowledge and collaboration are the twin principles necessary for the growth of any business. When your customers have more information at their disposal, they can use your product more effectively and enjoy all the benefits it provides. Educating your customers will also benefit your company on a different level: by sharing relevant knowledge with them you will create a trust relationship and increase customer loyalty.

Knowledge management systems have robust features that enable this internal/external knowledge transition and collaboration. Today we will discuss everything you need to know about knowledge management systems and help you choose the best one. Read on to learn more!

What is a knowledge management system?

Before we explain what a knowledge management system is, here are some numbers to keep in mind:

  • 70% of customers expect a brand’s website to include self-service tools.

  • Gartner predicted that by 2020, more than 85% of a brand’s relationship with its customers would exist without any human intervention. Their predictions were correct.

  • More than two-thirds of businesses compete for market share based mainly on customer experience.

What do these predictions and numbers tell us? Providing excellent customer experience can be a competitive advantage for brands in a crowded market, which cannot be achieved without knowledge management systems. Now, let’s see what we mean by knowledge management systems.

Although the terms knowledge management system (KMS) and knowledge base (KB) are often used interchangeably, it isn’t accurate.

A knowledge management system is a tool that helps you to store and organize knowledge to facilitate collaboration, understanding, and process alignment. These systems are used by companies to organize documentation, frequently asked questions, and other information to improve internal collaboration and make information easily accessible for customers.

A knowledge base is only a minor part of a brand’s overarching knowledge management system. The primary purpose of a knowledge management system is to help customers utilize knowledge to achieve their goals, in other words, it helps them be successful in using your product.

From the company perspective, using a knowledge management system can help keep the company documentation updated, empowering customers and assisting them in finding their answers, managing knowledge access across user groups, and so on.

Knowledge management systems are precious for both small businesses and global enterprises that want to distribute knowledge across a wide range of audience demographics.

While there are several different types of knowledge management systems, most share some common characteristics. These include:

  • FAQ content

  • Information database

  • How-to articles, tutorials, and videos

  • Knowledge base

  • Training programs, webinars, customer education handbooks

  • Certificates

  • Case studies and white papers

  • CRM system

In some cases, the data presented in a knowledge management system is meant to be used by the customer to learn how to use the product or troubleshoot. In other cases, content can also be directed toward company employees in ways that will indirectly offer added value to the customer service experience. For example, all the customer information displayed when agents are chatting with customers is the knowledge that is directed to employees to add value to the customer experience.

Either way, the goal of a knowledge management system is to meet customer expectations through the use of relevant information.

Why is it essential to have a knowledge management system?

By categorizing knowledge with the help of a knowledge management system, you are allowing your customers and employees to fully understand your brand’s vision, processes, products, services, and culture.

For instance, imagine you are a customer support agent dealing with a customer facing an issue with a particular product. In this case, a knowledge management system will help you quickly find a solution and document how you solved the issue. It will also help future agents solve similar problems efficiently.

Remember that the main objective of a knowledge management system is to produce knowledge and make it accessible to employees and customers. Thanks to these systems, information is not only made available but is organized and structured to optimize customer service processes.

When your brand’s sales representatives successfully close a deal, they are simultaneously producing knowledge that can be useful in closing similar deals in the future. When the HR department hires new team members, they create knowledge to hire better talent in the future. In the same way, when customers use your brand’s products and services, they produce insights that will help you improve your brand’s customer service.

Therefore, the central attribute of a knowledge management system is to improve and facilitate an effortless customer service experience. We will discuss the benefits of knowledge management systems later in this article!

Examples of knowledge management systems

The foremost reason businesses hesitate to invest in a knowledge management system is that it can be expensive to maintain. It can be time-consuming to update the information over time if you don’t have a proper tool to do so. With the right knowledge management system, you can avoid these issues and build a relevant knowledge base within a budget.

Here are some examples of knowledge management systems that are ideal for businesses.

Layerise

Best for customer support and education

Providing exceptional customer service is a marathon and not a sprint. By combining unique customer experience abilities with CRM and marketing, Layerise helps you establish ongoing customer relationships and build continuous revenue streams.

Layerise can help you share valuable knowledge with your customers throughout their user experience. Thanks to Layerise, you can create brand-safe product-specific Assistants for your customers to access product onboarding information, assembly guides, or troubleshooting.

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Using the different features, you can create simple, powerful, and engaging guides. This will enable you to educate your customers about the product features, and inform them about changes or maintenance activities easily and effectively.

In addition to that, with the Chat feature, you can support your customers in real-time directly from the Assistant. Engaging your customers through a chat interface increases customer satisfaction and in return results in happier customers.

Three out of four brands highly recommend using Layerise. Therefore, if you are thinking of improving your customer education, we can be of great help! If you want to learn more about how Layerise can improve the performance of your brand, book a free demo now!

KnowAll on WordPress

Best for customer education

KnowAll is a comprehensive tool for creating various knowledge management systems for organizations and educational institutions. The biggest advantage of adopting KnowAll is how simple it is to get started.

It is a plug-and-play WordPress theme. Everything is designed to make it easy for you to expand your knowledge base quickly and tailor it to reflect your brand. It has multiple design options that help you customize according to your branding.

You may add new articles and arrange them in categories and subcategories with a few clicks. The theme offers a variety of user interface design options you can choose from.

You can use KnowAll to identify which of your articles are the most popular and to solicit reader comments so that you can determine which articles were helpful and which ones want improvement.

Zendesk Guide

Best for creating knowledge bases for large organizations

One of the top programs for managing customer assistance is Zendesk. It is capable of far more than just live chat and support tickets, and it is a beginner-friendly user interface allowing you to maintain your knowledge bases from one platform.

Zendesk features a knowledge management system known as the Zendesk Guide that you can use to provide customers and employees with both private and public information bases. Zendesk is a better choice for bigger firms and corporations.

HelpJuice

Best for public knowledge bases

HelpJuice is a cutting-edge, user-friendly knowledge base application that is perfect for new and small organizations. Many renowned large brands, including Walmart and startups like Monday, use this knowledge management system.

HelpJuice is simpler to set up and maintain than most other knowledge base applications. Additionally, it contains a cutting-edge editor that enables the creation of well-structured text while maintaining modification history. It also features useful functions like collaboration and controlling access.

With HelpJuice, you can customize the design of your knowledge bases to match your company’s branding. There are a few pre-made themes that you can choose from.

Lessonly

Best for private training knowledge bases

Lessonly was developed especially for private knowledge bases and employee training. This knowledge management system is user-friendly and includes several features to make team training simpler for you. There are simple and intelligent course builders that support functions like webcam recording and screen recording.

With Lessonly, you can also integrate third-party apps like Salesforce, Zendesk, etc. Lessonly has two pricing tiers that are offered, and the cost is determined by the number of users and the knowledge base tools you require.

Benefits of using KMS

A knowledge management system’s most significant advantage is the availability of best practices to customers, resulting in satisfied and returning customers. But there are even more benefits, such as:

1. Knowledge management systems create alignment and collaboration within the team.

A 2016 Temkin Group survey shows that businesses that focus on offering excellent customer experience have 1.5 times more engaged workers than their less-advanced competitors.

The following activities are necessary to create this engagement, per Quantum’s 2016 Employee Engagement Trends report:

  • presenting chances for team communication and cooperation

  • building mutual trust between teams and employees individually

  • directing teams and people toward a shared objective

Practically speaking, a KMS makes it simple for everyone to constantly allineate with each other since all team members have access to a single, current informational database. They know who is in charge of what during a particular initiative, and every party concerned is aware of the general objective of a particular endeavor. As a result, your teams can communicate and work together more efficiently.

2. Knowledge management systems make self-service tools more effective

78% of US business executives are increasing their investments in self-service, providing clients with self-help portals and chatbots that AI powers.

The most efficient approach to support your clients is through self-service, which involves customers assisting themselves using documentation provided by the company. You can increase self-service by properly managing an extensive knowledge base, leveraging real-time chat, or creating community forums.

Each of these self-service options can be effectively implemented by managing information through a knowledge management system.

3. Knowledge management systems empower customers

39% of customers have said they would rather use self-service options than talk to agents. Leveraging a knowledge management system allows your company to provide effective 24/7 support to customers, helping them solve their problems and easily discover what they need without waiting in a phone line.

Your customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores will increase as more clients find their solutions without difficulty or delay. The delivery of information to your consumers through an online support center may be continually improved to lower churn and increase customer loyalty.

4. Knowledge management systems organize information and make it accessible from a verified source

According to a Gartner survey on the top goals for customer service leaders in 2022, 74% of the leaders cited enhancing the supply of material and expertise to clients and staff as crucial to their support strategy.

The information inside businesses is broken down by organizing and presenting knowledge in readily-accessible ways from a centralized content repository. Thanks to a clear structure and efficient search tools, both customers and employees can find information quickly.

When implemented correctly, a knowledge management system can reduce support costs, improve customer success ROI across your company, and raise customer satisfaction levels.

Although a knowledge management system’s components can differ, its overall goal is to educate customers so they can utilize and interact with a brand’s products and services successfully.