Adding knowledge base software to your tech stack? Start here

As today’s workforce continues to evolve — and turnover rates remain steadily high — organizational leadership teams worry about holding top talent. 

In fact, 93% of companies worry about employee retention. A key avenue to promote retention is to provide career growth with development opportunities, training, and sharing domain-specific knowledge.

According to LinkedIn’s 2023 Workplace Learning Report, the primary method leadership teams use to improve employee retention is through learning opportunities. One way to enable more learning opportunities is with knowledge base software. With the right tools and resources at their disposal, teams can get the information they need fast, learn important skills, and grow alongside your business. Similarly, your customers and users can leverage a knowledge base to deepen their understanding of your product using helpful resources.

If you’re looking to add knowledge base software to your tech stack, there are a few things you need to know. Discover knowledge base-ics (dad jokes, anyone?), use cases, benefits, and examples of knowledge base software in this guide.

🏢 For internal stakeholders

Managers and leadership teams can improve internal operations — in the following areas — using knowledge base tools.

• Explaining HR processes and legal policies
• Sharing IT and tech information
• Storing brand or sales presentations
• Training and onboarding staff 

Knowledge bases are especially important for employee upskilling, reskilling, and professional development.

🏘️ For external stakeholders

Your company can use knowledge bases to provide external stakeholders like users and customers with self-service support and 24/7 customer service. This could include:

• Troubleshooting how-tos and guides
• Product and service tutorials
• Contact information
• FAQs

When it comes to self-service options, there’s a gap in what customers want and what businesses think they provide. A recent customer experience report from NICE shows that although 40% of companies believe they have ample customer self-service options, 81% of consumers expect more. According to Zendesk’s 2023 CX Trends report, 37% of customer service agents say customers become noticeably frustrated, stressed, or angry when they can’t complete a simple task without agent assistance. A knowledge base that encourages your customers to self-serve will help increase customer satisfaction and likely reduce service costs, helping to strengthen your bottom line.

What are the uses of a knowledge base?

Typically, a knowledge base will serve one of two core purposes: employee education or customer education.

🎒 Employee education

Expanding teams anywhere in the business can be a daunting task for any HR or legal representatives. A knowledge base can store essential training information (for new and existing staff) so that all of the basics are covered. You can also take it further by using AI to improve productivity and efficiency.

🛍️ Customer education

These days, when a customer has a question, the first place they’ll go for an answer is the internet. A knowledge base can be a valuable tool for customers seeking self-service assistance.

Benefits of knowledge base software

There are a lot of great benefits to using knowledge base solutions depending on industry or use case. Streamlining communications, lowering overhead costs, and engaging your audience are a few reasons why businesses invest in knowledge management software. Below, we’ve broken out some key benefits for both.

💼 Internal benefits of knowledge base software

• Lower training costs. When you create a solid knowledge base that’s regularly updated and maintained, you’ll reduce overhead costs associated with basic employee training. Your knowledge base can answer common questions from new hires, helping you reduce how much time (and money) you spend on in-person training.
• Higher customer success rates. When customers get quick answers, it can increase your resolution and success rates considerably. It will also help free up space for more complex customer support tickets and serve as your customers’ “single source of truth.”

💳 External benefits of knowledge base software 

• 24/7 customer service. A common pain point customers go through is not being able to contact support teams outside of office hours. Knowledge base software helps solve that problem since it lets your support services “stay open” 24/7.
• Better customer experience. Has your team ever thought a customer query was simple but had to spend several minutes (or even hours?) helping solve it by phone or email? When the customer can self-serve using knowledge base software, they can get their queries answered immediately.
• Easy to host. Building and maintaining a knowledge base on your website is relatively simple with the right tools.

Three knowledge base examples

There are many great examples of public knowledge bases from both an organizational and a customer perspective. While these examples may differ in design specifics, they all share a few common features:

• Internal search engine and search bar
• Topical (or customizable) organization
• Contact information

Here are our favorite knowledge base examples you can use to find inspiration for building a knowledge base for your organization’s content management needs.

1. Toggl Track

If you’re into productivity tools, chances are you might have come across Toggl Plan, a time-tracking tool to help you figure out where your time really goes. Currently, its knowledge base is organized simply by topic, which then includes subtopics related to using its product.

Interestingly, it has a different knowledge base for each of its products, which can be a pro or a con depending on the user’s perspective. If someone wants to get a bird’s-eye view of the available solutions, they may prefer a consolidated knowledge base.

2. ManyChat

If you’ve ever encountered a chatbot powered by Facebook Messenger or Instagram (collectively known as Meta Platforms), there’s a strong chance that the website or social media page used ManyChat to build it. Building a chatbot can seem pretty daunting. ManyChat knows this, so it has a large knowledge base to help boost the user experience.

It covers topics from the basics of using its product to more advanced topics like using widgets, plugins, and API dev tools. So if you’re building a chatbot-based knowledge base for your organization, ManyChat has a ton of resources to help.

3. Vimeo

Of course, Vimeo also has some extensive knowledge base content where customers can get information on just about everything Vimeo. Users can find anything, from uploading creative videos, learning how to live stream, to different ways of watching Vimeo video content.

For internal teams, Vimeo uses a Vimeo Central to store video content. Creating a video library hub of internal content, events, resources, and updates allows teams to organize, share, and find video content easily and intuitively.

Three questions to ask before you create a knowledge base

Since knowledge bases can differ according to the needs of your business (and its internal and external audiences), we’ll cover three main considerations to take into account when creating one.

1. Should I use video in my knowledge base?

Many people consider themselves visual learners and prefer to see exactly what you’re talking about rather than reading about it. It’s a good idea to incorporate video (and video transcriptions and captions) into your knowledge base wherever possible. 

You may want to consider using video in your knowledge base if your content:

• is easier to “show” than “tell”
• has high traffic or requires frequent access
• benefits from an emotional connection or “human touch”
• does not change often
• includes many smaller pieces of content (e.g., documenting a process over time)

Video content can be used in a number of ways, including:

• Introducing or launching a new product or service
• Explaining a process (e.g., “how-to” videos)
• Demonstrating a use case or a product or service

You can turn existing content into videos and embed them on the same page (and host them in a video library) to help give customers a choice of how they want to learn.

In this case, it’s usually worth having a dedicated knowledge management team or person who works to create and maintain these videos.

2. Should I build an internal or external knowledge base?

Deciding whether to create an internal or external knowledge base depends on your audience and use case. Below, we’ve outlined some of the key benefits of both types.

We’ve discussed the overall uses for internal knowledge bases, but it’s worth getting a bit more specific. If you’re trying to figure out if you should build an internal knowledge base, first determine if you need to accomplish one of the following.

Staff onboarding:

• An internal knowledge base is a great place to talk about employee benefits, products or services, and company guidelines.
• An internal directory can let new employees feel more confident about asking the right people for help if the knowledge base doesn’t cover their questions.
• The base can also store blank versions of legal and HR documentation for onboarding purposes and review, saving time on both sides.

Staff training:

• Creating standardized workflows can help with initial staff training and serve as a reference point when they forget the information (happens to all of us).
• Knowledge teams can create videos on how to properly use any of the company systems and cover common troubleshooting issues.
• When you release a new product, service, or feature, you can use the internal base to keep demonstrations and key bullet points for staff members to reference.

3. What is the best knowledge base software?

The short answer is that it depends on your answers to the above questions, and different knowledge base software options offer various features to serve those needs. In general, ask yourself the following questions to find out the best fit for you:

1. How much does the software cost, and does it fit within our budget?
2. Can it assign different levels of access for specific users?
3. Is it easy to navigate?
4. Does the software include any metrics or reporting features?
5. Do we need to worry about integration?
6. Do we need community forum functionality included?

Getting answers to these questions will help you narrow down the list of options.

Knowledge base FAQs

Creating a knowledge base is probably easier than you think

Now you have a broad understanding of what a knowledge base software is and the benefits of a knowledge management solution. Depending on your use case, you may consider an internal knowledge base, external knowledge base, or both. Implementing a knowledge management solution is a great way to provxide the knowledge autonomy your employees and customers want. 

Put your internal and external stakeholder resources to good use by building your own knowledge hub with the help of a developer or with a secure, enterprise video solution.

Tour the Vimeo Central solution today

Originally published August 15, 2022. Updated May 24, 2023.