Why (At Least Some Of) Your Knowledge Base Should Be Public

It took a lot of time and effort to build up your customer support knowledge base. When you add it all up, hundreds – if not thousands – of man-hours went into crafting articles, creating how-to videos, and optimizing the search function within your support software. Not only that, it’s a living database that’s constantly growing and updating. When considering all that went into building this database of information and the effort it takes to maintain it, it’s easy to recognize your knowledge base as one of the most valuable tools in your customer experience plan. However, is that true if no one knows about it?

What Customers Want

When customers have an issue or a question, they want it resolved fast. We’re not used to waiting for anything anymore, and that is especially true for customer service. When you give customers what they want, suddenly your organization crosses into the realm of providing a customer experience. To provide a great experience, ensure clients, potential clients, and past clients can:

• Find information on their own
• Chat with someone online
• Find your information across multiple channels

How to Give Them What They Want

As mentioned, your knowledge base is built, growing, and optimized. All of the pieces are there to provide an ideal customer experience. However, customers may not even know your valuable information exists. Here are some suggestions to ensure customers know this material is available to them:

• Share new articles and videos on social media
• Optimize your information for search engines
• Make sure pertinent information shows up first

By sharing the knowledge you’ve acquired, you will establish your business as the expert in the field. Take Copyblogger, for instance. This website was built for the sole purpose of sharing information about content marketing. Now that they’ve consistently shared their information with the world, Copyblogger has become a trusted expert in the industry of online content. Not to mention a multi-billion dollar subscription based company. Members love to work with them, read their content, and share their information. Copyblogger’s biggest advocates have become their customers.

Other Benefits

Sharing your knowledge base will give your customers the experience they expect, but also consider these other benefits:

• Your customer support team will have time to take a deeper look at improving your knowledge base while customers are using self-service options
• You’ll gain new customers when your information shows up in online searches
• Your own customers will become your marketers by sharing the information you’ve made available via social media

Through consistency, accuracy, and engagement, your knowledge base will become your stake in the ground at establishing a presence as an expert in your industry. The database will work for you by enabling customers to find answers on their own, and it will also help your company grow. All of this is true, but only if you share your knowledge with the world.