Are you interested in scaling your customer service? Having an accessible knowledge base is a great start.

A knowledge base consists of various topics of information about your company, including what your product and/or service offerings are, answers to commonly asked questions, etc. Customers can search through this information on their own to find answers to questions they may have, or chatbots can draw from this information to provide solutions to questions customers may ask while visiting your website.  When set up and used correctly, a knowledge base can greatly grow and improve your company’s level of customer service, leading to savings in time and money, as well as greater client satisfaction.

Here are some interesting facts pertaining to customer service trends and chatbot technology:

• Forrester found that 70% of customers prefer to go to a company’s website first to get answers, before picking up a phone to call
• A Gartner study projects that approximately 85% of all customer-company relationships will be managed with little to no human interaction by 2020 and
• Chatbots will lead to cost savings of over $8billion by 2020, primarily in healthcare and banking industries

So what do you need to do to get started? Here’s what we found from a collection of various articles:

Conduct Thorough Research

You will need to identify your customers’ common questions and pain points. Some questions to ask yourself are: What pages on our website are most frequently visited? What trends have you noticed in your customer support calls recently? Is there other information customers commonly look for, but isn’t displayed either on our web or social platforms?, etc. Customer experience surveys may also be a useful way to gather insight on information to include in your knowledge base. The amount of time spent and research gathered will vary depending on company industry and size, products offered, etc. but this is definitely an important first step to take to ensure success of implementing chatbot/online live support technologies.

Decide on the Format

What format will your knowledge base take? Are you building a database that will be accessible on your website, or will you be collecting information that a live agent or chatbot can draw from to assist customers? At this stage, it is also important to define how pieces of your content/information will relate to each other and how they can potentially be grouped.

Outline a Technology Plan

Once you have decided on which format your knowledge base will take, you must consider what technology to use. If it is going live on your website as a Help or FAQ page, you will need to consider how to develop the webpage in terms of navigation, design, and interactivity. If you choose to use a chatbot, you will need to research the many different capabilities and technologies available. It is also important to consult with your IT team to understand the requirements for security, system integration and the ability to share and export the data.

Develop a Maintenance Plan

Setting up your knowledge base is only half the challenge. You will also need to come up with a plan of how to maintain it and make any future changes. This includes:

• Assigning an employee or group of employees who will continue updating the information available, and how often
• Planning how to monitor and assess the performance of the knowledge base. Performance analysis may initially take a few months.
• Determining KPIs: Will you be tracking changes in customer satisfaction levels or the number of support calls? Etc.

We all know customer satisfaction is of great importance to every firm. Having an accessible knowledge base for customer support and inquiries is a great way to improve satisfaction, all while saving time and money. True Sky offers a variety of resources, including: training videos, eBooks, webinars, weekly blogs and more. Check this all out on our website today, or call us at 1 855 878 3759.