Knowledge management systems help companies store, access and organize documents and information. Both internal teams and external stakeholders might access and use your documentation.
Centralizing this documentation helps ensure regular updates and that stakeholders view the newest versions. After choosing a knowledge management system, you’ll need to integrate it into your company’s processes.
But before you buy, it’s important to know what makes for the best system based on your organization’s size and needs. We’ll highlight the system benefits, what to look for in your software and outline the best knowledge management systems on the market.
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What are the Benefits of the Knowledge Management System?
Knowledge management systems benefit both your employees and your customers. Here’s what you can expect from adopting a system:
- Faster answers from customer support: Decrease your customer support turnaround times with an always-on help center that’s up-to-date.
- Make support self-service: Customers can help themselves to the support answers they need when it’s in an easy-to-use online searchable database.
- Add depth to your customer service responses: Your customer service representatives only have so much time to type out responses. Having an online database where they can share links to relevant information can offer greater depth to their responses without all the typing.
- Lower customer support costs: Because of the added efficiency these systems offer, you can lower your customer support costs while providing faster support.
- Simpler employee training: When documentation is all in one place, it’s easier to train new employees using the database.
- Improved SEO: Online customer support answers can also improve your search engine rankings. That way, when a customer searches for a question related to your industry, your online support center answers can show up in results.
What to Look for in a Knowledge Management System
Preparing to choose your software to build your knowledge base takes careful consideration. Look for these important features as you shop for a knowledge management system.
Support for multiple file types export
To make your knowledge management system work for you, it needs to allow for internal teams to export the information in various file types. Regardless of how you placed the information in the system, you should be able to export the data how you need it for your internal teams.
Integration with social features
You need to be able to integrate with social media features like tagging, liking, commenting, rating. Your customers and internal teams will be your best resources for keeping your knowledge base up to date. Allowing users to use social media to interact with and share the content can help enhance the information’s usefulness.
Convenient text editor
To keep your knowledge management database up-to-date, it needs to be extremely simple to update content. Look for a system with a convenient text editor that also supports multimedia to make your information come to life.
Multi-language support
The best systems allow you to manage multiple translations of your material and make it easy to toggle between these languages. Look for a system that allows for tagging articles based on the language to make the content easy to search.
SEO functionality
Some systems are better with tagging, metadata and allowing search engines to index the content. Once you’ve taken the time to generate knowledge base content, you want it to be indexed to expand your company’s reach and ensure you’re answering your customers’ questions.
The Best Knowledge Management System for Your Business
Find the best system for your business needs. Learn the top products on the market today and the types of businesses they serve the best.
1. Best for Enterprises: Zendesk Guide
As a leading customer support tool, it’s no surprise that the Zendesk knowledge base tools are some of the best on the market. Manage both private and public databases to serve both internal and external teams.
And because Zendesk offers a suite of customer support tools, they all integrate to provide excellent solutions for large enterprises looking to manage their customer support in one place.
Pricing: Prices start at $49 per month per user. There is a free trial so your customer support team can get in and test things out before committing.
2. Best for Customer Education: KnowAll
As a WordPress product, KnowAll is incredibly simple to get started with and can be up and running in minutes. All you need is the WordPress theme and you can begin the customization process to meet your organization’s branding needs and start adding valuable information.
Organize content based on categories with subcategories and choose how to present results to your audience. You’ll also have access to in-depth analytics and reporting so you can gather user feedback and generate more valuable content.
Pricing: Prices start at $149 per year. But to add the ability to accept feedback, host your knowledge base on multiple sites, view search analytics and more, you’ll need to upgrade to a larger plan.
3. Best for Custome Viewership Controls: Document360
You can decide what types of users can see what content using Document360. This helps manage both a private and public knowledge base to support internal and external teams.
Store files of all types within the system with fully-integrated file search support. View version history for your files and easily revert to an old version in case something gets changed by mistake.
You can also integrate the system with popular software like Microsoft, Zendesk, Intercom and more.
Pricing: Monthly prices start at $49. Be sure to read the pricing sheet carefully as you’ll need to pay more for additional users and storage.
4. Best for Startups: HelpJuice
HelpJuice is ideal for small businesses because of its incredible ease of use. But don’t get confused that it’s because the tool is limiting. Many large businesses like Walmart use this robust knowledge management software.
Customize the software to match your branding, and enjoy the easy-to-use yet extremely powerful editor to collaborate on content and control access to that content.
HelpJuice also integrates with many other software systems like Salesforce and Zendesk to help put your data and information in one place.
Pricing: Prices start at $120 per month for up to four users. You can get started with a free 14-day trial to see if it’s the right solution for your needs.
5. Best for using Marketing & CRMs in Hubspot: HubSpot Service Hub
HubSpot offers a large suite of services, including sales, marketing, CRM and customer service tools. To get the best value out of HubSpot, it’s best to use it for its full suite of services.
One great benefit of the HubSpot knowledge management system is that it has multi-language support. And because it’s from a leader in marketing, it’s no big surprise that the analytics are also outstanding.
Pricing: HubSpot offers introductory services for free. Paid plans start at $45 per month for the customer service tools but to get full functionality for large enterprises, you’ll need to be prepared to pay $1,200.
Find Your Knowledge Management System Now
Knowledge management systems are powerful ways to serve your customers while supporting your internal teams. You can prove your customer support efficiency while impressing your customers with the information they need to know.
Evaluate the features and integrations your company needs to get the most out of a system. Then take some time to review our list of the best systems on the market and sign on with a new knowledge management system today.
