High Costs Of A Poorly Written Knowledge Base Article

A Knowledge Base article offers your customers the information they need to use your products or service optimally. With 82% of customers stating that an immediate response is one of the biggest driving factors for brand selection, you must ensure that all their queries can be answered at a single click.

Why Businesses need Knowledge Base Articles?

When was the last time you called the customer service representative for help? Alternatively, when was the last time you Googled a solution to your problem? Modern customers prefer the ‘self-service’ approach facilitated by the internet. This is where a comprehensive knowledge base article comes in.

A KB article offers customers the help they need, the minute they need it. As a result, you reduce the number of dissatisfied customers, unless you invest in a badly written KB article that fails to offer value to them.

Additionally, a knowledge base article also offers your employees content to rely on. With structured data and solutions in place, your teams can present a unified front when answering customer queries.

How much does a badly written KB article cost?

Many organizations misunderstand the value of a good KB article, believing that it solves the purpose of search engine optimization and nothing else.

While it certainly helps rank your website higher than others, it also adds immense value to the customer’s experience, as well as to the experience of your employees.

A well-written KB article offers quick and efficient solutions, leading to brand affinity and customer loyalty in the long run. On the other hand, a badly-written KB article can cost you money, time, employee engagement, and brand value.

What do support agents lose?

Support agents stand to lose accuracy when the content is written haphazardly or unclearly. Also, they lose time while trying to interpret a badly-written KB article. As such articles are rarely reusable, they lack value, which itself represents a loss to the company and agent.

What do customers lose?

Customers trouble-shooting their queries on their own with no external support stand to lose trust in brands that fail to help them. As a result, they are less likely to turn to the brand for further solutions and products. On the other hand, they also lose faith in the self-service model on which a knowledge base is built.

What do Customer Experience (CX) leaders and organizations lose?

The biggest loss, of course, must be met by your organization. Creating content that’s simply not usable is akin to pouring your funds down the drain. However, this loss only represents the tip of the iceberg – you stand to lose powerful AI support, efficient Knowledge Management (KM), and the ability to onboard your staff quickly.

With a lack of learning support and a cohesive system for retaining knowledge, CX leaders can also stand to lose their top performers. This is primarily because your talent values learning, and when there is no efficient KM system in place, there’s a low scope for learning and growth.

For organizations, this spells higher attrition rates, lower productivity, and lower engagement.

How to write the perfect KB article?

Writing the perfect KB article is not very different from the principles of good writing. One must be clear, answer the reader’s queries as quickly as possible, and retain the customer’s attention. The following guidelines can help you understand how to write a good knowledge base article.

1. Understand who your readers are

Let’s say you own a platform that generates websites for users. To offer a holistic experience, your platform has features integrated for SEO, Google Analytics, multiple plug-ins, ad generators, and more.

The average blogger writing about niche topics does not necessarily hold a marketing degree. As a result, you must be able to explain how to use your features and software to optimize the experience.

However, if your knowledge base article includes heavy jargon, is written using archaic language, and has a dry tone, your user won’t power through it. On the other hand, if it’s written in a conversational tone that demystifies marketing tools, your user will be able to gain more value out of your content.

Remember, while the content reflects on your brand, conversational content does not take away from the seriousness of your brand’s image.

2. Implement consistent branding

While many believe that branding only extends to corporate colors and traditional advertising, the truth is that branding must remain consistent across all fields of content. While creating a knowledge base article, you must have a style guide on hand with a few KB article examples for writers and developers to learn from.

3. Make your content accessible

Presuming that written content is all that’s needed to create a comprehensive knowledge base for your customers can be a catastrophic mistake. Create content across different mediums – videos, podcasts, images, infographics, and even articles to ensure accessibility and greater inclusivity.

This serves two purposes – it lowers customer discontent and increases brand affinity because modern customer value brands that value inclusivity and target a diverse spectrum of customers, rather than only addressing those that fall under an archaic notion of the norm.

Follow basic SEO and accessibility rules like adding ALT text, captions to videos and images, and language options (if applicable).

4. Keep your knowledge base updated

Whether you’re offering software that upgrades regularly or a range of products that continually increases, you must ensure your knowledge base is updated.

Create content before launches to generate intrigue and reduce the possibility of negative customer experiences that stem from a lack of knowledge on how to use the product. You must also create relevant content once the product is launched.

Of course, you don’t have to generate repetitive content. Hyperlink your smaller content pages to master articles that explain features in detail.

5. Share your content

Finally, your knowledge base article is no good if your customers are unaware of its existence. With over 90% of customers purchasing items from brands they follow on social media, you must leverage social platforms and marketing tools to share your content with your customers. 61% of customers also stated that a brand’s ability to engage with customers drives the decision to follow the brand.

Positive interactions with customers not only stem from prompt responses, but also from the act of empowering your customers to solve their queries.

By sharing unique and engaging knowledge base articles and other content, you can facilitate meaningful conversations with your target audience.

6. Review the efficacy of your content

Content marketers rely on a metric known as the bounce rate to understand the value customers gain from a page. If your readers leave your page almost immediately after landing on it, your content is missing the mark.

Add tools that allow customers to review your content to understand where the gaps are, and how your offerings can be improved. The very act of engaging with a customer this way will improve their perception of your brand’s desire to help.

Your Turn Now

Empowering your customers to troubleshoot problems and use your products optimally can help increase your brand’s relevance in their lives. By allowing customers to find their solutions, you can ensure a lower churn and greater customer satisfaction.

The key to creating a comprehensive knowledge base lies in offering diverse content regularly. Organizations must look at content development as an investment that facilitates growth, as opposed to simply a means of advertising that requires high funds to get locked in.

To know more about creating a knowledge base, and knowledge base article examples that reflect your brand, get in touch!