24 Min
Updated October 2026
Building a knowledge base takes eight steps: define its purpose, choose a platform, decide the topics, organize them into categories, gather accurate information, create the content, review and publish it, then update it regularly. The sections below explain each step and show how Jupiter used a guided knowledge base for its CX teams.
People lose time when they cannot find the information they need to do their job.
The McKinsey Global Institute estimated in its 2012 report on the social economy that interaction workers spend nearly 20 percent of the workweek looking for internal information or tracking down colleagues who can help.
Small and mid-sized businesses lose time, money and productivity the same way when information is not easily accessible. The good news is that this is fixable.
You don’t have to keep struggling. Building a knowledge base where you can organize and access information easily is the practical fix.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to build a knowledge base in 8 simple steps. Additionally, we’ll share a real-life case study to illustrate these steps in action, enabling you to create a system that saves time, reduces frustration, and keeps your team productive.
Table of contents
- What Is a Knowledge Base?
- What Are the Benefits of Building a Knowledge Base?
- 8 Steps to Create a Knowledge Base
- What types of knowledge base are there, and which should you build?
- Which articles should you write first?
- How long does it take to build a knowledge base, phase by phase?
- How do you launch a knowledge base so people use it?
- How did Jupiter build a knowledge base for its CX teams?
- Power Up Your Knowledge Base Journey with Knowmax
- Frequently asked questions about building a knowledge base
What Is a Knowledge Base?
A knowledge base, as the name suggests, is a database for all your organizational knowledge (see what a knowledge base is for the full definition). It is a system where you can store, organize, and share all the information your users need when creating a knowledge base.
There are 2 main types of knowledge base
#1 Internal Knowledge Base is created to help employees easily find information related to their job functions, processes, or company policies. It includes company policies, standard operating procedures, troubleshooting guides, and more.
2 External Knowledge Base is created to provide self-service support to customers or detailed information to partner clients. It includes FAQs, how-to guides, product or service documentation, and other information that helps users solve their problems quickly.
Start Your Knowledge Base Journey with Our KM Guide
What Are the Benefits of Building a Knowledge Base?
Building a knowledge base offers numerous advantages for organizations of all sizes:
1. Improved Productivity
Companies that implement knowledge management systems make information easier to find. McKinsey’s 2012 estimate was that a searchable record of knowledge could cut search time by as much as 35 percent, so teams spend less time searching and more time executing.
2. Enhanced Customer Support
Organizations with external knowledge bases give customers a way to find answers on their own. It only works when the content is findable: in a Gartner survey of 5,728 customers in December 2023, self-service fully resolved only 14% of issues, and 43% of failures happened because customers could not find relevant content.
3. Cost Savings
Effective knowledge base creation can lower training costs and support overhead, because new hires and customers get answers from one maintained source instead of from colleagues.
4. Better Decision Making
When building a knowledge base, you create a centralized repository that enables data-driven decision-making across all departments.
5. Knowledge Retention
Building a knowledge base ensures that critical organizational knowledge doesn’t leave with departing employees, protecting intellectual capital.
8 Steps to Create a Knowledge Base
Here is the step-by-step guide to building a knowledge base:
| Step | What you do | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Define the purpose and the users | A clear goal and audience |
| 2 | Choose a knowledge management tool | A platform to host the knowledge base |
| 3 | Decide on the content topics | A topic list based on user needs |
| 4 | Organize topics into categories | A navigable structure |
| 5 | Gather accurate, current information | Source material from documents, manuals, FAQs and experts |
| 6 | Create the content | Articles, FAQs, picture guides and workflows |
| 7 | Review and publish | Checked content, live |
| 8 | Update and improve regularly | A knowledge base that stays relevant |
1 Define the Purpose of Your Knowledge Base
Determine the main objectives of your knowledge base. Is it for customers, internal employee training, or another purpose?
Understanding who your users are and what they need from your knowledge base will help you decide the content.
#2 Choose the Right Knowledge Management Tools
Select software like a knowledge management system to host your knowledge base. Consider factors such as ease of use, accessibility, scalability, and integration capabilities.
This will help you make your knowledge management more accessible by embedding it into your website, app, or internally used software like CRMs. Our overview of the knowledge management system explains what to look for.
Start Your Knowledge Management Journey with a Free Checklist
#3 Decide on the Content Topics
Identify the range of topics that your knowledge base needs to include. Consider user needs, frequently asked questions and the important policies or procedures that need to be included when building a knowledge base.
#4 Organize Content Topics into Categories
Organize your topics into logical categories, making it easy to navigate. Your categories could be based on product lines, user roles, problem types, or other relevant criteria. This step is crucial in knowledge base design.
#5 Gather the Information You Need
Collect all the information that needs to be included in the knowledge base, and ensure that it is accurate and up to date.
This can involve compiling existing documents, manuals, FAQs, and insights from subject matter experts. You can even use a knowledge base template to streamline this process.
#6 Start Creating the Content
Start creating new content for your knowledge base using the information you collected.
But you don’t have to always start from scratch when building a knowledge base. You can also repurpose existing content into dynamic content formats such as FAQs, step-by-step picture guides, and next-best-action workflows.
#7 Review and Publish the Content
Before going live, review the content for accuracy, clarity, and comprehensiveness. Having multiple reviewers, including subject matter experts and end-users, might be helpful when you create a knowledge base.
#8 Regularly Update and Improve
Lastly, regularly update your knowledge base content to keep it relevant and useful when building a knowledge base for long-term success.
Schedule reviews to revise articles (these knowledge base best practices show how), add new information, and remove outdated content. Monitor usage patterns and feedback to identify areas for improvement. Stale content is the quickest way to lose users’ trust; these knowledge management statistics show why upkeep matters.
KM Implementation Guide: Start Your KM Journey
What types of knowledge base are there, and which should you build?
The two main types are internal and external, but most organizations end up needing a mix. The table adds a hybrid type and the format a knowledge base can take, which affects what you build first.
| Type | Who uses it | Typical content | Build it first when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Internal | Employees, such as support agents | Procedures, policies, troubleshooting, scripts, product detail | Agents are the bottleneck: long handling times, transfers, inconsistent answers |
| External | Customers and partners | FAQs, how-to guides, product documentation | Customers contact you for questions they could answer themselves |
| Hybrid | Both, with different access levels | Shared articles with a fuller internal version | You want one source of truth with two audiences |
| Guided or structured | Agents or customers following a process | Decision trees, step-by-step flows, picture guides | The answer depends on the customer’s situation or has many conditions |
Some examples of knowledge bases in the wild: a software company’s public help center, a contact center’s internal answers library used by agents during calls, an HR wiki for onboarding, and a developer documentation portal. They differ by audience, but the same steps apply.
Which articles should you write first?
Starting with everything produces a half-finished knowledge base. Start with the contacts that cost most. Pull a list of contact reasons from your help desk or phone system, then score each one.
| Question | Why it matters | How to score it |
|---|---|---|
| How often does this contact reason occur? | Volume decides payoff | Count of contacts in the last [90] days |
| How long does it take to resolve? | Long contacts save the most time | Average handling time for this reason |
| How often is it transferred or repeated? | Transfers show that agents lack the answer | Transfer and repeat contact rate |
| What is the risk of a wrong answer? | Money, legal and safety topics need review first | High, medium or low |
| How stable is the answer? | Volatile topics need owners and short review cycles | How often policy or product changed in the last year |
Rank by volume first, then raise anything high-risk. The first batch should cover the top contact reasons, not a fixed number of articles.
How long does it take to build a knowledge base, phase by phase?
Duration depends on content volume and how many reviewers are involved, so treat the ranges as planning assumptions to adjust, not benchmarks.
| Phase | What happens | Owner | Rough duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Scope | Agree the purpose, audience and success measures; list top contact reasons | Support lead | 1 to 2 weeks |
| 2. Set up | Choose the platform; define categories, templates and review rules | Knowledge manager and IT | 2 to 4 weeks |
| 3. First content | Write or convert the first batch for the top contact reasons | Topic owners and authors | 3 to 6 weeks |
| 4. Pilot | Release to a small agent group or customer segment and collect flags | Knowledge manager | 2 to 4 weeks |
| 5. Launch | Open to everyone, announce it, link it from the tools people use | Support lead | 1 week |
| 6. Improve | Weekly gap and flag review; monthly metrics; quarterly audit | Knowledge manager | Ongoing |
How do you launch a knowledge base so people use it?
- Pilot first. Release to a small group and fix the wrong answers before everyone sees them.
- Put it where the work happens. Link it from the help desk, the agent desktop and the product, rather than a separate site alone.
- Announce what changed. Tell agents which questions it now answers and how to flag an error.
- Retire the old sources. Mark old documents as superseded so nobody keeps using them.
- Measure from day one. Track searches with no result, articles opened during resolved contacts and flags raised.
For the article writing itself, see our guide to creating knowledge base articles.
How did Jupiter build a knowledge base for its CX teams?
Looking for a building a knowledge base example that truly delivers results? Here’s how Jupiter transformed its customer experience (CX) journey with Knowmax.
Knowmax is a guided knowledge management platform powered by AI. It empowers your CX team to deliver mistake-proof service across touchpoints with the right knowledge.
According to Knowmax’s webinar recap on guided knowledge for CX, Jupiter’s teams were dealing with:
- Knowledge scattered across sources such as spreadsheets and PDFs
- Complex SOPs that led to inconsistent resolutions
- Conflicting information reaching agents
Knowmax helped Jupiter overcome these challenges by building a knowledge base for their CX teams through their guided knowledge base creation approach.
A customer testimonial on the Knowmax site reads:
“Be it voice, chat, or email, we’ve seen a consistent improvement in overall service delivery. We’ve observed a drop in our AHT, and it has resulted in outstanding CSAT. For our long-term CX goals, Knowmax is one of our most preferred Partners.”
Power Up Your Knowledge Base Journey with Knowmax
Building a knowledge base is no longer optional, it’s essential if you want to boost productivity, reduce costs, and deliver a better customer experience.
Whether you’re just starting or improving your existing setup, success comes from taking action and keeping your content up to date.
That’s where Knowmax can help. It’s an AI-powered platform that makes building and managing a knowledge base scalable and straightforward.
Here’s what you’ll love about Knowmax:
- AI-powered content creation for faster setup.
- Support for all content formats, from articles to visual guides.
- Easy integrations with your CRM and helpdesk.
- Analytics to track usage and improve over time.
- Scalability that grows with your business.
Ready to make knowledge easy to find and use? Schedule a demo with Knowmax today and discover how AI-driven knowledge management can enhance your team’s productivity and customer experience.
See Knowmax in Action
Frequently asked questions about building a knowledge base
A good template gives you a structure to organize content clearly and make information easy to find. Start with this knowledge base template and adapt the categories to your users.
Start with content that helps agents solve problems faster, use a clear structure, add step-by-step guides and keep everything up to date. This guide on creating a knowledge base for customer service goes deeper.
Define the purpose, choose a knowledge management tool, decide on content topics, organize them into categories, gather the information, create the content, review and publish it, and update it regularly.
Knowmax is built for customer service teams that need guided knowledge, with AI-assisted content creation, multiple content formats, analytics and CRM and helpdesk integrations. Other tools may suit general team documentation better, so choose by who needs the answer and when.
Review and update outdated content, use analytics to see what users search for most, add visual guides, simplify navigation and collect feedback from your team or customers to fill content gaps.
Common examples are a software company’s public help center, a contact center’s internal answers library for agents, an HR wiki for onboarding, and a developer documentation portal. They differ by audience and format, but each is a maintained collection of owned, searchable answers.
Define the purpose and users, choose a platform, list the topics from real contact reasons, organize them into categories, gather accurate source material, write the content, review and publish it, then update it on a schedule. Start with the top contact reasons rather than everything at once.
The main types are internal, for employees, and external, for customers and partners. A hybrid combines both with different access levels, and a guided knowledge base delivers decision trees and step-by-step flows when the answer depends on the situation.
Its purpose is to let people find accurate answers quickly without asking someone else. For customers that means self-service, and for employees it means faster, more consistent answers and quicker onboarding.
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