Why standalone knowledge bases are in a league of their own

Catherine Heath | February 23, 2021

There’s a big difference between help desk software solutions and standalone knowledge base software. Help desk software often comes with a knowledge base included as an add-on, while standalone knowledge base software does just one thing: provide a knowledge base solution. 

Back in the day, enterprise software was your only option if you wanted to host some kind of online information repository for your company, beyond a simple FAQs page. You had to pay a lot of money for access to software that didn’t quite meet your needs.  

Now, a whole industry has developed for standalone knowledge base software, as they are more than simply a subset of full stack help desk solutions. 

As companies and products have changed, so has the self-service software available. 

Knowledge bases are an art

A knowledge base is a centralized repository of information designed to help your customers or employees. It can contain reference documentation, how-to guides, troubleshooting guides, and more. The aim of a knowledge base is to answer the most common questions about your product or service. 

Knowledge bases require you to put in time and dedication to reap their full benefits. You need to spend a significant amount of time planning and implementing your knowledge base in order to effectively help your customers or employees.  

Arguably other help desk software such as ticket systems or live chat are simply operational tools that enable your customer service agents to do their job. 

Knowledge bases have far more potential than just helping with customer service behind the scenes. 

Knowledge base benefits

There are many benefits to having a knowledge base, 

1. They are a public showcase of your company’s dedication to your customers. 

2. They enable your customers to get more out of your products and achieve better value for their money. 

3. They raise staff morale and reduce spend on customer service by eliminating most basic, repetitive queries.

4. They are available 24/7 to help your customers even while your support team is sleeping. 

5. You can help your customers faster by referring to knowledge base articles – support reps can send the whole article or relevant excerpts.  

6. They help you turn your customers into loyal, long term fans.

7. Knowledge base content can rank in Google and bring more organic traffic to your site. 

8. Having all your information in one place means you can onboard new employees more quickly.  

With all these benefits to knowledge base software, it’s easy to see why you might want to invest in a solution. 

Long term customers

Knowledge base software has a big impact on customer satisfaction. You’re helping customers to help themselves, after all, and reducing the chances that they will simply churn without ever reaching out to support. 

A new customer is 6-7 times more expensive than a returning customer and you’ve got a far higher probability of selling to someone you’ve already sold to before. This means you need to look after your long term customers. 

It’s not enough to buy some help desk software and hope it will provide you with the functionality you need to create an awesome knowledge base. You need to invest in high quality standalone knowledge base software to satisfy your customers and create loyal fans. 

70% of customers would rather use a company’s website to find the answers to their problems rather than speak to an agent. If you have a complex product, you need to ensure that your customers can self-serve efficiently with your knowledge base. 

Help desk software is top heavy

Full stack help desk software meets a need for companies that require heavy duty ticketing systems and accompanying features such as omni channel support and live chat. 

But to provide a knowledge base that fulfils its purpose for your customers, help desk software is not always the best option. Sure, it might come with a knowledge base bundled in – such as Help Scout’s Docs, Zendesk’s Guide, or Intercom’s Articles – but this knowledge base is intended for use alongside the ticketing system. 

You have to invest in the entire help desk solution in order to access the knowledge base, and you might not need all this functionality. If you do, great – but if not, you might want to think about standalone knowledge base software. 

Standalone knowledge base software has been lovingly developed to provide the best possible customer experience and platform to host your documentation. 

Internal knowledge bases

Finally, if your team is simply in need of an internal knowledge base - an upgrade from using Google Docs or a shared folder - help desk software is wildly inappropriate. You don’t need your knowledge base to integrate with the ticketing system when you simply want an online repository for your employees to access. 

You’re not going to benefit from paying through the nose for software you don’t need, when a simple system for knowledge-sharing is all your company is looking for. 

Standalone knowledge bases are easily adapted for use internally by staff, or externally by customers. You only pay for the number of accounts you need to write and publish content, so it’s easy to keep costs under control this way too. 

Industry leading knowledge base software

Now we’re going to go through some of the best knowledge base software in the business. 

KnowledgeOwl

We’ll start with our very own knowledge base software KnowledgeOwl. We’re among the top rated knowledge base software on G2 Crowd. You can organize your information into categories and subcategories, use tags to relate articles by terms or phrases to improve findability, and share categories and articles across knowledge bases. 

You can make your content secure and prevent unauthorized access using SSO, remote authentication with your website or app, logins, passwords, or IP addresses. You can easily who can view, edit or access your knowledge base. 

Create content using the WYSIWYG editor containing headers, lists and tables. Drag and drop files and images, or embed videos and PDFs. Create article templates or use global snippets to quickly add content. 

KnowledgeOwl comes with a powerful search that autosuggests articles for the user. You can also customize your knowledge base to your heart’s content, so it falls in line with your brand’s style. No coding experience is required. 

Document360

Document360 is a knowledge base software solution that offers extensive collaboration features. The markdown editor allows you to create content in markdown while also allowing you to use the WYSIWYG editor if you choose. You can create both internal and external knowledge bases, and create more than one knowledge base per account. 

Helpjuice

Helpjuice is modern, intuitive knowledge base software that’s very customizable. Multiple authors can work on an article at the same time and it’s possible to have different versions of an article. Your knowledge base can be public, internal, or set for specific users to access. It offers powerful knowledge base analytics so you can improve your knowledge base in response to user activity. 

Conclusion

If you’re in the market for a knowledge base, do your research. There’s a whole world of standalone knowledge base software out there, perfect for your company. 

Don’t just settle for paying more for software you don’t need, when you can get it right. It’s often cheaper to invest in standalone knowledge base software rather than hoping you can just make do with add-on knowledge base software from a help desk provider. 

Invest in your customers by providing them with an exceptional knowledge base designed to educate them about your products and services. Or, help your employees with an internal knowledge base that keeps everyone on the same page. 

KnowledgeOwl will help you achieve all this with our award-winning knowledge base software. Sign up today for a free trial.