What are noteworthy examples of knowledge bases for customers?

A knowledge base is a crucial way for helping your customers serve themselves, and overcome common obstacles without having to reach out to support. It keeps your customer support queries low, and the morale of your support team high. Businesses often use specialized knowledge bases to enable their customers self-serve their own queries. 

We’re always on the lookout for impressive knowledge bases. There are a number of companies that have struck gold with their knowledge bases, and we want to share four examples with you.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a great resource for people researching email marketing in general as well as specific Mailchimp-related issues. 

Mailchimp immediately presents their users with the top four categories people are normally likely to search within to orient them. 

Then, if you scroll down, the topics are organized into more specific categories based on the user’s likely intentions. 

Trainline

Trainline is a UK-based digital company that makes it easy to buy cheap train tickets online, rather than having to queue at busy ticket machines or buy through over-priced train websites. 

As with Mailchimp, the search bar is prominent and yet contact details are easily accessible on every page. They’ve understood the spirit of a knowledge base, which is to enable customers to self-serve while keeping the lines of communication open for those who really need it. 

Trainline have even included live service updates because they know that’s something their customers will be looking for. You can really tell how customer-centric this business is. 

Take note of their friendly, down-to-earth tone as inspiration for the copy on your own knowledge base. 

Airbnb

International hospitality company Airbnb also has a great knowledge base that is beautifully-designed and on-brand. This is in keeping with their ethos of providing an amazing service that both hosts and guests are thrilled to use. 

They even have a ‘suggested for you’ section that is tailored to your particular needs as a customer, so if you’re currently on a trip then you will see information relating to that. Or, if you’re a host, you’ll see content related to hosting. 

The layout makes excellent use of white space to guide the user’s eye around the page, and the interface is secure in order to ensure that users’ details are protected. 

Bluehost

Bluehost is a popular web hosting company with a fantastic knowledge base. They’re an example of getting simplicity right. 

Their customer support contact details are prominently displayed at the bottom of every page, and a live chat link is available in the main menu bar. You will probably never even need to contact them, though, because all common problems are expertly addressed in their comprehensive knowledge base articles. 

They also have a useful email programme in which they send relevant content to new customers to help them learn how to use the software. 

Hubspot

Hubspot is a sales software company which provides a fantastic knowledge base that puts search front and centre. You can see how Hubspot are really dedicated to helping their customers by offering a Community, Knowledge Base, and their Academy. 

If you deep dive into Hubspot’s knowledge base, you can see that their help content is divided up by product. Their icons are very cute, inviting users to browse further into the knowledge base. The knowledge base is on-brand, and welcomes users who might not know exactly what they’re looking for. 

However, once you reach the actual category page, articles are simply provided in a long list, which is not the best experience for users. 

Wistia

Wistia is a video software company and they provide a beautiful knowledge base for their users. There’s a status bar at the bottom of the page which shows that all their systems are operational, along with a floating search bar which means customers can search from any page. There’s also an easy way to submit a ticket, meaning customers are never more than a click away from human help. 

Wistia follows up with a list of top articles on the homepage so customers can easily browse content that has been an issue for others like them. 

Whatfix

Digital adoption platform company Whatfix provides an easy to navigate knowledge base for their users. It gets straight to the point with a search bar then presents categories for easier browsing. The color scheme is easy on the eyes and on-brand with the rest of Whatfix. 

Whatfix provides a truly extensive amount of documentation that is presented as an unordered list, which might make things difficult for customers trying to browse the documentation. There is so much content in this knowledge base that it’s a little overwhelming. 

Overall the Whatfix knowledge base is an invaluable resource for customers, answering almost any question you could possibly think of. 

Stripe

Stripe is a payment processing company and they link to their docs directly from the homepage. This is a good sign as it shows how important the support knowledge base is.  Stripe has opted to anchor their navigation menu on the left so customers always have a full overview of the different content categories. There’s a small search bar at the top of the page but Stripe surfaces popular articles right up front. You can toggle through a few different categories to find what you need. 

If you’ve just started using Stripe, you should find the answers to all your questions in this thoughtfully laid out knowledge base. Stripe uses a long scrolling page for each of its categories so customers don’t have to jump around between pages. They can browse content and then dive into an article when they find what they need. 

Firefox

Firefox is an internet browser company and they provide a very simple knowledge base for their varied users. The emphasis is on search and Firefox provides a short list of popular searches. There is a link at the top to ask the community for help, since Firefox is a not-for-profit organization and they don’t have software support teams at the ready. Further down the page Firefox includes a list of top software categories so customers can search by product. 

As you dig deeper into Firefox’s knowledge base they provide a simple interface of subcategories to help customers navigate to the content they need. Their documentation is comprehensive which is impressive for an open source company. 

Plausible

Plausible is a website analytics company and they provide a very simple, refreshing knowledge base for their users. There is a small search bar at the top of the screen, but otherwise the content categories are laid out on the left-hand nav. Customers feel comfortable just clicking through the content to find what they need. The company is open source and this fact is reflected in having the ability to edit any of the pages using Github. 

Plausible is truly customer-focused with this self-service knowledge base. 

Conclusion

Take your cue from these companies who are doing knowledge bases really well. Make sure your search bar is prominent and your articles are tagged with the right keywords. 

Have contact details for your support team, either a phone number or live chat, readily available on every page, so your customers can easily speak to a real person if needed. 

Suggest articles for your customers based on the most commonly-asked questions, personalize for different types of users, and even include extra features to show you’ve thought hard about your customers’ needs.

A knowledge base is a crucial way for helping your customers serve themselves, and overcome common obstacles without having to reach out to support. It keeps your customer support queries low, and the morale of your support team high. Businesses often use specialized knowledge bases to enable their customers self-serve their own queries. 

We’re always on the lookout for impressive knowledge bases. There are a number of companies that have struck gold with their knowledge bases, and we want to share four examples with you.