Rich text editing and multimedia
Knowledge is more than just words. In order to get your point across, it’s almost always helpful to include screenshots, videos, and rich text - like bold and italics for emphasis.
Knowledge management software should offer easy to use rich text editing and file management that doesn’t make you want to pull your hair out. For example, is it easy to import images and resize them? What kind of tools can you embed to display video or code snippets in your articles?
Language controls
If you operate globally, or in multiple regions, you’ll likely need to offer multiple languages on your help center. A knowledge management system supports multilingual articles and helps manage a translation workflow.
Tagging articles with the right language will make sure that every visitor feels like you speak their language.
Reporting and analytics
In order to truly manage knowledge, you need to be able to measure the quality and the effectiveness of your efforts. This is why reporting and analytics are such a key feature of any knowledge management system.
Look for a system that offers robust reporting on documentation including:
- Number of Views per Article
- Search results
- Feedback from visitors
- Integration with Google Analytics for more advanced reporting
Being able to report on how many people are visiting your knowledge base weekly and monthly, and whether they are finding what they need will help you identify priorities for improvement. Detailed analytics can also help you show a return on investment for any knowledge projects based on tickets deflected.
Feedback collection
Just because an article has many visitors doesn’t mean it’s particularly effective at resolving their issue. Collecting user feedback on your knowledge base is an easy way to tell whether your articles are helpful and providing the answers customers are looking for.
For example, Freshdesk articles offer an option for readers to vote Yes or No to “Did you find it helpful?” at the bottom of each article. If they select No, they are given an option to leave free-form feedback about what could be improved.
For documentarians, this information is extremely valuable for focussing their work. If many customers report that an article is not helpful, it’s almost certainly time for an update.
Permission control
Especially if you’re just starting out, everyone on your team might be involved in writing and contributing to your knowledge base. But that doesn’t mean that everyone needs the ability to publish or update public articles. Having an editorial process means that you won’t have poorly worded articles or misinformation slipping into public view.
Look for a knowledge management system that offers fine-tuned permission controls to allow agents to draft articles and lend a hand, but restricts publishing permission only to the people that you trust for final review.
Viewership Control
Not every piece of organizational knowledge should be fully available to the public. There’s a ton of different reasons why you might want to restrict certain articles from certain types of viewers:
- Different plan types have different features
- Managers might have separate internal process articles than agents
- Logged in users might be able to see more than anonymous viewers
With a knowledge management system, you have full control over who can see each article, section or category of articles.
Customization
Keeping the same branding across all of your online assets (like your website, product and help center) helps build trust with your users because they can recognize who they are dealing with. Being able to customize your knowledge management system to look exactly as unique as your company makes your valuable documentation shine.
A modern KMS will let you incorporate your branding, logos, and color scheme to customize exactly what your customers see when they navigate to your support portal.