10 reasons to create a knowledge base right now

I’m going to be honest. Creating a knowledge base isn’t easy. It’s one of those things you know you need to do, but for some reason there seems to always be something more important or frankly more fun you could be doing.

There’s no lack of hard data and anecdotal evidence to show how valuable allowing your customers to help themselves can be. In fact, I would argue that self-service is downright sexy from a business perspective if you look at the stats.

So why do we put off building a knowledge base? The two biggest reasons are lack of time and lack of money.

While I’m guilty of blaming lack of time for not contributing to our help documentation, I know that being too busy to write knowledge base articles is exactly why you need a knowledge base in the first place.  What about money? The truth is that great knowledge base software doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. In fact, there’s free knowledge base software and online tools that can help you get a knowledge base up and running fast.

In case you need a little more inspiration, here’s 10 reasons why you should seriously consider creating a knowledge base right now.

1. Almost 90% of consumers go directly to business websites or turn to search engines to find information before any human to human interaction takes place, if it ever does.

When looking for information about your product or service, 9 out of 10 people will try to self-help on the web. This means that 9 out of 10 people would prefer to get an answer without having to contact you. The foundation of great customer service is getting the customer what they want. Are you?

2. 89% of consumers are ‘more satisfied’ when they get answers online quickly.

It’s awesome to be able to satisfy your customers when they contact you for help. You know what makes customers more satisfied, saves them time, and saves you time AND money? Great self-service. Almost 9 out of 10 customers are more happy when they can get fast help online.

3. 83% of consumers said they consistently need some type of support during their online experience.

If you have an online business or website, most of your customers will need help and most of them will be happier if they can get answers online quickly. If most of your customers need and want something, it seems to just make sense to have it. You know, if you want to stay in business.

4. 75% of consumers move to another channel when online customer service fails. Forrester estimates that unnecessary service costs due to channel escalations are $22 million on average.

Yes, customer service can be expensive. It’s much more expensive to help a customer over phone, email, or chat than it is to let them help themselves, and plus they are more satisfied when they self-service. Less satisfied customers and higher costs are things we’d generally like to avoid, so making sure your online service like your knowledge base doesn’t fail is important.

Personally, I’m much more concerned about the 25% of customers that don’t move to another channel when they can’t find answers on their own. That means that 1 in 4 customers aren’t getting help, and I’m worried they won’t be a customer for long.

5. 72% of consumers think online self-service is a fast and easy way to handle support issues

Think your customers don’t like to help themselves? Think again. 7 out of 10 agree that your knowledge base is a quick and simple way to deal with problems. You both agree, so where’s your knowledge base?

6. Over 70% of users prefer to go online to see if they can solve their problem before calling.

Most companies don’t love phone support. It’s expensive and difficult to scale. The good news is that more than 7 out of 10 consumers would rather get their answer online. If they can find it, you are saving both of yourselves an unwanted call.

7. 63% of customers are frustrated with the search bar in the support center.

More than 6 out of 10 customers are annoyed with the search for help. The customer wants a fast and easy answer, and while they might not prefer calling, they certainly don’t want to spend hours digging through search results.

Great knowledge bases not only provide great search functionality but more importantly great organization like a table of contents so that customers can quickly find what they need. Furthermore, some knowledge bases provide contextual FAQs to your customer, eliminating the need for search and creating a great online experience.

8. 51% of consumers want a FAQ or knowledge base on your website.

More than half of your customers want to see a FAQ or knowledge base. People want to know that if they need help it is going to be fast and easy. Just having self-service options available can attract more customers, and more than 80% of people will need help anyway.

9. More than 25% of users that leave a website do so because they can’t find the information they want in the first minute.

People don’t have a lot of patience, and a lack of fast and easy self-help options can cost you customers. 1 in 4 people who are looking for help will abandon the search if it takes more than 60 seconds.

If you are the company with the great knowledge base, you stand to gain those customers abandoning your competitors sites when they can’t find what they want.

10. 17% say not having to speak with someone is the top element of a great online experience.

At the end of the day, we aren’t generally shopping online because we want to talk to someone. While there are many factors that contribute to a great online experience (ease of use, speed, effort), close to 20% of customers say not having to talk to someone is the top one.

If you aren’t ready to create your knowledge base right now, what’s holding you back? KnowledgeOwl knowledge base software makes build a knowledge base easy, so schedule a demo or start a free trial today!