Keeping hold of existing customers can be a big challenge but with the right Knowledge Base Software you can save money, time and keep your customers satisfied. The time and resources spent finding a new client is between 5 to 25 times more than keeping the one you have already, therefore it makes sense. Ensuring a customer’s product knowledge base is up-to-date along with a quality product and competitive pricing is one way to retain a customer. Knowledge Base Software Features Allow for Self Service Gone are the days when frustrated tech support staff had to guide digitally inept customers through painfully simple processes over the phone. Now with almost half the population made up of Millennials and Gen Z, these generations of customers are no longer looking to be held by the hand. Customers want easy, fast and efficient ways of getting service without making contact with a person, nowadays, customers don’t want to waste time calling your support staff. Around 70% of customers actually expect your website to have its own self-service application. It’s vital to maintain a good internal knowledge base for your own product. To ensure you deliver exceptional customer support, reduce churn, raise your SERP ranking, and reduce costs you need to make sure you choose the right knowledge base software. Here are 7 essential knowledge base software features: 
1. A Super-Fast Knowledge Base Customers don’t have patience these days, in fact, the average attention span in now shorter than that of a goldfish – only 8 seconds! Not only that, with everything being readily available at a tap of a finger, your website needs to have fast functioning pages to keep the customer happy and not divert. Distractions are everywhere and your competitors in the market are fighting for your user’s attention. Your customers don’t like waiting so you need to make sure that the SaaS-based knowledge base software you select delivers the performance required for your customer base. 
2. A Killer Search Engine It is vital to have a good search engine. You may have everything structured, categorised and looking nice but the first place your customers will be heading will be your search box. Your knowledge base software needs to have a search engine integrated that delivers results fast, even with thousands of articles and documentation to scroll through – this is down to customers being a little bit lazy. Your customers may not know the exact names of the products you offer and they may enter the incorrect spelling or they might simply type two words instead of three to find the product. Having your products labelled in your knowledge base and therefore your search engine needs to be forgiving and allow for partial searches. When choosing a SaaS-based knowledge base product, it’s important to choose one that comes with a top-class search capability to provide relevant content to your customers. 3. User Feedback and Analytics
The information inside your knowledge base software should be updated and edited constantly. Make your knowledge base more comprehensive by asking your customers, this way you can see what improvements are needed and what articles they find helpful. Your knowledge base software should include customer insights built in so that you can understand what your customers are looking for. 
4. Clean User Experience Hand in hand with customer experience (CX) comes user experience (UX) when looking to reduce your churn rate. Quick page uploads and an effective search engine help improve your sites stickiness and SERP ranking. Your knowledge base software should allow you to offer an uncluttered and simple user experience. The search function should work quickly and be easily searchable on the internet. Having engaging video tutorials could help you rank on YouTube, and textual content that ranks well on Google. Find a knowledge base software that offers customisation possibilities such as adding colours and graphics to best reflect your brand. 
5. Uncompromised Authoring Adding documentation should be simple, so find a knowledge base software with uncomplicated text authoring experience and easy way to add customise. Writing new content hassle free without all the added obnoxious jargon will make writing new articles more enjoyable for your team. Keep it simple. Neither you nor your customers should have to ask for help. If you find that you do, it may not be the best knowledge base software for your SaaS product. 
6. Enterprise Grade Backup Your knowledge base software should come complete with enterprise grade backup as a standard. It should have the capability to restore and reversion when and where necessary. Be careful, as some providers will only offer partial backup or none at all. It would be a shame to lose all the hard work your team has put in to all of a sudden be wiped clean by a system error. Make sure when choosing your knowledge base product, it comes with a good backup/restore story to address human errors in addition to system errors. 
7. Search Engine Optimisation There’s no point spending hours optimising your knowledge base with SEO practice by filling it with keywords and search terms to help your website rank when your knowledge base software doesn’t come with SEO friendly practices built in. Be sure to find out whether your knowledge base software has SEO friendly URLs, and if you can generate a sitemap for it. Knowledge base software out of the box should support SEO basic standards and help you to boost your content’s visibility and ranking. Conclusion Using a knowledge base software for your product can work wonders for your ranking, as well as enriching your customer experience. About 45% of companies offering self-service customer support report an increase in traffic and a decrease in phone calls. But be sure to choose the right one for you. Make sure it allows you to collect user insights and serves up a simple and satisfying user experience. Invest in one that backs up your work at all times and has built-in SEO best practices and then get writing! Are you ready to get started with a knowledge base software for your team? Take advantage of your Document360 free trial now! Contact sales@qbssoftware.com or call 020 8733 7103 to discuss further.
