What is a Knowledge Base?

Knowledge base defined

A knowledge base is a centralized repository of information and business process knowhow designed to make it easier for organizations to organize, store, and retrieve data. It acts as a hub where employees and customers can find answers to common questions, discover solutions to problems, and get real-time guidance on processes such as customer service conversations.

Knowledge bases can be internal, serving employees, or external, serving customers, partners, and other external stakeholders. They are often layered with search and conversational interfaces to access the answers.

Knowledge base: Use cases

Knowledge bases have a wide array of applications across different industries and departments. Here are some common use cases:

Customer Support: Providing FAQs, troubleshooting guides, and how-to articles to customers.
Employee Training: Centralizing onboarding materials, company policies, and best practices.
Sales Enablement: Storing product details, sales strategies, and market research for quick access by sales teams.
IT and Technical Support: Documenting standard operating procedures (SOPs), troubleshooting methods, and IT policies.
Content Management: Organizing content for marketing, branding, or internal communications.

Knowledge Base: Benefits?

Implementing a knowledge base offers several advantages:

Increased Efficiency: Employees and customers can quickly find information, reducing time spent searching or waiting for answers and guidance.
Improved Customer Satisfaction: Self-service options empower customers to resolve issues faster, enhancing their experience. Human agents in the contact center also benefit from real-time guidance that an AI-powered knowledge base can provide.
Cost Reduction: Effective self-service minimizes the need for human-assisted support.
Enhanced Knowledge Retention: Preserving institutional knowledge ensures operational continuity even as employees leave or roles change.
Consistency: “Single source of truth” in the knowledge base reduces the risk of misinformation or miscommunication.

Knowledge Base Management: Best Practices?

To maximize the effectiveness of your knowledge base, follow these best practices:

Source trusted content: Glean frequently asked questions and answers—content and expertise—from conversation stores of high-performance experts across business functions, leveraging AI.
Structure and Organize: Use best practices in content authoring to make it consumable by AI agents and humans while leveraging AI to speed up content creation and curation.
Regular Updates: Keep content current to ensure accuracy and relevance.
Optimize for Search: Include keywords, metadata, search engine, and agentic interfaces to make information easily discoverable.
Leverage Multimedia: Incorporate videos, images, and infographics to make content engaging and easier to understand.
Solicit Feedback: Encourage users to provide feedback on articles to identify gaps and areas for improvement. Leverage AI to mine and summarize insights.
Track Metrics: Monitor usage statistics and user satisfaction to refine and optimize the knowledge base.

Knowledge base: Customer success

Multinational Financial Services Leader: By implementing a knowledge base with the eGain AI Knowledge Hub which provides conversational guidance to their frontline staff, the client achieved a 36% boost in First Contact Resolution and cut agent training time by 40%, while improving CX.
Large federal government agency achieved groundbreaking results with their knowledge base, built with the eGain AI Knowledge Hub™. They were able to divert up to 70% of incoming calls to AI virtual assistants, cut case handling time by 25%, and streamline online form-filling with AI knowledge assistance. These impactful improvements boosted agent engagement to 92%, well above the industry average of 67%.
Top-5 US P&C insurance carrier is transforming CX at speed by eliminating dozens of knowledge silos, unifying all enterprise knowledge and guidance in eGain. This centralized knowledge base will serve members with personalized, digital-first answers via self-service and contact centers — across business units and languages.