The Freshdesk Knowledge Base or Solutions feature enables you to implement self-service options for your customers by creating a help center or knowledge base for your business.

This article contains:

What is a Knowledge Base?

A knowledge base is a library of well-organized content that serves as a self-service tool. It empowers both customers and employees to uncover answers to common queries and gain insights about the products and services. 

An efficient Knowledge Base can have different types of content, such as how-to guides, solution articles, FAQs, troubleshooting guides, user guides, and video tutorials.

Benefits of Knowledge Base

• Deflects repetitive questions
  A well-structured knowledge base covering all important topics minimizes repetitive questions, reducing the need for human intervention. This saves time for your support team and helps them focus on solving complex and unique issues, leading to a better experience for customers and agents.
• Delivers 24/7 customer support
  With information accessible at all times, the knowledge base ensures that customers can receive help and support whenever they need it, even outside business hours.
• Improves SEO and online visibility
  Optimizing knowledge base content for search engines can help improve your website’s visibility in search results and make it easier for potential customers to find information and solutions. 

Anatomy of the knowledge base

Freshdesk Knowledge Base has the following major building blocks:

• Category:
  A broader classification or top-level hierarchy of your Knowledge Base containing related information about a specific topic. For example, an e-commerce business help center can have categories like Orders, Refunds & Returns, Pricing, etc.
  
  
• Folder: A sub-category or a secondary hierarchy within a category. Folders allow you to have similar articles and other possible solutions for a particular category. For example, within the Orders Category, you can have folders such as Order Creation, Order Management, etc.
  
  
• Article: An article contains detailed information about the specific topic within the folders. Here are a few examples of articles that you can create within the “Order creation”:
  • Create an order
  • Delete order
  • Change the order
  • How to create an order?

For steps on creating categories, folders, and articles, see Create and Organize Knowledge Base.

Multi-level hierarchies

As your knowledge base grows, organizing articles within a limited structure becomes unmanageable and clunky. Using multi-level hierarchies, you can better represent your content in a six-level hierarchy—categories, folders, and sub-folders up to five levels.

For more details about flexible or multi-level hierarchies, see Create and Organize Knowledge Base.

Layout of the knowledge base

The layout of Knowledge Base is simple and easy to use and helps you manage all your content in one place, without having to switch between multiple tabs.

As soon as you navigate to the Solutions page, you can view the list of categories, drafts, and other options:

Tips and best practices

Check out our recommendations and best practices to help you craft a best-in-class Knowledge Base.

• Clear structure: Organize your content logically with precise headings, subheadings, and bullet points to help users navigate articles easily.
• Simple language: Use clear and simple language. Avoid jargon and complex terminology to make your content easily understandable.
• Descriptive headings and links: Use descriptive headings and link text that accurately describe the leading content.
• Alt Text for images: Provide descriptive alt text for all images to ensure users relying on screen readers can understand the visual content. 
• Accessible document formats:  Use accessible document formats, such as HTML or properly tagged PDFs, to ensure compatibility with screen readers.
• Colors: Ensure sufficient contrast between text and background colors to make content readable for users with low vision or color blindness.
• Transcripts for multimedia:  Provide transcripts or captions for videos and audio recordings to make multimedia content accessible to users with hearing impairments.
• Include accessible tables: Format tables with row and column headers to ensure they are accessible to screen readers.
• Test for accessibility: Regularly use accessibility tools and guidelines, such as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), to identify and fix accessibility issues.
• Responsive design: Ensure that your knowledge base articles are designed to be responsive and accessible across different devices and screen sizes.
• Provide alternative formats: Offer alternative formats such as plain text or downloadable PDFs for users who may have difficulty accessing the default format.
• Update accessibility guidelines: Stay updated with the latest accessibility guidelines and standards to ensure your knowledge base articles remain accessible as technology and best practices evolve.

Learn more

• Create and Organize Knowledge Base
• Manage Your Knowledge Base