How To Create an Outstanding Ecommerce Knowledge Base
When buying something new, it’s natural to have questions. You might want to know about a return policy for a piece of furniture or sizing information for a clothing item. In person, you can ask an associate and get an answer. Online, it’s not as simple. Since people can easily navigate away from one site to another if they can’t get an answer, it makes getting them responses quickly even more important.
Almost every contact method for a live person means waiting on some level. So, the ideal situation is giving customers the ability to answer questions on their own. That’s why an ecommerce knowledge base is important.
What is an ecommerce knowledge base?
An ecommerce knowledge base is a self-service tool that empowers customers to find answers to common questions about your products and business. It’s basically a digital library containing articles about any number of things like size charts, return and exchange processes, and any other information you want to share with customers.
What are the benefits of creating a knowledge base for your ecommerce business?
Creating an ecommerce knowledge base does take a decent bit of effort, but it’s well worth it. Some of the biggest benefits are:
Faster response times for customers. With a knowledge base, customers are able to find answers to their questions immediately, with no need to wait on a response from a support agent. It’s also very useful if you have limited support hours as it lets customers answer questions even when your team is away.
Fewer requests for human agents. When people are able to find answers themselves — which 81% of people try to do — that means fewer questions for your support team. Fewer questions means more time for them to focus on high-impact work, including more complex cases that require their expertise.
Lower cost to serve. Building a knowledge base isn’t free, but once it’s built, the cost to maintain it is relatively low. Because of that, having a knowledge base generally reduces support teams' overall cost-to-serve numbers.
Simpler onboarding. Having a repository of company information isn’t just good for customers; it’s also good for new hires to your team. They can use knowledge base articles to get acquainted with all sorts of information about your company, products, and policies.
A single source of truth. It’s normal for different policies and procedures to change over time. However, those changes can be hard for internal staff to keep up with. A knowledge base can serve as the go-to resource for your team when they have questions. Using that rule also ensures that customers get consistent answers, no matter who they talk to.
What to include in an ecommerce help center?
There’s a lot you could potentially include in an ecommerce knowledge base. That said, there are a few things we think everyone should include to ensure the best experience for customers.
Search bar
Knowledge bases are all about giving customers the ability to find answers quickly and on their own. Search bars are one of the best ways to accomplish that. You could also consider options with things like Help Scout’s Beacon tool, which is a chat-style pop-up that can suggest articles to customers based on the page they’re viewing.
FAQ
If you’ve worked in support, you know some questions are just more common than others. Having an FAQ section or something similar helps customers get access to commonly asked questions quickly. It saves time and effort, leading to a better overall experience for knowledge base visitors.
Article rating
Article rating gives viewers the ability to share direct feedback with your team. For example, Help Scout’s knowledge base product gives teams the option to add a “Was this article helpful?” question at the end. If an article gets a good rating, chances are it’s hitting the mark. If not, it’s probably a sign you need to update the information or create something totally new.
Contact information
Even the most complete knowledge bases don’t have all the answers. In those cases, having contact information for your support team readily available helps create a better overall customer experience.
5 ecommerce knowledge base examples
We think one of the best ways to get a good start is with a few solid knowledge base examples. Below are five top-notch ecommerce help centers worth emulating.
1. Everlane
Everlane is an online apparel retailer. Their knowledge base design is minimalist, matching the rest of their site. The “quick actions” section at the top is a great touch, offering customers quick access to do common things like track a package or start a return.
The rest of the knowledge base is well-organized and easy to navigate. There’s a search bar viewers can use to quickly find articles on the topic they’re interested in. Each article also allows the viewer to rate an article as helpful or not helpful.
2. Lunya
Lunya makes and sells luxury rest wear (aka fancy pajamas). Again, we see that their knowledge base aesthetic matches their main website. It’s certainly a simpler knowledge base, but all the information is easily accessible. The quick links on the left-hand side of the page are also incredibly convenient for customers.
They do a good job of continuing the brand’s tone. Sometimes knowledge bases can be a little stuffy, so when a brand shows a little personality, it can be unexpected and provide a fun touchpoint for those visiting the knowledge base. Also, kudos to them for having the contact button clearly visible and easy to access.
3. Article
Article is a direct-to-consumer furniture company. Their knowledge base is incredibly easy to navigate. There are different sections (shipping, returns, etc.) which contain lists of frequently asked questions related to those topics. They also include the “popular topics'' below their search bar, displaying the most read articles.
It’s also helpful that they’ve included a number of different ways to get in touch with live support. Having options and making them easy to find is a nice touch and ensures customers have a great experience even if they can’t find what they’re looking for in the knowledge base.
4. Casper
Casper is another example of a well-designed knowledge base that’s incredibly easy for customers to navigate. Once you click into a specific section, you see a number of related articles. They even have a sidebar of “trending articles” which can be useful for quick access.
Similar to others, they don’t hide the contact button from customers, which is always a nice touch. They do keep it focused on email, but it’s still a great customer touchpoint.
5. Starface
Starface is a company that makes a number of different cosmetic products. They’re a relatively new brand that’s focused on a younger customer base, and we appreciate that their knowledge base reflects that in both design and tone of the writing. They use slang and more informal language, which is very fitting for their brand.
Similar to the others mentioned here, information is well-organized and they include a “top questions” section, giving visitors quick access to some of the more common questions. They also include their support team’s email address in case someone needs additional support.
Tips for creating an ecommerce knowledge base
Creating an ecommerce knowledge base may sound a bit daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. With a solid plan in place, you can create a valuable resource that serves your company and customers for years to come.
Get organized
Though an ecommerce knowledge base serves multiple functions, the core value it provides is making information accessible. If people aren’t able to easily navigate through the information or it’s not well-organized, people won’t use it.
Take the time to split articles up into different sections and group related articles so they’re easy to find. Do your best to create a wireframe of how you’ll organize articles prior to starting, and don’t rely solely on your own judgment. Have someone outside the team building it review the wireframe and tell you if it makes sense.
Make it searchable
Even better than a well-organized knowledge base is one customers can easily search. It’s fairly common for knowledge base builders to include search capabilities. You just need to be sure to tag articles properly. If you want to go a step further, some now have AI-assistants — like Help Scout’s AI answers — that provide customer-facing responses based on your help center’s content as well previous customer conversations. This takes the burden of searching for the right answer off of your customer’s shoulders.
Get multiple inputs
Customer support teams often handle the creation and maintenance of knowledge bases. Having a sole owner is probably a good idea, but it’s also useful to get other teams involved since customer support won’t always be the subject matter experts on every topic.
Update information regularly
Access to information is only valuable if it’s correct. Since changes are inevitable, it’s important to regularly review information in your knowledge base to ensure it’s up to date. The easiest way to do this is by setting a regular review cadence.
It’s often easiest to do reviews on a rolling basis. This means you check articles at a set interval after writing (it could be once a year or every six months). This method ensures that you regularly check articles but at a low volume. If you try to review the entire knowledge base at once, it can be a bit overwhelming!
Moving forward
When buying online, people have questions. Getting them answers quickly could be the difference between them clicking “buy” or moving on to another site. Ecommerce knowledge bases give customers a resource to find answers on their own and help reduce support requests.
When done thoughtfully and maintained at a regular cadence, a knowledge base can provide an incredible amount of value to customers and businesses alike. If you want to learn about some other top-notch ecommerce tools, check out our article on 29 Ecommerce Tools to Scale Your Business.
Jesse Short
After spending a few years working as a support agent, Jesse made the switch to writing full-time. He is a Help Scout alum, where he worked to help improve the agent and customer experience.
