Answering product/service-related questions

In the context of customer service, the term knowledge base refers to a database or a platform that’s an online self-service library used for answering product/service-related questions. Its primary purpose is to store information related to a company, its products, services, processes, and departments, to name a few.

Businesses invest time, money, and other resources into their knowledge bases to empower their customers to resolve product or service-related issues independently. By freeing up customer service agents from tickets that customers can resolve independently, businesses can decrease ticket loads and save large sums of money.

The costs of customer service and possible savings

A study by Oracle and Forrester Consulting found the cost per contact on many channels. The cost of making one phone call is approximately $11. Live chat costs you $5 per contact, email responses $2.50, and web self-service $0.10.

Let’s do some quick math: if your customer service agents handle 50 calls per day, it costs your company $2,750 per week! Add a few live chat conversations and email answers per day, and it adds up to a considerable amount of money. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as your customers deserve outstanding customer service (and it should be in your company’s best interests to provide them with it.)

However, if you could create a space where your customers can look for solutions to their problems mostly independently, why wouldn’t you do so? Data from Aspect Software indicates that 73% of customers are willing to solve issues related to a product or service independently. Research by Steven Van Belleghem shows that 70% of those surveyed expect a business’s website to provide a customer self-service option. Moreover, Accenture’s report indicates that companies could save $1-3 million per year by introducing self-service options to their customer service offering.

It seems that creating a knowledge base can bring your customers, service agents, and company many benefits. To get your knowledge base started, we’ve created a few free templates that you can use to answer product or service-related questions. Remember that if an agent answers one customer’s question correctly, hundreds or even thousands of other users can solve their issue by reading that answer.

Templates for answering product/service-related questions

Answering a question about the product’s/service’s features

Answering a question about product repairs

Answering user suggestions related to product/service