Your Guide to Building a Corporate Knowledge Base in 7 Steps

Your business might be sitting on a mountain of data: your internal and external documentation, files scattered across devices, emails, chat groups, consumer insights, and third-party analytics. All this is gold, but only if you can find a way to unify this raw data and turn it into a functioning corporate knowledge base.

If this sounds familiar, continue reading, because in this article, you’ll learn:

• What business knowledge base is
• Why you need one in the first place
• How you can build one yourself in just 7 steps
• Best practices for corporate knowledge base UI
• Ways to use AI to automate internal business search

By the end of the article, you’ll have enough information to start building your own functioning and efficient business knowledge repository.

Let’s begin!

What is a corporate knowledge base?

A corporate knowledge base is a self-serve online library of information about a product, service, department, or topic.

Think of your business knowledge base as a large online library of every detail about your business—from internal processes like accounting, payroll, and HR to external operations like customer support, customer information, various products, marketing, outreach campaigns, and more.

Don’t get confused—a blog or resources page on your website isn’t a proper business knowledge repository. It’s only part of it.

The problem is that you likely already have this information, but it’s scattered across internal drives, team conversations, emails, third-party integrations, and whatnot. The goal is to connect all this data and systematize it so you can use it in your day-to-day operations.

A functioning internal knowledge base has to:

• Store information accessible to employees of a company
• Contain customer support tickets, product documentation, company policies, procedures, and other business and customer information
• Provide easy access to the information needed to perform job duties effectively

A great benefit is having an AI-powered knowledge base to help you systematize information in the most convenient way, such as through chats or direct suggestions.

Why your company needs a business knowledge base

If you’ve been running your company for years and have multiple departments and locations, connecting relevant information might sound like a major headache. And you might think: “Well, I can just send a Slack message to a colleague or go through our help desk articles.”

That’s true, but on average, knowledge workers spend 2 hours a day just searching for information. That adds up to over 400 hours per year. We think you’ll agree: there’s a better way to use that time than waiting for a colleague’s response.

When people are spending time searching for answers, they’re not spending it on the work at hand.

Having a functioning and organized corporate knowledge base not only saves time but also helps you avoid critical errors and enables different departments to work more efficiently. Let’s look at the main departments in your company that could directly benefit from a knowledge repository.

• IT: Your IT team is probably tired of responding to the same “How do I reset my password?” emails. With the help of a knowledge base, they can point users to a self-serve article, saving hours each week. Or use it themselves to streamline troubleshooting, onboarding new team members, and more.
• HR: For HR, a knowledge base is a central hub for employee onboarding, policy distribution, and FAQs. New hires can access everything from the company handbook to the latest pay schedule without having to email HR for every document.
• Legal: A shared knowledge base supports the legal team by housing contract templates, policy guidelines, and trademark procedures in one secure place. For example, instead of rewriting NDAs for every partnership, teams can pull the latest approved version instantly.
• Customer support: A knowledge base is especially beneficial for your customer support teams. They can use it to provide quick answers to common customer questions, reducing ticket volume and improving customer satisfaction. Say they aren’t sure if one of your hotels in France is pet-friendly. A well-optimized knowledge repository can answer this and offer timely support.
• Sales: Sales teams benefit from having access to up-to-date product specs, pricing sheets, and battle cards. For example, when a lead asks about integration capabilities, a salesperson can instantly share a knowledge base link with all the technical details—no need to ping engineering.

7 benefits of an internal knowledge base for companies

Having an optimized knowledge base that you can actually use is a gold mine. But the time you save is just a fraction of the total benefits it can bring. Let’s look at some key improvements you’ll notice in your business after building one.

1. Increased efficiency

With a centralized platform for information, employees can quickly find what they need without having to search through multiple systems or reach out to colleagues for assistance.

Let’s say your customer support agent is on a call with a client. The customer asks to cancel their order and process a refund. Instead of the agent asking them to hold and going through company policies, the knowledge base can provide the answer just by typing a few keywords. 

You save even more time with an AI-powered corporate knowledge management, where direct answers are just a prompt away—no lengthy documentation or relevant FAQs required.

2. Improved customer support

A corporate knowledge base can house customer support tickets and provide employees with quick access to customer information, history, and past interactions. With this, your staff can improve their ability to assist customers and handle problems more efficiently.

A truly efficient corporate knowledge management is automated and connected with other business systems. Imagine a customer emailing to ask about upgrading their subscription. Instead of the agent searching for their information across systems and chat history, a connected knowledge base can use data from your CRM and customer records to provide answers quickly.

3. Enhanced collaboration

A corporate knowledge base can help break down silos within a company by providing a platform for teams to share information and knowledge. Better outcomes, faster decision-making, and improved collaboration can result from this.

One thing is true: when your team is small, you can ask questions just by tapping your colleague on the shoulder. But once you grow to hundreds or thousands of employees across multiple international departments, things get more complicated.

For example, if a SaaS company onboards a large customer, a knowledge base lets them connect accounting, sales, marketing, customer support, product, and other teams. This allows everyone to collaborate on providing the best experience for the new client. That way, no detail goes missing, and processes move faster.

4. Consistent information

With a corporate knowledge base, companies can ensure that all employees have access to the same information, reducing the risk of miscommunication or conflicting details.

Misinformation spreads like wildfire and can confuse your customers and teams, as well as damage your reputation. Imagine your website still lists an outdated return policy while your support team follows a new one. A customer sees the old policy, expects a full refund, but only gets store credit. This leads to frustration, a bad review, and a support escalation that could have been avoided with a single, updated knowledge base article.

5. Faster onboarding and lower training costs

On average, companies spend around $1,280 per employee on onboarding costs. While a knowledge repository doesn’t replace onboarding, it can help a lot. After the initial onboarding, new hires can use the automated knowledge base to look up information and learn about your business, products, and services.

For example, if a new customer support agent joins a SaaS company, instead of scheduling multiple shadowing sessions with senior staff, they can use the internal knowledge base to learn how to:

• Handle common issues
• Read company policies
• Understand product workflows

Within a week, they’re already resolving tickets independently, cutting onboarding time in half, and saving training resources.

6. 24/7 access to information

Whether your teams work remotely, in a hybrid model, or you manage multiple international departments, having 24/7 access to information is key. A centralized knowledge repository can provide that.

Imagine a developer based in Japan is working late and hits a roadblock with the company’s deployment process. Instead of waiting for the U.S.-based DevOps engineer to wake up, they find the step-by-step deployment guide in the knowledge base and resolve the issue themselves. Work continues without delay—even across time zones or during holidays.

7. Scalability

As your company grows, it becomes more difficult to gather and process data, which gets scattered across departments and teams. An AI-powered knowledge repository prevents this from happening—it scales alongside your business.

For example, if a small marketing agency grows from 10 to 50 employees in a year, instead of each new person asking the same questions about client workflows or brand guidelines, they can all access a centralized business library. This way, you avoid repeated explanations, prevent process drift, and ensure consistency across teams—even as the company scales quickly.

Your 7-step guide to building a corporate knowledge base

Now that you’re familiar with the benefits and examples of knowledge bases, you can start building your own. Below, we go over the 7 steps to make it happen.

Step 1. Define your objectives

Before you begin creating your knowledge base, define your goals. Of course, having everything in one place is the main objective, but be more specific. What goals do you want to achieve with your knowledge base?

Some potential goals could be:

• Reducing repetitive questions and support requests
• Improving the consistency and accuracy of information
• Speeding up onboarding and training
• Preserving institutional knowledge
• Enhancing cross-functional collaboration

This will help you determine what information to include and how to structure it.

Step 2. Identify your audience

Who will be using your knowledge base? Identify the different groups of users and their specific information needs. Do you plan to use the knowledge base company-wide, or just for HR, legal, IT, and support departments?

This will help you create content tailored to their needs and preferences. If you’re using it only for internal company processes like legal and HR, you need to optimize it accordingly. Information should focus on relevant topics instead of collecting data on customers, IT procedures, or sales.

Step 3. Gather your information

Collect all the information you want to include in your knowledge base, such as:

• Customer support tickets
• Product documentation
• Company policies and guidelines
• Procedures and workflows

However, it’s easier said than done. Gathering information manually takes time and is prone to error. Or if you’re looking for information to “feed” to an AI system, just a few missed data points can skew its answers and sentiment. That’s why modern tools that analyze all your data without manual input are much more effective at getting the job done.

For example, Capacity, AI-powered customer support automation software, connects data across your communication tools, third-party integrations, internal channels, and more. This way, you get a full 360-degree business view without missing any details.

Step 4. Organize your information

Once you have all your information, organize it into categories and subcategories. This will help users find what they need quickly and easily.

If you’re relying on tools, they should be able to do this for you. Based on keywords, historical data, and sentiment, an AI-powered knowledge base can automatically organize and segment the data.

Step 5. Choose a platform

There are many corporate knowledge base software options available for creating an internal knowledge base, including:

• Custom-built solutions
• Open-source software
• AI-powered tools 

Choose a platform that fits your budget, objectives, and audience. These platforms can make the whole process much easier. Instead of manually collecting information, they do that automatically for you.

To choose strategically, invest time in:

• Exploring multiple options
• Analyzing their features and functionality
• Reading customer reviews
• Understanding their pricing models and transparency
• Testing demos

Step 6. Create the content

Once you have your information ready, you can start creating content based on the categories and subcategories you identified earlier. Use a consistent format and style to make the content easy to read and understand. If you already have content like FAQs, blog articles, documentation, and white papers, you can repurpose it into self-service articles.

It’s even better if the corporate knowledge base software you picked can do this. Let’s circle back to Capacity. On top of your typical self-service content, the platform also uses existing information to power your corporate search. So instead of just suggesting articles, it answers questions directly using key information from those articles.

Step 7. Test and launch

Before launching your knowledge base, test it thoroughly to ensure it’s easy to use and that all information is accurate and up to date. You can ask your colleagues to try it out and share their honest feedback. Later on, you can invite a few selected customers to test it and give their feedback.

Once you’re confident that it’s ready, launch it to your users and provide training on how to use it effectively. Be sure to continue testing and updating as you go.

Best practices for designing an effective UI for your corporate knowledge base

When building a corporate knowledge base, designing an effective user interface (UI) ensures employees can easily access and use its information.

An intuitive and user-friendly UI can encourage employees to adopt the knowledge base as a primary resource, ultimately improving efficiency and productivity within the organization. 

Let’s look into some critical considerations for designing a practical UI for your corporate knowledge base and its management.

Keep it simple and organized

88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience. And your self-service knowledge base plays a key role in that. A cluttered and confusing UI can discourage users from engaging with your knowledge base and drive them straight to your agents—defeating its main purpose.

Keep the design simple and organized, using clear labels and a logical navigation structure. Consider using visual cues such as icons or color-coding to help users quickly identify different types of content.

Make the search prominent 

Many users rely on search functionality to find the information they need, so make sure the search bar is prominently displayed and easy to use. Consider implementing auto-suggest or auto-complete features to help users refine their queries.

Capacity’s Answer Engine® is a great example. Its support center integrates powerful search capabilities, allowing users to look up information while also recommending relevant articles based on keywords.

Use multimedia

Incorporating multimedia such as images, videos, and interactive elements can help break up large blocks of text and make the content more engaging. However, be careful not to overload the UI with too many multimedia elements, as they can slow page load times and damage user experience.
A great option is to create video tutorials and informational content separately and link to them. A great corporate knowledge base example is online appointment scheduler Calendly, which offers its customers learning resources alongside its YouTube channel, where it uploads video tutorials, expert interviews, and feature explanations.

Ensure accessibility

Accessibility ensures all users can access and benefit from your knowledge base. Consider incorporating features such as alternative text for images, text-to-speech, keyboard shortcuts, and high-contrast color schemes to make the UI more accessible for users with disabilities.

Integrate your corporate knowledge base with other systems

Integrating a corporate knowledge base with other systems and tools can help improve efficiency and productivity within an organization. For example, combining a knowledge base with a CRM system can provide customer service agents with quick access to relevant information, allowing them to resolve issues more efficiently.

Similarly, integrating a knowledge base with project management, HR, accounting, and similar tools helps your team have the information they need to complete tasks effectively.

Using AI and automation to optimize your corporate knowledge base best practices

Now that you know how to build a knowledge base and make it user-centric, it’s time to look at the next step: AI automation.

Managing and keeping your knowledge base up to date manually takes a lot of time and effort. According to McKinsey’s findings, around 30% of jobs could be automated by 2030, mainly by AI. You shouldn’t miss out on this trend, as automating your knowledge base can make it more useful and efficient.

Let’s take a look at a few best practices and AI-powered corporate knowledge base examples!

Automating content creation and updates

One of the biggest challenges of managing a corporate knowledge base is creating and updating content promptly and efficiently. However, automation technology can streamline this process by generating and updating content as needed.

For example, AI-powered tools can create articles and FAQs based on common support requests or frequently asked questions. These tools can also analyze user behavior and search queries to identify areas where additional content may be needed.

Using chatbots and virtual assistants for self-service support

Chatbots and virtual assistants can guide users to the information they need quickly and efficiently. They can also provide personalized recommendations based on the user’s history and behavior within the knowledge base.

A great example of incorporating AI chatbots into a knowledge base is Monday.com, a collaboration software. They use an AI chatbot to help customers and team members find information faster without having to go through unnecessary articles and documentation.

Using machine learning to improve search and recommendation algorithms

Search and recommendation algorithms are essential components of any corporate knowledge base. By using machine learning, these algorithms can be continually refined and improved over time.

For example, machine learning algorithms can analyze user behavior and search queries to identify patterns and trends. This information can then be used to improve the relevance and accuracy of search results and content recommendations.

Incorporating Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Effective content tagging is essential for ensuring that content is easy to find and relevant to the user’s needs. A knowledge base with natural language processing can analyze content and automatically assign relevant tags and keywords.

NLP can also improve the accuracy and efficiency of content search by identifying synonyms and related terms. This helps users find the information they need more quickly and efficiently. 

For example, you might have a section called Pricing, but customers search for it using phrases like “How much does the basic plan cost?” AI features identify the intent and lead users to the right sources.

Analyzing user behavior to identify knowledge gaps and opportunities for improvement

AI and automation can be used to analyze user behavior within the knowledge base to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement.

For example, if users frequently search for information that isn’t currently available, it may indicate a need for additional content in that area. By analyzing user behavior and making data-driven decisions, organizations can continually improve the effectiveness of their corporate knowledge base.

These are just a few examples of how an AI-based internal business library can make your job easier. The provider you choose should also offer custom features to help you build a corporate knowledge repository more easily.

Capacity – the only AI platform you need to create a corporate knowledge base

If you’re looking for an AI platform to create a corporate knowledge base from scratch, you can count on Capacity. Capacity is an AI-powered support automation platform that provides everything teams need to automate support and business processes in one powerful solution.

Benefits like:

• Unified data
• Easy information search
• Connected departments
• Seamless system interaction

…are just a few on the long list.

With its low-code platform, Capacity enables smooth human handoffs and intuitive task management via a powerful workflow automation suite, robust developer platform, and flexible database that can be deployed anywhere.

Capacity’s key features include:

• All-in-one helpdesk: Capacity can answer more than 90% of your FAQs with its all-in-one helpdesk, reducing the number of tickets in your support team’s queue.
• Low-code workflows: You can automate repetitive processes and tasks with low-code workflows to boost productivity across cross-functional teams.
• User-friendly knowledge base: This empowers your employees with easy access to information through a user-friendly knowledge base, a suite of app integrations, and a conversational interface.
• Powerful workflow automation suite: The tool lets you build custom workflows that automate manual processes, saving time and increasing efficiency.
• Robust developer platform: Access APIs, SDKs, and integrations to build and deploy custom solutions tailored to your business needs.

Sound good? Book a demo today and start building your knowledge base.

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