Best practices for creating an internal knowledge base

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<p id="docs-hc-snippet" style="display: none;">There are many advantages to setting up an internal knowledge base to meet the needs of your employees. For many companies, official internal content is stored on a shared drive or repository, but a great deal more might be hidden away in documents and spreadsheets, and in the heads of key subject matter experts. The same information might be stored in multiple places, with little visibility of what other teams are creating in terms of collateral.</p>
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<p class="p">There are many advantages to setting up an internal knowledge base to meet the needs of
your employees. For many companies, official internal content is stored on a
shared drive or repository, but a great deal more might be hidden away in documents and
spreadsheets, and in the heads of key subject matter experts. The same information might
be stored in multiple places, with little visibility of what other teams are creating in
terms of collateral.</p>
<p class="p">You can think of an internal knowledge base as serving the same need as an external one -
if there is a question that many employees ask, or a resource that everyone needs, take
the pressure off Support by adding this content to a knowledge base. Ultimately, the
real advantage of setting up an internal knowledge base alongside your external one is
that all your content can sit together at no extra cost, and be searchable internally as
a single set.</p>
<div class="p">This article covers the following topics:<ul class="ul" id="topic_pl2_v2x_jlb__ul_dzd_4jx_jlb">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_jwk_w5s_mlb">Planning the structure of your internal knowledge base</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_ghn_z5s_mlb">Setting up the internal knowledge base</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_xsh_bvs_mlb">Populating the internal knowledge base</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_axw_cvs_mlb">Keeping your internal content up-to-date</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_xdz_2vs_mlb">Analyzing internal knowledge base usage</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_jw3_kvs_mlb">Implementing organizational change through your internal knowledge base</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_jwk_w5s_mlb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">Planning the structure of your internal knowledge base</h2>
<div class="body">
<div class="section" id="topic_jwk_w5s_mlb__section_hlp_4jx_jlb">
<p class="p">Managing and sharing internal content is easy when you have a few employees, but
as soon a company grows they need to consider a knowledge strategy and a method
to keep ahead of the shared knowledge that they have.</p>
<p class="p">Internal knowledge can include HR and legal processes and policies, IT
instructions, company presentations, sales presentations, marketing collateral,
design templates and images, and documents that your Support team can use to
help with customer needs, for example, assisting them to port a phone number. </p>
<p class="p">It's important to define your audience, as this will influence what content you
want to include. For example, at Zendesk, even though many teams use the
internal knowledge base, it's primary audience is the customer advocates.</p>
<p class="p">If you already have an external knowledge base, you need to think about whether
you are going to publish your internal knowledge base alongside your external
content or you can publish your internal content as a new brand (not available
on Suite Team), which allows you to publish the content to its own help
center.</p>
<div class="p" dir="ltr">Defining your internal knowledge strategy and category structure is up
to you, however the structure should center around your audience and their
needs. Here are a few ideas for structuring your internal knowledge base, for
example:<ul class="ul" id="topic_jwk_w5s_mlb__ul_nzl_rjt_klb">
<li class="li">Structure by department: <ul class="ul" id="topic_jwk_w5s_mlb__ul_wsj_hlx_jlb">
<li class="li" id="topic_jwk_w5s_mlb__bbk-po4fp">
<strong class="ph b">Customer Service / Support</strong>: Customer FAQs
and troubleshooting guides</li>
<li class="li" id="topic_jwk_w5s_mlb__bbk-xvk4r">
<strong class="ph b">HR</strong>: Vacation and expense policies,
onboarding information</li>
<li class="li" id="topic_jwk_w5s_mlb__bbk-myyfb">
<strong class="ph b">Legal</strong>: Contracts and legal policies</li>
<li class="li" id="topic_jwk_w5s_mlb__bbk-8mo10">
<strong class="ph b">IT</strong>: How-to guides and installation
documents</li>
<li class="li" id="topic_jwk_w5s_mlb__bbk-menxm">
<strong class="ph b">Design</strong>: Company logos and design
guidelines</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="li">Structure by role or user type:<ul class="ul" id="topic_jwk_w5s_mlb__ul_zyj_jkt_klb">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">New hires</strong>: Onboarding information, company policies,
getting started guides</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Developers / Engineers</strong>: Tooling guides, code
policies</li>
<li class="li" id="topic_jwk_w5s_mlb__bbk-qn4mz">
<strong class="ph b">Management</strong>: Company hierarchy and
management policies</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="li">Create sections based around frequently asked questions:<ul class="ul" id="topic_jwk_w5s_mlb__ul_rg1_clt_klb">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Expenses</strong>: Expense policies and expense cutoff times</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">IT issues</strong>: How-to guides and installation documents, how
to get IT support</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Training</strong>: Education resources</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">Some companies focus on search alone, and don't worry about the categories and
sections, however this relies on having content with good keywords and tags that
are likely to be used by your employees.</p>
<div class="p">You should consider your initial scope, as this will define the type of content
you create. At Zendesk, this initial scope was defined as "customer problems
and how we solve them". Rules for creating content included:<ul class="ul" id="topic_jwk_w5s_mlb__ul_icq_5bv_nlb">
<li class="li">All client-facing articles are stored in the external knowledge
base</li>
<li class="li">Only content that can't be shared with customers is stored as an
internal KB article</li>
<li class="li">Articles are not duplicated between the internal and external knowledge
bases</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">There is nothing to stop you from starting with some sections and a small number
of articles, and expanding and editing them later as your knowledge base grows.
Alternatively, on Enterprise plans, you could add a few broad sections and <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408834687130-Adding-subsections-to-create-more-levels-in-your-Help-Center-Guide-Enterprise-" target="_blank">add subsections</a> as you create more
content.</p>
<p class="p">When you are happy with your plan, you are ready to set up the internal knowledge
base.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested1" id="topic_ghn_z5s_mlb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title3">Setting up the internal knowledge base</h2>
<div class="body">
<div class="section" id="topic_ghn_z5s_mlb__section_xn5_qjx_jlb">
<h3 class="title sectiontitle">Choosing your help center setup</h3>
<p class="p">There are two help center options to consider when setting up your internal
knowledge base, depending on your existing structure, plan type, and
segmentation. In most cases, you'll set up a single help center. </p>
<p class="p">You can choose to set up a multibrand help center (not available on Suite
Team).</p>
<div class="p">These are the key elements of each type of help center:<ul class="ul" id="topic_ghn_z5s_mlb__ul_nrb_kpg_nlb">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">A single help center</strong> is one help center that is shared between
your external and internal content. <p class="p">This setup requires you to set
specific visibility and management permissions using user segments,
to ensure that customers and staff see the right content (see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408824005914-Setting-view-permissions-on-articles-with-user-segments" target="_blank">Setting view permissions on
articles with user segments</a>).</p>
<div class="p">Think about whether
you want all internal content in its own category or section, or
whether it will live in existing sections. If you create:<ul class="ul" id="topic_ghn_z5s_mlb__ul_axf_kcm_plb">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">A new category or section for internal content</strong>: A new
category or section for internal content allows you to
organize things in their own place in the hierarchy. This
part of the hierarchy will not be visible to any users who
can't see this content. This approach also works if your
internal section or category contains very different
information to the content that you publish to customers
(see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408827797274-Understanding-Guide-user-permissions-for-knowledge-base-access-Professional-and-Enterprise-" target="_blank">Understanding Guide
permissions</a> for information on restricting
viewing). </li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Internal articles in an existing category or section</strong>:
these are useful, for example, for Support teams that are
working with a specific product, and want to see all
internal and external articles relating to that product
alongside one another.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">On Enterprise plans you could also create subsections in
your sections to segment content that you want to be internal only
(see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408834687130-Adding-subsections-to-create-more-levels-in-your-Help-Center-Guide-Enterprise-" target="_blank">Adding subsections to create more
levels in your help center</a>).</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Multiple help centers, or a multibrand help center</strong> allows you to
have internal content in one help center, and your external content in
one or more other help centers (<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408828794778" target="_blank">capabilities vary by
plan</a>).<p class="p">The multibrand setup segments your internal and
external content so that it is physically separate (see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408828794778-Creating-a-Help-Center-for-one-of-your-brands-Enterprise-" target="_blank">Creating a help center for one of
your brands</a>).</p>
<p class="p">If you are creating a new help center
for your internal knowledge base, you need to <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408846795674-Getting-started-with-Guide-Setting-up#topic_ndf_fpf_mk" target="_blank">enable your help center in setup
mode</a> to hide the knowledge base from end users, and you
can then add content before you <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408846795674-Getting-started-with-Guide-Setting-up#topic_ckn_wc4_qy" target="_blank">activate the help
center</a>.</p>
<p class="p">Consider having your internal knowledge base
under your main brand. This will help your agents when searching for
content, so that they don't have to select the brand every time that
they search. </p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="topic_ghn_z5s_mlb__section_zjc_xqg_nlb">
<h3 class="title sectiontitle">Considerations when deciding on your help center setup</h3>
<p class="p">Here's a comparison of the single shared help center versus the multibrand help
center setup.</p>
<div class="p">
<div class="tablenoborder">
<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" class="table" frame="border" id="topic_ghn_z5s_mlb__table_smr_grg_nlb" rules="all" summary="">
<colgroup>
<col style="width:33.33333333333333%">
<col style="width:33.33333333333333%">
<col style="width:33.33333333333333%">
</colgroup>
<thead class="thead" style="text-align:left;">
<tr class="row">
<th class="entry cellrowborder" id="d48e306">Feature</th>
<th class="entry cellrowborder" id="d48e309">Single shared help center</th>
<th class="entry cellrowborder" id="d48e312">Multibrand help center</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody class="tbody">
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d48e306">Search capability</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d48e309">Search internal and external articles in one
place</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d48e312">Search internal and external articles separately in each
help center</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d48e306">Visibility permissions</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d48e309">Must set view permissions to limit article
visibility</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d48e312">No need to set special visibility permissions</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d48e306">Community forum (requires a Gather plan)</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d48e309">One shared community for the help center</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d48e312">Separate communities for each help center</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d48e306">Plan availability</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d48e309">No restrictions</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d48e312">Not available on Suite Team (<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408828794778-Creating-a-Help-Center-for-one-of-your-brands-Enterprise-" target="_blank">other
restrictions</a>)</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
</div>
<p class="p">At Zendesk, we moved our internal and external documentation from a multibrand
setup to a single shared help center, because the advantages of staff being able
to search across all articles, whether they were internal or external,
outweighed the effort required to apply article viewing and management
permissions.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="topic_ghn_z5s_mlb__section_u2k_shv_nlb">
<h3 class="title sectiontitle">Deciding on access and ownership</h3>
<p class="p">It's likely that you'll want all staff to be able to access your internal
knowledge base. At Zendesk, this is anyone who is an agent (because everyone who
works at Zendesk is an agent). This is probably not the case for your
organization, so you can create one or more <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408824005914-Setting-view-permissions-on-articles-with-user-segments" target="_blank">user segments</a> for your organization to
ensure the right people can access your internal knowledge base.</p>
<p class="p">You also need to define who will publish and own your content. Then you can set
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408822044186-Verifying-your-articles-Guide-Enterprise-" target="_blank">an article owner for any knowledge base
article</a> and <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408822044186-Verifying-your-articles-Guide-Enterprise-" target="_blank">set reminders to verify and review
articles</a> (Enterprise plans only).</p>
<p class="p">Some organizations allocate one or more people who manage all the content in your
internal knowledge base, however it's more likely that you'll split the
ownership between various teams (for example, HR, Finance, Training), so that
the subject matter experts for each area owns and updates content. An individual
team can nominally own a section or a subsection of an internal knowledge base
(you'll need an Enterprise plan to <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408834687130-Adding-subsections-to-create-more-levels-in-your-Help-Center-Guide-Enterprise-" target="_blank">use subsections</a>), although remember
that you <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408834435738" target="_blank">apply management permissions at an article
level</a>, not a section level.</p>
<p class="p">You can also define different levels of permissions, for example, some staff can
publish, others edit, and some are admins (see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408827952538" target="_blank">Creating management permissions to define
editing and publishing rights</a>).</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="topic_ghn_z5s_mlb__section_s1b_zkv_nlb">
<h3 class="title sectiontitle">Providing training</h3>
<p class="p">Make sure you prepare some training for your end users and your agents for your
internal knowledge base. Your staff might already be familiar with using your
external knowledge base; however your operating model will be different for your
internal content.</p>
<p class="p">For example, it's important that agents are aware of the importance of setting
visibility and access permissions for the articles they create and edit. This
approach also gives you a mechanism to publicize the new internal knowledge base
and get buy-in.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title4" class="topic nested1" id="topic_xsh_bvs_mlb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title4">Populating the internal knowledge base</h2>
<div class="body">
<div class="section" id="topic_xsh_bvs_mlb__section_m1m_rjx_jlb">
<p class="p">For an internal knowledge base, it's likely that you'll already have some content
that you can use to seed the knowledge base. This might be policy information or
annual reports, for example. You can also consider <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408839258778-Creating-and-editing-articles-in-the-knowledge-base" target="_blank">adding content</a> as questions arise.</p>
<div class="p" dir="ltr">If you don't have any existing content, you can start small with just a
few articles that answer the most commonly-asked employee questions. For
example, you could write an article explaining a recent computer virus that
needs action. One tip for this approach is to look at the top questions raised
in internal tickets, and write the articles from there. Use these approaches to
find out what those top questions are:<ul class="ul" id="topic_xsh_bvs_mlb__ul_hhq_lwt_klb">
<li class="li">Review employee Support tickets. They are the best record of your
employee issues and pain points. But don't forget about other resources
that might also help you pinpoint issues you should document in your
knowledge base, including macros, tags, existing content, and consulting
your community. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408828230554-Best-practices-for-finding-customer-issues-to-start-your-knowledge-base" target="_blank">Best practices for finding issues to
start your knowledge base</a> for more information.</li>
<li class="li">Ask your support staff (agents) to contribute articles, based on tickets
they've received.<p class="p">Your agents can contribute articles using the
Knowledge in the context panel to create or request new help center
articles directly from Agent Workspace. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408835161114" target="_blank">Creating and requesting articles
in Knowledge</a>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p" dir="ltr">For example, an agent could <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408839258778-Creating-and-editing-articles-in-the-knowledge-base" target="_blank">create an article</a> describing how to
troubleshoot computer problems and install a software patch, and add labels like
<strong class="ph b">troubleshoot</strong> and <strong class="ph b">patch</strong> to the article to boost it in search
results, then employees could search and find this information and might not
need to raise a ticket.</p>
<p class="p"><img class="image img-screenshot" id="topic_xsh_bvs_mlb__image_tfv_z2q_3nb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/b2e_hc_kcs_article.png" width="583"></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title5" class="topic nested1" id="topic_axw_cvs_mlb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title5">Keeping your internal content up-to-date</h2>
<div class="body">
<div class="section" id="topic_axw_cvs_mlb__section_ady_sjx_jlb">
<div class="p">There is limited value in creating lots of great content if you don't keep your
articles current and relevant. Here are some tips for keeping your content
owners engaged and your content up-to-date:<ul class="ul" id="topic_axw_cvs_mlb__ul_kzf_vjv_nlb">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Empower your agents</strong>: Encourage your agents to flag internal
knowledge base content that is out-of-date, inaccurate, or missing.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Promote ownership</strong>: Make sure you have <a class="xref" href="#topic_ghn_z5s_mlb__section_u2k_shv_nlb">defined
owners</a> for your content - this might be a subject matter
expert, or a support team. Ensure agents collaborate to make sure there
are no gaps or overlaps.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Allocate time</strong>: Make sure that your owners have time allocated to
update articles. At Zendesk, we have advocates whose full time job is
advocacy, but they get around 10 hours a week to work on content.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Verify your articles and archive old content</strong>: Any content that
hasn’t been updated for a long time might not be relevant anymore. You
could establish a review cadence and add a disclaimer to articles you’re
archiving to indicate why you’re doing so.<p class="p">You can use <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408820403226-Scheduling-articles-for-publishing-and-unpublishing-Guide-Enterprise-" target="_blank">scheduled unpublishing</a> to
archive articles with a shelf life, for example, release notes or
announcements (Enterprise plans only).</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Use workflow</strong>: Define a workflow to ensure your articles are
reviewed regularly. You can use <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408832609562-About-Guide-Team-Publishing-Guide-Enterprise-" target="_blank">Team Publishing</a> to set up
workflows to review, approve, and publish content (Enterprise plans
only).</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">
<strong class="ph b">Use analytics</strong>: Use <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408821238938#topic_xdz_2vs_mlb" target="_blank">statistics on page views and user
engagement</a> as input to your content update process.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title6" class="topic nested1" id="topic_xdz_2vs_mlb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title6">Analyzing internal knowledge base usage</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">There are a number of ways that you can analyze and measure the use of your knowledge
base articles.</p>
<p class="p">Viewing knowledge base activity is useful to see what your staff are most interested
in, but also to see if they are not reading articles that you thought might be
useful. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408823842842-Guide-resources#h_deb74912-e6e3-4bf7-a91b-0fa1b1a82bb7" target="_blank">Guide Resources - Reporting</a> for a range of
options to explore with reporting.</p>
<div class="section" id="topic_xdz_2vs_mlb__section_i4d_l5s_mlb">
<h3 class="title sectiontitle">Analyzing activity data</h3>
<p class="p">You can monitor the most popular articles in your knowledge base to see what
areas you staff are most interested in, and then take action based on that
information. This includes viewing votes, subscriptions and comments on
articles. For example, if an article has a large number of comments, it might be
because the subject matter is contentious (for example, the article is a company
announcement that there will be no bonus this year) or is inaccurate (for
example, the article gives instructions on how to install a software update, but
does not tell the user where to get the update from). Alternatively, the content
is really great (for example, a very simple explanation of a complex process),
and is popular for that reason.</p>
<p class="p">You'll often need to drill down into the article, and possibly use other sources
of information, to understand why it is so popular.</p>
<p class="p">You can use the Reporting dashboard in Support to see the number of articles
created, article views, and the total number of votes, subscriptions, and
comments for articles in a knowledge base. To review statistics, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408830631962" target="_blank">Analyzing knowledge base activity with
Explore</a>.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="topic_xdz_2vs_mlb__section_cj3_45s_mlb">
<h3 class="title sectiontitle">Analyzing search activity</h3>
<p class="p">You might want to see which internal articles have the top views from search
results. If it's the start of a new vacation year, you might expect this to be
HR articles about how to book vacation, and how many vacation days are
available.</p>
<p class="p">If the HR vacation articles are not appearing in the top hits, you might need to
add labels (not available on Suite Team), to the articles, update your content
titles to make them more easily found by search, or remove old content that
might be cluttering up your search results.</p>
<p class="p">To see search results in Explore, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408818465562" target="_blank">Analyzing help center search results with
Explore</a> (not available on Suite Team).</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="topic_xdz_2vs_mlb__section_pd4_dhj_h2c">
<h3 class="title sectiontitle">Analyzing Knowledge activity</h3>
<p class="p">You can use Zendesk Explore to help you analyze the events and ticket activity
that take place in the Knowledge panel. For example, you can use the prebuilt
dashboard to help you identify solved tickets with Knowledge activity, flagged
tickets, agent activity, and more. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408887529370" target="_blank">Analyzing your Knowledge activity</a>.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="topic_xdz_2vs_mlb__section_yj1_w1z_mlb">
<h3 class="title sectiontitle">Analyzing Team Publishing activity</h3>
<p class="p">You can analyze your Team Publishing events. For example, you might want to see
which team members are most active or view your top editors, content creators, or
publishers (see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408829192986" target="_blank">Analyzing Team Publishing activity</a>).
This feature is not available on Suite Team.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title7" class="topic nested1" id="topic_jw3_kvs_mlb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title7">Implementing organizational change through your internal knowledge base</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Shifting to a model where staff find the answers to their questions without asking
agents for help requires some form of organizational change. Submitting, reviewing,
and maintaining contributions to your knowledge base is key to its success and one
method to ensure engagement is by setting agent goals based on the metrics that you
can capture, particularly the level of engagement agents have with Knowledge (see
<a class="xref" href="#topic_xdz_2vs_mlb__section_pd4_dhj_h2c">Analyzing Knowledge activity</a>).</p>
<p class="p">For example, at Zendesk, there are two elements used to ensure engagement with the
knowledge base. Firstly, there is an ongoing communication plan, including a
newsletter, survey and messaging channel to allow the team to communicate progress
and success, and understand concerns and issues. The second element is the setting
of targets for participation. For example, you might specify that at least 20% of
tickets should have some kind of engagement - for example, a response to a customer
links to an existing article, or an agent raises a new request for missing content.
The specific targets are up to you, and the targets should drive the right
behaviors, not cause anxiety for your agents that they are not meeting targets.</p>
<p class="p">If you are using Team Publishing (Enterprise plans only), you can set targets based
on the statistics in Insights (see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408829192986" target="_blank">Analyzing Team Publishing activity</a>).</p>
<p class="p">If you want to find out more about knowledge base self-service, whether it's for
internal staff or external customers, you can <a class="xref" href="https://www.zendesk.com/resources/getting-started-zendesk-guide/" target="_blank">download the complete eBook</a> on our
website.</p>
</div>
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