Knowledge Management Platform

Knowledge management is a broad term. It’s a phrase used to describe the process of documenting, storing, and sharing information across a company or organization. A knowledge management platform is a type of software that enables you to do this simply and efficiently. There are a variety of knowledge management software and tools available, and finding the right one to manage your business’s information organization is essential.

Knowledge Management System Benefits

There are several benefits to using the correct knowledge management system or platform when it comes to knowledge management. A company or organization’s ability to store and share information can make or break it. Here are just a few knowledge management system benefits that you can gain from using the right knowledge management platform.

1. Improves organization

Arguably the most important benefit of using the right knowledge management systems and processes for your business is that it makes organizing and keeping track of essential information so much easier. Proper knowledge management will eliminate the hassle of misplaced, miscommunicated, or accidentally deleted information.

A poor system for organizing critical information means employees will waste precious time hunting down information, getting it from someone else (wasting their time also), or researching anew to acquire it again. As anyone familiar with the business world knows, time is money.

2. Helps employees become better problem-solvers

It’s a common problem for employees to have many questions, especially new ones or those trying to learn a new skill. While this is not a bad thing, it often leads them to avoid making decisions themselves or only completing tasks after asking someone else what they should do.

If employees have easy access to knowledge, information, and policy, they will feel more confident in their understanding of their job role. Instead of waiting for instructions about how to complete their tasks, or pulling someone aside to ask about it, they can gain self-determination by proactively using your company’s procedural stockpile. While this isn’t guaranteed to make every employee more independent overnight, it’s a huge step in the right direction.

3. Supports employee growth

In addition to helping employees become better problem solvers, it also encourages employee growth overall. They can use information documented from past experiences that are similar to what they struggle with today, using that information to make informed decisions moving forward. They will also be able to use this information to build their own skills by reading about how other employees did so in the past.

4. Improves communication across any-sized organizations

While this may not be true of all of them, many types of knowledge management systems have built-in tools to improve communication across organizations, both large and small. This is because members of the organization will be able to store, share, and access any information relevant to the organization as they see fit. Through this, they can communicate things like what they’ve done so far on a project, what still needs to be done on a project, their recent performance, what they need to improve, changes in company policy, and much more.

5. Streamlines business processes

No matter the enterprise, knowledge management is an essential step towards getting things done and helping team members work together. These faster, more accurate, more efficient ways of storing, organizing, and accessing information expedite necessary business processes by eliminating snags from communication, data storage, and much more.

Knowledge Management Tools

Knowledge management systems and the right knowledge management tools for your organization can be the difference between running a successful business or running it into the ground. However, there’s more than one way for organizations to use knowledge management system tools to their advantage.

You can use as many knowledge management system tools as you deem necessary for your business. Still, it’s always a good idea to know how they work individually and what unique benefits they can offer. Here are just a few ideas for how customer service agents and sales reps can use knowledge management tools to their advantage within their organizations.

Sales reps and customer service agents have arguably some of the most critical jobs in any business. Sales reps do everything in their power to attract new customers and convince them to do business with the company or organization they work for. Without them, the business would receive no new clients and, therefore, see no increase in revenue.

Similarly, customer service agents are often in charge of answering customer questions, guiding them through issues and concerns. Their job is to ensure customers have a pleasant experience and are satisfied enough to return the next time they need your product or service.

Since these two jobs are vital to business, it’s equally important to make sure anyone in these roles has the right resources to get their jobs done right.

Knowledge management for sales reps

A good knowledge management platform can help your sales reps make resources more readily available and easier to find. Sales reps and other information-based workers use a fair portion of their time waiting for information they need to proceed or hunting it down themselves. A knowledge management system provides them with a single organized, searchable platform to store and find all the data they need to create a new deal or continue making sales with returning customers.

It also encourages collaboration between sales reps (or sales teams), which can help get their work done faster and more accurately. When customers decide whether or not they will return, they look at their overall experience with the company, not just the quality of the goods or services they received. This includes how well a sales rep knows and can answer questions about their business. Having a centralized database for all relevant information will help sales reps improve their part of the customer experience, increasing the chances of them returning.

Knowledge management for customer service agents

When it comes to customer service, a customer wants results, and they want them fast. Therefore, the sooner customer service agents can fix customers’ problems or correctly answer questions, the better they will feel about their experience. Most customers base their opinion of a business on how well and how quickly a customer service team can assist them.

If a customer service agent repeatedly has to research or wait for the information they need when helping a customer, that increases the time it takes to resolve the issue. By providing your customer service team with the right knowledge management tools, you decrease the time it takes them to do their job by a significant margin. This is more important than many businesses realize because, in the eyes of a customer, speed=quality.

To demonstrate the importance of using a sound knowledge management system, look at the biggest and most successful business among examples of companies that use knowledge management systems: Amazon. That’s right, eCommerce revolutionizer Jeffrey Bezos uses knowledge management systems to keep things running smoothly. So if the biggest online shopping company in the world does it, why shouldn’t you?

How to Select the Best Knowledge Management Software

While there is no single knowledge management platform that everyone will call the best knowledge management software, there is a knowledge management platform that will fit any business. That raises the question, though: How do you find the correct knowledge management solutions for your organization?

A few factors to consider when making this decision are your workforce, the effectiveness of a search function, security compliance, data consistency, financial efficiency, user reviews, artificial intelligence, and the kind of information you will be using. It’s also essential to understand the unique features and functionalities each knowledge management platform has to offer.

Introducing Lessonly’s Knowledge Management System

Lessonly Knowledge is a powerfully simple knowledge base software for many businesses and organizations. With Lessonly Knowledge, organizations can give their teams fast, accurate answers to common questions, right in their moment of need. This results in faster onboarding, seamless workflow integrations, time saved, and improved performance all around. Want to see Lessonly in action? Jump into this free lesson to see what we’re all about.