What is Knowledge Management (KM) software?
KM software helps facilitate the systematic collection, organization, storage, retrieval, and sharing of an organization's knowledge. The biggest use case for KM software is the need to create and maintain knowledge bases that serve as central repositories for capturing and harnessing valuable insights, expertise, and experiences.
How can Knowledge Management software help you?
KM software is extremely valuable to team and customer satisfaction. When you organize a body of knowledge and make it easier for people to access information at the point of need, you can enhance decision-making, problem-solving, and innovation. Here are a few ways KM software can help your business enhance the user experience:
Knowledge Capture & Creation: KM software can help you capture information and create knowledge assets in less time with built-in authoring tools all under one roof. Knowledge assets you create often include documents, articles, research, procedures, and best practices, allowing your organization to preserve valuable information while adding to the body of knowledge in an agile manner.
Content Organization & Taxonomy: A huge benefit of KM apps is the ability to index content with metadata and tags using taxonomies, making it easy to structure, organize, and filter knowledge for quick retrieval by authors and end-users.
Search & Retrieval: The crux of any KM app is its search capability. If search isn't good, then the software is a house of cards. Search bars in KM apps are often undergirded by AI, which enhance an app's ability to glean content based on a user's keywords, synonyms, and conversational queries. Gone are the days where users look for information folder-by-folder. KM apps enable users to find relevant information with a single search bar, improving efficiency and reducing redundancy.
Collaboration & Sharing: Facilitate cooperation between team members by enabling them to share, edit, and contribute to knowledge repositories, fostering a knowledge centered service (KCS) culture of shared learning.
Access Controls & Security: KM apps often offer robust access controls to protect sensitive information from those who shouldn't view it. You can also define user roles and permissions to determine who should own, manage, and contribute content to your knowledge bases.
Analytics & Insights: You'll often have access to comprehensive analytics tools in KM apps to gain insights into knowledge usage and trends, allowing you to refine your KM and content strategies. Some examples of things you can track include content views, user behavior, and failed search results.
Integration & Accessibility: The most powerful KM apps seamlessly integrate with other software, like your team's CRM, project management tool, and communication tools.
Tips for solopreneurs
If you're working solo, brief disclaimer: KM apps can be expensive. That's because they're more often geared toward teams working to create content for internal company or department knowledge bases, or sites accessible to customers. We certainly showcase tools that are more affordable to solopreneurs, but they come with their specific focuses.
Tips for teams
If you're working on a team, be prepared for some pricey apps depending on what your needs are. If you're looking for an app to support your team with customer facing knowledge bases and support features, there are some solid options out there that don't come at a big cost. But if you're looking to implement multiple knowledge bases internally for your company or even for different customer segments, these often come at a higher monthly/annual cost. Check out our growing catalog of KM apps to determine which one is the best fit for you and be sure to take them for a test run.
