In this lesson we will learn about:

  • Setting up a review mechanism
  • Setting article expiration
  • Version control
  • Setting up feedback mechanism

 

Maintenance keeps the content healthy while governance keeps the system disciplined.

Maintaining the knowledge base ensures the content remains valid, usable, and scalable with time. Your organization is constantly evolving and the existing knowledge base must reflect the most accurate and current state of things at any given point. This means the content must undergo periodic monitoring and auditing, without which even a well-designed knowledge base can quickly become outdated, confusing, and ignored by users.

 

An updated knowledge base lets the organization:

  1. Prevent outdated or incorrect information from been consumed by the readers.
  2. Improve search accuracy and user trust
  3. Reduce repeated support queries
  4. Support organizational learning and efficiency
  5. Build a robust self-service platform

 

Setting up a review mechanism

Review is a crucial and mandatory stage in the content lifecycle. From research and planning to drafting and publishing, the content undergoes multiple changes, which are meticulously assessed and monitored by the author or the senior writers. Authoring standards can be maintained through rigorous peer and editorial reviews. Still, it's best practice to assign a couple of senior writers or SMEs as reviewers to provide a final check to the article before publishing.

 

The review process in the KB follows this pattern:

 

Diagrammatic representation of article review process in Zoho Desk

 

For each category, a set of reviewers can be assigned. For example, if Billing and Payments and Company policies are two categories both can have different set of reviewers. Once the review mechanism is built, the articles are published by the reviewers instead of agents or writers to ensure authenticity. The agents can of course edit the article later.

 

Remember that reviewers can't be assigned to individual articles.

 

Reviewers ensure adherence of the publishing checklist:

  1. Table of contents is included specially in the long form write-ups.
  2. The article has clear, understandable headings that help identify the topic.
  3. Tags and keywords are relatable to the content.
  4. Article owner is correct.
  5. Article is published under the appropriate category or subcategory.
  6. Permalink is as per the standard and not very long.
  7. Cross links redirect to the right pages.
  8. Description and meta title is clear.
  9. The to-dos are listed down with numbered steps accompanied with screenshot or GIF to support.
  10. The article display permission (Agent, All users, Registered users) is correctly indicated.

 

Add reviewers to a category in Desk:

Navigate to the Knowledge Base module > Manage KB > Organize Categories > Select a Category > Toggle Review Articles and add the agents you want to assign as reviewers.

Tip: You can add reviewers even after the category is created, just by editing it and toggling the review article button.

 

Setting article expiration

The content needs periodic monitoring to ensure they contain relevant and updated information. This is important because the KB articles are essential self-service tool that customers refer to when they need a solution for their problem.

 

Setting expiry dates for articles automatically removes outdated content from public access.

 

However, it is worth noting that not all articles need an expiration date. For example, most of the content in a product installation guide would remain valid year after year; it would only require updates when specific features are introduced or removed. However, compliance and privacy guidelines, employee benefits schemes are subject to revision and must be updated regularly.

 

For such articles, setting an expiration date would mean the content is validated after a specific amount of time and fresh content will be made publicly available if needed. The article owners are notified before, after, and on expiration of an article for prompt action. 

 

Article expiry for KB

 

Version control

Article versioning allows change management. Writers can audit the content and identify the changes that occurred throughout the content lifecycle, who made the changes, and track the details with respect to a particular version.

 

 

Setting up a feedback mechanism

Readers can share their suggestions, problems, and queries through article feedback and comments. This provides an opportunity to hear from customers and resolve their issues directly, which can improve customer engagement. 

 

The type of questions and issues that you receive can give important information about how the article is performing in real-time:

  1. Whether the content is helping people understand the topic.
  2. How effectively they're able to follow the explanation (especially the technical details).
  3. Whether your audience is seeking help in other languages.
  4. If the content needs to be updated or there is missing information.
 

Careful monitoring of the feedback and comment received on the articles helps to identify the kind of topics you must include in your knowledge base and make significant improvements to the existing content.