User satisfaction depends on many factors, from product quality to brand management. But one element is especially crucial: the customer’s ability to understand your offering, and how it works. 

One way to ensure they’re never left in the dark is to have a comprehensive knowledge base. Building one can be quite time and resource intensive, and that’s why we’ve created this breakdown of how an effective knowledge base article template can help you provide a more satisfying customer experience.

What is a knowledge base?

A knowledge base is basically a central point for information about your product, service, or related topics. Designed for consumer education, they’re generally hosted online either on a provider’s own website, or a third-party helpdesk site. Knowledge bases are composed of articles, infographics, and instructional videos on a range of relevant topics.

While there are different types of knowledge base, they’re especially useful for companies marketing complex products or services like software. Knowledge articles for predictive analytics solutions, for example, could cover everything, from system setup to troubleshooting. That said, businesses of all kinds can benefit from them, even if it’s just some simple FAQs.

Besides FAQs, it can also be worth building knowledge base article templates for:

  • How-to articles, guides, and tutorials
  • Product comparisons
  • Troubleshooting
  • Case studies

What makes a knowledge base article template well-structured?

Having a range of knowledge base article templates allows you to quickly create new content. But if you want to consistently produce content that encourages digital customer engagement, you need it to be well-structured and easy to follow. Here are some best practices to follow when creating one.

Use simple sections with clear headings

Whether it’s a template for listing FAQs, a tutorial, or a product comparison, breaking the template into sections makes it much easier for content writers to quickly map out articles. With a product comparison, for example, you might start with a table of contents then include sections for the role of the product and essential features, as well as the strengths, weaknesses and pricing of specific competitors.

Templates can also include notes for the kinds of content you want under each heading, like when to use statistics, images, numbered lists, or even humor. Just make sure not to go too in-depth, as this can undermine the intended broadness of a template.

Keep it brief

While you might be tempted to add as much detail as possible, denser templates take longer to engage with.

Brevity allows a writer to get started on knowledge articles right away. So, all they really need are headings, some basic content notes, and any must-have text (for instance, legal disclaimers). If you find during editing that an article needs something more, you can always add it as a revision instead of muddying the original template.

Improve them over time

As well as revising your articles themselves, make sure to revisit your templates from time to time. As content changes you may need to adjust your in-house style, or tweak the layout to better suit customer preference.

A lack of communication can leave you in the dark about the effectiveness of your knowledge base. That’s why you should talk to customers, collect their feedback, and use it to improve learning resources and templates.

The UX benefits of a knowledge base article template

Knowledge base articles play an essential role in modern customer relationship management, and templates help to drive this approach. Let’s look at how using a knowledge base article template can benefit user satisfaction:

1. Enables more effective self-service

Self-service solutions have grown in popularity over recent years, with 73% using them according to Gartner. Despite this, only 14% of issues were fully resolved in self-service. This highlights the need for better self-service options and learning resources. But how does a knowledge base article template factor in?

We often turn to customer support when we don’t understand something about an issue. Knowledge base articles provide actionable steps customers can take without the need to wait on the phone or in a chat queue. Having clear, well-thought out templates rather than creating content haphazardly increases the chances your articles will meet customer expectations and help them resolve their issues. 

2. Helps grow your knowledge base quickly

Have you ever experienced what feels like a common problem, only to find no discussion online about it whatsoever?

It’s a little bewildering, as you’re unsure where to begin or what seemingly obvious thing you could be missing. This feeling can bring a person’s customer journey and enthusiasm grinding to a halt. That’s why it’s important to build out critical knowledge base areas as quickly as possible.

Using a template for different knowledge base article types allows you to streamline production. This allows you to avoid things like non-existent pages and stub articles. Even if the initial version is far from perfect, it at least acknowledges the issue exists, and can (at minimum) point the consumer to get in touch. Plus, you can always improve it later.

3. Encourages proactive learning

For the most part, customer research happens when considering a purchase, or when experiencing an issue. But, by establishing a large knowledge library, you give customers resources they can explore at their leisure.

A highly readable knowledge base full of guides, tips, and tricks can pull customers in. That way, when they experience a service issue or particularly complex feature, they may find they already have the additional tools to tackle it. This can help cultivate a reputation of user-friendliness for your brand that goes beyond simply having good customer support.

4. Mitigating user frustration

The internet is full of negative customer review examples, so we won’t waste your time with horror stories of user frustration. Suffice it to say that irate customers will be more than (un)happy enough to vent their anger online.

Having knowledge base articles for the most common questions, combined with an effective system for searching through them, can help prevent this. Users are more likely to spot the solutions to their problems before their irritation boils over into anger. For example, a front-page troubleshooting guide prevents one-star feedback by providing immediate answers and showing you know your customers and their pain points.

5. Providing consistency

Even experienced users can get lost looking for obscure tips in a vast content library. One benefit of knowledge base article templates is your content will always use a familiar layout.

While that might not initially sound like a solution, remember that consistency makes it much easier to scan through an article. If you know that technical screenshots usually appear after the first third of an article, you can skim through numerous pieces to find the specific tips you need.

Let’s say you’re unsure how to test and calibrate your intelligent virtual agent. Familiarity with a brand’s knowledge base article means you don’t have to trawl through their entire beginner’s guide until you find what you’re looking for. Instead, you can narrow in on potentially relevant articles, then scroll to the table of contents and look for the words ‘virtual agent’ and ‘test’, making the whole process much quicker.

The business benefits of improved user satisfaction

Knowledge base article templates save your customer support team time, letting them focus on complex customer-facing interactions and more effective teamwork. That’s in addition to the user benefits we’ve already discussed. To finish up, let’s look at what high user satisfaction means for your organization:

  • Improved brand reputation: Word-of-mouth is everything in business, even if it’s more often word-of-keyboard instead. Satisfied users are more likely to recommend your product to others, share your social media content, and contribute positively to brand-related discussions in general.
  • Lowered costs: Every business has its unsatisfied customers. By promoting customer satisfaction, you can limit the pressure to deliver refunds and the potential impact of bad publicity. Plus, you spent less time dealing with customer queries, maximizing your resources.
  • Greater brand loyalty: Making a positive impression on customers leaves them less likely to stray to your competitors. A strong knowledge base builds an association between your brand and expertise. This can make both new and established customers more confident in their purchasing decisions.

A good knowledge base article template is vital

A well-crafted knowledge base article template can be incredibly useful. Not just as a streamlining tool, but as a means of ensuring clarity and consistency across all your knowledge base content.

Comprehensive customer learning resources help your brand reputation by positioning it as a source of expertise and limiting frustration for users who encounter difficulties. Creating templates for different article types, like FAQs, troubleshooting guides and tutorials is a simple technique with a big impact.

FAQs

How many knowledge base article templates should you create?

At minimum, it’s worth having at least one template for each type of article you intend to write (FAQ page, how-to guide, etc). If you want to get more granular, you can build sub-templates for different styles within those formats.

What do I need besides a template?

A solid template is one half of the equation, but the other is having consistent and easy-to-follow content. As well as templates, it’s worth having:

  • Guidelines regarding in-house style, both for text and things like background color and font size
  • Set pieces of text for things like which ISO standards you meet or technical specifications
  • A digital asset management solution with relevant screenshots and image files

These additional resources ensure that learning content meets certain minimum quality standards before it can be published on your knowledge base.

How do you keep your knowledge base relevant?

Your knowledge base should be constantly evolving. Set a schedule for regular audits, and check for outdated or irrelevant content. You don’t need to delete it, as this can affect your search rankings, but do update it as necessary. Additionally, make sure to add new content whenever you release a new product or feature.

You should also keep an eye on customer feedback and trends from your customer service team. Are they getting asked the same question a lot? That’s a perfect opportunity to build a new page answering it.

Originally published Jun 02, 2025