Knowledge Management Systems (KMS): A Complete Guide

A knowledge management system (KMS) is a software platform used to capture, organize, and retrieve knowledge within a business, making it easy to access information for decision-making and collaboration. A KMS system is commonly built into customer service software to help businesses improve the customer experience.

Our research finds that 86% of service professionals say that customer expectations are higher than ever. Plus, 78% say customers seem more rushed than they used to. The right KMS can make a big difference. When customer service reps can quickly and easily access the information they need, they’ll be able to provide a better customer service experience.

Here, we’ll explore why a knowledge management system is so important, some use cases, how to choose and implement a KMS, and much more.

Table of contents:

• What is a knowledge management system (KMS)?
• Benefits of knowledge management systems
• What types of knowledge should be added to a knowledge management system?
• Examples of knowledge management systems
• Knowledge management system best practices
• How to build & implement a knowledge management system
• The future of knowledge management systems
• Key features of Salesforce's knowledge management system
• Knowledge management system FAQs

A knowledge management system (KMS) is a dynamic platform designed to store large amounts of information. Its features make it easy to search, organize, update, and share that information as needed internally and externally.

For customer service teams, a KMS system is often used internally to help repsagents find the right information quickly. It’s also used as an external self-service tool that lets customers find answers on their own.

A good knowledge management system can produce significant benefits for your customer service, such as:

Improved efficiency: When you bring all your knowledge resources into one place, employees always know where to look for an answer. That alone saves time, but KMS solutions also enhances efficiency with organizational features for easy article retrieval, instant search functionality, AI-assisted response writing, and automatic content updates based on customer interactions.

Quicker response times: If your reps craft every customer response from scratch, that can add up to hours of time a day and leave customers hanging for an answer. But with generative AI, which can access and synthesize relevant information from a KMS system, they can provide helpful responses faster.

Better customer experiences: Effective knowledge management makes it easy for reps to find the information they need, leading to faster customer service resolutions. Even better, you can offer customers self-service options for simpler support issues. Our research finds that 61% of customers prefer self-service options and 65% list knowledge bases as an option they've used.

24/7 support: A self-service knowledge base is efficient and more cost-effective. After all, having customer service reps available at all hours of the day isn't always practical from a resource or cost standpoint.

Simplified employee training: knowledge management system makes it easy for reps to access training materials in one place. It allows for consistent, up-to-date content that can be easily updated, reducing the need for repetitive in-person training.

Knowledge retention: Losing employees is inevitable for many reasons. Don't risk losing important institutional knowledge with them. By recording and storing their various knowledge in a single, secure place, you ensure your business can weather employee churn — and keep their knowledge.

Knowledge management system use cases

The right knowledge management system can be put to use in a few main ways, such as:

• Providing a central location to store all current resources — no more digging through old emails to find an answer from three years ago that may be out of date
• Improving employee onboarding by having all the important information new hires need to learn stored in one easy-to-navigate system
• Providing customer service reps a go-to place to find the best answer for customer issues within moments, making their job easier while also improving the customer service experience
• Offering customers an intuitive self-service portal where they can quickly find answers on their own
• Supplying an extensive array of vetted content for generative AI tools to pull from, to ensure they can offer accurate information to customers and employees
• Using AI features to make common tasks easier through workflow automation, such as letting generative AI create an email first draft to a customer's inquiry that a service rep can simply tweak before sending

All of that can add up to better employee satisfaction, happier customers, greater efficiency, and cost savings for your business.

A knowledge management system is a key investment for most businesses. But before you can start building one, you should be aware of the types of knowledge your team uses when helping customers. This will help with the categorization process.

Here are some common types to consider:

• Explicit or structured: This includes all the knowledge and information you can document (or already have) in a clear format, such as an employee handbook, FAQs, and monthly reports.
• Unstructured: This is information that's been recorded somewhere, but not in a formalized way. It includes answers sent via email or shared in a company's messaging app channels or communities, like the Serviceblazer Community.
• Tacit: Tacit knowledge is trickier to record — it's the knowledge your team has gained through experience over time, like honing their intuition on how best to handle an upset customer.
• Declarative: This refers to factual information, like the date your company was founded or straightforward metrics such as the number of customer calls you received in a given month.
• Procedural: Procedural knowledge covers how to do something, step-by-step. This can include video tutorials, written instructions, or methodologies your team has developed.

One example of a knowledge management system is a centralized repository of best practices and standard operating procedures. A company might create one to ensure that all employees have access to the latest and most effective methods.

Another example is a collaborative platform where customers can share insights, ask questions, and contribute to a collective knowledge base, fostering a culture of continuous learning and innovation – a community forum of sorts. Community platforms might also include customer education capabilities like webinars and training videos.

When adopting a new knowledge management system, follow these best practices to ensure you get the results you want:

1. Choose the right tool

To start, make sure you choose the best knowledge management system for your business needs. Some features to look for include:

• Intuitive design: For your team to fully embrace a new KMS, it should be easy to learn and use.
• Organization and search: A knowledge base should simplify the process of finding the right information quickly.
• Self-service: Consider a KMS that offers customer-facing features. Making selected content public and easy to find can improve the customer experience, while also saving your reps time.
• AI functionality: AI features like autonomous AI agents can pull from your knowledge base to answer common customer questions. Agentforce is an example of AI technology that uses your company’s trusted data – like company knowledge articles – to provide support to customers and employees.

2. Develop an organizational strategy

The right solution will do some organization and information retrieval work for you, but you should still create a content organizational system. Think through the high-level categories, subcategories, and tags you'll need for intuitive content classification.

You might want to divide resources based on product type, develop labels for different stages of the customer journey, or organize resources based on common product use cases. Every team will handle this part a little differently, so think about what makes the most sense for you.

3. Invest in developing knowledge base articles

The value of your KMS depends on how comprehensive and useful the knowledge within it is. If you already have an extensive asset library, this step may be relatively easy. If not, consider putting your time and resources toward building a collection of knowledge base articles that cover the most important topics for employees and customers.

4. Develop a strategy for employee adoption

A KMS is only useful if your team uses it. Don't assume that once you buy it, employees will hop on board. Any big business change requires the right change management approach to be successful, and adopting a new knowledge management system is no exception.

Develop a strategy to help service reps understand how your KMS works, the value it provides, and the features that will be most useful to them. Commit time to product training to get everyone up to speed and set use expectations. Trailhead, Salesforce’s free online learning platform, is a great resource for your employees to learn more about knowledge management.

5. Perform regular information audits and updates

Plan for periodic audits to monitor the quality and accuracy of your knowledge base resources. Load updated content to the platform every time there's a major product update. And have your customer service team provide feedback on the content and answers in your KMS.

Choosing the right knowledge management system is essential, but establishing a strong knowledge management process is just as important. Service AI tools are advancing the way that service teams build and handle this process. Let's look at a few key components of a knowledge management process:

• Build a content library: Create knowledge base articles from existing content saved in your database, but also across the third-party systems you use.
• Use AI tools: Implement tools like Unified Knowledge to help your service reps deliver faster, more personalized customer experiences. This tool integrates organizational knowledge resources from third-party systems and pairs them with your stored customer data to produce generative AI content.
• Provide self-service options: Make it easier for customers to solve problems on their own. Invest in an autonomous AI agent that can automatically serve up answers based on information in your knowledge base.
• Keep your resources up to date: Content audits and updates are necessary but can be time consuming. With tools like Proactive Asset Management, you can automate the process of monitoring asset health, giving you a head start on identifying resources due for an update.
• Ensure findability: A knowledge base is only valuable if your employees and customers can find what they need when they need it. Look for AI tools like Agentforce that let remote employees ask questions and get immediate answers pulled from your knowledge base. Search Answers automatically generates answers to customer and employee questions based on information housed in your KMS.

Technological innovations have brought some significant changes to the knowledge management field in recent years — a KMS looks very different from the filing cabinets and rolodexes of the past. Some trends likely to impact knowledge management in the years to come include:

• Higher adoption of generative AI: Many companies see the potential of customer service AI to improve efficiency. Incorporating generative AI into knowledge management processes came in second in APQC's 2024 survey of the top five knowledge management priorities. For many companies that aren't using it yet, adoption may simply be a matter of time.
• A greater emphasis on collaboration: One of the big benefits of a good KMS is that it simplifies sharing information among team members and departments. When valuable business information is siloed within specific departments (or in the heads of individuals), other employees can't benefit from it. As businesses invest more in KMS products that integrate seamlessly with other software, they enable seamless knowledge sharing across departments.
• Improved training and knowledge retention: Losing an employee is costly — you not only lose their unique knowledge but must also incur the costs of hiring and training someone new. A comprehensive KMS can help you retain valuable knowledge and serve as a training resource.

A standalone knowledge management tool is an option for businesses, but choosing comprehensive customer service software that includes knowledge base features can help you get even more from your KMS. With Service Cloud, you can:

• Host your knowledge base in the same platform that houses your customer data, allowing for omnichannel customer service
• Ensure all your knowledge resources are stored securely, while still being easy for the right people to find
• Provide a self-service portal to help customers handle simple issues faster
• Use AI features to automatically provide accurate self-service answers to customers, aid in creating knowledge base articles, and help keep them updated
• Set up seamless integrations with the other customer service software products your team depends on

1. What is the difference between a Knowledge Management System (KMS) and a Content Management System (CMS)?

A knowledge management system is designed to capture, store, and share organizational knowledge to improve decision-making, innovation, and overall efficiency. It focuses on the creation, sharing, use, and management of knowledge and information

A content management system, on the other hand, is primarily used to create, manage, and publish digital content, such as web pages, documents, and multimedia. It focuses on the lifecycle of content from creation to publication.

2. What is the difference between a Knowledge Management System (KMS) and Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

Knowledge management systems and AI differ in focus and purpose. KMS focuses on capturing and sharing knowledge, while AI focuses on simulating human intelligence.

And while KMS aims to improve organizational learning and decision-making, AI aims to automate tasks that require human intelligence.

While KMS and AI serve different purposes, they can be integrated to enhance each other's capabilities. For example, AI for customer service can be used to automate knowledge capture and retrieval in a KMS, making it more efficient and effective.