Modern organisations value speed and clarity. A company that wants both needs an employee knowledge base containing the policies and procedures that govern work within departments, interaction between departments, a sales-oriented product handbook, and other essential reference materials.
The following elements are the minimum required for a sales function.
1. Product handbook
A product handbook provides a complete sales-oriented description of every product or service offered by the company. Salespeople and the head of sales use it to prepare for the assessment that employees must pass before they are authorised to sell. Marketing teams can also use it when developing the company's unique selling proposition.
The handbook consolidates the knowledge employees need about the company's products and services. Put simply, it makes salesperson training easier, accelerates customer consultations and helps increase sales.
It can be maintained electronically as an Excel or Word file, depending on the nature of the offer and the customer's requirements, or placed on a dedicated platform or in the CRM.
2. Job descriptions
Salesperson and head-of-sales job descriptions should include the organisation's reporting structure and hierarchy. Every new team member should understand exactly what responsibilities they perform, to whom they report and whom they can ask for help with a work-related problem.
Each employee must know their area of responsibility. Job descriptions also provide a foundation for developing KPIs and operating procedures.
3. Operating procedures
Operating procedures for salespeople and the head of sales should describe each role's functional responsibilities clearly. This prevents uncertainty and reduces the need to repeat the same instructions whenever a new employee joins.
A procedure defines how departments and employees interact within a particular process. It lists and explains the stages that a participant or group must complete in order to execute that business process.
The document will often specify deadlines and service standards: how quickly a customer enquiry must be processed, how many times a salesperson should try to call the same customer, how soon messages must be answered, and similar requirements.
What else should the knowledge base contain?
A knowledge base will naturally include many other documents. A compensation and KPI policy explains how remuneration is calculated and performance evaluated. It should also contain the company's long-term and short-term plans, as well as its mission and values.
The precise number and type of documents depend on the organisation. Even the examples above, however, show how much easier a structured knowledge base can make employees' work and cross-functional cooperation.
For most standard questions, an employee can consult the knowledge base and find the required information. The matter reaches a manager only when the situation is genuinely non-standard. A documented operating model also helps resolve internal disputes because the relevant process and working relationships are governed by agreed documents.
Particular attention should be paid to search and access. Employees need an intuitive way to find information and open the correct document.
Knowledge bases can be hosted in cloud storage, on company servers or within a CRM. The organisation should choose the solution that best fits its needs.
The effect on sales performance
Within a sales function, a knowledge base can improve opportunity conversion because a salesperson always knows where to find the information required to move a conversation forward.
It also makes onboarding substantially easier. After the initial training period, employees retain immediate access to the product handbook and its current information on products, discounts and customer terms. Because the handbook is maintained online, changes can be made quickly and become available to the whole team.
Many organisations experience high employee turnover during the first months of employment without recognising that the underlying cause is often the absence of a structured onboarding system and knowledge base.
A new employee is already under stress. If information about the company's products is disorganised and no documents explain how the person should work or cooperate with other departments, it may take too long to understand the role. The employee may leave voluntarily or perform so poorly that the company terminates the relationship.
The result is a continuing burden on recruitment and lost profit because positions remain unfilled or insufficiently productive. A knowledge base reduces turnover by giving employees the documents needed both to enter the role and to perform it afterwards.
The tool is especially important now that many companies operate entirely online or employ remote team members. Any information an employee may need is available on screen, including on a smartphone.
A similar knowledge base is highly valuable for customer-service teams. An employee handling a customer problem can find an answer while still on the call, or immediately identify which department and which colleague should help resolve the issue.
What a knowledge base delivers
- Shorter employee training time.
- Faster resolution of customer problems.
- Higher productivity across departments and the company as a whole.
- Faster and more efficient information retrieval.
- Better organisation for both office-based and remote teams.
In our own company and in our work with clients, we have chosen decisively in favour of knowledge bases. They make it possible to structure information and simplify employees' work to the greatest practical extent.
A well-designed knowledge base has become indispensable.
