knowledge base

As an HOA management company or association that focuses heavily on resident/customer service, you\’ll often measure success by how quickly you can resolve resident issues & save your staff time. The knowledge base feature in Pilera is one of the best ways that managers can deliver excellent customer service while significantly reducing inbound calls.  A self-service area within the resident portal, the knowledge base serves as a place to host resident\’s most commonly asked questions. In addition to residents, staff can also use the knowledge base to resolve incoming resident questions or train new staff. In this blog article, we talk about how the knowledge base works and 10 articles that you\’ll want to write right away! 

How the Knowledge Base works

1. Use the content builder in the Knowledge Base to add text as well as customize the look and feel of your content.  You can even format your content as tables!   
2. Set permissions to restrict content to staff, owners, or tenants.
3. Add tags for easy searchability. 
4. Your residents and staff can log in, search for a particular topic, and get answers to their questions.  

Now that you know how it works, here are 10 ideas for you to add to your knowledge base today!

10 Knowledge Base Article Ideas

1) Association Data Sheet

An association datasheet contains all relevant community contacts, vendors, and processes in one place. A client and power user of Pilera\’s Help Desk functionality created a datasheet for each of their associations.  For example, their datasheet lists amenities, the resident approvals process, who to contact for insurance, which maintenance services the association has on contract, and more. 

Suggested tags: Association info, vendors, resident approval process, utilities, board member.

2) Add Board member contacts to the knowledge base

The board member contact is a great go-to article for important information about the association\’s leaders.  It can list positions, contact emails, and office expiration dates.  

Suggested tags: Board member, Elections, Meetings.

3) How to access important community forms

Managers can provide links to important community forms such as surveys or a clubhouse rental form.  Add any other instructions such as fields that are important to fill out or how quickly a resident can expect a response. 

Suggested Tags: Create a general tag for “Forms” or a tag for the specific form name like “Clubhouse Rental Form”.  

4) Community equipment

Create a list of all the equipment that the community maintains on a regular basis.  In the post, include information such as manufacturer and warranty.  

Suggested tags: Maintenance, Association Info.

5) Guest policies

There are many articles that managers can write to inform residents about the community’s guest policies.  These include rules on daytime and overnight parking, how many days a guest can stay over, and the number of pets allowed.  

Suggest tags: Creating and applying a general tag like “Guest Policy” will allow residents to discover other related articles.  Managers can also create more specific tags such as “Guest Parking” for quick searchability. 

6) Management response time

When a resident emails the manager, they will want to know when they can expect to receive a response.  Posting an article that answers this question helps to set resident expectations. 

Suggested tags: Contact Management

7) Maintenance responsibility matrix

A very common question that residents have when paint chips off or if equipment breaks, is who is responsible for fixing it.  This is when a maintenance responsibility matrix comes in handy.  The best way to depict this information is to create a table that shows each element and whether the resident or the association is responsible to fix it.  

Suggested tags: Use a combination of these tags so that residents can easily find the information they’re looking for & discover new articles: Maintenance, Maintenance Matrix, Association Info.

8) Snowstorm policy

During a snowstorm, it’s important to keep residents informed about best practices and policies so they can prepare ahead of time.  Managers can create articles to convey parking rules, emergency contact information, winter maintenance tips, and more.

Suggested tags: Snow.

9) Emergency procedures

Posting content about the community’s emergency policies and procedures helps residents to be prepared.  Managers can post information on emergency contact information, links to community maps and resources, and what residents need to do before, during, and after an emergency situation. 

Suggested tags: Emergency, Snow.

10) Add staff & vendor information to the knowledge base

When a resident needs to contact a staff member or vendor, create a table that shows the company name, contact name and email/phone, contract duration, and any other information that might be useful to a resident.  This table can also be useful for after-hours staff or new employees who join. 

Suggested tags: Vendor, Managers, Association Info.

Get more time back in the day while educating both residents and staff of important community information. The knowledge base is a simple, yet powerful tool that communities can use to answer resident\’s most asked questions. If you\’d like to learn more about how you can use the knowledge base for your community, contact [email protected].

With information being readily available on the web, residents expect to obtain answers to their questions quickly.  According to Hubspot, at least 5.8 billion searches are conducted per day and each person performs 3-4 searches every day.  With more individuals relying on digital platforms to get instant answers, it’s become crucial to develop a knowledge base that serves as the community’s own search.  For this month’s Manager Toolkit, we provide five helpful tips to make your knowledge base a powerful one-stop-shop for all community Q&A’s.

What is a knowledge base and how is it useful for community/property management?

Pilera’s knowledge base is a searchable, online help center/FAQ section.  A well-built knowledge base’s purpose can be two-fold: 

1. Provide residents with the answers they need, increasing their satisfaction with management and their community.  Also, empowering residents to obtain answers themselves reduces the volume of calls and emails queued at the management office.
2. Serve as an internal FAQ for community managers and board members to assist them with customer support operations.  The knowledge base can also be a powerful training tool for incoming managers and board members.

Tips to create a powerful Knowledge Base:  

1) Phrase the question the way residents/staff would search for it

Before you start writing your knowledge base article, put yourself in the shoes of the resident or staff member searching for information.  How do they ask you questions over the phone? How residents phrase their questions is key to providing an excellent search experience. Adding “What is the guest policy” or “Guest policy” within the title or content will improve the likelihood of residents finding that article in the search results.

2) Add a table to display information

Tables can be added within Pilera’s content editor to convey complex information to residents or staff. Examples include equipment warranty, maintenance responsibility chart/matrix, maintenance contacts for residents, a list of all emergency community contact information, and more. You can format the table to create a professional look with borders, text alignment, cell alignment, text colors, background colors, and more.

3) Categorize with tags

In each knowledge base article you create, you can add tags that will be visible on the right-hand side of the search. Residents/staff can simply select a tag and then all articles with the tag will display. Your residents and staff will appreciate just how easy it is to find the answers they are looking for. Try to keep tags generic such as “Guest Policy”, rather than “# of Guests allowed on the property”. This allows you to maintain a clean look in the knowledge base, provide a good search experience, as well as allow for multiple articles to display for one tag.

4) Set permissions for articles

In Pilera, managers can set permissions for articles to restrict content by the type of user. Permissions help ensure that your knowledge base content is relevant to the resident searching answers. For example, you can restrict lease-related content to only tenants. There are three main permissions for knowledge base articles in Pilera: Anonymous, Owners, and Tenants. If you wish to maintain certain articles for internal purposes only, you can do so by not selecting a resident type and only managers will see the article.

5) Keep adding relevant content, get residents coming back for more!

Once you’ve built the knowledge base, don’t just stop there. Continue to build a list of questions that you receive from residents and create articles to address them. If one resident is asking a particular question, chances are high that other residents will have that question too. Furthermore, keeping your knowledge base content fresh improves resident satisfaction and engagement – they’ll keep coming back to the portal for more!

Implement a knowledge base today!

The knowledge base is a great tool to educate homeowners, tenants, board members, and managers about the community and its policies.  A knowledge base that is built well will keep your residents happy, informed, and they’ll come back to the portal for more information.  Your managers will also appreciate the decline in calls, which will give them more time to allocate to more important community projects.    

Video: Deliver better customer service today with Pilera Help Desk

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About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management suite that has helped thousands of community managers and back-office personnel enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations.  May we help your community achieve these success stories?  Book a demo to see how Pilera’s community management suite can help your company. 

Creating a powerful, search engine-like knowledge base answers relevant questions for your community residents requires investment in time and resources.  Therefore, we present a guide that will give your community association management company a head-start in creating a knowledge base to keep your residents informed of policies and procedures.  By keeping residents informed and engaged, you then cultivate a community that is happy, safe, knowledgeable, and responsible.   

As we highlighted in our Knowledge Base Tips article,  you must step into the minds of community residents and the questions they want answered.  Create simple help articles that are concise, but provide enough detail to eliminate ambiguity and confusion.  Keep the knowledge base fresh and updated on a regular basis as internal and external circumstances change.

About the Association

• Who are the contacts and managers for the association?
• How many new members join the association per year? Total number of members?
• What are the geographic areas covered by the association (town/city)?
• Where is the association office or headquarters location?  Contact information?
• Are the association’s financials available for public view?  What is the fiscal year for the association?

HOA Board

• How often are board meetings held?
• What are the board meeting policies?  
• What are the voting guidelines?
• Who are the current board members?
• What are the qualifications/guidelines to become a board member?

Annual Fees

• How much does the annual fee cost and why do I have to pay it?
• How can I make a payment?
• Are there any special assessments?  If so, how much and what does it cover?
• What happens if I do not pay on time?
• Are there any restrictions placed on delinquent accounts?
  

Resident Property/Maintenance

• Am I allowed to build on my property?  If so, what materials can/can\’t be used?
• What types of equipment are not permitted on my property?
• How do I fill out an architectural change request form?  Who evaluates the form and how long does it take for a decision to be taken?
• How to obtain permits for special building/maintenance requests?
• Can I plant flowers or a vegetable garden?
• How often is common area maintenance performed (if condominium)?  
• How does the HOA prepare for emergencies and storm preparations?
• What are the procedures for garbage collection and when does it get collected?
• Who does the association contract with for security, snow plowing, constructing, plumbing, and interior works?  How do I get in touch with them?
  

Residents/Visitors

• In the event that I lose my parking permit or access code/card access to the community gate, how do I obtain another one?  If applicable, what is the cost of obtaining a new one?
• In the event of a lock-out, who do I contact?
• What are the association’s guest policies?  
• Does the guest require a card or access code to enter the community or a parking permit?
• Are pets permitted?  What are the community’s guidelines regarding pets?
• Can I hold a yard sale event? If so, what guidelines need to be adhered to?
• What are the leasing/move-in and out procedures?  What forms need to be filled out?  

Use of Common Area Amenities

• What are the pool and gym hours?
• In order to use the sports ground/sports amenities, are there any rules that need to be followed?
• What are the guidelines for using all common area amenities such as laundry and main office kitchen amenities?
• Can I book the clubhouse for an event?

Rule Violations

• If the violation is related to a home maintenance issue, how long do I have to fix it before receiving another message?
• If I receive a rule violation letter, what is the required response?

Resale

• Prior to putting my home on the market, what information do I or my real estate agent need to supply the HOA?

Did you know that Pilera’s residential community management suite includes a knowledge base? Add all important questions and answers accessible by residents or managers based on permission settings and include keywords and tags for ease in search.  Make your community’s knowledge base a powerful search engine.     

 

Have you received phone calls to your office from residents constantly asking about the community’s guest policies?  Or, how to obtain another parking sticker?  Reading long, traditional documents may be too difficult or time-consuming compared to the ease of calling the management company.  What if you were to gather all the questions and add answers to an easily searchable database? This searchable database is called a knowledge base.  If well maintained, it can serve as a powerful search engine or FAQ for your community.  In this blog post, we discuss some best practices to help you create a helpful knowledge base for your residents, managers, and support staff.

Keep a log of resident questions

As you receive calls or emails from residents, keep track of questions asked, the complexity of the answer, and question frequency.  Also, keep track of pertinent information that you can convert into Q&As.  Your current log of resident questions may not cover all the information you need to pass on to your community.  A knowledge base that covers multiple topics can help residents find answers to questions they didn’t know they had.

Anticipate what you may be asked in the future

Try anticipating questions that you may be asked in the future.  It is possible that your residents may need those questions answered, but have not yet asked.  Or, perhaps recent changes may increase the number of questions coming in regarding a specific topic. 

Categorize your Q&A entries

Whether you are just starting to create a knowledge base or are updating an existing one with new Q&As, keep your categories in mind to ease searching.  Residents will not want to search through hundreds of pages to find an answer to one or a few question(s). Step into the minds of your resident: how will they search for a question?  What words will they use?  You may opt to use a combination of common words and their synonyms.

Write in a simple fashion

Don’t incorporate large vocabulary or buzzwords that your residents will have to pull out a dictionary to find out the meaning.  Keep your content simple and to the point.  You may opt to create a glossary for terms that you will be using frequently in the content.  Most relevant, writing consistently will reduce confusion. 

Educate your residents on the knowledge base

When you have a workable knowledge base with the most important questions answered, educate your residents on how to use it.  Supply the information as part of your resident onboarding process.  Create a flyer, how-to-sheet, or make it a part of a short new resident orientation video.  Educate your staff on how to create and categorize new entries, tips on answering queries effectively, and how to show residents the way your community’s knowledge base works. 

Monitor and analyze your efforts

Are your residents finding the information they need, quickly?  How much time are your staff members taking to answer FAQs now?  What other frequent questions are your team asked about that don’t yet have an answer in your knowledge base?  Take the time to monitor the results of these efforts and evaluate their effectiveness.  If these efforts are not saving your team time or providing quality answers to residents, then it’s time to make changes to your knowledge base strategy. 

Keep your knowledge base fresh and up-to-date

As the popular adage goes, “change is the only constant”.  That too applies to your knowledge base.  As the internal company and external community environment evolves and new events occur, you may have to update your existing answers or answer new questions.

As a community manager, you have the responsibility of ensuring happy residents, smooth operations, and a safe environment.  An important goal for you is to answer questions efficiently and effectively.  A knowledge base can help you to reduce the volume of calls, emails, or visits to your office.  Especially important is that a knowledge base takes the guesswork out of your resident’s queries. Never be in doubt about whether your residents are getting the correct answers or not.