KNOWLEDGEBASE METRICS.

The one feature common to most Web support sites is some form of searchable knowledgebase, which usually contains hundreds or even thousands of tech notes, FAQs, application tips, documentation, detailed articles about previously-reported problems, and other documents. Our survey took a look at key areas of knowledgebase metrics and management:

* Productivity: Knowledgebase authoring is clearly more complicated than answering a single e-mail question, so productivity comparisons can be even tougher to define. One company may view a short FAQ answer as a completed tech note, while another counts only articles that take a few days of in-depth research. To achieve some rough consistency of definitions, we asked our respondents how many "individual tech notes" their site contains, as well as how many tech notes a writer can create in one day:

   Tech note productivity per writer    Tech notes/day
    By total number of tech notes on the site:
      1,000+ (31 responses)      5/day
      100-999 (46 responses)       4/day
      6-99 (22 responses)      1/day
   Median-500 tech notes (99 responses)      3/day

* Knowledgebase technology: So far, no vendor of knowledgebase tools seems to have achieved broad market penetration. Instead, Web support site developers rely mostly on homegrown systems or have adapted literally dozens of different commercial databases, text retrieval systems, and search engines. Moreover, customers apparently don't perceive much difference among various vendors in such areas as initial installation, flexibility and customization, and performance and speed:

   Knowledgebase vendor ratings*     Installation   Flexibility
   Performance
   By system vendor:
      Homegrown (24 responses)   2.2   2.3   2.2
      Lotus Notes (9 responses)   2.1   2.5   2.2
      RightNow (8 responses)   2.4   2.4   2.1
      Clientele (4 responses))   2.0   2.5   2.5
      Vantive (4 responses)   2.3   2.5   2.5
   All (77 responses)   2.1   2.1   2.2
   * Ratings: 3.0 = excellent, 2.0 = adequate, 1.0 = major problems.

* Resolution rates: Arguably, the ultimate metric for knowledgebase performance is the site's resolution rate--the percentage of visitors who actually find an answer to their questions. Yet relatively few sites ask users whether their knowledgebase query was successful. (Those that do ask typically find that the majority of visitors ignore the question.) For the 26 sites in our survey that collect resolution statistics, however, knowledgebases typically resolve 42% (median) of all customer questions; half produce success rates between 30% and 65%.