Your knowledge base should be working as hard as your support team. But here's the thing—most companies have no idea if their documentation is actually helping or just sitting there collecting digital dust.

If you're not measuring your knowledge base performance, you're basically flying blind. And let's be honest, nobody has time to manually audit hundreds of articles to figure out what's working.

That's where the right metrics come in. And more importantly, that's where tools like Ariglad transform how you maintain and optimize your documentation.

Why Most Knowledge Bases Fail (And How to Fix Yours)

Before we dive into metrics, let's talk about the elephant in the room: most knowledge bases suck because they become outdated the moment you publish them.

Your product updates. Your processes change. Customer questions evolve. But your docs? They stay frozen in time unless someone remembers to update them.

Ariglad solves this by intelligently reviewing your support tickets, detecting when information is missing or outdated, and refreshing your documentation automatically. It's like having a dedicated documentation manager who never sleeps and actually enjoys reviewing tickets.

The Metrics That Actually Matter

Let's cut through the vanity metrics and focus on what really tells you if your knowledge base is pulling its weight.

1. Article Effectiveness Rate

This is the big one. Are people actually finding answers, or are they reading your article and immediately opening a support ticket anyway?

Track how many users view an article and then don't contact support. If your article effectiveness rate is low, it means your content isn't actually solving problems—it's just creating an extra step before frustration.

2. Search Success Rate

Can people find what they're looking for? If users are searching five times before giving up, your search is not optimized.

Monitor:

• Search queries that return zero results
• Search queries that lead to ticket creation
• Time spent searching before finding (or not finding) an answer

3. Content Freshness Score

Here's a metric most teams ignore until it's too late: how old is your content?

Articles written 18 months ago might as well be ancient history if your product has evolved. Track the last review date and update frequency for every article.

This is where Ariglad really shines. Instead of manually reviewing hundreds of articles to see if they're still accurate, Ariglad automatically detects outdated information by analyzing current support tickets against existing documentation. When it spots a discrepancy, it flags the article for review or updates it directly.

4. Deflection Rate

How many support tickets are you preventing with your knowledge base? This is your ultimate ROI metric.

But here's the catch—you need to make sure those knowledge base views are actually resolving issues, not just delaying the inevitable ticket. That's why deflection rate works best when combined with article effectiveness.

5. Time to Resolution (When KB Is Involved)

When customers do use your knowledge base before contacting support, does it help agents resolve issues faster?

If agents are constantly having to explain things that are supposedly "documented," your knowledge base isn't helping—it's confusing people.

Track average resolution time for tickets where the customer viewed KB articles first versus tickets where they didn't. The difference tells you if your documentation is actually useful or just creates more work.

Building a Living Knowledge Base

Here's the truth: measuring metrics is pointless if you don't have a system to act on what they're telling you.

Traditional knowledge base management is reactive. Someone notices an article is outdated (maybe), creates a ticket to update it (eventually), and someone gets around to it (hopefully).

Ariglad flips this model on its head by making your knowledge base proactive. It's constantly monitoring support tickets, detecting patterns, and maintaining a living knowledge base that evolves with your business.

The AI doesn't just tell you something's wrong—it helps fix it. It identifies missing information, spots outdated content, and even suggests updates based on how your team is currently answering questions.

Practical Steps to Start Measuring Today

Ready to actually measure your knowledge base performance? Here's how to start:

Week 1: Establish Your Baseline

• Track current article views, searches, and ticket volume
• Calculate your starting deflection rate
• Identify your top 20 most-viewed articles

Week 2: Set Up Tracking

• Implement search analytics to capture failed searches
• Tag tickets that reference knowledge base articles
• Monitor which articles lead to tickets

Week 3: Identify Quick Wins

• Find high-traffic articles with low effectiveness
• Spot common support questions without documentation
• Update or create your top 5 priority articles

Week 4: Automate With Ariglad

With Ariglad integrated into your workflow, the tool handles the heavy lifting automatically, continuously analyzing support interactions and keeping your documentation current without manual intervention.

The Bottom Line

Your knowledge base is either actively helping your team or actively wasting everyone's time. There's no in-between.

The right metrics show you which one you've got. But metrics alone won't fix a broken knowledge base—you need a system that actually maintains your content.

That's where Ariglad comes in. By intelligently reviewing support tickets, detecting documentation gaps, and automatically refreshing your knowledge base, Ariglad helps your team resolve issues faster and lighten the load on agents.

Most importantly, it gives you a knowledge base that actually grows with your business instead of becoming another outdated resource that frustrates customers and agents alike.

Because at the end of the day, the best knowledge base metric is the one you don't have to check: a support team that's not drowning in repetitive tickets.

‍

Book a Demo With Ariglad