KnowledgeOwl Reviews

When looking to replace our current customer support portal, we looked at several options. Knowing that we wanted a self service platform to maintain documentation, videos, demos, etc., Knowledge Owl (KO) came out on top. Their out of the box solution had much more functionality for the money and was solid.

Once we started uploading content, we had several questions as new users typically do, but the team at KO was ALWAYS ready, willing, and able to assist. Not being the most technical person, I never once felt like I was bothering them.

We also had the KO team assist with integrating our ticketing system and mirroring the CSS of our public site. All was fairly seamless and the team was extremely responsive throughout.

Being that we built our KO site as private where our customers need to log in to access company-specific information, we also utilize KO's password management.

Overall, I could not be more pleased with this solution and the KO team. They are really fantastic, extremely responsive. And, they are constantly improving the platform! Great product and Great People! Thank you KO. We look forward to working with you for a VERY long time to come...

As someone coming from the high-end CMS authoring tools of Madcap Flare, RoboHelp, and HelpStudio, KnowledgeOwl has a lot more of the features that I expect to see from a CMS system with the additional bonus of having a team willing to go the extra mile to implement tweaks for their customers.

It's a perk, especially compared to the stand-alone systems, where "can I do this?" usually returns a response of "you get what you get and LIKE it. Oh, we also just rolled out a $1500 update. Go buy that, it has that little tweak you want. Kind of. But not really. Oh, and you should spend eight hours tracking down a solution to the problem you're having in our forums, because what you want to do isn't part of this release. That's in the next release. We promise."

Not that I'm bitter.

That doesn't seem like much when you're working on a sedate development environment. Having the time to sit down and really chew on some Javascript is part of it, but when your only free time to breathe or do a little research on the site interface issues is during your morning bus commute, it's a huge impact to your daily work routine.

When you're trying to slam out content that changes on a daily basis, not having the time to implement a backend code tweak for your site while keeping up with your dev team's amazing ability to crush deploy deadlines like empty Red Bull cans makes it hard to get those tweaks to your backend integrated in a timely manner. But KnowledgeOwl has been responsive, helpful, and reasonable - to the point where I don't mind waiting a day or so to get an answer back or telling my team "I asked KO about it, they're figuring out a fix for that."

I am not a huge fan of CMS hosting apps and sites from a purist's standpoint, but KnowledgeOwl makes me think I may become a convert.

Overall, the software does what it says. It's a great start to get your product's documentation out there. But some basic wiki capabilities are missing. Tags are still new and have a sort of "Phase 1" usefulness about them right now. There is no way to organize the image library, but I see on their product roadmap that this is on their radar. I'm also looking forward to the Glossary feature that is mentioned on their product roadmap, but not yet a capability of the system.

Most importantly, I would LOVE to have a way to link to a specific point in a different article, like you can with some knowledge bases.

The initial setup of the knowledge base is incredibly easy - super user-friendly. When trying the product before buying, I had a tiny test knowledge base up and running in minutes.

Documentation is a little lacking, but the software is intuitive enough that I find I don't have to refer to the documentation very often anyway.

The customer service there is excellent. We have had nothing but the best since day 1. Overall, I'd say our company is happy with Knowledge Owl and are looking forward to the enhancements that will round it out.

We looked at many vendors before we evaluated Knowledge Owl, and I can't say enough about our experience working with the Knowledge Owl Team. From day one, the team continues to amaze me with the level of service they provide. They worked closely with us throughout the setup and implementation phase of our Help Center launch and continue to assist with our very custom and individual needs. Kudos to the entire team for always being responsive and helpful, but special thanks to the Knowledge Goddess / Chief Executive Owl, for leading the team.

We needed a replacement for Crowdbase which is turning off their platform at the end of the year. After a through search for a replacement, Knowledge Owl came out as the clear winner on every one of our requirements. First and foremost, we needed the ability to mimick the look (to some degree) and interaction behavior that our users had become used to in Crowdbase. KO provided this. The KO feature set is actually overkill for our needs, but very solid and not so granular that a none coder can't get things done without support. However, when you need support, KO REALLY shines. They are a relatively small organization, but growing, so they can really provide personal service. If KO can find that magical balance of growth (which will come just based on how great a platform it is), and continue the quality of service, they will own the knowledge base space.

We were using Zendesk for our knowledge base because they were also our ticketing system, but I got frustrated with slow development timelines for some features core to our organization. We reached a tipping point and needed an alternative solution. After looking into over a dozen options, I discovered HelpGizmo. Not only did they already have the core features we needed, they were genuinely interested in building the best product possible and asked about the other pain points that existed with our previous service. They were willing to iterate on their product quickly and excellently to make it something even better than the great product I had discovered. It was such a different experience to see how quickly they responded and rolled out really great features that create a lot of value. Best yet, we still use Zendesk for ticketing but HelpGizmo is now our knowledgebase and Helpgizmo integrates with Zendesk so we get the best of what each company offers. Going with HelpGizmo was a great decision and working with their team has been a true pleasure. Highly recommend!

HelpGizmo is super easy. The switch over to HelpGizmo is FAST! Organizing all my content using the drag and drop table of contents was a snap. Depending on your content you should be able to go live with a public site in a day, two tops.

HelpGizmo's table of contents organization allows editors and customers to see the "big picture" of documentation. This not only makes documentation management more efficient but, more importantly, it allows customers to help themselves. Customers who search our help documentation for a quick answer can see the other content and are encouraged to come back and use the other resources.

Finally, and most importantly, the HelpGizmo team believes in customer-driven development and they're not just saying that. They are bright, energetic customer service gurus who just intuitively understand how to help you help your customers. When it comes to feature requests Marybeth will probably finish your sentences for you. This tools is already packed full of really rad features and the HelpGizmo team is just itching for customer feedback to build more.

We have been very lucky to experience rapid growth due to our unique approaches in our industry. Unfortunately, rapid growth is very dangerous for many companies, because the growth distracts them, and they lose sight of what made the successful in the first place.

We were desperately searching for a solution that would allow us to retain and promote our culture in a simple, but powerful, knowledge base platform. We tested many products, but Knowledgeowl was the simplest and most effective to use. In addition, the support has been incredible. I really feel like they are in this with us, not just selling a product. I highly recommend this product!

HelpGizmo has helped me to minimize the clutter of paperwork. I built an internal Employee Toolbox for employees to access when they needed information on anything from how to make coffee to employee benefits. This site really allows for people to get what they need and move on with their day. Setting it up was a breeze as well! I am glad to have everything organized, easily accessible, and searchable.

For the most part, this software is easy and intuitive for a non-technical person to use, although it may require a little Googling if you haven't dusted off your HTML skills in recent years. Most of the design is point-and-click; images are uploaded and there is a nice visual editor, similar to Wordpress.

One of my favorite features is the option for the software to "fetch" the colors from whatever web address you enter. This enables the Knowledge Base to basically design itself, all you really need to do is decide where the colors are used and select a layout.

Our initial help center was created using our ticketing software, which seemed like natural thing to do. Except the end result was an outdated flashback, and like most fads from the past, unpleasing to the eye. Anything I did was just putting lipstick on a pig, so that being said, it wasn't going to take much to impress me.

Unfortunately, I ran into formatting issues so I was tasked to call technical support. It seems like a non-issue and for the normal person, it probably is...but I loathe technical support. I would rather go to the dentist than call technical support.

After a few days of trying to figure it out, I was told to stop "procrastinating" and make the call. That was harsh because even though *maybe* I was procrastinating a tiny bit, I was mostly ambitiously learning to make myself a more valuable asset in the future. However, that went awry when I did something that made our help center absolutely horrific. I frantically slammed CTRL-Z over and over again but to my dismay, our help center continued to look like a freak show.

Defeated, I hung my head and picked up the phone.

But, luckily for me, this technical support was not what I have experienced in the past - it was actually a pleasant experience. The errors of my ways were quickly erased into non-existence and our help center bloomed into what it was supposed to look like this entire time. Not only were my failures undone, but issues that I wasn't even aware of (yet) were fixed, too.

I am a writer and its reassuring to know that I have someone technical who can help me so that I can spend my time writing instead of banging CNTRL-Z. It's more efficient than the whole "ambitiously learning" thing.

It has been great using this program. The support we receive is great. I wish they could come teach our in house IT team on customer service and the need for speed on some fixes. It is nice talking to someone who knows what they are doing and bends over backwards to make you happy. GREAT customer service and a great product.

In February 2016, we partnered with Knowledge Owl to build an internal platform that has been a game changer for our 41 (and growing) schools. We launched in July 2016, and there is no way we would have been successful without their partnership. They have been with us every step of the way, and they have been pivotal to our success.

In June of 2017, we will launch this to the world, and are so proud to do this with a company that cares so deeply about a high-quality, easy-to-use product with the BEST customer service. They are incredible!

We'd signed up for KnowledgeOwl (then HelpGizmo) to use as a white-label manual for a product we resell. It's fit very well into that role, since we can customize the help center to only show information related to the product and disassociate it completely from our branding, which has helped a lot for marketing.

The software itself is very easy to use, way easier than something like MediaWiki. The rich text editing and easy image uploads (did I mention they host your media? No hotlinks!) makes writing articles with video/pictures super easy. It's also really easy to update articles, I went and overcomplicated myself when all I have to do is drag and drop the resource I want.

Support has always been wonderful, Marybeth, Pete, and the team are great at communicating changes (like the DNS shift from helpgizmo to knowledgeowl), answering questions, implementing fixes, and basically just being all-around great.

Customization is quick and easy, there are several features we haven't needed to explore but really do make KnowledgeOwl a great drop-in solution for other CRM or ticketing tools. Plus, users can download PDFs of your articles which makes distributing printable documentation even easier.

KnowledgeOwl is a great piece of software that does exactly what it needs to do, and nothing more. It's thoughtless to the point of never being in your way, allowing you to focus on writing and managing articles instead of spending time messing with options and configurations. Plus, it allows users to configure multiple KBs on the same account, so I can manage customer-facing documentation on one KB and have internal, staff-only documentation on another. Yatta!

KnowledgeOwl has become my go-to recommendation for a fast, easy, smart, professional knowledge base system. Give it a shot, I'm sure you'll feel the same way too!

Pros -

Incredibly intuitive
Highly customisable
Strong customer service ethos
Detailed reporting
Huge creative space
Up time - is excellent

NO CONS!

We've been with Knowledge Owl since 2014, and have thoroughly loved every day spent with them. We use their product to deliver incredibly important user guides, top tips FAQ's and other general information about our products and services, directly to our customers.

All of this is done through three separate knowledge bases, for three separate products.

The fact that we allow our products to be supported by Knowledge Owl across three separate KB's should indicate to you that we're serious when we say that their product is excellent.

In addition to giving us the creative space and freedom to impart knowledge onto our clients, their customer service has been excellent since day one. I am the person that contacts Knowledge Owl to deal with any situations that may arise around the knowledge bases, but in all honesty - I could probably count on one hand the amount of times I've had to request assistance. The times I have needed to, have been fast and very professional experiences, which is pretty incredible considering we are based across a sea and time zone from them.

As a manager the reporting tools and functions behind the scenes in Knowledge Owls KB's are invaluable. The statistics I am able to gather gives us as a company the ability to see what's - working, trending, missing and important to our clients.

As a long time user, I would have no problem at all recommending their product to another business or nominating them for an award in excellence.

Love the software, some bugs. Nothing that can't be fixed. Friendly customer service. User friendly.

Knowledge Owl's Marybeth and Pete co-design and troubleshoot any foreseen issues. They are immensely valued and responsive. Their backend is great and intuitive - which makes training staff simple and fast. I would recommend them to anyone.

I found KnowledgeOwl after joining a tech startup as the lead technical writer. At the time, the company didn't have any formal user documentation -- but we did have a support team fielding many repetitive questions, and users who could benefit from formal instruction. Given that we have a single product and it's fairly simple, products like MadCap Flare (which I had used at the previous company I worked for) offered much more than we needed -- and at a much different price point.

I evaluated several other options and ended up selecting KnowledgeOwl given its straightforward pricing plan, easy-to-use interface and immediate publishing abilities. If you need something simple to use and build that offers fairly attractive basic theme choices, then KnowledgeOwl will suit you just fine. It may not offer several hundred output options, but as the world continues to move away from print manuals towards greener, online manuals, in my opinion that factor wasn't important.

The best part about KnowledgeOwl, though, is the customer service/support. I can't imagine any company matching its service/support level. The first few weeks required a lot of customization given the look and feel that my company was going for, and the team over at KnowledgeOwl was with me every step of the way as far as customizing code and so on, in some cases even doing the customization for me as I was in over my head with that level of CSS code! Highly, highly recommended.

We were using Zendesk for our knowledge base because they were also our ticketing system, but I got frustrated with slow development timelines for some features core to our organization. We reached a tipping point and needed an alternative solution. After looking into over a dozen options, I discovered HelpGizmo.

Not only did they already have the core features we needed, they were genuinely interested in building the best product possible and asked about the other pain points that existed with our previous service. They were willing to iterate on their product quickly and excellently to make it something even better than the great product I had discovered.

It was such a different experience to see how quickly they responded and rolled out really great features that create a lot of value. Best yet, we still use Zendesk for ticketing but HelpGizmo is now our knowledge base and since Helpgizmo integrates with Zendesk we get the best of what each company offers. It made switching such an easy decision for our organization.

And you will not find a better customer service team. They are friendly, responsive, and always looking to make their product better. That is probably the most impressive "feature" you'll be getting when you go with HelpGizmo.

Going with HelpGizmo was a great decision and working with their team has been a true pleasure. Highly recommend!

The first thing to know about the KnowledgeOwl product is that the team behind it is really dedicated and extremely responsive. Whenever I've had an issue, they have been right on top of it and that's worth a lot.
Combine this with a really simple and rock-solid product, and you have a real winner. We deployed a new product knowledgebase in less than 30 days from start to production with KnowledgeOwl. When we needed tweaks to the mobile view, they were able to immediately help. When we suggested new features, they were quick to give us a delivery date and put them in queue.
The product is very easy to set up, even simpler to maintain, and (most importantly) it is stupidly simple to use. Simplicity is key as far too many other products we evaluated had a lot of legacy UI or other complexity which served as a barrier to entry for the end-user.
If there was any difficulty it's with uploading images to be used. The files are uploaded to a library and then transferred to the website through an automatic process. Usually this is instantaneous, but if you upload a file with the same name or do something else weird then it can take several minutes to straighten out. That's a fairly minor concern in a product that can do so much with such a responsive staff.
Our technical team uses the knowledge base every day. What more can you ask of a product?

I use this software to create lessons for internal and external viewing. It is really easy to use and creates really user friendly and professional guides.

It's always hard to capture your employees knowledge but KnowledgeOwl makes it easy !