DISCOVER KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Knowledge management helps businesses with multiple contact channels and content repositories harmonize their internal knowledge and make it readily available to both staff and customers.
Supported by an intuitive omnichannel platform and knowledge lifecycle management, customer management processes can be automated and sales and service efficiency significantly increased.
When does your business need knowledge management?
Knowledge management goes far beyond shifting from sharepoint to a new tool. It addresses core difficulties faced by sales and service organizations and helps address them with disruptive new ways of managing information. Some of these will apply to your business:
Hard to find the right answer
According to a survey conducted by one of our solution partners, eGain with the participation of 615 enterprise organizations the biggest issue facing frontline agents today is the ability to find the correct answer for customer questions quickly and at the first time of searching. 26% of those companies believe that agents just do not know where to search for information since most of these organizations have multiple sources of content.
No consistency across knowledge bases
In our experience the large majority of businesses utilize multiple legacy systems for storing information which must be used by frontline agents. The consistency and accuracy of the information stored in these systems varies greatly. In many cases the information at hand is often also out of date. In these situations the agent has no guidance of which source to “believe” and therefore consistency of answers across channels and individual agents cannot be warranted or guaranteed. Additionally, the lack of trust in the information available in these systems decreases their use and leads to agents turning to each other for clarification, thus slowing down customer service processes. 25% of experts ranked this issue as the most critical one.
Multiple windows and apps
20% of experts believe that the most difficult task frontline agents are facing is the need to repeatedly switch between multiple (in some cases in the double digits) applications and windows to manage an interaction with the customer.
Keeping up with new or changed information
14% of the respondents stated that the biggest issue is keeping up with changes in processes, policies, services and product details while also finding time to do actual work. Agents typically work under a lot of pressure to handle as many customer interactions as quickly as possible as average handling time is still a pervasive contact center kpi. This allows them little time to follow up on any changes and information. To make matters worse, news and alerts usually arrive in channels which agents do not monitor all the time, such as e-mail.
No experience, only expectations
Having ambitious sales targets right from day one can be a daunting proposition for rookie retail store and contact center agents. Up to 50% of all new starters leave because sales expectations are not supported by the right tools, leading to high attrition.
No appetite for memorizing large amounts of information
Millennial agents are living a digital life and are used to relying on a wide range of digital tools to help them solve problems. They are increasingly reluctant to memorize large bodies of knowledge and prefer to become proficient in the use of tools that can help them dynamically answer the problems customers are asking. They take personalization for granted and have high expectations of any tool they use for knowledge management and process guidance: a rookie needs guidance at every step while a pro wants the freedom to jump over steps he or she is confident in.
Varying skills and competencies
Industries selling complex products and services tend to organize customer service staff around carefully defined competences with a high level of specialization. Additionally, each agent has a unique skill set – some are better at selling, some at solving problems. Identifying and sharing best practices in order to boost overall performance is a major challenge.
Lack of transparency around contact reason
If contact reasons are determined solely based on outcome coding done by agents at the end of the interaction, accuracy tends to be in the 60 – 70% range. This makes meaningful and actionable root cause analysis difficult to accomplish. Retail environments tend to be even more challenging with very limited transparency of interactions that do not directly result in a sale or any other transaction captured by systems. Using dynamic process guidance can help give more granular insights into what is actually happening at your touchpoints.
According to a survey conducted by one of our solution partners, eGain with the participation of 615 enterprise organizations the biggest issue facing frontline agents today is the ability to find the correct answer for customer questions quickly and at the first time of searching. 26% of those companies believe that agents just do not know where to search for information since most of these organizations have multiple sources of content.
In our experience the large majority of businesses utilize multiple legacy systems for storing information which must be used by frontline agents. The consistency and accuracy of the information stored in these systems varies greatly. In many cases the information at hand is often also out of date. In these situations the agent has no guidance of which source to “believe” and therefore consistency of answers across channels and individual agents cannot be warranted or guaranteed. Additionally, the lack of trust in the information available in these systems decreases their use and leads to agents turning to each other for clarification, thus slowing down customer service processes. 25% of experts ranked this issue as the most critical one.
20% of experts believe that the most difficult task frontline agents are facing is the need to repeatedly switch between multiple (in some cases in the double digits) applications and windows to manage an interaction with the customer.
14% of the respondents stated that the biggest issue is keeping up with changes in processes, policies, services and product details while also finding time to do actual work. Agents typically work under a lot of pressure to handle as many customer interactions as quickly as possible as average handling time is still a pervasive contact center kpi. This allows them little time to follow up on any changes and information. To make matters worse, news and alerts usually arrive in channels which agents do not monitor all the time, such as e-mail.
Having ambitious sales targets right from day one can be a daunting proposition for rookie retail store and contact center agents. Up to 50% of all new starters leave because sales expectations are not supported by the right tools, leading to high attrition.
Millennial agents are living a digital life and are used to relying on a wide range of digital tools to help them solve problems. They are increasingly reluctant to memorize large bodies of knowledge and prefer to become proficient in the use of tools that can help them dynamically answer the problems customers are asking. They take personalization for granted and have high expectations of any tool they use for knowledge management and process guidance: a rookie needs guidance at every step while a pro wants the freedom to jump over steps he or she is confident in.
Industries selling complex products and services tend to organize customer service staff around carefully defined competences with a high level of specialization. Additionally, each agent has a unique skill set – some are better at selling, some at solving problems. Identifying and sharing best practices in order to boost overall performance is a major challenge.
If contact reasons are determined solely based on outcome coding done by agents at the end of the interaction, accuracy tends to be in the 60 – 70% range. This makes meaningful and actionable root cause analysis difficult to accomplish. Retail environments tend to be even more challenging with very limited transparency of interactions that do not directly result in a sale or any other transaction captured by systems. Using dynamic process guidance can help give more granular insights into what is actually happening at your touchpoints.
What are the tangible benefits?
Knowledge management delivers impact by improving the agent experience as well as the customer experience.
One question - One answer - One system
One central knowledge system serving all channels with the same knowledge article database providing a single source of truth
Shorter time to competence
Dynamic process guidance enables new agents to get up to speed significantly faster than with traditional training methods and allows them to start handling complex topics with confidence. Time to competency is halved in many cases. Additionally, it fosters best practice sharing across all experience levels.
Higher agent satisfaction
Using an intuitive knowledge management interface helps agents, especially millennials, interact with customers more seamlessly, thus lowering turnover by boosting agent experience.
One agent - all competencies and skills
Making the full range of knowledge topics available to all agents solves the biggest issue of resource allocation. Additionally, the most effective sales techniques and even specific sentences being built into the guided help flows can significantly increase the efficiency of sales. Make every agent your best agent.
Changes, updates, alerts directly to the agent desktop
The agent advisor desktop highlights the relevant updates for all agents to help them stay up to date at all times
What capabilities are covered by a knowledge management system?
Knowledge management systems fundamentally allow you to manage static articles and dynamic processes across digital (e.g. FAQ) and traditional channels (e.g. contact centers).
There are a lot of different roles of knowledge management systems and each client requires a different solution. However, there are some functions that are essential for an up-to-date and fully capable system. Here, we gathered these functions:
User roles and permissions
While a system like this serves the organization’s needs it holds a lot of sensitive information, so traceability could be vital. Thus, it is important to be able to manage user roles and permissions on the user level: Who did what, when, and who approved it?
Knowledge management hub for agents
An effective knowledge management system provides customer service agents with all the relevant knowledge. The system is consistent, provides quick answers, and a wide range of possibilities for the agents to receive and search for the information they need.
- Keyword and intent-based search
- Natural language search
- Topic tree browsing
- Intent-based search, rather than plain keyword search
- Content federation: Federated search across the website and all knowledge base
- Customer service supported by a self-learning algorithm
- Relevance-ranked presentation of search results
Knowledge management powered self-service
A good knowledge management system enables organizations to provide distinctive, productive, and brand-aligned self-service experiences that enable breakthrough improvements in customer self-service effectiveness and adoption while allowing seamless, context-aware escalations to live customer service or sales agents.
60%
deflection of customer emails through successful self-service for a wholesale club operator
100%
customers of a telecom company find answers to their issues on the company website
$1.4 M
inquiries from students and staff of an exam board are resolved on the website
User roles and permissions
While a system like this serves the organization’s needs it holds a lot of sensitive information, so traceability could be vital. Thus, it is important to be able to manage user roles and permissions on the user level: Who did what, when, and who approved it?
Knowledge management systems are used by employees and clients, also. Therefore, the user interface of the system has to be customizable to the company’s brand without help from the IT Department.
An effective knowledge management system provides customer service agents with all the relevant knowledge. The system is consistent, provides quick answers, and a wide range of possibilities for the agents to receive and search for the information they need.
- Keyword and intent-based search
- Natural language search
- Topic tree browsing
- Intent-based search, rather than plain keyword search
- Content federation: Federated search across the website and all knowledge base
- Customer service supported by a self-learning algorithm
- Relevance-ranked presentation of search results
A good knowledge management system enables organizations to provide distinctive, productive, and brand-aligned self-service experiences that enable breakthrough improvements in customer self-service effectiveness and adoption while allowing seamless, context-aware escalations to live customer service or sales agents.
While a system like this serves the organization’s needs it holds a lot of sensitive information, so traceability could be vital. Thus, it is important to be able to manage user roles and permissions on the user level: Who did what, when, and who approved it?
How can Pattern help you make the transition?
Taking your business’ knowledge management to the next level is a complex cross-company effort, but the benefits position you well to better serve your customers going forward. Our knowledge management professional services modules are designed to support you along the entire transformation journey from planning to implementation.
Knowledge architecture assessment and target picture planning
Knowledge architecture assessment and target picture planning
approx. 4-6 weeks
We assess the maturity of your current knowledge management processes and benchmark against best practices before drawing up scenarios for maximizing the impact delivered by knowledge.
This module typically includes the following steps:
Knowledge management pilot (frontline proof of concept)
Knowledge management pilot (frontline proof of concept)
approx. 10-14 weeks (including 6 weeks pilot duration)
Using dynamic guided processes and transitioning to tool-supported customer engagement management requires a cultural shift within your sales and service organization. Seeing the unique needs of your business and the impact the shift can have on your operation is best demonstrated through a live pilot. The effort invested into this will be rewarded with the knowledge that any decision you make on long term deployment is based on learnings gleaned from your own business.
We usually run knowledge management pilots along the following steps:
Knowledge management system implementation
Knowledge management system implementation
approx. 8 weeks - 18 months
Knowledge management system rollouts are done in sprints and can thus start generating ROI after 8-12 weeks on select user groups and topics. The time it takes to migrate all relevant processes to the new way of working strongly depends on the size and complexity of the business. However, it always needs to be followed up with robust knowledge lifecycle management to make sure keeping knowledge up to date is ingrained in your organization.
Our implementation module covers the following tasks:
