CRM + KM = A Winning Service Strategy

Recently, while attending the Service Strategies conference in Las Vegas, I spent a day in an executive forum, listening to the concerns and suggestions of people who run large support operations. Two interesting topics were raised, and others weren’t, to my surprise. Here they are…

Interesting topics
(1) Adding value to a new CRM system
(2) Translating content into multiple languages

Missing topics
(1) Knowledge capture
(2) Web self-service

What was interesting
The first interesting topic was raised by a company that had recently invested in a new CRM system, and wanted advice on how to get the most out of it. Unanimously, the answer was “Add a quality third-party KM (Knowledge Management) system, because none of the CRM packages do that part well”. Although that’s a message my company, InQuira, has supported for some time now, and was the basis for our recent partnership with Oracle, I was (pleasantly) surprised at the strength of the reaction. Particularly given how much CRM vendors have advocated that they already have KM covered within their products.

The second interesting topic on multi-lingual content could have many angles, but was posed around the problem of content translation, presumably from English to other languages. That got me thinking about companies that follow methodologies such as KCS (Knowledge Centered Support) from the Consortium for Service Innovation. KCS empowers front line agents to author content, as opposed to a central group on the back lines. What if those front line agents aren’t native English writers? Many-to-many language translation seems like a necessity in that case. It seems like global companies have two choices for content languages. Have duplicate copies of all content in all languages needed, or have one base copy in a common language (most likely English), and local content in local languages. An interesting topic for another day.

What was missing
Since InQuira is in the business of Knowledge Management software, we naturally believe that having quality and timely content is the foundation for all successful multi-channel interactions, whether via a web self-service portal or an agent. After all, resolving support problems isn’t about tracking them in a CRM system, it’s about closing them with the right answers. Does anything else really matter? And yet, not a single executive in the room asked about having the right knowledge base in place, and processes for keeping knowledge current and accurate. Admittedly, these were mostly managers of large call centers. You’d think they would be under pressure to reduce headcount through productivity and knowledge sharing. It didn’t feel that way.

The other missing topic was web self-service. I asked an attendee who ran a call center what his role was in self-service, and he said that some of the content from the call center was used in self-service. Clearly he didn’t own the self-service experience, nor was he concerned about the customer’s transition from the web to the agent. In fact, call center personnel probably benefit if the web experience isn’t great, so they can be the heroes. Why would any company not have the service executives all compensated based on the total support infrastructure? It makes no sense to me, but it appears to be the norm, rather than the exception. Apple is one of InQuira’s customers that does it right, and it shows. Check out the Apple web self-service area, all powered by InQuira.