Is your organization fully leveraging its knowledge? How does your company’s proficiency stack up against the competition? How can you tell?
InQuira recently announced a free online knowledge assessment tool co-developed with IBM that makes it easy to get these answers, and get practical, customized insights into areas for improvement. Click here to visit the knowledge assessment tool.
The tool features an interactive survey of knowledge management skills, cultures, and implementation methodologies. Taking the survey allows users, administrators, managers, and executives to see just how their knowledge initiatives stack up to their competitors and the entire market in general.
Even those people who feel their organizations are leading the pack when it comes to knowledge management proficiency may be surprised by their results, and benefit from best practices that enable even greater usage across communication channels. Even more surprises could pop up when respondents see how their results compare to industry and global standards—benchmarks that the tool also provides.
I expect many people will find some significant revelations in the areas of Creation and Maintenance and Communities and Collaboration. Even though knowledge management is being utilized in many call centers and self-service environments, its use is not keeping pace with the advancements in collaborative approaches such as wikis, forums and discussion boards. Enabling your users and customer communities to add, edit, correct, and publish new knowledge entries can provide a wealth of intelligence and loyalty unseen in previous incarnations of knowledge management.
If you are involved in the practice of knowledge management, you should definitely participate in this survey. As results are compiled from respondents around the world, you’ll be able to see how your implementation compares, so be sure to check in frequently at http://www.myknowledgeiq.com/.
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.
When Serena asked its customers “how can we improve the support experience?”, what they discovered was somewhat surprising. Instead of focusing on call hold times or support rep performance, customers expressed the need for a better online experience - one where searching for information was easy and the information received was accurate, up-to-date and consistent with what they would receive from a support rep.
In this customer testimonial, Peter Sianchuk, VP of Worldwide Customer Service at Serena, discusses how InQuira’s solutions have allowed Serena to deflect 18% of support calls and improve call resolution speed by 35% - by simply improving the way support reps and customers access the right information at the right time.
To keep up with the latest trends in customer service, collaboration and search tools, I am always scouring the Web to soak up as much information as I can. In no particular order, here are just some of the blogs that I read on a regular basis – the list is a combination of knowledge management, customer service, collaboration, search, and CRM sites, because the nature of our business means we need to stay on top all these issues. This is only some of the great information that is available from some of the smartest people who are working in the trenches every day. Let me know what sites you read to stay informed and I will add it to my growing list!
1. KM Edge: The American Productivity & Quality Center’s (APQC) Knowledge Management blog- Carla O’Dell and Lauren Trees and some insightful commentary to news and trends.
2. John Ragsdale’s Eye on Service: VP of of Technology Research at Service and Support Professionals Assocation (SSPA), the Association for Services Management International (AFSMI), and the Technical Professional Services Association (TPSA), shares information, news and analysis on the latest technologies intended to improve customer service.
3. Content Management Connection:George Dearing’s blog combines insight from content management experts with an emphasis on collaboration tools. The blog touches on content management through various aspects including customer service, Wikis, social networks, search engines, and Web services.
4. Bill Ives’ Blog: Bill Ives’ blog discussing practical applications of portals, blogs, and knowledge management.
5. Enterprise Search Practice Blog: This blog hosted by The Gilbane Group offers analysis and the latest news on enterprise search technologies and implementations
I’ll admit it, as a customer I can be pretty darn demanding. Whether it’s a personal or professional purchase, I know what I want when it comes to a product, service or support experience - and I fully expect to get it from the companies I work with.
On the flip side, I also understand how difficult it can be for an organization to keep up with all the demands customers have - there is no way to please everyone all of the time. But there is a way to turn them around and get them on your side so when you can’t give them exactly what they want, they will be understanding, work with you - not against you - and remain loyal.
In this short video, Tom Floodeen, VP of Worldwide Support at Mentor Graphics, discusses how InQuira has helped turn Mentor’s annual user conferences into customer service “love fests” where users share ideas, insights and work with Mentor to become even better.
