Entries Tagged 'Point of View' ↓

IT Pro recently featured an article on enterprise search that brings some welcome clarity to an otherwise often muddied topic. Entitled “Why enterprise search is not internet search“, the article points to distinctions that we’ve been talking about for a while: namely, that the requirements for search within an enterprise are very different than the needs of a user searching the Internet. (For a couple additional reports on the topic, check out “The Google Bamboozle,” an article we penned in iMediaConnection.com a few months ago, or “A Fork in the Road: Why Enterprise and Web Search are Going Their Separate Ways“, which was published recently on DMReview.com.)

The article leads with a common question:

“…Google is where most of us turn when we need to find something on the web. Wouldn’t it make sense to use the same techniques to make it easier to find information within the enterprise?”

Given the broad usage of Google today, if that were the case, enterprises would today find themselves much better off when it comes to serving employees’ knowledge needs. But the article goes on to feature the following stats, which demonstrate that’s clearly not the case:

“Depending on which survey you look at, businesses waste the equivalent of 10 per cent of salary costs (says the Butler Group) or information workers waste around three to four hours a week – a total of five weeks a year - because they don’t find the information they’re looking for a third to a half of the time (IDC and HP).”

These stats point to a fact that knowledge management folks have been clear on for some time: For all its benefits and ubiquity, Google can’t address an enterprise’s need to equip users with fast, easy access to corporate resources. To give just one practical example, when a customer agent requires quick access to solutions that help a customer address an issue, that information needs to be available immediately—and a Web search tool won’t cut it. Plus, search is just one important piece of the knowledge management ecosystem, which requires capabilities for developing, collaborating, and delivering corporate knowledge.

While this may be common knowledge to many, a lot of confusion around search remains.  For many, “Google” has become synonymous with “search”, but it is clear there are a whole host of uses, audiences, technologies, and purposes within this broad category. It’s nice to see IT Pro shedding some light on the topic, which will hopefully help foster more productive discussions around search in the enterprise.

To read the full article, which also includes a quote from InQuira customer Serena Software, here’s the url:

http://www.itpro.co.uk/608925/why-enterprise-search-is-not-internet-search

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.

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

Given the recent noise and consolidation in the world of semantic or natural language search, I was recently asked by a journalist if NLP would take over the consumer web. My response? The enormous potential of natural language search on the web is matched by the enormous difficulty of pulling it off successfully. The combination of the sheer scope of information on the web, the wide variety of contexts and concepts and different intentions of use makes this extremely complex. Humans have an extraordinary facility with learning, inference and language. Just watching a toddler acquire and use words to great effect is proof. In fact, language is so easy for humans that we sometimes assume that it therefore can’t be terribly hard for computers to master. If nothing else, the long history of natural language processing has demonstrated just how hard this problem is. Natural language search across the entire web implies that a system will have a human-like language ability corresponding to every available subject, and that’s an extremely tall order. Will it happen someday? Probably. But HAL-like capabilities certainly didn’t happen by 2001, and if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say they probably won’t happen by 2101 either.

Enterprise search, on the other hand, is a perfect playground for incorporating natural language processing.

1) In the context of an enterprise website or intranet, there is a much smaller set of intended actions than you get on google.com. For example, visitors to a banking website generally want to complete one of about 20 different transactions. If we can understand very thoroughly how those users ask to complete those transactions, then we’ve carved out a large and useful chunk of natural language understanding, which can make a real difference in how easy the banking site is to use.

2) On an enterprise site, there is a specific industry vocabulary used. A banking site doesn’t have to worry about recognizing names of US presidents or hybrid minivans. If we invest in understanding the specific vocabulary that is used in the context of an enterprise-specific search, we have taken another step forward in making natural language processing genuinely applicable across that particular industry vertical.

3) For a search engine that works across the entire web, the relationship between search and content is more or less antagonistic. People make web pages that bully their way to the top of the search results by employing a whole grab-bag of tricks, one of which is not a content-quality filter. With enterprise search, on the other hand, the people who make the content are on our side. They want the right content to be shown in the right context, to the right user. They understand what the content is trying to say, and they are willing to revise content or write more if that turns out to be useful. A virtuous cycle that includes automated analysis of content needs as expressed through search queries, which in turn triggers a workflow process for content changes, is a big advance, and one whose effects we will be witnessing in the next several years.

What do you think?

It’s not often that I come across ‘free’ e-books that are even worth reading, but this is an exception. Bruce Temkin of Forrester Research created a short 11-page ebook from a series of blog posts he wrote to explain each of the 6 laws of customer experience.

Though not written expressly for the customer service audience, the lessons are directly applicable.  Here’s my take on Bruce’s laws:

#1. Every interaction creates a personal reaction. So many customer service initiatives focus on deflecting calls to the web purely as a cost-saving tactic. Publish content and push people to it. Every customer has the same experience, in complete violation of this fundamental law of customer experience. The bottom line, according to Temkin, is to ‘understand your customers, personally.’ Deliver an experience designed for the individual. Technology like InQuira can help companies engage their customers through the web channel, and deliver a customer service experience specifically suited to each individual customer.

#2. People are instinctively self-centered. What resonated with me here is that customers “don’t generally know or care as much about how companies are organized.” In other words, the customer’s interaction with your company is entirely motivated by his or her personal need - in customer service contexts, that need is generally to solve a problem with your product or service. Help them do what they set out to do. Think of the interaction from the customer’s perspective, and don’t make them “jump through hoops” to resolve the issue.

#3. Customer familiarity breeds alignment. Organizations both large and small struggle with alignment. Temkin proposes that companies focus on customer needs to align decisions and actions that cross organizational silos. I’ve often argued that the most effective and satisfying customer service experience happens in person because dialogue occurs - a customer is engaged to articulate his problem, a service provider is there to hear it, ask clarifying questions, diagnose the problem, and propose a solution. This act of listening can take on many forms. Customer feedback mechanisms, call monitoring, customer surveys, even semantic search technologies that can derive customer intent from search and browse behavior - all can contribute to a better understanding of customer needs and align action to improve the customer service experience.

#4. Unengaged employees don’t create engaged customers. Another take on ‘happy employees make happy customers,’ but one that is often ignored by companies.  How many call center agents are in situations where, to solve a customer’s problem, they must often alt-tab back and forth between different applications, thumb through printed manuals,  find a specific sticky note, or consult a colleague over the cubicle wall - just to find the information they need?  Focus on the agent first, and empower him with enabling technologies that make it easier to “accomplish tasks that help customers.”

#5. Employees do what is measured, incented, and celebrated. The InQuira point of view is that the customer service experience is heavily dependent on engaging the customer, understanding his need, and applying that insight to connect the customer with relevant knowledge content that will enable him to do whatever it is he set out to do.  This completely depends upon a strong knowledge management culture and processes to harvest the relevant information at the point of demand - be it on the phone, on the web, or through a discussion forum - so that knowledge can be properly applied the next time that issue arises with another customer.  For the model to work though, the knowledge capture process must be easy to trigger from within the agent’s normal workflow, and the employee must be recognized and rewarded - not for participating - but for when the employee’s contributions can be directly attributed to helping resolve customer problems.

#6. You can’t fake it. I consider this somewhat self-explanatory.  A focus on a better customer service experience must be a top priority - you can’t do it half-heartedly.  Customers will see right through it, and it will only exacerbate the problems at hand.

Download the full ebook here.