Knowledge Management – A Driver of Organizational Value

My team recently examined the key indicators related to knowledge management enabling support—everything from increasingly leveraging knowledge on different channels to higher-quality service interactions. It’s clear enough that good KM delivers value. What are the key benefits, then, for an organization? How should one think about it?

The answer is it depends on who you talk to. If you are speaking with executives, their focus is likely to be strategic:how KM enables brand, customer loyalty and sales. If you are asking support directors or contact center managers, their focus is often operational: looking to see how KM lets them deliver support in a high-quality, efficient and manageable way.

The good news is both perspectives are true, and they are enabled by the same core KM capabilities:

• Great content that maps directly to customer needs and inquiries
• Intuitive context that facilitates rapid, effective scoping and delivery of the best knowledge on and across support channels
• Interactive knowledge delivery interfaces that make it fast and easy for users to identify their need(s), review their options and consume the best information
• Effective KM Program practices that integrate metrics, governance, culture and overall support to keep content, tools, processes and users in synch.

So, what are the potential strategic benefits? They are as follows:

Build customer loyalty and confidence through service excellence:

• Faster, better answers
• More consistent responses
• More knowledgeable, empowered people
• More responsive, timely actions
• More predictable, coordinated processes
• More personalized service

Potentially increased revenue:

• Contextual knowledge can be linked to drive targeted upsell/cross-sell opportunities
• Reporting on top trends of user questions and knowledge use in self-help and in call centers gives direct insight into product sales opportunities

Market differentiation through support excellence:

• Leverage and market the quality service capabilities mentioned above as a key value-add differentiator of solutions and services

Improved operational efficiency:

• Faster access to better answers directly impacts the “holy trio” of support metrics: lower handle time, higher first call resolution, customer satisfaction
• Reduced training costs and onboarding time: KM helps improve speed to competency for agents and allows them to evolve multiple skills and potentially expand the calls they can handle
• Helps support agent job satisfaction: Being able to find and reuse answers effectively keeps their focus on the customer and helps reduce the overall stress of support tasks
• Visibility into top call drivers and emerging issues: Using KM in support efforts helps provide the eyes and ears of the business, collecting valuable customer insights that can be used to drive improvements
• Helps improve speed to market with information: KM provides mechanisms to deliver contextual, personalized, targeted information to quickly address emerging needs and issues
• Better resource alignment: KM helps drive users to the most appropriate channel, which helps reduce customer effort and improve support productivity—potentially leading to call deflection and reduced support costs
• Optimized information: KM helps improve the quality and consistency of support information, which in turn can help improve customer satisfaction and reduce the risks associated with bad information (concessions, re-work, escalations, etc.)
• Improved cross-organizational coordination: Good KM is an enabler of effective organizational interaction. Well-managed processes for publishing and distributing information help integrate organizations toward common product and customer goals.

Yes, your organization can make significant leaps forward—through well managed, well delivered knowledge!

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