Infographic on Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management for Better Customer Service

1. Maintain a Knowledge Base

Give your team access to the most recent information, all of the time in a searchable knowledge base. Keep all of the critical information together in one place and organise it so that the agents' screens are uncluttered. It's hard to find what you need fast in an overcrowded interface. Putting everything but the kitchen sink in a shared folder won't do - it will take your agents time to find what they need. Keep the documents and articles as short as possible and focused on one thing. If the article needs to be scrolled through, consider breaking it up. This will help to avoid agents wasting time scrolling or searching through a long PDF or Manual. Short, focused articles are also easier to rework and reorganise as your knowledge evolves.

2. Provide Live Updates

Keep your team current with live updates integrated with the knowledge base. eMail updates are soon lost and forgotten. Organise your updates so that they appear on screen with the relevant content. This ensures that your team are reminded of changes or new information when they need it.

3. Build Workflows and Scripts

Use Workflows to guide your agents through multistep processes. Workflows help to cut staff training times and ensure that agreed processes are followed. Integrate your workflows with your knowledge base, so that at each stage your team has the information they need to help your customer without jumping into another screen or system. A knowledge base is more than a collection of articles. Your processes, scripts and workflows are an integral part of your company's knowledge assets.

4. Capture Knowledge Analytics

Track what is going on in your knowledge base so that you can optimise it. At a minimum level, your knowledge base should track search activity, so that you can find out what your team are looking for and make sure that it is available. See what content is working hardest, to ensure that you keep your knowledge base up to date and complete. Enable users to flag or comment on out of date information so you can keep it current.