The phone rings incessantly in customer service. Dozens to hundreds of representatives try to provide answers to customers on the other end of the line. Customers don't always know how to define their needs but always want an immediate, professional, and accurate response. The situation is no different when service personnel meet customers face-to-face at a service center or when a service engineer meets a customer at their organization. The service representative is always expected to provide a quick, professional, and up-to-date answer.
Some may ask what the difference is between knowledge management in customer service and knowledge management in other content areas. Everyone is expected to be professional and know the subject matter and answers. Indeed, there is a fundamental difference: knowledge management in customer service is real-time knowledge management. The answer must be immediate, given on the spot, and given here and now.
Several other characteristics relate to knowledge management in customer service. Their combination points to a unique solution that may not suit other content areas.
Working in customer service is considered demanding, usually more so than many other organizational roles. The need to respond every minute (on the phone) or every ten minutes (face-to-face) to a different customer and focus solely on them and their needs creates significant burnout. The result is a high turnover rate of service employees. Employee training is usually short, despite new employees dealing with a wide range of information and knowledge, which is not always simple to understand.
There is another characteristic that doesn't uniquely define customer service but is undoubtedly significant and influences the nature of the proposed solution. This characteristic is the large number of users engaged in this organizational service activity.
There are other characteristics, all of which influence the type of solution and are related to knowledge:
First, customer representatives are knowledge mediators. They don't (almost) create new knowledge but transfer knowledge created by other parts of the organization to the customer.
Second, the knowledge is usually extensive. Because they are mediators, they deal with all the knowledge that interests the customer created in all organization departments.
The last characteristic is the rate of change. The end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century have thrown us into a whirlwind in many areas. We offer customers new products, capabilities, and sometimes even promotions based on the same products and features but with different business terms. There is a constant and frequent need to innovate and change. From the employee's perspective, the service representative must not rely on memory. There may be a new directive, an expired promotion, or a capability that no longer works as it did just a week ago.
In some organizations, consistency in responses is essential. The answer must be the same whether customers reach a representative in the south or north, by phone or face-to-face.
Let's summarize the overall characteristics of customer service activity:
Real-time (immediate) knowledge management.
High employee turnover.
Many employees (relatively) in the same role.
Are knowledge mediators.
Extensive knowledge.
Frequently changing knowledge.
Consistency is required in providing professional responses.
These characteristics indicate:
There is a very high need for a knowledge management solution with potentially significant ROI.
There is a need to process information and knowledge and make it accessible concisely, easy-to-read, and understandable.
A knowledge management system is the recommended solution for knowledge management in customer service. A knowledge management system is a central knowledge repository that includes:
Structured information and knowledge - organized in defined and uniform templates.
Navigation tools - menus + search engines that make information and knowledge quickly and specifically accessible.
The technological tool supporting such a solution is a Web Content Management (WCM) system, with many generic ones in the market. However, in recent years, dedicated tools for information and knowledge management systems in customer service have been developed in Israel and worldwide. These tools come in conjunction with accepted service work processes and allow interfaces with CRM systems for managing customer inquiries and operational systems for providing responses related to customer details.
Beyond acquiring a tool, any entity seeking to manage knowledge in customer service needs additional efforts:
First, the system must be defined, including the proper templates, appropriate content tree, navigation framework, and accompanying tools (such as utilities and simulators). This activity requires high skill in content organization methodologies due to the extensive amount of information and knowledge and the ability to provide the representative with a quick and accurate answer that will be easy to understand when a customer is sitting in front of them, expecting an immediate response.
Second, a team must be established for the system. A team skilled in writing concise and processed content will be responsible for routinely receiving new content and updating existing ones. Some organizations distribute these team members among various professional teams, but usually, it's a central team with content organization and editing skills. This central team sits in a body subordinate to the service unit and is also called a "management unit."
Additionally, the content infrastructure must be established: collecting the information and knowledge that the representative needs to provide inquiring customers, editing it, structuring it, and organizing it in a way that is accessible to the representative.
To ensure the ongoing updating of content, supporting work processes need to be defined: work processes that will provide new information and knowledge reach their destination and are added to or update the existing repository; work processes that will ensure information and knowledge that are no longer valid are not presented as a response to the customer; work processes that allow the representative, who is in contact with the customer, to provide feedback on how content is presented, and on information that should be known at the headquarters level, which the customer conveyed during the conversation with the representative.
Establishing a management system in customer service is essential for providing quality, professional, reliable, and quick responses to the customer.
The characteristics of customer service and its knowledge require a solution that is different from solutions in other content areas: a real-time knowledge management solution.
Where are we headed next?
Towards more automatic interfaces between the knowledge management repository and data (operational information systems);
Up-sale tools that offer representative marketing messages, and perhaps even sales offers to the customer, according to the nature of their inquiry and information profile.
To a shared information and knowledge infrastructure that will serve many populations: employees in professional departments, service employees, and internet users who can help themselves answer questions and problems without the organization's help.
Time is short, and the work is plentiful. There's much to aspire to; it's achievable.
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