Implementing Knowledge Management II

In general and within the context of customer service systems based on customer contact centres, KM encompasses the broad range of capabilities needed to logically capture, organise, share, and use knowledge elements in order to recognise problems and suggest possible solutions to customer service queries. The following functions are crucial for a successful KM implementation. KM vendors must provide solutions that are able to:

Capture and organise knowledge elements for identification and relevance ranking: At the outset of a KM system implementation, existing knowledge must be captured; and as the system is used over time, new knowledge must be added as needed and likewise captured, organised and ranked for relevancy.

Apply contents of the knowledge base to incoming queries to look for matches and establish relevance between knowledge elements and query contents: The KM system must make it possible to analyse the lexiconical and semantic content of queries to look for whatever connections or relationships might exist between queries and knowledge elements.

Maximise re- use of knowledge elements: Any relevant query is represented in a KM system as it occurs, generating a knowledge element that will be considered each time a similar query occurs.

Represent any workflow or organisational process with its own application: Specific sources of knowledge within the KM system — thus, HR professionals could have access to HR knowledge, IT professionals to IT knowledge, and so forth. Each type (let’s call an instance of some knowledge type — a specific item of knowledge — a knowledge element). Next, examine all possible sources to uncover existing knowledge elements, and make it possible to discover new knowledge elements.

Share knowledge: Start by recording all known knowledge elements from documents, communications and subject matter expert interviews. Analyse the collection to classify knowledge elements by type, and to establish a hierarchy or organisation among types. Finally, tag the knowledge elements and hierarchy information to make it possible to search the knowledge base by keyword, explicit match, or relationships to one or more named problems. At each step along the way, include input forms to elicit feedback from KM system users about knowledge elements, element organisation, element search and retrieval, and element relevancy.

Apply knowledge: This is where customers and support staff interact with the knowledge base to locate and use relevant knowledge. This is where it is essential to refine the contents of knowledge elements and to adapt the structure of the knowledge base in response to such interaction. The ability to make and suggest useful relationships between problems and solutions is powerful enough to enlist a strong buy- in from support staff and knowledge management professionals when they see that a dynamic system can improve search results, agent productivity and customer satisfaction.

There are other sources of knowledge that are worth investigating: ServiceWare, for example, offers its RightAnswers. com™ knowledge portal, which takes the form of knowledge channels that together comprise the world’s largest collection of multi- vendor support content. These knowledge channels include hundreds of thousands of problem- solution pairs, along with diagnostics, illustrations, technical articles, and reference documents for more than 3,000 hardware and software products. Available channels include Microsoft, Novell, 3Com, PC Show and Tell, and BugNet. ServiceWare's own Foundation Channels include solutions for Netscape, Corel, Lotus, Linux and Microsoft, just to name a few.