Knowledge Management Is the Solution

Knowledge is as much a product of learning (e. g. “the last time this happened, the right solution was to use the IRA account number, instead of the main account number”) as it is a function of understanding the abstract relationships that affect underlying causes. Significant challenges — There are real challenges to maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction, including:

Increased call volumes cause mounting delays, which drive customers away: When the competition is never more than a mouse click or a phone call away, frustrated customers can — and do — go elsewhere to satisfy their needs when they get “stuck on hold”.

Ratio of customers to agents: The difficulty in maintaining a traditional ratio of contact centre agents to customers is exacerbated by a fast growing customer population. In a business environment in which Internet access can multiply the customer base by several orders of magnitude, it is simply not possible to maintain traditional agent to customer ratios.

Developing experienced and effective agents takes time and money: Developing the all- important human resources to succeed at customer service takes time and costs money. Good people are often hard to find and organisations can be hard- pressed to find and develop sufficient support staff, and to cultivate their expertise.

Turnover and job changes can mean knowledge gets lost: If hard- earned knowledge about support issues remains locked in key agents’ heads, it walks out the door when they do. Organisations that invest heavily in developing service and support staff can easily lose their investments when such staff leaves or moves into other positions.

New agents need extensive training to become productive: Entry- level agents must learn and master large amounts of information while developing communications and relationship skills. It takes time and effort for service and support agents to come up to speed and assume a full workload even though their expense goes straight to the bottom line.

Identical queries must be repeatedly researched and answered: When knowledge isn’t shared, agents must repeatedly research and reply to the same questions. This causes considerable duplication and waste of effort and resources.

Information accessible to some agents may not be accessible to all agents: In traditional, labour- intensive support organisations, expertise grows over time and is related to ability, background knowledge, and problem- solving skills. Some agents know more than others, and can therefore handle a wider range of queries. This can lead to inconsistent and unsatisfying service and support encounters for some customers.