Top Three Myths of KM for Customer Service

We labor under the misguided notion that when it comes to customer- and self-service, content is king. The more you have, the better. But many corporate efforts designed to enhance service options fail the very people they were designed to help: the customers.

In a typical Fortune 500 company, there are hundreds of thousands of “digital artifacts” representing the internal “knowledge” of the organization. This collection of artifacts is captured by CRM and ECM solutions, indexed with search tools and delivered under the guise of knowledge management. But most CRM, ECM or CMS technologies deliver customer self-service results from a content-centric, versus consumer-centric, point of view.

Customers Want Answers, Not Documents
By approaching the problem from the consumer perspective (i.e. I want short, succinct answers to my questions, not documents to search through), we drive up engagement and satisfaction, drive down delivery costs and satisfy customers in the channel they chose to engage us in—thereby building trust.

Here are the top three myths of knowledge management as they relate to customer service:

1. Existing content captured in ECM and CMS systems is valuable to customers;
2. Content can be applied readily to growing external and internal customer channels; and
3. Search-based paradigms are the best ways to connect customers to answers.

This does not mean that your KM initiatives are dead, or that you need to toss out existing products. It DOES mean that you need to relieve the customer from the complexity of your underlying content and deliver a single answer to their questions.

Myth #1: The value of existing content. As Freek Vermeulen noted in a recent blog entry, “We forgot in the torrent of ‘knowledge euphoria’ that this stuff comes at a cost—the cost of actually finding it in the jungle of corporate databases.”

In a typical Fortune 500 environment, the combination of electronic documents plus website pages adds up to a staggering, largely unmanageable, amount of content. The average number of customer-facing Web pages in the financial services sector averages more than 11,000. In telecommunications, that number climbs to 64,000!

This is why, as a customer, a quick attempt to find information for “canceling a check” can result in dozens of hits without an appropriate relevant answer in the first several pages of results—not exactly an ideal customer experience.

The answers to common questions are buried in the content. Many major corporations can satisfy the needs of both customers and agents with between 300 to 700 pieces of content... not 30,000 or 70,000.

Myth #2: Content can be applied readily to growing channels. Content merely being captured and delivered to an inquiring customer has little to no relevance to that consumer, or to the channel he or she chooses to use. Is it effective—or even practical—to deliver information via mobile phone or social media forums in the same way you would in a call center, or email platform? A customer asking, “How do I cancel a policy?” probably does not want to read your five-page PDF outlining the business processes on their cell phone.

Let’s further examine the “cancel a policy” example from a multichannel viewpoint:

• In a call-center agent’s hands, the “answer” might also offer procedures for client retention (including special offers) which would not be included in the self-service area, and certainly not in the original document;
• For the same customer asking this question on a website, the “answer” may be an escalation to a specialty group to retain the customer using click-to-call or chat; or
• For the same customer asking this question via mobile or SMS, the answer may be an immediate call-back to the customer, or an abridged answer with external links to additional content.

The answers to customer questions all may share a core message; however, each should be effectively purposed for the channel into which it is delivered. If you are intent on delivering a truly customer-centric self-service and e-service strategy, the requirement is to extract the “answers” (and not the content).

Myth #3: Search is the best way to connect customers to answers. What do  consumers want? Simply put, they want answers to their questions. By the time a consumer reaches your website or call center, he or she is goal-oriented, not research-oriented. In a recent Jupiter study, lack of accuracy and relevancy in search results continue to be the main issue for users in a self-service environment. In fact, 44% stated that search could not understand their real questions and 35% said the results were unrelated to the question.

But what should be most concerning is that 87% of site visitors have left websites when they could not find the information they sought. Clearly, most consumers are doing a lot more “searching” than “finding:”

1. Users escalate immediately to the most expensive channels (voice, chat, email) and;
2. They will not willingly return to lower cost channels.

The result is similar for internal contact-center agents who have even less freedom. If knowledge tools fail to deliver the required information, the results are:

1. Increases in average handling time (AHT);
2. Decreases in first contact resolution (FCR);
3. Increases in the volume of escalation; and
4. Decreases in overall customer satisfaction.

What is the Answer?
Knowledge-based customer service lies squarely with a focus on content. Such an approach invariably results in knowledge that:

• Contains a depth that includes many possible answers (compound or complex content);
• Requires the consumer to scan and select the appropriate content (tedious self-discovery);
• Is not purposed for any particular delivery channel (broad context); and
• Provides accessibility based on search terms in content, not the nature of the questions.

Tools applied for CRM, KM, CMS/ECM and intelligent search do not need to be replaced. They obviously have purpose and value. But these technologies must be augmented with solutions that address the problem from a customer-centric point of view. The appropriate solution:

• Provides an answer to the question asked;
• Delivers a single approved answer;
• Is purposed for the channel it is requested within; and
• Understands the many ways the question can be asked and relates this to the correct answer.  

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For more information on cost-effective ways to enhance the customer experience at your organization contact: Mike Hennessy, mike.hennessy@intelliresponse.com.