Knowledge Management System for Customer Service

CM, DM, SharePoint Aren’t Enough. Customer Service Needs KM (Knowledge Management).

The various systems in an organization—content management (CM), document management (DM), collaborative tools like SharePoint—don’t enable users to find the right information in time. While these systems are good at organizing and publishing content, they are poor at providing easy accessibility to the knowledge base.

• Content is exploding. It needs to be curated, formatted, and maintained.
• Content must be compliant. It is non-negotiable.
• Content has to be findable at the right time. Only then is it knowledge.

Only an award-winning knowledge management system can ensure that your content is correct, compliant, contextual, and timely.

The Challenges in Your Customer Service Organization

In a survey conducted through SurveyMonkey™, contact center agents revealed their biggest challenges while answering questions or resolving problems or executing a service process, when they had a customer on the line. This is what they had to say.

The top 3 hurdles indicate shortcomings in knowledge management:

• Finding the right answers to customer questions: 26%
• Different systems/information sources give different answers: 25%
• Hopping from one application/window to another: 20%

Today, the perfect contact center customer service agents need to be omniscient, have 20- (even 30) pound brains to remember all that they need to, and have superhero Flash-like speed to quickly go between all the applications they need to consult for each interaction.

Digital agents face more complex questions from customers

Consumers prefer to find answers on their own, digitally. When the easy issues are being dealt through self-service, agents are being approached for the complex product and service issues. On top of that, customers are impatient. Your agents need help.

Omnichannel consumers expect your website and agents to be knowledgeable

In an eGain-Forrester Consulting consumer survey, consumers were asked what created the biggest pain points in the process of getting customer service from businesses. They picked these:

• Different customer service agents give different answers: 41%
• Customer service agents don’t know the answer: 34%
• I can’t find an answer on the company’s website: 31%

Customers want answers.

The Solution: Knowledge Management System, Infused With Artificial Intelligence

Knowledge+AI is more than a 30-pound brain

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being leveraged by KM systems in customer service, to find answers to customer questions, guide processes, and help in decision-making. This is a win-win-win — for the customer, the agent, and the business. In fact, knowledge management, done right, can transform your business. eGain CEO, Ashu Roy, explains it in less than a minute.

eGain’s awarded Knowledge+AI system is powered by Case-Based Reasoning, an expert AI system for superior knowledge findability. This capability eliminates the need for your agents to have 30-pound brains! Instead it guides users through an interactive dialog-based Q&A session to find the right solution.

Here are some real-life benefits from it:

• Global bank uses eGain to guide a largely novice agent pool through best-practice interactions across 11 countries, while reducing training requirements by half and agent churn to <1%
• UK telecom guides 10,000 employees—across contact center and 550 retail stores—to a 37% improvement in First-Contact Resolution (FCR), 50% faster speed to competency, and a 20-point boost to NPS
• Leading telco reduces unwarranted “No Fault Found” handset returns and exchanges by 38% with AI-guided problem resolution in the contact center and website
• White goods giant saved $50M per year by reducing truck rolls with AI-guided diagnostics

The KM+ system ensures that your knowledge is indexed and searchable, no matter how vast or diverse. It is findable at the time of need and the content reused optimally across channels and touchpoints. More importantly, it can be updated based on usage and allows users — authors, supervisors, agents — to collaborate on knowledge creation and maintenance.

Achieve the holy grail of All Agents, All Calls

The ability to access the same source of knowledge ensures the quality and consistency of content. With eGain, you can even achieve the customer service holy grail of All Agents, All Calls!

Connect more dots

A lot of unstructured content resides in multiple sources that are external to your knowledge system, including on social media, communities, and forums you are managing. eGain’s Knowledge + AI software enables you to easily connect various data repositories — CM, CRM, legacy knowledge systems — through data adapters to federate content. eGain Knowledge APIs provide customer service agents with relevant knowledge at the right time.

Analyze for success

Keeping track of knowledge usage by your customers and agents is critical. Use the analytics capability in eGain to assess knowledge success and effectiveness at every stage and customer touchpoint. It lets you intervene, make changes on the fly, close the gaps, and reassess for ongoing success.