Knowledge Management for Service and Support

A successful knowledge management initiative within a help desk or call
center can reduce agent training time and speed new employee ramp up.
Knowledge-powered problem resolution enables agents to become more confident and
competent sooner than they otherwise would without a KM practice. 



By having access to a knowledge base, new help desk and customer service agents
can get answers to common questions without having to constantly ask other more
experienced agents. Customers and end-users benefit from faster problem
resolution, and experienced agents can focus on solving more challenging
problems.

Customers and end-users also benefit when they have direct access to a
knowledge base to solve their own issues without ever contacting an agent. A
growing number of people now prefer self-service to live interaction, at least
for certain problem types. For some people, self-service fits perfectly into
their lifestyle. They are in a hurry and they need a specific piece of
information and that's all they want. Say, for example, in a corporate
environment, an employee needs to know if there is a Windows 2000 driver for a
USB Zip drive. She doesn't want to wait in a queue. She doesn't want to talk to
an agent. She just wants to know if there is a driver available and where to
find it. In this case, self-service can be superior to agent-assisted service.

Knowledge Management is an evolving discipline that can be affected by new
technologies and best practices, but there are some things that we do know for
sure. There is a systematic approach to successfully implementing knowledge
management and if you analyze what you are trying to accomplish, map out a
strategy, garner support from the organization and have a way to measure it,
then you are much more likely to be successful. Although conducting a successful
KM practice requires more than simply reading this white paper, I have outlined
10 principles that will serve as a primer to help your organization understand
what it takes to have a successful Knowledge Management initiative.

KM and the Economy

The practice of knowledge management can be useful during tough economic
times and in times of rapid growth. When an organization downsizes, critical
knowledge and intellectual capital are lost. When business picks up it often
picks up quickly. You can't hire and train fast enough to maintain a
satisfactory level of performance using traditional methods. Even if you could,
at some point it becomes cost-prohibitive to keep hiring. You can't hire your
way out of growth.

Instead, you need a more efficient way to deal with growth. Knowledge
Management and a system for capturing and reusing knowledge can help businesses
deal with the economic fluctuations.

To read more on this white paper, click the link
here.

< The article produced hers is an
extract of a white paper by By Tom Tobin
titled 'Ten Principles for Knowledge Management Success'  published by
ServiceWare Technologies,provider of knowledge-powered
applications for customer service and IT support>