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Why Is Knowledge Management So Important?

Knowledge Management is adopted by organisations to utilise knowledge across departments. The discipline is crucial to many companies and involves the identification, extraction, contextualisation, organisation, storage and of course, the management of company knowledge.

When implemented correctly, knowledge management gives you:

• Faster, more efficient decision making
• Access to accurate and consistent information
• Reduced Average Handling Times (AHT)
• Improved First Contact Resolution (FCR)
• Reduced training and onboarding times
• Increased staff morale
• Greater CSAT and NPS scores
• Reduced routine enquiries

Knowledge Management as a function deals with both explicit and tacit knowledge. Explicit knowledge is easy to capture and communicate, often involving data, documents and manuals. Whilst tacit knowledge is complex and therefore difficult to interpret and extract, it is often accumulated through experience and requires specialised methods to obtain, including interviews and knowledge harvesting.

Harnessed through specific tools and software, knowledge management allows employees access to a centralised repository of knowledge, otherwise known as a knowledge base . Depending on their position, they can access vital information quickly and in a user-friendly way.

Check out the knowledge management software buyer’s guide, here.

Knowledge management is important to businesses as it gives them control over a major asset, knowledge. It aims to prevent years of tacit knowledge from being lost or forgotten and focuses on embedding knowledge into the company culture to encourage transparency and collaboration. But perhaps most important, is the role it plays in significantlypromoting customer service and operational efficiency.

1. Identify Knowledge Management Goals

What are the drivers behind implementing knowledge management into your company?

Whether it surrounds operational efficiency, organisational collaboration and learning or customer satisfaction, it’s vital that knowledge management objectives are identified, constructed and then broken down into goals.

Knowledge management goals might involve the reduction of support costs, the increase in NPS scores, the deflection of contact for contact centres or improvement of internal communication. Whatever the goals are, it is important to set them with the appropriate people who are involved in monitoring them, make them SMART and adjust through time if necessary.

Knowledge management is considered a valuable investment, so its important goals are set initially and you have the tools in place to measure the results frequently throughout the knowledge management process. This prevents lack of control over the discipline and therefore helps you get the most out of it and quicker.

2. Choose Knowledge Management Software That Is Easy to Adopt

It’s important to note that knowledge management software is an essential element of knowledge management opposed to a best practice. Without knowledge management software the discipline could not function.

We know that knowledge management is key for businesses who wish to improve control, efficiency and customer satisfaction and that this is achieved by utilising knowledge management software.

But, what is the best way to get employees to embrace knowledge management software? Choose a tool that is easy to use. This is reinforced by Gartner who suggest you can “empower employees by providing easy-to-use powerful technologies” that positively impact employee engagement and subsequently, customer experience.

So, consider software like a Knowledge Base that centralises all company knowledge into one user-friendly library.

Good knowledge management software will:

• Be built upon AI and algorithms to generate relevant answers
• Utilise Natural Learning Processing (NLP) to understand naturally phrased queries
• Allow for multiple editors
• Gamify the editing process
• Organise knowledge using filters, categories and views
• Learn from user behaviour to identify errors and most popular queries

4. Look at Knowledge as an Asset

Knowledge has a measurable monetary value. In companies where knowledge accumulates only in employees’ heads and across disconnected systems, they face increased operational and opportunity costs by not leveraging the value of shared knowledge.

Therefore, it’s important to communicate the idea that knowledge is more than an entity in one’s head, but to a business in particular, a valuable asset.

Once employees associate knowledge with other assets, like people, cash, brand and customers, they begin to understand its importance. Similar to how these assets have their own processes, teams and specialist software, so does knowledge.

This shift in attitude towards knowledge encourages employees to appreciate, protect and invest in the asset.

5. Consider Employee Needs

As mentioned, one of the many goals surrounding knowledge management is to better serve employees. When executed well, it is considered a valuable tool that makes employee’s jobs easier, getting more done with fewer obstacles in the way – it can even help them reach targets more efficiently.

Find out what you’re struggling with. If siloed knowledge or information hubs are becoming a problem for them? Are mundane routine questions preventing them from resolving complex queries? Or are customer satisfaction scores below target?

Your employees are one of your main users when it comes to knowledge management, so consider their needs and make decisions based on this. For example, if siloed knowledge or information ‘hubs’ are a pain point, assign an executive who knows how to tackle such a problem. If the sheer volume of routine questions is becoming a burden to contact centre employees, choose knowledge management software that can automate FAQs by using web self-service.

6. Don’t Forget the Ultimate End-User: Your Customer

From an external viewpoint, your end-users are your customers who play a crucial role within your business. Whether they require access to knowledge for customer support or sales purposes, it’s important to provide them with a tool that can produce relevant answers and resolutions efficiently. 

Web self-service software seamlessly connects to a particular view of your knowledge base – one that is built for your customers’ needs. The utilisation of Natural Language Processing (NLP) helps unravel customer queries, identifying search intent and subsequently offering your customers the information they require. 

Today, more and more customers want to serve themselves online, therefore it is vital for CX that user-friendly, AI-powered self-service tools are provided for a smooth and successful customer journey. 

7. Don’t Neglect Regular Knowledge Acquisition Exercises

Knowledge is always being accumulated. To prevent it from being siloed within teams, forgotten, or lost when employees leave, ensure regular knowledge acquisition exercises are carried out. This is the ultimate knowledge management best practice.

Knowledge acquisition exercises are designed to capture any new knowledge that is not yet stored in a company knowledge base and include:

• Retrospect (reflection meetings that take place after the completion of a project)
• Knowledge harvesting (scheduled meetings with senior employees intended to capture knowledge)
• Interviews and surveys

To ensure your company doesn’t miss out on valuable shared knowledge, schedule in these knowledge acquisition exercises, this will not only capture the all-important knowledge but also encourage employees to actively document knowledge moving forward.

8. Motivate Employees

Any major organisational change can create friction and resistance amongst employees and there is no exception when it comes to implementing knowledge management. So how do you get employees to embrace the practice?

Involve employees as much as you can at as many levels as you can to create passion around knowledge management – it is something that will make everyone’s job much easier after all. Have employees contribute to the creation of knowledge articles or edit themselves to give them a sense of ownership and motivation.

Some knowledge management tools even ‘gamify’ certain elements of knowledge creation; employees can suggest articles to be included in the knowledge base, if approved the article is posted for others to interact with.

9. Don’t Forget: UFFA

The ‘use it, flag it, fix it, add it’ framework is used within knowledge management and can help with adoption and efficiency.

The UFFA model helps employees navigate knowledge management tools such as a knowledge base. It encourages them to search for the query at hand, suggesting 4 actions based on the outcomes:

• Use it if the answer to an agent’s question is found, is relevant and complete
• Flag it if the answer to an agent’s question is found, but is incomplete and the agent doesn’t have editing rights
• Fix it if the answer to an agent’s question is found, but is incomplete and the agent has editing rights
• Add it if the answer to the question is not found, this is something your assigned Editor can oversee

It is not only useful to teach employees UFFA when knowledge management is first introduced into the company, but it is something that should be practised indefinitely, becoming an everyday workflow.

A key knowledge management best practice includes embedding UFFA early on to boost efficiency as agents waste less time waiting for permissions and answers to encourage collaboration companywide.

10. Remember: Leadership Should Advocate Knowledge Management

To ensure that knowledge management is fully utilised across teams, the discipline should be advocated by key people of influence in the company. Whether it’s your directors or senior leadership team it is important to communicate the importance and benefits of knowledge management and generate excitement.

Leaders should lead by example; they should involve employees as much as possible when it comes to advocating knowledge management. Some effective methods include coaching employees, organising hands-on workshops and keeping the company up to date via regular newsletters.

If the key people of influence within your company are not passionate about knowledge management, then how can you expect the wider workforce to be?

11. Select Knowledge Management Software That Can Be Seamlessly Implemented

Having knowledge management software that seamlessly integrates with other internal and customer-facing tools is vital if knowledge management is to succeed.

You can avoid this by selecting knowledge management software that is built on open RESTful APIs. This way you can connect to:

• Most 3rd party systems including email management tools and CRMs
• Internal software that allows your team access to company knowledge when assisting customers. This helps agents quickly resolve customer queries by producing answers pulled from centralised knowledge
• Customer-facing tools such as web self-service that customers use to answer their own questions. This software is integrated with a segment of the wider company knowledge, displaying relevant answers based on the customer’s question to reducing overall contact

12. Monitor Knowledge Management Success with Metrics

You can’t manage what you can’t measure.

Just like any new initiative or campaign that is introduced into a company, it’s vital that knowledge management is measured to ensure you are moving in the right direction and not wasting time, money or other resources.

How? Well, this will depend on your initial knowledge management goals and the core purpose for implementing the discipline.

Key metrics that can measure the success of knowledge management include:

• Outcome analysis – knowledge feedback is measured to give companies an indication of how effective a tool is in providing a successful customer journey
• CSAT scores – this is important for companies whose knowledge management goals surround customer satisfaction. If CSAT scores have increased, then it is likely that knowledge management is having a positive effect on customers.
• Agent efficiency – metrics such as Average Handling Times (AHT)
• First Contact Resolutions (FCR) can be measured to identify whether knowledge management has helped improve agent efficiency.
• Employee engagement – if lack of collaboration and knowledge silos were challenges for your company, then this metric can help determine if you are on track. If employee engagement has increased, you can assume knowledge management is working.
• Employee satisfaction – anonymous surveys can be distributed before and after the deployment of knowledge management, this will help you understand whether it has been accepted and successful.

Serving Multi-Tenant Contact Centres Using A Knowledge Base 

Muti-tenant contact centres that serve multiple companies’ customers simultaneously need quick and convenient access to specific information. It is likely that once an agent has resolved one customer’s issue, the next customer that they deal with will be from a different company. It is therefore important that access to multiple companies’ information is seamless to keep handling times low and prevent mistakes.  

This is where a knowledge base that includes multiple views transforms contact centre efficiency.  

Each view contains a set of knowledge articles that are written for a particular audience. For instance, if your contact centre handles customer service for five different companies, then you will have five separate views within your knowledge base. 

Agents simply filter by view inside the internal knowledge which is as easy as ticking a box. From here they have quick access to knowledge articles depending on the customer that contacts them.  

How To Choose A Knowledge Base For The Contact Centre 

If you are considering a knowledge base for the contact centre but are not sure which is right for you, we have got you covered. We have compiled some key considerations for you during the vendor selection process which will help you find the best software for you: 

1. Does the knowledge base utilise NLP? 

2. Does the knowledge base allow multiple views? 

3. Are AI-predictive suggestions included? 

4. Does the knowledge base encourage collaboration? 

5. Are analytics included for knowledge optimisation? 

6. Is a customer feedback loop included? 

7. Can the knowledge base integrate with 3rd party apps? 

8. Does the vendor offer flexible pricing models? 
   

Commercial Considerations

Has the Vendor Presented A Business Case?

Before any commitments are made, you and your colleagues must be confident in the knowledge management system you select. Does the ROI presented in the vendor’s forecast align with your business’ expectation of payback and long term financial uplift?

You need to know the answers to such questions pre-purchase, so ensure your vendor provides a business plan outlining the cost/benefit of deployment. This should include a projected ROI that is mapped to an implementation and post-launch timeline, used as a framework to understand your payback period. Ask vendors in your selection process to provide this framework from their previous deployments.

Does the Vendor Meet Your Customer Support Requirements?

Firstly, discuss what level of customer support you require as a company, taking into consideration that your CX delivery works at the speed of your slowest channel. If your knowledge management system support is only active at certain times of the week or day, you can only truly guarantee service during these times.

Vendors offer multiple levels of customer support from critical only, to standard office hours to weekend and evening cover. Discuss your support needs with your prospective vendor, ensuring that the terms of support, including hours, are covered contractually in the SRS.

Has the Vendor Offered Flexible A Commercial Model That Aligns with Your Needs?

Each company will have a preferred way of purchasing its knowledge management system.

The first step in understanding your own commercial needs concerning CX is considering these questions:

These considerations play a key role in determining your commercial needs, once you have the answers to these questions you can source a vendor that will match your requirements. If you are unsure about the answers to these questions, please get in touch ; we’re happy to walk you through them.

For more on Knowledge Management 101, check out the Essential Guide here.

Technical Considerations

Does the System Utilise AI And NLP?

Choosing knowledge management systems that harness AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP) is inherent to your CX and CSAT scores. AI is responsible for matching customer queries with relevant results, eliminating any roadblocks that could lead to frustration and poor CX, so you need to ensure your knowledge management system uses modern machine learning principles, not an outdated keyword matching model.

NLP helps to ensure the precision and efficiency of results delivered. It understands human utterance by breaking down the query into:

• Keywords
• Intent
• Grammar
• Popularity

Each component is then analysed to determine the most suitable result. Due to its intricacy, NLP understands not only naturally phrased questions, but multiple variations of the same query without producing “I’m sorry, I don’t understand that question. Please try again” – which customers experience too often when using systems that are not built on AI.

Does the System Have Low-Code Integration Capabilities?

There is no reason why the deployment of your knowledge management system should be complicated. Having your system up and running across your site shouldn’t require hours of developer work or toolkit configuration, by selecting systems that provide low-code implementation, setup is simple.

With low-code vendors, integrating the knowledge management system requires only one line of code to be installed. The main benefit here includes efficiency; low-code deployment allows customer-facing tools that rely on your knowledge management system, such as self-service and chatbots to be functional as soon as possible, allowing more customers to be served online.

Can the System Easily Integrate With 3rd Party Applications?

Your knowledge management system should fit in with any existing processes, workflows and 3rd party applications that you and other departments use. Choose a system that offers open RESTful APIs for seamless integration with other apps.

Operational efficiency skyrockets when integrations are facilitated between knowledge management systems and apps that are heavily relied on by teams, such as:

• CRM Systems
• Email Systems
• In-Store Systems

These integrations encourage knowledge sharing across the company, contributing to critical operational and strategic decision making whilst boosting your competitive advantage.

Learn how to optimise knowledge management with these 12 best practices.

Usability Considerations

Is the System’s UI Easy to Use?

The importance of UI cannot be understated. It is something your agents will interface with all day, every day. As a result, subtle design plays a huge role in agent efficiency. GUIs designed with quality of life and ease of use as a central principle, then refined through iterative testing, pull vastly ahead of systems build by engineers. When UI are cumbersome or over-complicated, editor and agent time is unnecessarily spent trying to navigate the functions.

Keeping it simple is key.

• Does the agent interface offer a simple search function for finding all knowledge articles your company requires?
• Does the editor interface enable the simple adding and editing of articles through step-by-step navigation?
• Can key functionalities be accessed through the UI, for example, integrated chat console, knowledge analytics and user stats?
• Remember who the users are and consider these points when choosing a knowledge management system.

Does the System Include Features That Encourage Collaboration?

Equipping agents with collaborative capabilities can only improve the efficiency and depth of knowledge. Choose a knowledge management system that includes internal messaging; allowing agents to share useful articles with one another.

Further, select a system that enables agents to suggest edits or highlight gaps within knowledge articles. These users spend the most time talking to customers and therefore should be given the tools to share their insights.

Is the System Centralised for All Teams to Use?

Having one centralised knowledge management system that stores all company knowledge in one place is vital. It enables the consistent and accurate sharing of information to customers and across departments – without one centralised source, you risk distributing inaccurate information internally and externally.

Companies face issues when their knowledge is fragmented; each team has its own knowledge management system and each customer service tool relies on its own system too. The subsequent inconsistencies and inaccuracies of information shared is problematic.

For reliability and consistency, choose a system that acts as your company’s centralised source of knowledge – one that includes all teams and integrates with all tools, including live chat , self-service, chatbots and agent knowledge interfaces.

Is the System’s Hosting GDPR Compliant?

Ensure the vendor you choose to work with is GDPR compliant, particularly if they are collecting and storing customer data.

Does the System Offer Detailed Knowledge Analytics?

You can’t manage what you can’t measure.

Ensure your knowledge management system offers comprehensive analytics. Working with the metrics in mind contributes to the constant improvement of knowledge management within your company and ultimately deliver customers better results over time.

Systems that allow you to toggle between views and tools, that offer you metrics on top-performing articles and categories plus user analytics can assist in improving operational efficiency.

Does the System Include A Customer Feedback Loop?

Do you know that your knowledge system is working as intended and that the content it is distributing is proving effective? Receiving customer feedback regarding the information that is accessed by customers and user is vital in understanding this. It can bring to light any issues or gaps with the information served, equally, it can validate if results were adequate. Work scientifically, falsify ideas and work with knowledge management vendors who appreciates this principle.

Ensure the knowledge management system you choose has customer feedback capabilities built-in. By asking customers “Did this answer your question?” and linking the responses to the system’s centralised analytics section, Knowledge Managers can evaluate article effectiveness, making decisions based on the user-generated data for optimal results.