Experts at Knowledge-Centric strategies that ensure sustainable, scalable success.
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KCS Basics
Knowledge Centered Support is a framework based on exactly what the name implies. It is focusing your customer support activities on the knowledge involved, not the actual support transaction. We helped companies implement KCS for 10 years, but now utilize an alternative to KCS that has been tremendously successful.
Your people have to see quick, positive results if you want them to stay enthused and actively participating. You have a window of opportunity to achieve this transition to a knowledge-centric organization from the traditional transaction-centric organization. What does that mean? |
In a transaction based organization, when I complete a transaction or activity, such as a support call, I am considered successful. There might be a hope that I would also capture some information from that call that might be helpful to someone else, but if I don't, no one is really surprised or disappointed. That seems okay, only because everyone has become used to such a culture and have rarely experienced anything different from that.
In a knowledge-centric organization, it would be unthinkable to have such an interaction like a support call, with a potential wealth of useful knowledge utilized, and not gather and share that knowledge. And that attitude, culture, expectation, belief extends to all interactions, not just support calls. Everyone recognizes, and firmly believes, that completing a transaction or activity without capturing the knowledge that was used and/or discovered during that transaction, means we failed in our primary responsibility.
In the knowledge-centric cultures we guide our clients to building, no one would think of not capturing knowledge and information as an automatic part of any interaction. There would have to be some very exceptional to justify not doing this. And because they do this all day as part of their job, they become so skilled at it, it no longer adds any time to our overall workload. In fact, just the opposite. It saves everyone so much time that they can invest time each day on activities that are around innovation and creativity and quality improvement. Things there never seemed to be time for in the pre-knowledge-centric world.
So yes, there is a value in successfully completing a transaction. But the value of completing it, AND capturing and sharing the knowledge generated by that transaction, is immensely higher. So KCS, at its core, is doing whatever is required to ensure the organization values knowledge more than activity, believes to its core that their primary responsibility is the generation and sharing of knowledge (this is the culture), and that every tool, process, system, metric, reward, performance evaluation, and role description supports the organization's ability to do this successfully.
When we accept this truth, it becomes much easier to judge and make decisions about what to do, not do, change and not change, focus on and ignore. For example, in a true KCS environment, how much sense does it make to focus on closed cases? We look at it, of course, as one of several KPIs, but those numbers or changes in those numbers do not interfere with our primary task of managing our knowledge. They are just one more metric we use to monitor what is happening. We focus on managing knowledge, not the activities that generate that knowledge.
When you involve us, we quickly assess your current state, and then guide the building of a complete, executable strategy that will guide the organization, and more specifically those tasked with implementing KCS, in focusing on the right things, and making the most of every bit of time and resource invested. We ensure you do not make the mistakes so many other organizations make, saving significant time, money, and psychological capital. We ensure your people see results quickly enough to generate excitement and momentum, making it possible to accomplish the changes needed, and make those changes sustainable and scalable.
So why do companies fail at KCS? They remain focused on activity, without making the absolutely necessary transition to a true knowledge-centric organization. They attempt to layer KCS principles and methods onto the old transaction-centric culture, and end up with resistance, fear, hesitancy, missed milestones, and ultimately an acceptance of failure or mediocrity.
I rarely have anyone argue the basic logic of this. So why do they not do more to ensure this cultural transition, and value shift? Because they have never been trained in how to do it, and have probably never personally experienced it. It would be like looking at a beautiful wedding cake, and with no experience of cooking, take a recipe and try to duplicate it. The odds of succeeding are so low none of us would bet money on a successful outcome. The likelihood of knowing and doing the right things to make KCS successful, without having every experienced it, and without having a clue how one changes an organization's culture, is just as remote.
So what is culture? It is the shared values, beliefs, expectations, and illusions by the majority of the members of the organization. One example. A basic foundation of a knowledge-centric organization is trust and personal value. The employees trust and value their management and management, in turn, trusts and values their employees. Employees and managers trust and value their customers, and visa versa. This seems basic to any organization, but in the dozens of organizations I have worked with, it is a rare commodity indeed.
We like to believe that this is our culture, but unfortunately, it rarely is. And if it is part of our culture, but a weak part, as opposed to the bedrock of the organization, how do we change it? Good luck finding someone in your organization with the knowledge, experience, and skill set to pull this one off.
There are lots of other components of KCS, most of which you can easily find documented in a number of places, including the Consortium for Service Innovation, the organization that built the KCS principles and methodology and have continued to enhance it over the years. They are a great resource, and have many dozens of documents detailing KCS, but again, if you don't know how to change manage your culture, you are going to be disappointed in your final results.
This is one of our strengths at KnowledgeTraks. We are experts at assessing and managing cultural transition. It is one of the primary reasons why we have been so successful.
In a knowledge-centric organization, it would be unthinkable to have such an interaction like a support call, with a potential wealth of useful knowledge utilized, and not gather and share that knowledge. And that attitude, culture, expectation, belief extends to all interactions, not just support calls. Everyone recognizes, and firmly believes, that completing a transaction or activity without capturing the knowledge that was used and/or discovered during that transaction, means we failed in our primary responsibility.
In the knowledge-centric cultures we guide our clients to building, no one would think of not capturing knowledge and information as an automatic part of any interaction. There would have to be some very exceptional to justify not doing this. And because they do this all day as part of their job, they become so skilled at it, it no longer adds any time to our overall workload. In fact, just the opposite. It saves everyone so much time that they can invest time each day on activities that are around innovation and creativity and quality improvement. Things there never seemed to be time for in the pre-knowledge-centric world.
So yes, there is a value in successfully completing a transaction. But the value of completing it, AND capturing and sharing the knowledge generated by that transaction, is immensely higher. So KCS, at its core, is doing whatever is required to ensure the organization values knowledge more than activity, believes to its core that their primary responsibility is the generation and sharing of knowledge (this is the culture), and that every tool, process, system, metric, reward, performance evaluation, and role description supports the organization's ability to do this successfully.
When we accept this truth, it becomes much easier to judge and make decisions about what to do, not do, change and not change, focus on and ignore. For example, in a true KCS environment, how much sense does it make to focus on closed cases? We look at it, of course, as one of several KPIs, but those numbers or changes in those numbers do not interfere with our primary task of managing our knowledge. They are just one more metric we use to monitor what is happening. We focus on managing knowledge, not the activities that generate that knowledge.
When you involve us, we quickly assess your current state, and then guide the building of a complete, executable strategy that will guide the organization, and more specifically those tasked with implementing KCS, in focusing on the right things, and making the most of every bit of time and resource invested. We ensure you do not make the mistakes so many other organizations make, saving significant time, money, and psychological capital. We ensure your people see results quickly enough to generate excitement and momentum, making it possible to accomplish the changes needed, and make those changes sustainable and scalable.
So why do companies fail at KCS? They remain focused on activity, without making the absolutely necessary transition to a true knowledge-centric organization. They attempt to layer KCS principles and methods onto the old transaction-centric culture, and end up with resistance, fear, hesitancy, missed milestones, and ultimately an acceptance of failure or mediocrity.
I rarely have anyone argue the basic logic of this. So why do they not do more to ensure this cultural transition, and value shift? Because they have never been trained in how to do it, and have probably never personally experienced it. It would be like looking at a beautiful wedding cake, and with no experience of cooking, take a recipe and try to duplicate it. The odds of succeeding are so low none of us would bet money on a successful outcome. The likelihood of knowing and doing the right things to make KCS successful, without having every experienced it, and without having a clue how one changes an organization's culture, is just as remote.
So what is culture? It is the shared values, beliefs, expectations, and illusions by the majority of the members of the organization. One example. A basic foundation of a knowledge-centric organization is trust and personal value. The employees trust and value their management and management, in turn, trusts and values their employees. Employees and managers trust and value their customers, and visa versa. This seems basic to any organization, but in the dozens of organizations I have worked with, it is a rare commodity indeed.
We like to believe that this is our culture, but unfortunately, it rarely is. And if it is part of our culture, but a weak part, as opposed to the bedrock of the organization, how do we change it? Good luck finding someone in your organization with the knowledge, experience, and skill set to pull this one off.
There are lots of other components of KCS, most of which you can easily find documented in a number of places, including the Consortium for Service Innovation, the organization that built the KCS principles and methodology and have continued to enhance it over the years. They are a great resource, and have many dozens of documents detailing KCS, but again, if you don't know how to change manage your culture, you are going to be disappointed in your final results.
This is one of our strengths at KnowledgeTraks. We are experts at assessing and managing cultural transition. It is one of the primary reasons why we have been so successful.
Potential Reasons for Implementing KCS
- Reducing impact of disruptions to the business
- Reducing marginal cost of support
- Increase customer loyalty
- Promote customer self-service
- New support services opportunities
- Improve products
- Provide method of valuing and rewarding individual and team contributions
Example of Acceptance of KCS at Altiris
At Altiris, while I led the KCS implementation, when we upgraded the knowledge base (KB) tool to a new version, a bug was revealed in the tool that degraded performance to unusable. As painful as this was, during the three days that the tool was unavailable, we had a clear confirmation of how valuable the KB had become to both employees and customers.
During the three days that the KB was not usable, we had a flood of calls from customers, making sure that we knew the KB was not working. They told us, over and over, that the KB was essential to their job now, and because they used it so often to solve issues it was critical that we get it fixed immediately.
Our employees were just as devastated. A year previous, if the KB had gone down, it would probably have gone nearly unnoticed. Now they were not just communicating to us that there was a problem, but were frantic that we get it back up.
What was revealing to us was that this was not just because they couldn’t find information they were desperate for, but because they were frustrated that they had articles they wanted to write, and couldn’t do so.
As frustrating as it was to us to have the system down, it was exciting to know that the KB and our KM processes were so deeply embedded into everyone’s workflow and daily tasks, that they no longer need to be “pushed” to do the right thing. It had become the foundational culture of the organization.
At Altiris, while I led the KCS implementation, when we upgraded the knowledge base (KB) tool to a new version, a bug was revealed in the tool that degraded performance to unusable. As painful as this was, during the three days that the tool was unavailable, we had a clear confirmation of how valuable the KB had become to both employees and customers.
During the three days that the KB was not usable, we had a flood of calls from customers, making sure that we knew the KB was not working. They told us, over and over, that the KB was essential to their job now, and because they used it so often to solve issues it was critical that we get it fixed immediately.
Our employees were just as devastated. A year previous, if the KB had gone down, it would probably have gone nearly unnoticed. Now they were not just communicating to us that there was a problem, but were frantic that we get it back up.
What was revealing to us was that this was not just because they couldn’t find information they were desperate for, but because they were frustrated that they had articles they wanted to write, and couldn’t do so.
As frustrating as it was to us to have the system down, it was exciting to know that the KB and our KM processes were so deeply embedded into everyone’s workflow and daily tasks, that they no longer need to be “pushed” to do the right thing. It had become the foundational culture of the organization.
Sample Results From Compaq and Altiris KCS Implementations Supported by KnowledgeTraks
Increase in Number of Articles available to Employees
Article Reuse
Decrease in Escalations
Decrease in Time to Resolution
Lower Hold Times
Most companies, from a combination of increased Customer self-help, faster Time to Resolution, and increased First Call Resolution, see hold times fall or nearly disappear.
Increase in Customer Self-Help
Increase in Number of Articles available to Employees
- Compaq - Houston went from a total of 200 articles created per month to over 1,000 per month.
- Compaq - Dublin went from a total of less than 40 articles created per month to over 250 per month.
- Altiris Worldwide
- In 2005 (before beginning the Knowledge Initiative project) less than 50 articles a month were being created, with only a handful of these being published to the customer self-help portal being used at that time.
- 3 Months into the Knowledge Initiative over 250 articles a month were being created.
- 6 Months into the initiative over 1,000 articles a month were being published, a new customer portal was introduced, and over 250 of these articles were being published to that customer portal each month.
- 9 months into the initiative there were nearly 14,000 articles in the Knowledgebase, and over 3,000 had been published to the customer portal. The percentage of articles created that were published to the customer portal increased steadily from this point on.
Article Reuse
- With Compaq teams the average reuse of articles was less than 1,000 articles being reused (used/viewed after initial creation) per month. This average increased to over 8,000 articles being reused each month. One individual created 93 articles, and in one month those articles were reused 410 times. (This reuse was a month after this individual left the company, demonstrating how capturing and reuse of knowledge can reduce the impact of turn-over.)
- Within the first year, Altiris reuse increased from about 100 articles being reused per month to about 2,000 articles being reused per month. In one quarter those reuses totaled nearly 250,000–with the most reused article being viewed or used over 3,000 times each. During one quarter the top 100 articles had been viewed 56,788 times in the customer portal, and had been linked to 987 support incidents (articles are linked to an incident when they were used to resolve it).
Decrease in Escalations
- Altiris escalations were averaging 40% from support level 1 to level 2 or 3
- Those escalations were reduced to 10% (a 75% reduction) with the Knowledge Initiative. This means the incidents are resolved on the first call, by the least expensive personnel, and the customer is not having to wait for the escalation process to complete. This not only significantly reduces costs, but increases customer satisfaction at the same time.
Decrease in Time to Resolution
- Some Compaq teams experienced as much as a 75% reduction in TtR, and the team with the lowest improvement saw over a 25% reduction. (The nature of the calls generally involved simpler issues for those teams with the highest reductions.)
- Altiris has been seeing anywhere from 40-55% reductions depending on the team. (The nature of these calls tends to be more complex.)
Lower Hold Times
Most companies, from a combination of increased Customer self-help, faster Time to Resolution, and increased First Call Resolution, see hold times fall or nearly disappear.
Increase in Customer Self-Help
- This is a very difficult metric to measure directly and accurately. Improvements are estimates based primarily on article reuse by customers and customer surveys.
- If we use Altiris as an example, in one month customers viewed 2,000 separate articles in the customer portal a total of 65,000 times. Based on past experience we can assume that a certain percentage of these views were not the right article to resolve their question or issue, but some of them were. And as customers become more proficient at using the portal, the success ratio increases. Below are the assumptions we used and the results. Odds are high that we were being quite conservative.
- 65,000 reuses X 10% actually providing helpful answer = 6,500 answers
- 6,500 answers X 10% resulting in call avoidance = 650 calls avoided
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