4 Ways to Reduce Time to Knowledge

December 12, 2017
4 Ways to Reduce Time to Knowledge
As your point of contact for customers, your service desk represents the face of IT. Today, agents face a wide array of complex technologies designed to make their jobs easier to complete, more quickly and efficiently.

This means a knowledge management solution is more critical for success, and reducing the time to access knowledge means better customer service. Below you will find several ideas for improving efficiency and speed.

1. Centralize Your Knowledge

In today’s environment, knowledge is stored in increasingly disparate places. Data can be in emails, forums, social media, tickets, comments, and with your own customer service agents. Aggregate your organization’s knowledge into a single knowledge management solution. Centralizing data accelerates learning and produces better decisions. Ensure that legacy knowledge is documented, and update content frequently with new data.

2. Make Knowledge Accessible

Resolving problems through a knowledge management solution means having access to information that is actionable. Ensure that the system you select is easy to update. When your experienced, trusted agents can refresh content, you have an empowered team that has better solutions. This improves your first contact resolution metric, and it can reduce your cost per contact.

Include Knowledge Management in the Workflow

Making time to create articles can be difficult in a demanding environment. Creating and updating articles or other knowledge should be everyone’s job. Knowledge sharing goes beyond technology. It is part of a culture of collaboration with a focus on the team. A knowledge management solution will help produce excellent results when each team member is invested in building that internal knowledge.

3. Tickets and Self-Service

An accurate and speedy knowledge management solution is for customers in addition to agents. An increasing percentage of consumers access web self-service apps and options to find answers to questions. If your knowledge is not optimized for your customers as well, they may hop over to your competitor. Enabling self-service through an intranet or customer portal produces happier customers, better loyalty, and it frees up time for your agents to resolve more complex issues. Implementing methods that reduce the time to access knowledge for everyone can mean a higher rate of deflecting tickets with self-service.

4. Use Metrics to Improve Business Performance

Does your knowledge add actual value to your company? Which articles are accessed most frequently? Measuring knowledge will work to improve your customer service team’s performance. Your knowledge management solution should be able to provide metrics on the number of articles updated or created, which articles contributed to quick first contact resolution, and the number of tickets resolved with links to articles.

An efficient knowledge management system is critical to a high-performing customer service desk. It can also contribute to a culture of collaboration and innovation. Embracing change and building on knowledge will sharpen your competitive edge.

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