The starting point of consistent CX is giving employees and customers access to the right knowledge about the brand. Building a reliable knowledge system is crucial in this new age where the brand is defined by the CX that it delivers.
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Over 85% of business buyers and consumers rate the experience a company provides as being just as important as its products and services according to the annual State of the Connected Customer report — which is why it has never been more important to get CX right.
Giving employees and customers access to the right knowledge about your brand and products is the starting point of CX, which requires having a single source of truth for all product information, sales and marketing activities, and customer data.
For contact centre agents, this means having confidence in the reliability of the information they access via this system. Similarly, customers who opt for self-service should be able to easily access all the relevant information about the brand and products that they need.
When knowledge systems are unreliable, the customer and employee experience is inconsistent, which has negative implications for the brand.
Agents access information in many ways and if there is a lack of clarity about which information is reliable this can complicate their job and lead to inconsistent answers for customers. This puts stress on agents, particularly given they often need the right answer urgently.
A well curated knowledge system is one of the most important applications agents can have to improve their confidence levels and job satisfaction.
In this digital age, where brands are defined by their CX, building a knowledge system that delivers on expectations, needs, and promises, is crucial. Establishing a single, reliable source of all information and data will ensure consistent, positive experiences.
The benefits of doing so include better customer satisfaction ratings and improved employee engagement, which in turn improves compliance, boosts sales revenue and can lead to better business insights.
Our ebook proposes the following five-step framework to build a knowledge system that works, that keeps knowledge at the core of customer and employee experiences to benefit overall brand:
Implementing and sharing knowledge with all stakeholders across the organisation will see numerous benefits. Positioning knowledge as a priority with your wider organisation will result in faster decision-making, a more cohesive culture, increased collaboration, and smoother processes. Implementing a sense of responsibility for accessible, well-managed information will support adoption of new systems as stakeholders recognise the value these offer, for everyone.
Contact centres are notorious for having seemingly endless folders and repositories. It is important to reduce the number of access points for the agents. Each repository beyond the first increases the risk of information becoming misaligned, resulting in frustrated employees as they encounter inconsistent information. When faced with a challenging or urgent situation, accessing multiple repositories for knowledge puts considerable pressure on the agent to find the right answer, putting them at risk of providing inadequate service and inaccurate information.
Brand experience is defined by various interactions beyond the contact centre, as organisations choose to interact with their customers across multiple channels. To focus on brand experience, organisations should first identify the brand values they want to be identified with, then train employees who are in contact with customers on these. Having a knowledge system that closely follows these values ensures uniformity of brand experience – a measure many businesses customer interactions are rated on.
An effective self-service mechanism reduces the pressure points across an organisation, assisting it to go the extra mile. The accessibility of customer-facing knowledge is crucial for delivering quality CX as customers leverage this, and further supports CX indirectly as it eases the load on agents as calls are reduced and more strategic work can be undertaken to add value.
Contact centres want knowledge solutions that utilise data and insights - 48% want solutions to suggest next-best actions based on patterns, and 42% want a solution that can generate on-demand reports and usage analytics. Making the most of these within solutions will allow for continuous improvements. For example, using data and insights to identify market patterns can prepare virtual assistants to respond as they anticipate common queries, while product teams can gather information on poor experiences to diagnose issues and drive improvements in product design and build.
By keeping knowledge at the core of employee and customer experiences with an effective system, organisations can expect to reap the benefits. Download our ebook to discover specific considerations and steps you can take to achieve the framework solutions and improve employee and customer experiences in your business. By accessing the insights in ‘Keep knowledge at the core of your customer & employee experiences,’ organisations will be better equipped to ensure successful knowledge management deployment.
