Best Practices in KM for Customer Experience

Transcription

1 Best Practices in KM for Customer Experience Andy Moore... 2 The Heady Trip of Customer Experience The customer experience has adapted (and has been adopted) into many variations. It s hard to imagine any organization which hasn t at least explored how to serve its customers better, or else they re stupid. There are simply too many alternatives and too many channels for today s smart consumer to just walk away.... Steven Thurlow, Verint... 4 Knowledge Management: and Liz Kofsky, OpenText An Essential Ingredient in the Seriously Smart Organization Knowledge management is key to exceptional service across the enterprise. When organizations prioritize and create customer-centric cultures, the everyone serves mantra can be quite powerful. Competition can be fierce, which is why high-quality experiences, customer engagement and employee empowerment are so important in sales and service delivery. It s where putting the best tools and resources in the hands of skilled practitioners can make a significant impact.... Anand Subramaniam, egain...5 KM for Omnichannel Customer Service: Five Keys to Success Superior customer service remains one of the few differentiators that businesses can sustain over time. The winners in today s omnichannel environment are the companies that leverage knowledge to empower customers and contact center agents, and provide standout customer experience across channels and touchpoints. We have implemented knowledge solutions for blue-chip companies worldwide, helping them design and deliver great customer service experiences.... Mark Barrenechea, OpenText...6 Digital Engagement and the New Consumer In the age of the customer, power has shifted from large, established brands to the digital consumer. Technology-led disruption is eroding traditional competitive barriers such as manufacturing strength and distribution power. As these barriers to entry dissolve, a laser-like focus on the customer has become a strategic imperative. Only the organizations that deliver engaging experiences will dominate their markets.... Jordi Torras, Inbenta...7 Creating the Perfect FAQ FAQs (frequently asked questions) make up more than 80% of incoming support questions by or telephone; however, 67% of consumers say they prefer a self-service channel to calling customer service for support (Forrester Research). It goes without saying then, that the FAQ section is one of the most important resources a website can offer customers. Self-service not only reduces costs by deflecting calls or , but it also frees up customer service resources for more complex issues.... Jeff Weinstein, RightAnswers...8 Take Off the Training Wheels and Let Your Customer Support Agents Fly When I was 7 years old, my father took me to the park to teach me to ride a bike. At one point he let go and I kept pedaling--straight into a tree. Although he had best of intentions, my father forgot to make sure I knew how to steer. There are certain skills you aren t born with that you need to be taught. The same can be said for customer service.... Tim Peters, IntelliResponse...9 The Online Customer Service Manifesto The modern digital customer wields enormous power and has very clear expectations about how companies should deliver customer service. This article is a round-up of the most compelling findings from recent customer behavior and opinion surveys; together they form the Online Customer Service Manifesto.... Supplement to

2 The Heady Trip of Customer Experience Imagining The Many Paths Toward Customer Satisfaction By Andy Moore, Editorial Director, KMWorld Specialty Publishing Group Andy Moore is the publisher of KMWorld Magazine. In addition, as the editorial director of the KMWorld Specialty Publishing Group, Andy Moore oversees the content of the monthly KM- World Best Practices White Paper series, Andy Moore in print and online, as well as assisting with the creation and content of several single-sponsored positioning papers per year. He is also the host and moderator of the popular KMWorld Web event online broadcast series. T he customer experience has adapted (and has been adopted) into many variations. It s hard to imagine any organization which hasn t at least explored how to serve its customers better, or else they re stupid. There are simply too many alternatives and too many channels for today s smart consumer to just walk away. We read all the time, in media like our sister publication CRM Magazine and the online Destination CRM (excellent publications, by the way) that customer experience management is the key achievement in organizations success in capturing and maintaining customer enthusiasm. But what is it, really? There are sure a lot of opinions, which range from satisfying online interactions to smarter knowledge-based contact agents, and they are all represented in this white paper, in one way or another. But one thing is certain: Most businesses hell, I ll say ALL businesses require a satisfactory relationship with customers to maintain their existence. And it s gotten exponentially more complicated. Social media has overturned the customer experience in ways we never could have imagined a few years ago. Margaret Rouse writes for and manages WhatIs.com, TechTarget s IT encyclopedia and learning center. She is responsible for building content that helps IT professionals learn to speak each other s highly specialized languages. I like the way she puts it: Customer experiences include not only interactions through traditional channels, such as purchases, customer service requests and call center communications but also, increasingly, through social CRM channels such as Twitter and Facebook. To manage the customer experience, companies need to create a strategy that encompasses all customer touch points across the organization. She continues: According to Bruce Temkin, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research focusing on customer experience, the essence of CEM is treating customers as individuals. Then Bruce goes on to quote Stanley Marcus, former president and chairman of the board at Neiman-Marcus: Consumers are statistics. Customers are people. Rouse goes on with insightful commentary from Temkin: Your customers don t live in spreadsheets; you need to go out and talk to them to understand who they are as people. That is, of course, unless each of your customers is really a 55% female with 2.3 kids who is 48% from a suburb and is 11% hispanic. Funny, but true. It s imperative to drop the data sometimes and look at the people it represents. The Evolving State of Customer Care It was enlightening to read the following articles. It had never occurred to me the depth of customer experience management, and the many facets it can take. I wish I had spent more time following this space, because it s fascinating and challenging at the same time. It s one of those blind men and the elephant kind of things; how you interpret it becomes your personal recognition. The following articles are perfect examples of the variety and richness of the customer experience. It s quite revealing. For example, egain sees the customer experience in terms of multiple touchpoints and channels that need to be equally considered in your customer experience well, just plain experience. They write: Superior customer service remains one of the few differentiators that businesses can sustain over time. The winners in today s omnichannel environment are the companies that leverage knowledge to empower customers and contact center agents, and provide standout customer experience across channels and touchpoints. Unfocused knowledge deployments almost always result in a shallow knowledgebase that is full of holes like Swiss cheese. If users can t find answers, or receive inadequate or wrong information, they will simply stop using the system. Users prefer different ways of searching for information, just as drivers prefer Moore is based in Camden, Maine, and can be reached at [email protected] different ways of reaching their destination. Some drive on freeways, others would rather take the scenic route. A GPS-style approach with multiple options to find information dramatically improves knowledge base adoption and ROI. For example, new agents may find it difficult to wade through hundreds of keyword search results, but might fare better if they are guided through a step-by-step dialog, powered by technologies such as case-based reasoning (CBR). CBR can also guide agents and end-customers through interactive customer processes that are compliant with best practices and industry regulations. Pretty heady stuff for a solution provider, but that s the way it is in customer experience management (CEM.) It s a somewhat nebulous area, not at all like the firm application-driven functions such as financial transactions or repeatable business processes. It s a little vague and unpredictable, which makes it all the more interesting. To me, anyway. One of the most common ways to create repeatable customer experiences is to re-use previous successful transactions that apply to the problem at hand. We think of them as FAQs (frequently asked questions) that offput the call center agents or the website from repeating the same stuff all the time, and allow them to supply higher value service. Which, by the way, only grows better over time; questions always come, they always get answered, sometimes well, sometimes not as well, admittedly. But many companies rely on FAQs to handle the greatest volume of repeat questions. As Inbenta puts it, FAQs prevent the most common, repetitive support tickets from ever being created, however, dynamic FAQs take self-service to the next level typically answering 85% of questions from customers. Rather than listing possible answers from keyword searches, dynamic FAQs focus on the natural way people ask questions using natural language processing software S2

3 that understands how we communicate. Its answers are far more accurate no matter how users form questions and it displays them dynamically so users can go right to the source page for what they re seeking. As a responsive support site, a dynamic FAQ system not only adapts to users from the first moment they arrive, but also provides valuable knowledge about the questions customers ask most. The most successful companies have anticipated customers needs through product innovation and technology. Today, successful companies recognize the need to apply this standard to customer support and incorporate innovation and technology to its online customer support. Making it Competitive There are others, such as Verint, that view the customer experience from a competitive advantage viewpoint. (I don t mean to single out Verint on this the fiercely competitive nature of business is at the core of most of these articles.) They write: Knowledge management is key to exceptional service across the enterprise. When organizations prioritize and create customer-centric cultures, the everyone serves mantra can be quite powerful. Competition can be fierce, which is why high-quality experiences, customer engagement and employee empowerment are so important in sales and service delivery. It s where putting the best tools and resources in the hands of skilled practitioners can make a significant impact. This is analogous to the role of knowledge in today s customer-centric organization it s an essential ingredient. Take knowledge management. Organizations are leveraging knowledge management tools to unite information and experiences to maximize efficiency and effectiveness. Those that do this exceptionally well seriously smart organizations are even better positioned to deliver on their key customer and employee directives: know me, understand me, value me and empower me. Help employees and customers navigate change and rapidly pivot to address new requirements, such as process changes, new products, compliance mandates and new channels through the introduction of new knowledge across the enterprise and customer base. Change is disruptive to employees and customers alike; knowledge can counter fear, uncertainty and defection. I had always thought of the FUD acronym as standing for fear, uncertainty and doubt. But this is good, too. Because customer defection is an expensive proposition. Once you ve driven away a good customer through some bonehead interaction, you will NEVER get them back. And most likely, they ll be on the chat boards and social media the next day to tell everyone else to avoid you. So one bad experience can easily have a ripple effect throughout your customer base. That s the point that RightAnswers likes to emphasize. They re probably the most knowledge-managementy participant in this white paper (although they all have a foot in the barrel). Here s how they put it: You need a sophisticated tool that can incorporate new, proven thinking and processes. But that is only part of the equation. When undertaking any process with variable steps and many people, success requires a systematic way of working and tying all the pieces together. Through a structured, repeatable process, you can apply the same approach each time. You know which tasks are required, when to perform them and how to complete them. And a standard approach can be measured, which allows for continual improvement. Knowledge-centered support (KCS) is a proven methodology and set of practices for consistently capturing information in a way But one thing is certain: Most businesses ALL businesses require a satisfactory relationship with customers to maintain their existence. that allows it to be useful and dynamic to suit the rapidly changing environment of customer support. The way I see it in practice is that KCS maximizes the ability of knowledge management to drive the customer experience. KCS principles maintain that the best people to create the knowledge are the ones who use it every day: the agents. According to the Consortium for Service Innovation, the organization that developed KCS, when agents are responsible for creating the knowledge, they will quickly capture 70%-80% of what s known, versus capturing only 20% when done by others. After all, possessing the knowledge that can successfully answer customer questions is vital to providing a great experience. That makes sense. There remains the issue of how, exactly to capture that knowledge into a KB. Is it manual? (not likely to be successful). Is it automated? (very complicated and strewn with false positives). Is it NLP- and AI-based? (getting there, but still under-engineered). Like I said at the top, there are a lot of moving parts in this CEM thing. The Give and Take The act of customer interaction is not a one-way street. As OpenText points out, the company (you) and the customer (them) share a responsibility. That will not sit lightly with some of the more empowered customers, but it is true. Within every customer transaction there is give and take. The company (still you) has to provide the correct and relevant information. But the customer (still them) has a part, too, to provide enough feedback and personal information to lead to the best resolution. It don t come free, folks. As OpenText writes, Today s customers are empowered buyers. They have information at their fingertips to check prices, read product reviews and ask peers for advice. They demand more from the brands they love. No longer confined by time and location, brand experiences must be immediate, relevant and seamless across all channels. Exceptional customer experience is the key differentiator that will deliver competitive advantage now and into the future. By 2020, organizations that deliver exceptional digital experiences will have a competitive advantage. To get there, enterprises must digitize the entire customer journey from initial interest to purchase and support. They also need to extract value from customer information, optimize and personalize the delivery of this information, and manage it securely. In a customer-centric era, brands must deliver compelling experiences created through the contextual understanding of their customers, while adhering to established information governance policies and standards. Mobile shoppers present a huge opportunity for marketers to support the complete customer journey. From consumers comparing prices and making purchases on their handheld devices, to rating their experiences and joining an online community to share reviews, mobile commerce is empowering customers and providing the enterprise with new ways to engage with their audiences. The power that today s consumers hold is immense, and for many companies, represents great risk. As I said earlier, it only takes one bad experience to turn a disgruntled customer into a full-blown explosion of dislike. And, as I also said earlier, you re very unlikely to get them back. Well, that s a kind of review of what caught my attention from the following articles. I m pretty sure you ll get a similar collection of memories from these articles. What I want to leave as a take-away is the deep collection of solutions available, and the incredibly complex matter of treating customers with respect, attention and immediate service. It can be done, and should be done. Do it now. S3

4 Knowledge Management: An Essential Ingredient in the Seriously Smart Organization By Steven Thurlow, VP and Global Practice Leader, Engagement Management, Verint K nowledge management is key to exceptional service across the enterprise. When organizations prioritize and create customer-centric cultures, the everyone serves mantra can be quite powerful. Competition can be fierce, which is why high-quality experiences, customer engagement and employee empowerment are so important in sales and service delivery. It s where putting the best tools and resources in the hands of skilled practitioners can make a significant impact. This is analogous to the role of knowledge in today s customer-centric organization it s an essential ingredient. Take knowledge management. Organizations are leveraging knowledge management tools to unite information and experiences to maximize efficiency and effectiveness. Those that do this exceptionally well seriously smart organizations are even better positioned to deliver on their key customer and employee directives: know me, understand me, value me and empower me. Today s seriously smart organizations capitalize on: Smart moments. Recognizing buyer intent and customer needs and/or delivering the right offer and support at the right time to drive more personalized, more predictable and more productive customer engagement. Smart workforce. Helping ensure the right employees with the right skills are provided with the right insight to drive employee effectiveness and help adhere to regulatory compliance. Engaged workforce. Empowering employees to do and be their best, and reward and inspire customer interactions that promote loyalty and contribute to the organization s goal of continuous improvement. In business, employees in the front and back office, branches and stores all have a role in shaping the customer experience. Every interaction should be contextual and personalized, resulting in customers continuing to engage with your brand. And each employee should be given the right tools and the best knowledge to use in tandem with their given skill-sets to complete a myriad of tasks and ultimately deliver exceptional customer experiences. Seriously smart organizations are taking a strategic approach to knowledge management to gain competitive advantage through actionable intelligence vital insights that enable them to analyze and act on information. By giving customers and employees access to resources and content enterprisewide, knowledge management helps support smarter answers, better decisions and better outcomes. Serving Up Knowledge Management Best Practice Use Cases Developing strong knowledge management practices and tools support best practice use cases that map to key service and performance management initiatives that help: Make every employee the smartest employee. Put intelligence at employees fingertips in the context of the task in hand to drive improved first contact resolution, quicker interactions and more complete and accurate responses. Empower employees to answer increasingly complex customer interactions involving extensive cross-channel insights, and empower customers to find the answers they need easily and efficiently via self-service channels. Improve employee speed-to-skill. Transform training, e-learning and onboarding from a long, learn everything process to a more efficient, learn how to find and use model. Help shorten time to expertise from months to weeks, and boost employee efficiency, confidence, collaboration and value along the way. Correlate knowledge with service performance. Analyze how and when employees and customers use knowledge. Give organizations a powerful means to understand how to optimize the knowledgebase and the customer experience itself. Rather than capture all knowledge, focus on knowledge that is most critical to an organization s success in order to drive performance, growth and competitive advantage. Leverage knowledge for performance management to focus on how best to do things versus knowledge that s merely about things. Evolve customer experience through knowledge. Capitalize on every employee and every customer touchpoint to grow and improve knowledge and enhance experiences. Benefit from frontline employees and their rich repositories of knowledge about pain Steven has over 25 years of experience in designing and implementing customer engagement solutions, serving in technology, project and customer focused roles including as CTO for Ciboodle and Head of Product Strategy for KANA. He Steven Thurlow leads the Verint Global Practice for Engagement Management where his responsibilities include: Establishing and driving Verint strategy for Engagement Management High level product direction for Verint s Engagement Management solutions Engaging externally with strategic customers, new opportunities and partners Initiating and leading cross-functional initiatives across Verint including marketing, pre-sales, sales, product and projects. Steven is based in the UK and holds a Master s degree in Software Engineering from University of Newcastle upon Tyne. points in customer journeys and where technical or operational glitches may occur. Leverage knowledge from experience as a spark for innovation. Then identify and address those areas where knowledge can be injected into processes and transactions to aid both customers and employees, such as through channels like proactive chat. Create and communicate change. Help employees and customers navigate change and rapidly pivot to address new requirements, such as process changes, new products, compliance mandates and new channels through the introduction of new knowledge across the enterprise and customer base. Change is disruptive to employees and customers alike; knowledge can counter fear, uncertainty and defection. Putting Knowledge Management into Practice For aspiring customer-centric organizations, these knowledge management best practice use cases can provide a realization road map. Organizations are drowning in data when what they really thirst for is knowledge. Armed with a robust knowledge management solution, organizations can address today s most pressing customer and employee service imperatives without reservation and provide the foundation to become a seriously smart organization. Verint Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: VRNT) is a global leader in actionable intelligence solutions for customer engagement optimization, security intelligence and fraud, risk and compliance. Today, more than 10,000 organizations in more than 180 countries use Verint solutions to improve enterprise performance and make the world a safer place VERINT. S4

5 KM for Omnichannel Customer Service: Five Keys to Success By Anand Subramaniam, VP of Worldwide Marketing, egain Corporation users quickly through search, CBR can also guide agents and end-customers through interactive customer processes that are compliant with best practices and industry regulations. Best practice: Multiple search options such as FAQ, keyword and natural language search, intent- driven search, topic-tree browsing, and CBR guided help allow a broad range of users to quickly and easily find information, and have best-practice conversations with customers. Make sure to use a common omnichannel knowledge platform to ensure consistency of answers and don t forget to deliver knowledge across traditional and mobile devices for access anywhere. Superior customer service remains one of the few differentiators that businesses can sustain over time. The winners in today s omnichannel environment are the companies that leverage knowledge to empower customers and contact center agents, and provide standout customer experience across channels and touchpoints. egain has implemented knowledge solutions for blue-chip companies worldwide, helping them design and deliver great customer service experiences. In the process, we have compiled hundreds of best practices. Here are some of the popular ones. 1. Quantify value Assessing expected and realized ROI before and after the deployment helps you justify the initial investment as well as continuous improvement of the knowledge base (KB). Best practice: Make sure the ROI metrics you use are aligned with business objectives. For instance, if your business goal is to increase upsell and cross-sell, reduction in average handle time will be a conflicting metric. As you assess ROI, keep in mind that knowledge management (KM) delivers positive ROI across a broad range of business problems. Some examples are: Deflection of requests for agent-assisted service through effective self-service. Increase in first-time resolution and sales conversion. Reduction in escalations, transfers, repeat calls, and average handle times. Reduction in training time, unwarranted product returns, field visits, and staff wage premiums. 2. Build the team Successful KM implementations employ the right team for knowledge capture, creation, and continuous improvement. Best practice: Empower a cross-functional team that can bring a 360-degree approach to knowledge management. Best-practice teams typically include the following members: Strategist: Lead expert that determines the organization, topics, roles and responsibilities, and long- term plans. Select users: High-performance service and sales agents, who use the KB on a daily basis, can provide useful feedback from the trenches, and even contribute answers. Be sure to reward such agents to foster ongoing knowledge contribution. Subject matter experts: Experts that have answers, especially for questions of high complexity. Knowledge authors: Writers and publishers that are focused on content development, taxonomy, and publishing. Project managers: Tactical managers that keep the project on track and ensure forward momentum. 3. Start with depth Unfocused knowledge deployments almost always result in a shallow KB that is full of holes like Swiss cheese. If users can t find answers, or receive inadequate or wrong information, they will simply stop using the system. Best practice: Focus first on depth rather than breadth. Start with common questions on common products or lines of business (the rule) and expand out over time. 4. Knowledge is findability and more Users prefer different ways of searching for information, just as drivers prefer different ways of reaching their destination. Some drive on freeways, others would rather take the scenic route. A GPS-style approach with multiple options to find information dramatically improves knowledge base adoption and ROI. For example, new agents may find it difficult to wade through hundreds of keyword search results, but might fare better if they are guided through a step-by-step dialog, powered by technologies such as Case-Based Reasoning (CBR). In addition to guiding 5. Crowdsource, but scrub Most businesses are not taking advantage of the enormous opportunity to tap into community and social knowledge, and when they do they often make the mistake of creating yet another inconsistent knowledge silo. Best practice: Foster and harvest social knowledge but scrub and unify with trusted knowledge, and then proactively publish across all channels. Knowledge in online communities and social networks foster peer-to-peer service and can help augment enterprise knowledge assets. Best practices = Success Implementing these KM practices not only delivers ROI, but also enables transformative customer experiences. Here are some real-world examples: Leading global bank reduced call handle time by 67% and agent training time by 50%, while its subsidiary vaulted to the #1 position in customer experience in their market Global media and legal services company deflects up to 70% of their calls, while making go-no-go decisions on high-profile litigation services projects Leading North American telco reduced average handle time by 17% and incoming calls by 19%, Leading US branded manufacturer improved service quality by 33% Leading European telco reduced unwarranted handset returns and exchanges by 38% through better problem resolution in the contact center, while enhancing agent experience by 90% About egain egain customer engagement solutions power digital transformation for leading brands. Our top-rated cloud applications for social, mobile, web, and contact centers help clients deliver connected customer journeys in an omnichannel world. To find out more, visit egain Corporation. All rights reserved. S5

6 Digital Engagement and the New Consumer In the age of the customer, power has shifted from large, established brands to the digital consumer. Technology-led disruption is eroding traditional competitive barriers such as manufacturing strength and distribution power. As these barriers to entry dissolve, a laser-like focus on the customer has become a strategic imperative. Only the organizations that deliver engaging experiences will dominate their markets. Today s customers are empowered buyers. They have information at their fingertips to check prices, read product reviews and ask peers for advice. They demand more from the brands they love. No longer confined by time and location, brand experiences must be immediate, relevant and seamless across all channels. Exceptional customer experience is the key differentiator that will deliver competitive advantage now and into the future. By 2020, organizations that deliver exceptional digital experiences will have a competitive advantage. To get there, enterprises must digitize the entire customer journey from initial interest to purchase and support. They also need to extract value from customer information, optimize and personalize the delivery of this information, and manage it securely. In a customer-centric era, brands must deliver compelling experiences created through the contextual understanding of their customers, while adhering to established information governance policies and standards. The Empowered Digital Consumer Customer experience is the sum of all experiences that occur in the relationship between a consumer and an organization. The ideal experience delivers relevant content, products and services across multiple touch points in a consistent way. Disruptive digital technologies have introduced new channels for content distribution and consumption, including a complex landscape that gives customers instant access to information from websites, apps, mobile and wearable devices, sensors, and social networks. Mobile devices, in particular, are revolutionizing the digital experience and pushing the limits of engagement. According to research, mobile platforms make up 60% of total digital media time By Mark Barrenechea, CEO, OpenText spent last year, with mobile devices accounting for one in four online purchases. As mobile retail becomes commonplace, mobile payment and mobile financial services will become integral to the functions of financial institutions, banks and global retailers. Digital banking cards will be embedded in mobile devices and used by 70% of physical bank-card users. In addition to card readers, QR codes and near field communications (NFC) a wireless communications technology that enables mobile devices to communicate based on proximity will increasingly enable payments using just a SIM card. In the future, NFC will expand to support other uses, including identification, transportation and ticketing. Mobile shoppers present a huge opportunity for marketers to support the complete customer journey. From consumers comparing prices and making purchases on their handheld devices, to rating their experiences and joining an online community to share reviews, mobile commerce is empowering customers and providing the enterprise with new ways to engage with their audiences. The Value of Customer Data Customer journeys are based on data collected across various touch points, transactions, interactions, social media sites and devices. Analyzing this data leads to customer insights and these must be tied back to actions that drive automated, internal processes and the delivery of content and services. This should all happen in real time, in response to customer requirements to influence their decisions at the moment of need. Effectively managing customer data is critical to optimizing the customer journey. If an organization can predict customer behavior, it has a better chance at delivering what a customer expects. In these contextualized experiences, the needs and buying behaviors of consumers are anticipated to offer personalized information and location-based products or services at the most opportune moments to buy. To deliver a contextual experience, organizations use tools that combine historical (buying behavior), situational (geo-location) and demographic (profile-based) data. Relevant content is delivered based on preference, past behavior and the device consumers are using, giving organizations opportunities to build brand loyalty and long-term relationships with customers. By 2020, the digital enterprise will focus on creating a compelling brand experience at every touch point using omni-channel delivery, responsive design, digitization of the customer journey and consolidation of customer big data across the enterprise. Customer insight will be supported by designated teams, technologies and budgets. Digital enterprises will look for data-literacy skill-sets that can be used to analyze and interpret data with integrated tools to support the entire buying process. Customer big data will be hoarded and protected as an asset as it grows to a key differentiator. To gain the coveted 360-degree view of the customer, digital enterprises must manage all their customer information securely using a customer experience management (CEM) solution to maximize its potential and minimize risk. CEM Creates Value across the Customer Journey To deliver a seamless end-to-end experience across touch points, the digital enterprise will need to integrate front- and back-office technologies and processes with a comprehensive enterprise information management (EIM) approach that incorporates CEM technologies. As part of a comprehensive EIM strategy, a CEM solution helps business leaders turn unstructured data sources into levers of competitive advantage and profitability. The key to sales and marketing success in 2020 will depend on an organization s ability to leverage all available data and use it to better understand the customer to deliver compelling experiences. A CEM platform helps create deeper digital engagement across devices and channels with software applications including content analytics, semantic analysis, Web content management, social media, digital asset management and customer communications. These technologies combine to deliver a seamless experience, without sacrificing information governance or compliance. In 2020, the digital enterprise will consolidate its customer experience solutions on a single engagement platform. As part of a foundational, enterprise-wide information strategy, smart organizations will use CEM to drive a customer-centric strategy to create high-touch, digital experiences that are consistent and personalized, capturing the customer when and where they want to engage to surprise and delight at every turn. Learn more at S6

7 Creating the Perfect FAQ FAQs (frequently asked questions) make up more than 80% of incoming support questions by or telephone; however, 67% of consumers say they prefer a self-service channel to calling customer service for support (Forrester Research). It goes without saying then, that the FAQ section is one of the most important resources a website can offer customers. Self-service not only reduces costs by deflecting calls or , but it also frees up customer service resources for more complex issues. The ability to effectively answer your communities questions can make all the difference in managing expenses and building brand affinity. No doubt the FAQ is an important factor in providing a positive customer experience, but are they always effective? The answer is no, not all FAQs are created equal. To ensure that customers can find what they re looking for, a well-structured and optimized FAQ is a necessity. There are several key ways to create a best-inclass FAQ section so let s explore them. Formatting. Titles should be brief, listed as a question and self-explanatory. Customers should be able to recognize their questions in seven words or less. For example, Where can I check my order status? would be a helpful title, while Check your order Status wouldn t resonate the same. As for answers, they should be less than 1,000 characters that s 150 words or three paragraphs. Longer answers can be overwhelming and discouraging for a user seeking quick answers and may result in them ing, contacting the call center or abandoning their search altogether. Grammatical person. It s important to use either first or second person (I/you) in the FAQ text and remain consistent throughout. This perspective gives the reader a sense of familiarity and personalizes the experience so that they re more likely to be satisfied with the answer provided. Natural language. The goal is to make answers as easy as possible to find, so it s helpful to structure questions in complete sentences rather than fragmented keywords. For example, How do I check my balance by phone? is more comprehensive than balance check. Unfortunately, most websites use search engines that are keyword based. This type of search leads to frustration because it often delivers irrelevant or even zero results. The By Jordi Torras, CEO and Founder, Inbenta alternative is semantic search engines using natural language processing (NLP). Unlike keyword search systems, natural language allows customers to search the way they speak by computing the overall meaning of the search query instead of individual keywords. It ensures that customers find exactly what they re searching for, regardless of using incomplete, ambiguous, unstructured questions. It is like having a human agent receive a query and return relevant results. Simplicity. When it comes to creating a FAQ, simplicity is king. You want to provide the most commonly sought information quickly and easily. For that reason, question titles should only contain one idea. No doubt the FAQ is an important factor in providing a positive customer experience, but are they always effective? The answer is no, not all FAQs are created equal. Answers should be apparent at first glance so if there are multiple concepts, it s better just to make two distinct FAQs: Use: How will my goods arrive? or When will my goods arrive? Don t use: How and when will my goods arrive? Bundle. A fundamental element for creating a well-structured FAQ is organization. This means that related concepts should be grouped together. Better to have one overarching question than multiple FAQs for a similar issue. For example, How do I update my mobile phone number on my profile? and Can I change the address on my account? could actually be listed under the one FAQ How can I update my account information? Jordi Torras is the CEO and founder of Inbenta, the award-winning natural language processing and semantic search company that s improving the customer experience for leading online Jordi Torras businesses. Torras founded Inbenta in 2005 and has continued to grow the company to span eight countries worldwide with an impressive yearly growth rate of 60%. Inbenta specializes in natural language processing and semantic search to improve the customer experience online through artificial intelligence-powered technology that helps businesses increase the efficiency of its customer service, call centers, e-commerce, FAQs and social media platforms. Learn more at www. Inbenta.com or contact us at [email protected]. Differentiate users. You can create different profiles and assign specific answers to each FAQ when necessary. This will ensure that irrelevant information never appears in front of the wrong audience. For example, logged-in users may have different answers than those who are not logged in, and employee website users may also require different answers than customers. Designating content for specific user groups will result in the most relevant answers for every user. Dynamic FAQs. FAQs prevent the most common, repetitive support tickets from ever being created, however, dynamic FAQs take self-service to the next level typically answering 85% of questions from customers. Rather than listing possible answers from keyword searches, dynamic FAQs focus on the natural way people ask questions using natural language processing software that understands how we communicate. Its answers are far more accurate no matter how users form questions and it displays them dynamically so users can go right to the source page for what they re seeking. As a responsive support site, a dynamic FAQ system not only adapts to users from the first moment they arrive, but also provides valuable knowledge about the questions customers ask most. The most successful companies have anticipated customers needs through product innovation and technology. Today, successful companies recognize the need to apply this standard to customer support and incorporate innovation and technology to its online customer support. The FAQ is incredibly effective when it serves its purpose of providing the most commonly sought information quickly and easily. S7

8 Take Off the Training Wheels and Let Your Customer Support Agents Fly When I was 7 years old, my father took me to the park to teach me to ride a bike. At one point he let go and I kept pedaling straight into a tree. Although he had the best of intentions, my father forgot to make sure I knew how to steer. There are certain skills you aren t born with that you need to be taught. The same can be said of customer service. Most organizations have some type of knowledge source (the bike) where they store company knowledge, and they want to provide a great customer experience (learn to ride). They just haven t set up a methodical way of getting there so the ride can be great (avoid the tree). Successful knowledge management quickly resolves customer issues. Choosing the right solution is very important. You need a sophisticated tool that can incorporate new, proven thinking and processes. But that is only part of the equation. When undertaking any process with variable steps and many people, success requires a systematic way of working and tying all the pieces together. Through a structured, repeatable process, you can apply the same approach each time. You know which tasks are required, when to perform them and how to complete them. And a standard approach can be measured, which allows for continual improvement. Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) An Empowering Methodology Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) is a proven methodology and set of practices for consistently capturing information in a way that allows it to be useful and dynamic to suit the rapidly changing environment of customer support. The way I see it in practice is that KCS maximizes the ability of knowledge management to drive the customer experience. KCS principles maintain that the best people to create the knowledge are the ones who use it every day: the agents. According to the Consortium for Service Innovation, the organization that developed KCS, when agents are responsible for creating the knowledge, they will quickly capture 70%-80% of what s known, versus capturing only 20% when done by others. By Jeff Weinstein, President and CEO, RightAnswers After all, possessing the knowledge that can successfully answer customer questions is vital to providing a great experience. Here are the main goals of KCS: Create content, or knowledge, that is useful for customer service Evolve the knowledge to keep it current Develop a knowledgebase of the organization s collective knowledge Successful knowledge management quickly resolves customer issues. Choosing the right solution is very important. KCS offers guidelines on how to write the knowledge articles, for example, use a consistent layout and a writing style that is easy to understand. KCS also applies an article quality index (AQI) to measure the quality of the knowledge. While processes and people are an important part of KCS, having the right tools and functionality is essential in achieving KCS success and a high level of adoption of your knowledge initiative. Knowledge management software that easily enables and automates KCS processes and workflows yields the greatest and persisting results. Even more valuable is when technology supports people s behaviors within the natural workflow of their role. Then management can be confident that the key parts of KCS are being implemented. Some elements where technology can drive KCS proficiency: Providing a central repository to store all company knowledge for easy, universal access Offering gamification that automates KCS rewards, to keep users engaged and to drive the desired behaviors Calculating the article quality As president and CEO of RightAnswers, Jeff Weinstein is the driving force behind the company s strategic direction and growth. Through Weinstein s leadership, RightAnswers has evolved into a leading provider of cloud-based knowledge Jeff Weinstein management and self-service solutions, used by more than 450 global organizations and millions of users for both internal IT support and customer service. Jeff rides his bike with family without issue and even completed, with his wife Anne, Bike New York s 40-mile Five Boro Bike Tour, missing all the trees. Keep KCS Going Strong Our world keeps changing, new projects compete for attention and key staff move on. Before you know it, what was a very successful KCS implementation starts to stumble and standards drop. So how can you maintain the momentum of your KCS journey? Here are some important steps you should take to sustain KCS long-term: Management buy-in is a pre-requisite for a sustained KCS initiative Trusting people to do the work is a very empowering approach to creating and maintaining knowledge. Give your team the responsibility and accountability and they ll take ownership of the knowledge Since we re changing the way people work, KCS coaches play an important role in KCS adoption Explain the big picture and benefits of why you re asking people to change their behavior; they will feel like a part of the process Assemble a small group of agents to determine workflows. KCS works best when you involve the people who will be doing the work Change the way you measure people s contributions. Value people who share, are willing to learn and help others learn. Reward people for quality (e.g., publishing useful articles), not for quantity They say you never forget how to ride a bike. That may be true, but you have to learn to ride in the first place. Simply owning a bike and wanting to ride doesn t make it happen. Most people need someone to coach them to teach them how to balance, how to brake, and of course how to avoid crashing into a tree. Likewise, creating a good customer experience through knowledge requires training, strategy and tactics. The work of a team all aligned to achieving the same goal will win you customer service worthy of the coveted yellow jersey of the Tour de France KCS is a strategy to get you there. Visit us at S8

9 The Online Customer Service Manifesto Ten Hard-Hitting Customer Truths Organizations Need To Hear man i fes to noun A written statement declaring publically the intentions, motives, views or opinions of a group. The modern digital customer wields enormous power and has very clear expectations about how companies should deliver customer service. This article is a round-up of the most compelling findings from recent customer behavior and opinion surveys; together they form the Online Customer Service Manifesto. It features ten pointed statements that embody the same no-nonsense attitude that today s customers bring with them when they go online to search for answers to questions. 1. Convince me that you understand what I need. More than 70% of customers surveyed believe small businesses understand customers better, provide a more personal customer service experience and are more concerned about my needs compared to larger companies. Today s customers are skeptical, even cynical, about the idea that large organizations have their best interests at heart. Is this a fair generalization? It doesn t matter. The only way to shift this pervasive opinion is by demonstrating to the customer that, when it comes to interacting with your organization, the service experience is stellar. 2. Don t let me down. Just don t. It takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one negative experience. Recovering after disappointing a customer is a highcost proposition. This is a scenario where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The best way to avoid negative experiences is to invest in technologies that allow customers to solve low-complexity problems at the point of first contact, which is increasingly a digital service channel. 3. As the customer, my opinion of the service I receive is all that matters. Eighty percent of big companies described themselves as delivering superior service, but only 8% of customers say they ve experienced superior service from these companies. Internal opinions about how well you re meeting the needs of your customer are By Tim Peters, Director of Marketing, IntelliResponse virtually meaningless. If you can t point to recent standout investments that have substantially moved the needle on your ability to deliver world-class customer service (in particular, digital self-service) then you are fooling yourself on your customer service performance. 4. How I feel about how I m being treated DIRECTLY affects purchase decisions. Seventy percent of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated. Customer service affects purchase intent. One of the easiest ways to secure customer loyalty and future revenues is by delivering service experiences that leave customers satisfied and therefore more likely to initiate future purchases. A customer is four times more likely to buy from a competitor if the problem is service-related. Customer loyalty is fragile, and competitive offers are a click away. 5. Let me down on SERVICE, and I m gone. A customer is four times more likely to buy from a competitor if the problem is service-related. Customer loyalty is fragile, and competitive offers are a click away. Appealing to the customer s desire for excellent service is the best move an organization can make to preserve loyalty and secure future revenues. 6. If you re not in the mobile channel, you re dead to me. Seventy-five percent of customers believe companies should make answers to all their common questions available via smartphones. The typical mobile users check their phone 150 times per day. The implication is clear: any organization that does not have a strategy for delivering service in mobile channels will take themselves out of the game in this vital part of their customer s life. 7. Don t make me escalate. I hate it. Seventy-two percent of customers say having to explain my problem to multiple people made for a bad customer service interaction. While it s true that customers don t like the experience of escalating their service queries, organizations really should not need to be educated on the cost benefits of deflecting call and volumes. When customers are able to go online and selfserve for answers to common questions, without having to engage with live support, it s a true win-win scenario for everyone. 8. You want me to trust you? Deliver excellent service. Customer service ranks as the #1 factor influencing how much a customer will trust a company. Organizations need to earn trust from today s customer and nothing influences trust more than delivering excellent customer service. 9. Forget social media. When I want answers, I go to your website. Sixty-seven percent of customers say they go to a company website first when looking for information. Organizations that fail to make it easy for customers to get answers in the digital channel are inviting escalation calls or, worse, driving customers to seek answers from competitor websites. 10. Give me the answer and let me get on with my life! Nine out of 10 customers described having to contact a company multiple times for the same reason was a source of frustration. Nearly 100% of your customers want their questions resolved instantly, the first time. This means it s now imperative to empower your customers with the ability to self-serve in digital channels. Gartner predicts that by 2020, the customer will manage 85% of the relationship with an enterprise without interacting with a human. The time to deploy a virtual agent solution is now. About IntelliResponse IntelliResponse, a [24]7 company, provides digital self-service technology solutions for the enterprise. We create profitable online conversations for our private and public sector customers around the world. Our patented Virtual Agent solutions transform corporate websites, mobile applications, social media channels and agent desktops into world class self-service platforms. Using IntelliResponse, consumers can ask questions using natural language and get instant, accurate answers as well as targeted offers that lead them down the purchase path and improve conversion. What s more, key voice of the customer insights are captured in natural language, allowing companies to build highly detailed customer profiles over time. For more information about IntelliResponse, visit S9

10 THE KMWORLD ROUNDTABLE WEBINAR SERIES Schedule of Dates and Topics FEBRUARY 24, 2015 SharePoint Strategies and BPM Solutions The ubiquitous content and information management platform will only grow. Now s the time to get a foothold in that market. Take advantage NOW of the growing trend toward SharePoint especially in this time of adoption of new versions and make a stand in the emerging marketplace for SharePoint-enhancing content and knowledge management products. MARCH 31, 2015 Case Management and the New BPM Strategies BPM and workflow served us well for quite a long time. But everything changes, and evolves. Now we are looking for ways to manage the outside-the-workflow elements of our businesses. Case management is becoming the latest growth area for software developers looking to create new vistas for knowledge and content not merely simple business processes, but truly new opportunities for process improvement. APRIL 21, 2015 Information Governance Controlling information access and distribution will be a critical matter as the mobile workforce increases in size and stature. But information access is a difficult thing to handle. Do you provide sign-in access only? Do you create various levels of accessibility, based on job roles and management level? Or do you simply clamp down on information access and allow limited clearance for limited employees? Organizations are trying all of the above, to varying degrees of success. It s the Wild West out there where are you in this shooting range? MAY 19, 2015 Pay-As-You-Go Cloud Services The SaaS model has changed into a myriad self-serve models and continues to morph as the cloud allows increased access to employees and customers for business and consumer attraction. Imagine what employees and customers could do if they could simply log onto a website and conduct a business deal or a transaction? It s an extreme departure for many companies that fear the security issues, but it is also quite likely to be the way of the future. JUNE 30, 2015 Big Data Big data couldn t be bigger. Or yes, it could. Big data is not just big it s also complicated by a variety of formats, as well as the velocity in which it arrives, the many ways it is shared and the many options employees have to access it. Here s your chance to explain how a big data solution can help businesses that are buried in information but unable to retrieve answers. JULY 28, 2015 The Impact of Mobile It s hard to imagine a larger effect than BYOD (bring your own device) has had on the everyday activity or knowledge workers. The ability to take work home and conduct business during down hours had changed the landscape. But it has also changed businesses, too, as organizations try to imagine a world in which employees walk off the grounds with critical corporate information on their handhelds. What to do? That s the theory behind this episode of KMWorld... AUGUST 25, 2015 Content Analysis Following on the big data issue, determining what content contains is a critical skill for 2015 information managers. Text analytics is the new frontier for just about everybody in this business. The ability to analyze, examine, cull out the crap and discover the gems is the new effort at work in the document management business. Let us know where you are in delivering that promise. SEPTEMBER 22, 2015 Content Management It s a little old school, but good old-fashioned content management still plays a pivotal role in an organization s ability to manage input and output of information, and can make the difference in whether the company understands its content value, or whether it s lost in the weeds. We will opt for the former, and find ways to help organizations reconstruct their ECM programs so that information does not go wasted. Which happens all the time. OCTOBER 20, 2015 Customer Experience Management It s where your customer touchpoints meet your operations. And it s getting more complex. That s why the customer experience is the highest priority. When a customer contacts you, that s the BEST opportunity to convert him or her to a loyal customer. But how are you doing at that? Most companies would say OK. But OK is not good enough. Customers matter most. Make sure of that. NOVEMBER 10, 2015 Where Are We With Search? Search was once the golden god of information management. But in many ways, it s been consumed and adopted into content management and BI-type applications so that it has little to add except as a sideline. Is that true? Does enterprise search have a role? Now is your time to tell the world what enterprise search still means, and why it matters. DECEMBER 1, 2015 E-Discovery One of the most expensive, and information-intensive, processes in business today. And in 2015, it will only get worse. Every company will get sued. Get used to that. And the rules for discovering electronically created and stored information are only getting stricter. So go get some information on the rules and structures for providing the appropriate and necessary back-up for your litigation. Start here. S10

11 Maven Pro Medium REGISTRATION OPENS SOON! NOVEMBER 3-5, 2015 PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2 JW MARRIOTT WASHINGTON, DC LEARN About Leading-Edge Practices STREAMLINE Information & Knowledge Flows GAIN Knowledge to Build Strong Organizations COLLABORATE With Experts & Colleagues EXPLORE Social Media & Networking for the Enterprise IMPROVE Taxonomies & Content Management Diamond Sponsors Also Includes Platinum Sponsors Gold Sponsor Media Sponsors Association Sponsors Organized and Produced by Connect with us! #KMWorld kmworld.com/conference

12 For more information on the companies who contributed to this white paper, visit their websites or contact them directly: egain Corporation 1252 Borregas Avenue Sunnyvale CA Phone: or eGain Fax: Contact: Web: KANA, A Verint Company 2550 Walsh Ave, Suite 100 Santa Clara CA Sales: General: Contact: [email protected] Web: inbenta Inbenta 777 Mariners Island Blvd., Suite 220 San Mateo CA PH: Contact: [email protected] Web: OpenText 275 Frank Tompa Drive Waterloo ON N2L 0A1 Canada PH: or FAX: Contact: [email protected] Web: IntelliResponse 25 Adelaide Street East, 20th floor Toronto ON M5C 3A1 Canada Phone: or Fax: Contact: [email protected] Web: RightAnswers 333 Thornall Street, 7th Floor Edison NJ PH: FAX: Contact: [email protected] Web: Produced by: KMWorld Magazine Specialty Publishing Group Kathryn Rogals Andy Moore Ext. 309 [email protected] [email protected] For information on participating in the next white paper in the Best Practices series, contact: [email protected]