Best Practices Series Verint PAGE 10 AND CRM: TURBOCHARGING SMART CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT RightAnswers PAGE 11 5 REASONS A GREAT CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE DEPENDS ON KNOWLEDGE THE INTEGRATION OF and CRM FOR INTELLIGENT SUPPORT If a great customer experience depends on great customer service, you better make sure you have a solid knowledge management (KM) system integrated with your CRM platform. Transversal PAGE 12 COGNITIVE KNOWLEDGE: THE NEW RAVE FOR CRM egain PAGE 13 FOR OMNICHANNEL CUSTOMER SERVICE: 5 Keys to Success Quite simply, you need to make your employees and agents experts across many different product lines and service scenarios while increasing the effectiveness of your self-service options. With the proper ongoing support of a strong KM system, you can build collective intelligence and an effective knowledge base that allows employees to get answers quickly. Just as important as supporting your customer-facing agents is providing that information directly to your customers in an easy format on your Web site or applications. Clear, concise, and consistent information that is easy to find is the basic foundation for smart customer service, and it demands a KM system that is up to the task. In the following pages of this month s Best Practices Guide, you ll hear from four top KM providers who offer their insights into how to use knowledge management to maximize your customer service efforts and improve your customers experience. Bob Fernekees VP/Group Publisher, CRM Media Information Today, Inc. SPONSORS Bob Fernekees, Group Publisher 212-251-0608 x13 bfernekees@destinationcrm.com 1252 Borregas Ave. Sunnyvale, CA 94089 Phone: 1-800-821-4358 www.egain.com 333 Thornall Street 7th Floor Edison, NJ 08837 732-396-9010 marketing@rightanswers.com www.rightanswers.com 745 Atlantic Avenue 8th Floor Boston, MA 02111 917-717-5105 chris.hall@transversal.com www.transversal.com 330 South Service Road Melville, NY 11747 Phone: 1-800-4VERINT www.verint.com Adrienne Snyder, Eastern/Midwest Account Director 201-327-2773 adrienne@destinationcrm.com Dennis Sullivan, Western Account Director 800-248-8466 x538 dennis@destinationcrm.com Produced by: CRM Media
WP10 September 2015 CRM Magazine Sponsored Content Knowledge Management and CRM: Turbocharging Smart Customer Engagement By now, your organization has likely made the leap from telephone-centric customer service to multi- or even omnichannel service. But the job doesn t end with deploying systems that enable your employees and customers to interact. There s also the need to deliver smart engagement. What exactly is smart engagement? Simply stated, it s the ability to provide your customers with quick, personalized, contextual experiences seamlessly across all communications channels. Doing so depends, in large part, on your ability to provide employees with the information they need to deliver service effectively as well as make the right information available to customers via self-service channels. DRIVING BETTER ENGAGEMENT Although the challenge sounds simple enough, it can actually be a moving target, since products, services, and customer wants and needs even the customer base itself evolve continuously. How can you help ensure that everyone is getting the best information for the request or inquiry at hand and that the information remains fresh and appropriate over time? Many organizations are addressing this customer service imperative by leveraging knowledge management to unite information and experience in their support operations. Knowledge management solutions can enable quick access to the best information. They can also help deliver smart engagement by allowing you to track and analyze what knowledge is used, when and for whom. With this insight, you can create a core picture of where your business can improve and evolve. EXTENDING THE BENEFITS OF CRM When paired with CRM systems, knowledge management can provide your organization with critical information, such as insight into key searches and topics navigated in a knowledge domain. This offers visibility into the types of questions, needs, issues and ideas that users (and customers) have providing useful ways for your organization to be seriously smart and rapidly respond to opportunities and improvements. CRM systems using knowledge management can also provide an assessment of the top content resources used by customers. This information can indicate which products and services are of the greatest interest. In fact, some of the most effective knowledge systems can correlate the top inquiries and content resources with key service drivers, such as call types, Web sessions and escalations, to show where and how knowledge can be further enhanced and expanded to drive better future service experiences. DELIVERING MORE PERSONALIZED, PREDICTIVE SERVICE Ultimately, seriously smart organizations can develop the capability to extrapolate and predict emerging trends and issues through ongoing, dynamic analysis of knowledge requests, so they can provide an ever-closer match of knowledge response to the user s evolving context. As a result, they can provide online customers with more predictive responses in websites and applications. They can match customer needs and show the path forward, even as customers take the first few steps in defining their interests and requests. Effective analysis and processing of the data from knowledge management tools and reporting can be essential in this predictive development. Taking a strategic approach to the curation and consumption of knowledge yields Actionable Intelligence offering organizations vital insights to innovate and drive improved outcomes, and the agility to best support customer and employee needs, as well as compliance and regulatory requirements. EMPOWERING EMPLOYEES WITH INFORMATION Knowledge management can support smarter answers, improved decisions and better outcomes, not just for the customer, but for your employees as well. It helps put intelligence at your employees fingertips in the context of the task in hand to drive improved first-contact resolution, faster speed to answer, and more complete, accurate and contextual responses. By analyzing how and when employees and customers use knowledge, your organization can gain the insights needed to optimize the knowledge base and the customer experience itself. This visibility can help you capitalize on every employee and every customer touch point to grow and enhance knowledge for continuous improvement in customer experience and to heighten true customer and employee engagement. Customer service organizations are always on the lookout for solutions to help them reduce training, provide consistent service, enable customers to self-serve and solve their own problems, and improve the entire service process. Knowledge management, especially when paired with your CRM system, can help you do all these things simultaneously the ultimate win-win! 1-800-4VERINT www.verint.com 2015 Verint Systems Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
Sponsored Content CRM Magazine September 2015 WP11 5 Reasons a Great Customer Experience Depends on Knowledge By Jeff Weinstein, President and CEO, RightAnswers The customer experience is more important than ever. When a company offers a great overall experience, customers are: Less likely to switch brands More likely to buy more products from the company More likely to recommend the company Even more interestingly, the better the customer experience a company provides, the higher its revenue. Customer experience often revolves around the customer service that is provided by your company. Customer service, in turn, revolves around the knowledge that is available to your service teams and to your customers. Companies would be well-advised to create and maintain the best knowledge possible to enable these synergies. There are several smart capabilities of knowledge management software that can ensure a superior customer support experience: 1. KNOWLEDGE GAMIFICATION ACHIEVES YOUR BUSINESS GOALS Companies with an engaged workforce improve business performance by 240% (Gallup, 2014). Gamification is an effective way to motivate employees and change behavior, since personal achievement and peer recognition are strong motivators. Companies using gamification for knowledge management assign points to behaviors they want to promote, such as creating or updating knowledge articles, sharing knowledge with peers, authoring an article that was found helpful by others, participating in social forums and so on. 2. KNOWLEDGE QUALITY TOOLS INCREASE THE VALUE AND ADOPTION OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE To assure that all your customer service reps are providing accurate, consistent answers, you want them to use your company knowledge when handling cases. But lack of confidence in your knowledgebase can be a major obstacle to its widespread usage. Conversely, showing that your knowledgebase is filled with highquality knowledge can go a long way toward its adoption not to mention, to providing customers with the best possible support that resolves their issues quickly. Knowledge Quality capabilities built into the knowledge management system is an automated way to achieve a high-quality knowledgebase. 3. KNOWLEDGE AUTOMATION PRODUCES A MORE COMPLETE KNOWLEDGEBASE Not only is it important to maintain high-quality knowledge, but you also want to make sure you have knowledge to answer the questions that arrive. Keeping your knowledge current and relevant on an ongoing basis is a continuous challenge. You want knowledge management software that identifies gaps in your knowledge and alerts you to these gaps. 4. ONLINE CONTEXTUAL HELP EASES SELF-SERVICE The ideal support experience should be as easy and frictionless as possible. And increasingly, people want to quickly find answers on their own. Online contextual help is an enhanced support experience where customers don t have to navigate out of their current application get answers. Online contextual help recognizes the users and their location, to provide support in the context of what they are doing. 5. BUILT-IN VIDEO SUPPORT EXPANDS YOUR SUPPORT TOOLKIT The use of video boosts customer service by increasing customer engagement, leading to higher customer satisfaction. What s more, videos can be a great format to relay knowledge, especially for howto s and step-by-step solutions. To enable everyone in your organization to easily find video solutions and attach them to cases, it s crucial that videos are stored in the same central knowledgebase where customer service reps find all your knowledge. INTEGRATED WITH THE CRM Not only do customers want an easy way to get knowledge but so do your customer service reps. Your CRM may be lacking in tools that can improve your knowledge and the customer s experience. Integration with the knowledge management system can solve this problem. RightAnswers seamlessly integrates with any CRM, enabling reps to search for knowledge and attach knowledge to cases on the same screen, with fewer clicks and less typing expediting their post-call activities and reducing average speed to answer. ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY SIMPLIFIES YOUR WORK WHILE IMPROVING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE Choosing a knowledge management vendor that addresses these issues boosts your support while saving your organization time and effort. When selecting knowledge management software, look to a knowledge vendor that offers automated solutions such as automated knowledge quality tools, out-ofthe-box gamification and built-in video creation, to name a few as well as knowledge services to ensure that you provide frictionless customer experiences through knowledge. About RightAnswers RightAnswers is the #1 provider of cloudbased knowledge management, web and mobile self-service and social knowledge solutions to enhance customer service and IT support. Our 450+ clients around the globe use RightAnswers seamlessly integrated with their CRM, ITSM or other customer service software to deliver stellar support experiences while saving millions of dollars a year. To learn more visit rightanswers.com
WP12 September 2015 CRM Magazine Sponsored Content COGNITIVE KNOWLEDGE: THE NEW RAVE FOR CRM It amazes us to think that the integration of a best-of-breed KM product into any CRM solution is even questioned. The equivalent would be like asking someone to drive to a very important event using a car navigation they knew was inadequate. Would you? Or would you mitigate the risk of getting to your destination by using the navigation on your mobile device that always works? The interesting thing here is that most of us have done this very thing. We trust the navigation system on our smart phone. It is not integrated to the car s dashboard but it is superior in functionality, it is accurate, and it just works. Just like a mediocre car navigation system the big CRM players, such as Oracle, Salesforce and Microsoft, have achieved meritocracy when it comes to knowledge. They still treat knowledge as a repository of information to be searched when needed. Although they all acquired KM products to fill this void, none of them have yet to the crack the code on getting KM right. Just think about how smartphone companies got navigation right. They leverage contextual information on your phone to create an intelligent navigation app. This app knows your current location. It asks you where you want to go, whether you prefer the shortest route or to only use major highways. It even tells you to avoid parts of your route where there is ongoing road construction. They have created an intelligent app for navigation that understands the full context of your journey. Just as you would not rely on inadequate navigation to get to an important event or destination, you should also not rely on inferior KM functions provided by CRM vendors to get you to the answers you need. We have totally reimagined how people interact with knowledge. Powered by Prescience, our next-generation cognitive knowledge platform, Transversal is changing the way companies provide mission critical answers using cognitive knowledge. Like navigation apps our solution leverages contextual intelligence. When integrated into a CRM solution, it becomes the equivalent of integrating your smartphone s navigation system into the car s dashboard and it starts to consume important information. It knows about the person who is using it: their skills, entitlements and preferences. When a CRM case record is opened, it understands the customer, their products, and as you type the meaning of what they are calling in about. All of this is used to cognitively understand intent and through machine intelligence determine the optimal solution. It is a modern approach to KM and a huge advance on the mediocre approach of manually searching for answers. Our cognitive knowledge application is so innovative the answers you seek practically find you. Understand the real question How can your agents begin to offer expert advice when often the initial question is vague or out of context? Transversal s patented Memory Engine technology utilizes machine intelligence to determine intent by relating concepts and recognizing the meaning of words in different contexts. Whether an agent is searching for an answer or we are cognitively predicting what the answer should be, our Memory Engine technology understands what you mean not what you type. The result is an agent guidance technology that delivers truly accurate responses. Provide contextual genius Effective integration of KM into CRM requires much more than a set of application style sheets and cloud APIs wrapped around a search box. Our approach is like smartphone app integrated to the car dashboard. We offer zero-click intelligence by understanding CRM context to provide guided assistance to every agent without having to resort to search. And that is the fundamental difference between an integrated cognitive KM solution and one that comes for free with the CRM suite. Anticipate what comes next An additional benefit of cognitive KM is that we can predict what the customer is going to need next. Like most customer service journeys, there is always a follow-on question. Our Prescience technology provides smart links that dynamically anticipate what the customer is going to ask next. Transversal provides a fresh approach with cognitive KM for you to dramatically improve your CRM initiatives. Your customers gain highly responsive, consistent service delivered across any channel. Your company benefits with improved resolution rates, increased staff productivity, and enhanced retention of corporate knowledge. For more information on our cognitive solutions for web self-service, contact centers, and enterprise HR, visit us on the web www.transversal.com
Sponsored Content CRM Magazine September 2015 WP13 Knowledge Management for Omnichannel Customer Service: 5 Keys to Success Superior customer service remains one of the few differentiators that businesses can sustain over time. The only way to do customer service well in today s omnichannel environment is by serving up the right knowledge in every customer interaction. egain has implemented knowledge solutions for blue-chip companies worldwide, helping them design and deliver great customer service experiences. Here are some of our best practices. 1. QUANTIFY VALUE Put a number to it! Document expected and realized ROI before and after the deployment. It will help you justify the initial investment as well as continuous improvement of the knowledge base (KB). Make sure your metrics are aligned with business objectives. For instance, if your business goal is to increase upsell and cross-sell, reduction in average handle time (AHT) will be a conflicting metric. Knowledge management (KM) can deliver positive ROI in many ways. Businesses frequently use KM to: Deflect requests for agent-assisted service through effective self-service Increase first-time resolution Increase sales conversion Reduce AHT, escalations, transfers, and repeat calls Reduce unwarranted product returns and field visits Reduce training time and staff wage premiums 2. BUILD THE TEAM Employ the right team for knowledge capture, creation, and continuous improvement. A cross-functional team with a 360-degree approach to knowledge would typically include the following members: Strategist: Lead expert who determines the organization, roles and responsibilities, and long-term plans. Select users: High-performance agents who use the KB and can provide feedback and answers. Be sure to reward such agents to foster ongoing knowledge contribution. Subject matter experts: Experts who have answers, especially for questions of high complexity. Knowledge authors: Writers and publishers who are focused on content development, taxonomy, and publishing. Project managers: Tactical managers who keep the project on track and ensure progress. 3. START WITH DEPTH Unfocused knowledge deployments almost always result in a shallow KB that is full of holes like Swiss cheese. If users find inadequate or wrong information, they will simply stop using the system. Focus first on depth rather than breadth. Start with common questions on common products or lines of business (the 80-20 rule) and expand over time. 4. FOCUS ON FINDABILITY Users prefer different ways of searching for information, just as drivers prefer different ways of reaching their destination. A GPS-style approach with multiple options to find information dramatically improves knowledge base adoption and ROI. For example, new agents usually find it difficult to wade through hundreds of keyword search results, but fare better if they are guided through a step-by-step dialog, powered by AI 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. Multiple search options (virtual assistant, FAQ, keyword and natural language search, intent-driven search, topic-tree browsing, and AI-powered guided help) allow a broad range of users to quickly and easily find information, and enable agents to have bestpractice conversations with customers. Use a common omnichannel knowledge platform to deliver knowledge across traditional and mobile devices for access anywhere. 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. Foster and harvest social knowledge but scrub and unify with trusted knowledge, and then proactively publish across all channels. BEST PRACTICES = SUCCESS Implementing these KM practices not only delivers ROI, but also enables transformative customer experiences. Here are some real-world examples: Premier home appliance manufacturer: $50M in savings by eliminating unwarranted truck rolls through knowledge-powered resolution processes in the contact center and website Semiconductor giant: 59% increase in web self-service adoption, 30% increase in First Contact Resolution Global knowledge and legal services solutions provider: 70% deflection of calls and emails through knowledgepowered self-service, 30% reduction in content authoring time Leading telco provider: 42% reduction in unwarranted handset returns through knowledge-powered resolution process in the contact center Global bank: 88% reduction in agent training time and 70% increase in productivity through knowledgepowered account opening process in small business sector 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 a multichannel world. To find out more, visit http://www.egain.com. 2015 egain Corporation. All rights reserved.