KCS for Non-Support Teams

For Support, knowledge management and, in particular, KCS (Knowledge-Centered Support) is a virtuous cycle: more knowledge, more accurate knowledge, more timely knowledge mean more self-service answers for customers and more collaboration internally, which all add to higher productivity, customer satisfaction, and agent satisfaction. Nirvana.

For non-Support organizations (such as Professional Services, Customer Success, PreSales, and even the Product team), that’s not quite true. A better knowledge base is, of course, very useful as a collaboration tool but it doesn’t decrease the incoming volume of work. Also, none of those organizations has the equivalent of a predictable case resolution cycle (let alone tool) that can meld with a knowledge motion. Still, non-Support organizations have plenty of expertise that Support does not have but that might be helpful to customers (think industry and product best practices). So how can inspire non-support organizations to participate in a KCS program?

Work with your fans

Any organization has a few individuals who see the vision and are happy to participate above and beyond their narrowly-defined duties. Welcome them to the wonderful work of KCS, listen to the accommodations they suggest for their teams, and make a fuss about their contributions. They are your ambassadors.

Enlist the leaders

Non-support organization leaders may range from tepid to enthusiastic about knowledge management–and they are likely to know little about KCS. Spend time educating them and explaining the benefits for their own teams, other customer-oriented teams, and customers. Your goal is to convince them to give a green light to an experiment to better share information within their organization.

Adapt the knowledge workflow

As noted in the introduction, non-support organizations can’t base knowledge management efforts on a case resolution cycle–so the Solve loop will look different, but they do have projects and other repeatable work cycles that lend themselves to capturing and organizing  information as it’s collected. Organize the workflow around such cycles.

Also think about adapting the tool to the needs of other organizations. Templates, access to the tool, the details of the review process may all need to be altered.

Reuse existing IP

CSMs often have standard best practices presentations they give to new customers as part of onboarding. Why not record them as part of the knowledge base? It’s a low-effort, high-reward activity–and it yields video content, which some customers prefer. All organizations have lively Teams or Slack channels. Why not ask each requester to create a short new article with the answer? (Your AI tool of choice won’t always find the nuggets in the slurry of chat channels.)

Consider small quotas to start

As we know, aggressive creation quotas result in lots of crappy articles. This is true for Support and very true for non-support organizations. But a small creation quota (say, 2 articles a quarter) can remind everyone that knowledge management is part of the job. Heap thanks and praise on contributors whose articles are used heavily.

Have you opened your KCS program to organizations outside Support. How did you go about it and what are your results?

(If you need help, we’re happy to provide it!)