As more and more big companies and organizations are considering the main channels of their call center as their interaction, from which point of view, the business of calling centers will grow continuously.
The call center has obvious business advantages, such as increasing efficiency, increasing operational time, reduces cost and high spirituality. To some extent, the biggest challenge to the call center is to provide the user to provide the correct information when appropriate. This is exactly what knowledge management can do, there are many tools and strategies to deal with this challenge. For the call center manager, studying knowledge management strategies will be great to them. The call center generally faces the following problems: the user may ask the problem scope will be a wide call center to be responsible for the information provided to the user, or even legal responsibility users always hope to get the answer to the answer to the job, tension, major employees High flow rate, according to the call center evaluation report of Purdue University 1999, the annual flow rate of the incoming number of employees in the input center is 26%, and the knowledge system of 33% of the new employee must have a huge complexity to reduce the average call processing time. Sustainable efficiency measurement, tracking and evaluation
In the face of these challenges, implementing knowledge management in calling centers can bring the following parts (or all) benefits: reducing new employees' training time and cost reduction call processing and response time enhances employee morale and satisfaction to provide users with more accurate consistent Information is facing business processes, product and information changes, higher flexibility reduction transfer to second-line support or Help Desk's call number to implement knowledge management in call center to solve two problems, establish an efficient process to ensure that correct knowledge can be Crawn, manage and keep updates; the knowledge management system must support these processes, advanced IT systems are the core of the Call Center based on knowledge management. Solved these questions, you have a process that supports frontline employees and helps them achieve maximum value.
Management knowledge
During the implementation of knowledge management, more important than IT systems is the knowledge itself. First, you must clear the information needed by the frontline employee and the user and set them together. Then, the obtained original information is organized, and the convenient and easy-to-use structured knowledge base can then announce the completion of the knowledge management program and formally released, the steps are as follows: clear information - the demand assessment should spend more time to determine Knowledge and information needed by users and employees, which enables future call center knowledge resources to maximize the benefits. The common methods for determining information demand are: communicating with employees, not only old employees, but also new employees, find out the first-hand information they need to review and organize existing knowledge resources, including online resources and hard copies, The online resource here refers to the knowledge and information resources that can be transferred and shared within a computer network system and exchanges call center employees and customers to exchange representatives, and understand what they need to emphasize the first-line employee. Daily activities, determine the key information they need to analyze call records and other statistics, clarifying customers interested or easily confused by Help Desk or second-line support to propose typical problems to assess whether the IT system of frontline employees has sufficient documentation
The final result of the demand assessment should be a long list of employees that require information to generate a list of critical and popular information to be saved in the Knowledge Management System. Low priority entries can be listed as needed, and they can be considered after the initial target implementation.
Knowledge structure
Many companies spend considerable time and fund construction knowledge base, but others are surprised that they often find that employees don't know how to use. Efficient structural and browsing methods are a key factor in the success of the knowledge base. Otherwise, employees cannot find information required within a limited time of customer calls, and the general situation may only find the answer you may find only 30 seconds. The steps that knowledge structure can be taken are: allowing employees to participate in the design process to ensure that their needs can be met. Develop prototypes for new knowledge management systems, let real users test it. Apply information structures and methods in all information libraries, including determining the appropriate classification, menu items, and browsing entries. Use the card sort method to determine the structure, avoid missing some categories and test phases to spend more than one-third of the entire knowledge management project, otherwise, newly developed systems cannot meet the risk of call center demand. Ensuring the accuracy of information and timely update users often ask the latest product and the latest changes, the call center should promptly master the latest information in these areas. Customers must give a representative to confident that they are accurate and updated from the information found in the information library. In the case of users online, they do not have time to confirm from other information sources. If employees do not confirm the knowledge management system, they will quickly transfer to other sources of information, such as handwritten records, copying fast questions, surrounding other employees, etc. In the actual operation, you can ensure the accuracy of the information by the following steps: establish a dedicated team to create and update content and new information sources to establish communication channels (such as policy development, business units, etc.) to explicitly update the call center's knowledge base is business development One of the important contents of the event provides a simple channel to provide a simple channel to various mistakes and omissions.
employee training
Employees should conduct in-depth training on knowledge management systems and processes, each employee should know the scope of knowledge they can access. Experience proves that training on the use of knowledge management systems is best embedded in the training process of new employees. In this case, the knowledge base will become an employee to solve the problem and seek the default way of seeking an answer.
Build a knowledge management system
To support and implement the knowledge management process mentioned earlier, establish a knowledge management IT system is necessary. Each call center has different needs according to its size, operational activities, and knowledge levels. From this section we will begin to study and plan according to their own needs.
The Intranet of the Construction Call Center should have the corresponding network infrastructure, which may be part of the company intranet, or a fully independent system developed for the call center. Many information needs to be stored on the intranet of the call center, including: the latest product information and business change sales support information, including the current brochure, FAQ and price details, management information, a bug and problem call in the line IT system Center change plan, such as software upgrades or other changed expansion projects and other training materials policy and process Help DESK resources
Operators should do their best, encourage employees to use intranet as their preferred source of information. Of course, you must ensure that the information provided on intranet is comprehensive and accurate, strive to succeed, users will leave a second chance to give a built Intranet.
knowledge base
Some entries listed in the previous table, such as policies and processes, sales support information, and helpdesk resources, require specific knowledge base support. The so-called knowledge base is online resources with the following characteristics (placed on intranet): The content is comprehensive and accurate and can update well in time, not only easy to use, but use the content full interconnection (through hyperlink mode) Search , Index, assist browsing and other support tools create and maintain content management or other systems
If you just convert the files in the Word format into HTML format and put it on the Internet, it is not a knowledge base. The knowledge base of the call center is to provide the first source (or unique) source of information. Therefore, efforts should be made to take various methods to make this information and are used by employees. Although huge efforts are required, the return will be equally considerable. Knowledge Base can help call the center to reduce the average call processing time, increasing the consistency provided to customer information. In a project experienced by the author, calling business representatives show extraordinary enthusiasm for this information that will provide them. They are very clear about the information vacuum in the past and this situation on their daily work. In addition to these basic principles, the design, creation, and deployment of the knowledge base have a lot of content, but it has exceeded the scope of this article, and we will further explain in future articles. Developing online solutions should use Web technology-based solutions as much as possible to create an integrated network knowledge management system. This allows the user to provide a single seamlessly unified interface that not only reduces employee training time and can improve the efficiency.
These information services provided through the web are a "thin client technology", all employees only need a web browser. This server-based structure, the deployment of new software and future upgrade processes can be greatly simplified.
Effective search and browsing call center business representatives are generally only one to two minutes to find information required by customers. Under this pressure, it is very important to provide him with fast and efficient findings. The first step in achieving this goal is to carefully design your search engine. There should be more time to spend some time in the design and configuration of the search engine, making the search faster, simpler, more efficient, not just simple, but also to quickly return a useful result set. Of course, the search engine cannot solve all the problems, but also need to provide the employee to provide structured and meaningful browsing and index tools, such as the right main menu entry, interoperability between related pages, etc. There is also a premise in these work, that is, there must be a comprehensive and accurate metadata, such as title, description, and keywords. A excellent knowledge base needs to improve the efficiency of search and browsing by integrating various measures mentioned earlier.
Analytor employee use online employee uses your knowledge management system? In order to track the effects of the knowledge base, you can monitor the information accessed in the Knowledge Base in the following manner: Use Rate Statistics: Use Standard Web Statistics Software Tracking the most popular web page, and overall use of changes in the trend search engine statistics : Record search logs, produce summary reports for the most common search and failure search
This information is very important to measure whether the knowledge management system is successful, especially if they can tell us that the most valuable information is already in the knowledge base, which are missing. At the same time, this information can also be extended, and the field of knowledge base can be extended, fill the gap between existing content and employee needs and supplement some key knowledge. Employee feedback to employees preparing a simple feedback channel to facilitate them to reflect the problems in the knowledge management system. This should be a single point contact channel that can report omissions, error messages, and question questions. There is enough resources to track handling these feedback and give feedback appropriate reply. All knowledge base updates based on these feedback must be completed in time. Once employee recognizes that their feedback can respond promptly, they will be more active, becoming the entire organization update information and improve the most valuable helper of the knowledge base. Developing some self-use knowledge management solutions can consider developing some small application software (Applet) to resolve some of the problems in the daily operation of the call center. These applications can be integrated into an online system that provides a seamless interface. The advantage of these small applications is that they put the knowledge required by the call center in a small customized interface, not only positioning fast and easy to use. Common typical applications have database lookups, calculator, or estimates. For example, the call center of the postal system often looks for information about mailing prices, which previously need to find in a single-computed table in advance. Develop a small program, this process can be replaced by a very simple number of mailing price calculators that click on click. Integrated CRM and Knowledge Management System Customer Relationship Management is about understanding your customers and their needs, it is closely combined with the operation of the knowledge management system: statistics from customers can help you confirm the information in the knowledge base. It is the right way to track customers is to determine the best way to determine FAQ (FAQ) In the CRM system, FAQ should be easy to access to ensure that the information in the fast feedback knowledge management system should be based on user groups in the CRM system. The upgrade process in the reorganization of the CRM system should be combined with the process of knowledge management, and the use of the use of the use of the use of the knowledge base can discover the hotspot information of the customer, which is a very valuable source of information for the organization CRM activity. Integrated Help Desk and Knowledge Management System Most Help Desk and second-line support teams have call recording systems that track the processing status of the reported issues. On this basis, you can develop a common problem and its solution library (some call recording software may already have such a function). This avoids a lot of knowledge only in the head of Helpdesk employees, and it is also guaranteed to provide the consistency of information to the front line employee. This library is also an important source of information from the frontline employee, and can be organized to provide the first line of employees in the form of processing methods or processes. At the same time, such processing helps to reduce the simple problem call to Helpdesk, reduce the working pressure of Help Desk employees, enable them to concentrate more energy into some complex issues.
Integrated IVR and Knowledge Management System Many call centers are equipped with IVR (Automatic Voice Answers), which can transfer incoming to the appropriate queue or on a complex telephone transaction system. Integration of IVR and Knowledge Management You can: Ensure the details of the information and knowledge base information provided in the IVR to collect details of the IVR, you can understand the detailed script of the employee in the call center to help them Successfully answering a telephone IVR system is typically a first step in contact with the user and call center, and it must be given sufficient attention, and the information released in various forms is consistent. Many call centers have started processing online and email in addition to traditional phone calls. In the face of increasing responsibilities, the call center must strengthen the management of this work. You can use the call center's knowledge base to select some customer problems (FAQ) to post-published the product and sales information published on the website to ensure that the incoming calls for these issues are for some general problems. And online asked to prepare a standard reply. There are now some analytical Email content automatically select reply solutions. The most important thing is to provide information extracted from the same knowledge base used by the call center employee (can also be understood as a single information source), which effectively avoids repetitive and error while reducing maintenance costs. Conclusion The main task of the call center is to provide users with the information they need as soon as possible. To achieve this goal, the intellectual resources of the call center should be unified. Knowledge management has many tools and methods to meet this requirement, you can see what you can use in your organization. All necessary measures ensure that employees can access accurate, timely, easy to use, and comprehensive information. The return of these work is not just the call center, but also your users.
