One of the major aspects of customer service is agent productivity that as a result helps the company in improving its customer experience (CX). Agents (users, employees) should be given access to all the necessary information and documents that are stored in an organized manner. In the training duration, it might happen that agents do not know what the next exact step should be taken while solving a customer’s query. 

This can be prevented with the help of knowledge management tools like decision trees, picture guides, augmented reality, learning management systems (LMS), and more. Hence, it is important to boost agent productivity and thus, increase customer satisfaction (CSAT) and this can be done with the assistance of knowledge management software. 

What is knowledge management? 

Knowledge management is a platform that helps in managing the company’s information and helps in creating and sharing information. It helps the company with various aspects like improving customer experience, increasing customer satisfaction, boosting agent productivity, and more. 

If all the information is not easily accessible to the employees then it might bring great loss to the organization along with a lot of valuable time spent in finding the required information. A knowledge management system (KMS) collects all the information of that organization and stores them in an organized way which makes it easier for the employees to find what they are looking for instantly. 

Why is it necessary for business?

Training the customer agents can be a tough and time-consuming activity. But with the advancement in technology and the significant increase in customer expectations, it is very much important that the agents are well-trained with the right skills. This is where the knowledge management system (KMS) comes to the rescue. The KMS helps the agents in learning the right skills, keeping a track of their training progress, and also helps in self-learning. 

Agents can be trained with KMS tools like knowledge base, augmented reality, and learning management system (LMS), etc., with much more ease. There can come up situations where the customer agent is under the training process and is unaware of the next step to be taken while resolving customer queries. In these situations, the knowledge management system becomes useful by guiding the agents with tools like decision trees, picture guides, etc., that provide a step-by-step guide. 

How to boost agent productivity? 

As discussed earlier, how the knowledge management system (KMS) helps the agents with tools like augmented reality, learning management systems, decision trees, FAQs, knowledge base, and more, also helps to boost agent productivity. 

There are other points as well such as ensuring that the agents are well-trained and that agents have access to well-organized information, their workload is reduced with the assistance of automated support and feedback from the agents are collected. Now let us look into these points more briefly. 

Make them well-trained 

With the help of decision trees, customer agents would know the exact next step to be taken while solving customer queries during their training process or even after that. Also, call centre heads have to make sure of the fact that the agents are well-trained with the knowledge of the company's services to their customers. Trainers, with the help of picture guides, make the agents familiar with the company’s services. 

Agents can have the access to all the information stored in an organised manner with the help of a knowledge base. This helps the agents to quickly resolve customer queries. It is also essential to track the agents' training progress which can be done with the help of a learning management system (LMS). 

Organize all the cluttered information 

All the information in an unorganized way might bring great loss to the company. Information, when needed by the agents and cannot be found quickly, increases the average handling time (AHT) and also decreases customer satisfaction (CSAT) as the customers will have to wait for more for getting their issues resolved. 

Hence, it is crucial that all the information and documents of the company must be collected and stored in an organized manner through which agents can easily find any particular information when needed while solving customer queries. Thus, boosting agent productivity and increasing customer satisfaction. 

Automate support 

Leaving all the customer queries to be resolved, at the hands of the customer agents might not only take a lot of their time but also decrease their work efficiency. This issue can also be prevented with the deployment of self-service systems with the assistance of a knowledge management system. 

Customers can solve their problems with self-service easily and thus, the agents do not have to spend their time on some common or the same repeated questions. They can focus on more complex queries. Implementation of a self-service system would be a win-win for the company as this helps in increasing their work efficiency and boosts their productivity and also helps in increasing customer satisfaction. 

Gather feedback

Feedback must be collected not only from the customers about how well the company’s services are but also from the customer agents about their work. They might have some creative suggestions in their mind that can help the company to improve their services. This will increase agents' work efficiency and also help in increasing customer satisfaction. 

Conclusion 

This can be said that for the betterment of the company it is important to boost agent productivity. The knowledge management system (KMS) along with the learning management system (LMS) has many key benefits for the company which improves training, enhances operations and overall ROI.  

Knowledge management as applied in modern organizations is both a simple concept and a wide-ranging one. Definitionally, it can be boiled down to the effort to manage information and resources to improve the organization’s efficiency. But this effort can of course be applied to any number of specific issues or aspects of an organization.

In this piece, we’re going to explore the use of knowledge management for the navigation of an overabundance of information within a business.

Can There Be Too Much Data?

Any discussion on this topic needs to start with the logical question, which is whether or not there’s any such thing as an overabundance of information. Or, putting it another way, is there such a thing as having too much data for a modern company?

A lot of people might be inclined to impulsively answer in the negative. In our increasingly digital world, we’re perpetually inundated with discussions about the importance of data in business. We understand that robust data operations yield invaluable insights, and we hardly think to question whether there might be an upper limit on how much information is actually useful. The general perception is that the more data a company can produce, the deeper its insight will be — and the deeper the insight, the greater the opportunity to enhance efficiency and improve operations.

There’s a certain logical sense to this, but the truth is that there is such a thing as generating too much information, to the point that it becomes an inefficiency unto itself. As one discussion on data saturation put it, it’s actually a problem that is “everywhere” in modern business. This is because “the rapid rise in our ability to collect data hasn’t been matched by our ability to support, filter, and manage the data.” These comments were made with specific regard to marketing departments, but they do a nice job of summing up the problem more broadly. Companies that focus too much on gathering data in large quantities wind up with more than they know how to make sense of, and thus struggle to find meaningful insights.

How Knowledge Management Can Help

The most fundamental way to think about how knowledge management can be applied to this problem is to slightly tweak the definition provided above. As stated, KM is typically about the effort to manage information to improve efficiency. In this case, however, we might think of it more as the effort to make the management of information more efficient in the first place, so as to improve the quality of business insights. It’s a subtle distinction, but one that establishes a helpful way of thinking: a focus on turning the scattershot collection of information into a more targeted and productive effort.

This is something that’s easier to theorize about than to put into practice. It is actually easier, at this point, for organizations to simply cast a wide net and gather all possible information that might pertain to company performance — from internet activity, social media, internal performance, and so on. Where KM comes into play, however, is actually in narrowing that collection process to focus only on what is relevant, pertinent, and ultimately useful. It is essentially a filtration process that narrows the parameters of data collection in ways aimed at generating only the most helpful information, and avoiding excess clutter.

Naturally this is not an exact or flawless process. Some excess data without particular utility will trickle through. But by making the actual collection process more efficient, an organization can effectively apply KM as a solution to this problem.

How to Implement Knowledge Management

As mentioned, this sort of solution is easier to develop as a theory than to implement as practice. However, there are simple and strategic ways to go about the application of KM.

One is to turn to an employee or team specifically trained to handle data-related needs. For some companies, this might mean hiring data and/or analytics experts from the outside. Others, however, may find it more efficient to train internal administrators for the task at hand. Today, this sort of training is accessible via online business administration degree programs that make it easier for working professionals to study and learn new skills without having to quit their jobs. These programs prepare students for a number of different business tasks, but operations management, data research analysis, and marketing coordination are among them. Any of these specialties can help a company employee to gain expertise in data-related practices, and thus prepare said employee to direct a KM effort.

The other, similar but perhaps simpler option is to establish and train people in what are sometimes referred to as gatekeeper roles. Beyond the general definition that inspires the term, the gatekeeper concept is one more commonly associated with product development. Basically, the idea is that someone in a gatekeeper role controls the flow of information between stakeholders and project development teams, so that there isn’t excessive information or pressure moving one way or the other. And the same concept can be applied to data operations as a form of KM. Essentially, an organization can train gatekeepers to recognize what is pertinent and what is not in data collection, and thus — with relative ease — cut down on the clutter. This in turn makes an entire data operation more efficient.

In the end, the effort can be more complicated than how it is presented here. Particularly where larger organizations are concerned, data operations tend to be vast and multi-faceted. Applying KM across the board takes a thorough, effective strategy. The foundation for this strategy, however, is understanding the problem and the ways in which knowledge management can be implemented to solve it.

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Article specially written for kminstitute.org

Knowledge Management as the System That Helps People in an Organization to Share, Access, and Update Business Knowledge or Information    

Knowledge management is a system that enables people to access, share, and update information and any business knowledge in an organization. It includes subjects in information systems, management, business administration, information science, and library. KM promotes the integrated approach to capturing, evaluating, and sharing information. 

Many organizations, including non-profit organizations, have set aside resources for supporting internal knowledge management efforts. This post describes knowledge management in terms of its principles, benefits, key examples, and key types.

Principles of knowledge management

One of the best ways through which a message travels is through language. An organization must choose the best knowledge management strategy to ensure that information is gathered and communicated well. The message needs to be disseminated in a language that all the parties understand and appreciate. 

Without language, people cannot communicate what they know. For people to expand organizational knowledge, they must develop languages to describe their work experience. 

Just like life happens, knowledge must happen too. Knowledge seeks community and this explains why the internet is relevant as a rich source of information. It is difficult to isolate the aspect of knowledge neatly. In the world of knowledge, people can hardly pay attention to one factor when seeking and sharing knowledge.

Knowledge is dynamic and constantly changing and as such, it does not present a single solution. People in an organization may design the best knowledge management approach today, but that approach may be rendered irrelevant or obsolete in the future. 

Knowledge fades away with time and therefore, people should let go of old ways and embrace new ways of doing things. They must contribute to the evolution and vitality of knowledge. The knowledge definition determines its management.

Benefits of knowledge management

Knowledge is an important asset in any organization. Therefore, it should be well documented, accurate, and easily accessible to all. Effective knowledge management enables organizations to save time in recreating the existing knowledge. 

When information is easily accessible, reliable and free from errors, it minimizes the need for employees to interrupt each other with chats and emails. The support employees spend less time addressing common and repetitive questions. Thus, they can get more time to deal with other important work-related matters.

Through knowledge management, people can quickly and efficiently get the information they need. Additionally, when employees gather and share information, they can avoid making mistakes from time to time. Common mistakes can be avoided when people learn from previous mistakes and failures.

Information is used in making decisions in organizations. Quality decisions require access to reliable, timely, and accurate information. Effective knowledge management enables people to make informed decisions. When employees share lessons learned, experiences, and their research outcomes, the details can be critically evaluated and information used to facilitate proper decision-making.

Knowledge management overcomes the limitations associated with passing information through word of mouth. Information can be shared between various parties without distortion. 

Shared and documented processes ensure that everyone agrees with the information being shared and they follow approved procedures. Knowledge management improves communication within an organization because everyone is required to participate in information gathering and sharing. 

Examples of knowledge management systems

Knowledge sharing in an organization is easier with a reliable platform that can meet various needs at the organizational and departmental levels. Examples of knowledge management include:

• Social networking. Social networking enables people to join groups, connect and discuss common issues of interest. It influences organizational knowledge and the way it is generated and shared. Social networking can support knowledge management systems to identify and transfer knowledge.
• Content management. Content management systems store video, audio, and other types of media in addition to documents. The content management process entails organization, creation, storage, workflow, editing, publishing, and archiving of the content.
• Intranets. Intranets are private computer networks aimed at providing access to information and enhancing social networking and collaborations within an organization. Intranets provide a user interface including standard look, navigation, web pages, and search. They can help to standardize the KM environment by allowing for consistent navigation and search.
• Databases. A database enables people to gather, analyze, store and interact with data. Databases enhance the ease of access to information and maintain data security. However, they are costly to design and can sometimes be volatile and prone to security threats.
• Data warehouses. Data warehouses pull data from various parts of an organization and are useful for data reporting and analysis. They store current and historic data and transform it into valuable information. Data warehouses require a high level of maintenance and are complex to manage. 

Types of knowledge management 

One of the common types of knowledge management is explicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge is reduced and presented physically in writing. It is documented and codified in a physical format and therefore rigid in presentation. Explicit knowledge is easier to share and is regarded as contemporary to tacit knowledge. Examples include reports, graphs, charts, tables, slides, worksheets, and more.

Another knowledge management is implicit knowledge. This is the knowledge that is applicable in real-life situations. Implicit knowledge is gathered and used to solve problems. For example, when the information presented in a graphical format is used for planning and forecasting, it can be classified as implicit knowledge. 

Tacit knowledge is mutually understood and does not require disclosure before it is understood. It is not applicable in a specific situation, neither is it structured. Tacit knowledge has cultural affiliations and is informal. 

Features of tacit knowledge relate to the things employees learn but cannot be easily incorporated in an orientation or training program. When a customer service staff learns how to deal with stubborn customers through experience, this can be termed as tacit knowledge. 

Conclusion

Knowledge management is the basis of information access and sharing. The information gathered must be timely, reliable, and accurate to facilitate effective decision-making. Knowledge management should be a responsibility of all people in an organization and it must influence the organization positively. It should support an organization to realize goals and enable it to be competitive in the industry. 

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Company knowledge is extremely valuable. It is crucial to manage knowledge to support organizational learning. In fact, knowledge management (KM) is essential because it informs business strategy.

This is where KM tools come into place. We live in a time where we are exposed to a ton of information. The secret to success is to learn how to effectively streamline that information.

If your business does not use a KM tool, you are missing out on many advantages such as improved business processes, better communication, quicker problem-solving, better decision making, and improved organizational agility.  

According to a survey, it was found that Fortune 500 companies are losing about $31.5 billion every year due to a failure of KM. Therefore, you must use a KM tool to ensure that you have a central repository for all the data. 

This post takes a close look at the top 9 knowledge tools that will make your work life a whole lot easier. So, what are you waiting for? Let’s dive in. 

1. Bit.ai

One of the best KM tools that you need to know about is Bit.ai. It is an amazing KM and document collaboration tool that will help you manage, track, and share all company knowledge from one place.  

The best thing about the tool is that it allows multiple people to collaborate simultaneously. You can use it to share knowledge, create proposals, share meeting agendas, brainstorm, create client material, and manage projects. Its smart editor makes everything possible. 

Create a smart workspace by using Bit.ai. It is the ultimate tool for collaborating and ensuring that your team has access to the required information. Bit.ai holds a content library, allows each user to manage permissions, and supports document tracking. 

2. Tetra

Another excellent KM tool that you need to consider using is Tetra. It is perfect for the Slack generation. Since most organizations tend to be disorganized, it is important to store all knowledge in one place. 

Tetra was developed to provide Slack teams with the ultimate tool. Anyone can use it for internal updates, storing operating procedures, and accessing information from one place. Once you use Tetra, you will never have trouble with decision making, onboarding new employees, and collaborating.

Some of the top features offered by Tetra include smart suggestions, viewing user activity, and allowing members to edit and suggest existing information.

3. Tally Fox Tallium 

If you are looking for the best KM tool, you need to learn more about Tally Fox Tallium. It is a tool that helps connect users with experts, work with people who are interested in similar topics and create knowledge libraries. 

When you use the platform, you will be able to find experts and get content validated. Look for high-quality answers, find useful suggestions, eliminate silos, and brainstorm ideas with team members. It offers a simple and intuitive user experience. 

Tally Fox Tallium is famous for its strong multimedia library, expertise and is a ready-made platform that anyone can use to access and share information. 

4. Pro Profs 

Pro Profs was initially a free quiz website that was used for certification exams. It has grown to become the perfect training solution. Pro Profs is a great educational resource that boasts more than a million users, including some of the most well-known fortune 500 companies like Cisco, Dell, and Sony.

In addition to the above, it is even used by top universities such as Yale and Harvard. What makes Pro Profs interesting is the fact that its products include training tools, a learning management system, online course creation tools, surveys, and quizzes. 

5. Confluence

Atlassian is the mastermind behind Confluence. It has become the leading KM tool for teams to collaborate and communicate. If your team already uses other products by Atlassian, they will have an easier time using Confluence.

The reason why Confluence is loved by companies is that it helps foster a culture of innovation and idea-sharing. Teams can use it to manage, create, and share content from one place. They can connect it to other products to take its capabilities to the next level. 

Confluence allows automatic versioning, lets you create feedback, and has a structured hierarchy for helping teams quickly find the desired information.

6. Zendesk

Zendesk is a platform that requires no introduction. It is famous for its flexible knowledge base. Companies of all sizes can use it. It is available in over 30 languages. Besides, Zendesk can even be used as a content management system. 

The best thing about the tool is that it supports an AI-powered bot for finding answers instantly. Its top features include precise in-built knowledge base searching, community forum, and the ability to interact with customers using multiple channels. 

7. Help Juice

Help Juice is a great customization tool that you can use to create and manage your knowledge base. It offers styling options for the layout and has a user-friendly interface. The tool records every revision made. 

Track the performance of employees, expand the knowledge base, manage permissions, customize branding, and enable visitors to open every question.  

8. Guru

As the name suggests, Guru truly is a guru. It is the cloud-based KM tool that you need to try. You can use it to connect all the company data together. It even suggests information in real-time using the power of AI. 

The best thing about Guru is that it gets better the more you use it. It is powered by machine learning which means that you will notice an improvement in performance with time. Instead of using multiple KM tools, you should use this tool.  

9. My Hub

Finally, the last KM tool in our past is My Hub. It is a cloud-based intranet solution that you can use for just about every type of business, including Carpet Cleaning Eastbourne. It provides intranet setup, user management, file storage, and users with the option to upload a variety of files, 

With this solid site search tool, you get to collaborate, utilize unlimited elements and embed favourite applications into the software. It does not get better than this. 

10. Knowmax

Knowmax is an AI-powered knowledge management solution for enterprises and has received recognition from Hubspot as one of the best KM software. We believe it is one of the best KM software on the market and would love the opportunity to be included in your article.

Now that you know about the top KM tools, it is about time that you used one for work. You will be impressed by its capabilities. As competition intensifies, every single thing counts. Hence, you have to give a knowledge management tool a try.

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KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IS ESSENTIALLY ABOUT GETTING THE RIGHT KNOWLEDGE TO THE RIGHT PERSON AT THE RIGHT TIME

It really doesn’t matter what industry you operate in – knowledge management is something you have to think seriously about. If you think about it, everything in your business is based on knowledge, that is data and information. Whether it is your product or service, which is built from knowledge held by your people, or your ability to engage with customers and provide value, which is based on knowing about their needs, or even your internal policies, which is based on knowing about best practices in the industry.

If your organization didn’t have knowledge, then none of these things would have been able to happen. That said, it’s not enough to just have the knowledge. The knowledge should be able to flow through the organization and reach the right people. That’s what knowledge management is all about.

What is knowledge management?

At its heart, knowledge management is essentially about getting the right knowledge to the right person at the right time. It is all about how you document, store, communicate and apply knowledge in an organization in order to improve the processes of the organization and, ultimately, its bottom line. Knowledge management is about finding the best ways to do the things above, so that it can be available on demand for anyone that needs it. In order to understand knowledge management better, we need to know about the different types of knowledge, namely explicit and implicit, or tacit, knowledge

Explicit knowledge

This is any knowledge that is codified and stored and ready to be shared with others. Thing about the rule book, memos, databases, tutorial videos at your company and so on. All of these are examples of explicit knowledge.

Implicit knowledge

This is the knowledge inside the heads of people on your team. But that’s not enough. For it to count as implicit knowledge it also has to be especially difficult to explain. Think about their intuition, natural talent and experience gathered over the years. Implicit knowledge is not only hard to explain, it is as natural for the holder as breathing. We all breathe easily, but not only do we rarely consciously do our breathing, many of us don’t even understand how breathing works!

The importance of knowledge management

Knowledge management is all about utilizing the knowledge in an organization to help it thrive. By having proper knowledge management, an organization can store explicit knowledge and organize it, codify implicit knowledge, turning it into explicit knowledge, and make all that knowledge accessible to your team or audience, so they can work better.

Knowledge management systems help with workflow, onboarding activities, and even HR processes, among others. For customers, knowledge management helps the organization to keep its customers informed and engaged, as well as build their trust in the brand. This can be in the form of bog posts, videos, FAQs, wikis, case studies, and social media content, among others.

What are the benefits of knowledge management?

There are many useful benefits to having a knowledge management system. Below are some of the most important ones:

It aligns the whole team

Knowledge management makes communication more systematic, which enhances collaboration. It also makes it easier for employees to see how their knowledge contributes to the betterment of the organization, getting them more engaged in the process.

It makes the team more productive

Organizations agree that improving their knowledge management systems makes them more productive. With a good knowledge management system, your employees have access to instructions to help them carry out their tasks and follow best practices. They can also communicate and collaborate with each other better and are more efficient as a result.

Persists knowledge in the organization

Good knowledge management helps your organization retain knowledge, even after the knowledgeable employee has left the organization.

Improves the customer experience

Good knowledge management is just as good for your customer as it is for you. Customer-facing knowledge allows the customer to better serve themselves, which improves engagement while reducing your workload. It also helps your customer support team by providing them with a large knowledge base that empowers them to deal with customer issues.

Steps to building an effective knowledge management framework

So now that we understand the benefits of knowledge management, how do you build a good knowledge management framework? Below are the steps:

Have a clear focus

The first step is to know who, exactly, you’re creating the knowledge for. Whether its for your internal team or your customers, it’s important to know who, so as to build the right knowledge management framework.

Define everyone involved and what role they will be playing

Everyone on the team should contribute to your knowledge building efforts. You need project managers, who oversee the initiative, knowledge finders, who gather the knowledge, good communicators to package it, and creators to make it accessible to the most people. These and other roles need to be defined well from the start, so as to make the process more efficient.

Define the tools you will use

Modern technology is a boon on the knowledge building process. There are many tools out there that you can take full advantage of when building a knowledge management framework. A searchable knowledge base is a good place to start. Not only should they be easy to search and navigate, but also allow for optimization and analytics, as well as communication and collaboration. You may also need separate communication, project management, and content creation tools.

Collect data

Next, collect internal data, reports from third parties, and consumer generated content for your knowledge management system. The main focus at this point is to collect data. It can be analyzed later.

Organize the data

Once you’re done collecting data, you can now organize it. For example, separate customer reviews into positive and negative, and then rank them. For most of your data, you will have to create some kind of hierarchy to help make sense of it.

Summarize the most important information

Next step is to give the data some context. Summarize findings in the most objective way you can, while giving it proper context. You can then store, analyze, and apply all that knowledge in the future.

Conclusion

As you can see, knowledge management is an extensive subject, and a single article can’t possibly hope to cover the full scope of it. We have tried, however, to cover the most important aspects. The main takeaway is that, with proper knowledge management, your organization can do much better.

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