Does your organization subscribe the knowledge-centered service (KCS) methodology? If it does, it’s at a huge advantage in social care.
For those not familiar, KCS is about creating knowledge as a byproduct of solving problems. Every time someone in a KCS organization solves an issue, it’s documented and shared to codify that tacit tribal knowledge that lives within their workforce. It’s a way of constantly evolving your internal support content based on demand and usage to empower agents to resolve issues faster and easier—what’s known by one is know by all.
Sounds great, right? Except that even great organizations struggle with it for a variety of reasons.
KCS is key to social care, but requires a mindset shift
It ends up that KCS is quite difficult for most brands to implement. Unlike traditional knowledge distribution which is one-to-many and top-down, KCS is many-to-many and bottom-up. Rather than relying on management to create documentation, KCS understands that modern support agents face a vast array of novel and heretofore unseen situations (um, social care anyone?) and asks them to record what they know. This allows the team to evolve. For example, who knew ten years ago that customers would be asking for help via Twitter or the app store? And who now knows how best to respond?
KCS soaks up all the front-line wisdom of your agents into a living knowledge base. But alas, brands often limit its effects because they don’t trust their agents.
Are your guidelines mistrust-worthy?
Most support organizations today are designed around mistrust and this limits KCS’s effectiveness. Executives and managers consider the worst possible scenarios and the team’s weakest performers and place guidelines to…
