Knowledge and training: Peanut butter and jelly for the customer contact center toast

Cognition

It is hard to teach situational know-how or expertise, i.e., how to understand and solve a customer problem, provide advice, or help them achieve a goal, based on a specific situation. Situational expertise enablement requires a way to guide agents step by step on what to say and do in the course of such customer interactions. Living “guided lives,” where they use GPS devices for driving and robot advisors for financial management, today’s agents are looking for that kind of guidance in everything they do, including their day-to-day work.

Enter the modern knowledge hub

The solution to address this formidable new training challenge is a modern knowledge management system deployed as a hub. The knowledge hub eliminates silos, while serving as a centralized, trusted source of correct answers and process expertise, which are also compliant with best practices and industry regulations. It consists of the following building blocks:

♦ Content management, including profiled access to content

♦ Multiple knowledge types: data, information, know-how, and insights

♦ Multi-layered personalization, based on context, user, interaction channel, and other factors

♦ Intent inference, powered by machine learning

♦ Search methods: Federated, keyword, faceted, and guided search

♦ AI reasoning for step-by-step conversational and process guidance

♦ Knowledge analytics for ongoing optimization

The hub unifies and orchestrates these building blocks. Leading organizations are already leveraging this approach to complement training and L&D (Learning & Development), transforming the experiences of all stakeholders— customers, employees, knowledge authors, and business managers.

The knowledge hub at work

Blue-chip leaders have been investing in knowledge hubs with stunning results in reducing training time and accelerating speed to competency for agents:

♦ Leading telco improved First-Contact Resolution (FCR) by 37%, while reducing training time by 50% across 10,000+ agents and 600 retail associates and improving Net Promoter Score (NPS) by 30 points.

♦ Health insurance company reduced agent training time by 33% and sustained agent performance even when their 2000+ agents had to go remote overnight when COVID hit.

♦ Global bank improved FCR from 70% to 95%, while reducing agent training time from 10 weeks to 4 weeks while being compliant with regulations.

Final word

Modern knowledge management and training are perfect complements to each other—the peanut butter and jelly for your breakfast toast. With such a combination, you may very well choose to skip other meals and eat breakfast all day long while trouncing your competitors with a knowledge-powered workforce!