At Specialized Bicycle’s Global Rider Care, Robin Oswald Schwartz, senior knowledge platform manager and strategist, faced a crisis. Confronted with a legacy KM platform that was obsolete, coupled with a rising number of incoming customer calls and messages, the customer service operation was in dire need of a makeover. Specialized had three separate knowledge websites running on different platforms and reaching three discrete audiences—internal, customers, and B2B. Adding to Schwartz’s dilemma was the existence of some 1,200 knowledge articles in 22 languages that customer service agents struggled to find.
Specialized is a 50-year-old company that sells bicycles, bicycle components, helmets, clothing, shoes, and other bicycle accessories. Customer inquiries can be very specific and complex, ranging from parts that fit 30-year-old bikes to shirt sleeve sizes. Schwartz noted that as bike technology changes, this is particularly taxing for agents new to the job—the average tenure of agents is only about a year.
Schwartz’s team began by examining the company’s content to understand who was creating it, where it was stored, and who used it. Then they reached out to customer service teams to determine pain points. eGain responded to Specialized’s RFP, was chosen, and moved quickly to migrate content and re-create the portal. Analytics identified areas for improvement, while AI tools (Schwartz refers to AI as “an army of interns on Red Bull”) contributed to increased consistency of formatting and improved search accuracy. Specialized used AI prompts to ensure that embedded videos and PDFs displayed at the same size throughout the content.
A similar situation existed at Rogue Credit Union, explained Amy Durst, A VP of internal support—a failing legacy KM platform, this one a homegrown solution from the IT department. The credit union had expanded its territory beyond Oregon, increased net assets, and doubled its staff. This growth propelled Durst to look for a new KM platform. Her team also began by scrutinizing existing content and defined 74 business requirements. Only eGain met all 74 current and future stated requirements.
Working with eGain, Rogue was impressed with AI capabilities for intelligent search and case-based reasoning. Durst identified some current benefits: advanced search capabilities and personalized content by role; a global “find and replace” function; change audits and a feedback system; usage analytics, dashboards, and guided workflows; scheduled publishing and expiration options; and a custom dictionary tailored for Rogue.
Although Schwartz and Durst work for very different companies, they agree that eGain was an enormous help in their digital transformation efforts and the challenges they faced when dealing with legacy systems. Both were particularly struck by the usefulness of eGain’s Guided Help For AI-Powered Customer Service and the establishment of a single source of truth.