KM for Contact Centers

Customer service contact centers face a unique set of knowledge management challenges, truly distinct from other parts of a business. Tackling these head-on isn't just a good idea; it's vital for keeping things running smoothly, making your agents shine, and, most importantly, keeping your customers happy.

The Onboarding Hustle and High Agent Turnover

One big headache in contact centers? High agent turnover. Often, it boils down to agents feeling unsupported or just plain unqualified to handle customer questions. This problem is deeply connected to agent onboarding, a process that can be a real marathon for your Learning and Development (L&D) teams. We're talking weeks of classroom training, online modules, videos, nesting programs, and mentoring – basically a "firehose of information" that new agents are expected to memorize. The big goal? Get agents proficient fast so they can solve problems without constantly escalating, bugging Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), or just giving up because they can't find the answers.

But here’s the rub: if all that crucial knowledge is stashed away almost exclusively within the L&D domain, or in docs that live on a shared drive, it becomes incredibly tough for agents to get their hands on it when they’re actually on a call. This directly hits their "speed to answer" a customer's problem, leading to longer handle times and potentially frustrating customers who experience delays in getting their issues resolved. Think of it: they're not taking calls or chats while they're learning. It's all about moving from "just in case" knowledge (like training for something that might come up months from now) to "just-in-time" knowledge – giving agents what they need, when they need it, right there in the moment.

Tackling Complex & Evolving Information

Contact centers are often drowning in complex product information. We're talking technical details, intricate policies, and tricky troubleshooting steps. This inherent complexity makes it a real challenge for agents, especially the new folks, to give quick and accurate answers. Take one solar panel installation company I worked with: they had some seriously robust and complex policies around roof leaks. Agents needed to grasp how to spot a leak, when to offer to pay for technician visits, and the different remedies – from fixing a single mount to replacing an entire roof and reinstalling panels. To navigate that maze, clearly outlined policies and step-by-step workflows were absolutely crucial for agents to make the right calls.

And it's not just static complexity; customer issues are constantly evolving. As products get new features or fresh bugs pop up, the knowledge needed to troubleshoot effectively becomes a moving target. This is where smart Knowledge Management (KM) can really shine! Why? Because your frontline agents are often the first to identify new issues and discover solutions as they troubleshoot. Capturing these insights, which is often tacit knowledge or tribal knowledge – the collective wisdom in people's heads – and turning it into explicit knowledge is absolutely critical.

The Perils of Suboptimal Knowledge Storage

Let's be honest, many contact centers don’t have a formal Knowledge Management System (KMS). Instead, all that valuable knowledge often lives within the heads of subject matter experts (your go-to gurus) or it's dumped into general content management systems like SharePoint or Google Docs. And a truly suboptimal approach, one you see far too often, involves documents being stuck in PDF format, which is just plain inefficient for knowledge workers (your agents!) who need to find answers super quickly. It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack when you're on the clock.

The core challenge? Quick information retrieval is paramount. Whether an agent is hunting for an answer or a customer is browsing an external help center, the solution needs to appear instantly. The painful process of digging through a content management system, then finding a PDF, and then searching inside that PDF for the right answer, can eat up a ridiculous amount of time. This often leads to a swivel chair experience, where agents are constantly flipping between disconnected systems, making their workflow slow and prone to errors. This inefficiency alone can increase the cost of doing business by millions of dollars per year.

In many organizations, knowledge management is just an afterthought, especially because customer support is seen as a cost center. This can lead to a digital landfill of unmanaged and uncategorized documents that users simply avoid because finding anything of value is such a headache. For example, one company I worked with tried to use Microsoft OneNote as a knowledge base, despite it not being designed for that purpose. This resulted in 700 articles being imported into Salesforce Knowledge, and it took about a year to break the habit of agents using the old OneNote notebooks. This illustrates how ingrained suboptimal practices can become.

The data further emphasizes this problem: a survey indicates that 70 percent of companies aren’t using purpose-built knowledge management systems. This is significant, especially when you consider that only 32 percent of companies using non-purpose-built KMS are satisfied with what they have, compared to 75 percent satisfaction for those using a purpose-built system. The implication? There’s a massive opportunity to improve both customer and agent knowledge experiences.

The Real Cost: Time, Money, and Upset Customers

In the contact center world, the old saying time is money couldn't be truer. The longer an agent spends on a call, the higher the cost of resolving that customer's problem. When agents can't quickly access the knowledge they need, forcing them to dig through old training decks or videos, it directly leads to longer handle times. That extended wait time can really tick off customers, leaving them frustrated and unhappy. So, it's not just about having content, it's about making sure it's easily digestible and findable, and organized in a way that allows agents to quickly determine the most directly relevant policy or solution. Remember, "garbage in, garbage out" – if your knowledge isn't top-notch, it'll mess up everything, even your shiny new AI tools.

The AI Challenge: Built on a Shaky Foundation?

Virtually every company is looking at how AI can help their business. But for customer service, AI's success hinges on good knowledge. Many customers aren't thrilled with AI systems, often because they don’t find them helpful. A Five9 survey reveals that 75 percent of customers still want to speak to a human being. While a PwC study found that 71% of consumers prefer human interaction, they are open to AI if it genuinely improves their experience.

The reality for AI projects can be grim: Gartner's 2023 report highlights that only 53% of AI projects make it from prototype to production, and even two years later this remains a challenge for many companies. 

A big reason for this failure? Bad knowledge. While almost 80 percent of customers expect to encounter self-service options like AI chatbots, only about 30 percent of customers expect to be able to solve their problems using those tools. If a chatbot relies on an outdated or incomplete knowledge base, it will deliver wrong or incomplete answers, pushing customers to human agents who then still need a reliable KB. The bottom line: having a solid, quality KB is step one to building AI systems that actually work for customers and agents.

Leveraging Knowledge Management for Solutions

To overcome these unique and costly challenges, you need Knowledge Management expertise from someone who is well versed in the unique challenges faced by customer service contact centers. Such experts understand the specific roadblocks to improvement and can guide organizations in leveraging different Knowledge Management systems to effectively address these issues.

Even a basic KM strategy can reduce the time employees spend looking for information by as much as 35 percent, which directly impacts operational costs. For instance, a 10 percent reduction in Average Handle Time (AHT) for a company I worked with led to a savings of over $264,000 annually.

The right MVP KB helps your agents get up to speed faster, makes customers happier, and provides the solid foundation needed for future success, including effective AI tools.

Don't let your contact center be plagued by knowledge challenges any longer. Cognita Knowledge Management has over 20 years of experience in customer service, with a deep understanding of these specific issues and the proven paths to improvement. Get in touch with us today to discuss how we can help you build an MVP KB that transforms your customer service operation into a powerhouse of efficiency, agent proficiency, and customer satisfaction.