How To Strengthen Self-Service With Effective Knowledge Management | #customersupport #supporticket

“By 2022, we’ll be talking to bots more than our own spouses.” – Deloitte

Rapid technological advancements have pushed businesses to make all information available at customers’ fingertips to deliver a seamless digital experience. Customers today prefer to be self-sufficient. 40% of consumers¹ now prefer self-service over human contact. People are looking for solutions to their problems online, pushing the need for a self-service knowledge management system now more than ever. 

Why is self-service becoming a crucial support channel?

Self-service is when customers perform an activity to solve their queries without direct human assistance from the company. In today’s tech-savvy lives, time is of the essence, and customers want quicker resolutions. Millennials and Gen-Z consumers are unwilling to speak over the phone and keep waiting for their issues to get resolved. They want immediate solutions at the click of a few buttons. 

According to Forbes², Gen-Z comprises a significant percentage (40%) of total U.S. consumers. They prefer using self-service portals over talking to live agents. Hence, FAQs, how-to guides, chatbots, and virtual assistants have become commonplace for companies to succeed in delighting their customers. 

Apart from boosting the C-SAT scores, self-service channels provide a personalized omnichannel customer experience and improve contact center efficiency. With call centers being flooded with multiple customer calls and tickets, businesses are exploring different channels to deliver superior customer service and relieve contact centers of too many active waiting calls by deflecting some tickets to self-service channels. 

Self-service isn’t just limited to customer experience; it improves agent experience as well.  A self-service knowledge base for agents makes their day-to-day lives easier by deflecting some customer queries to self-service channels. With articles, FAQs, and chat support, customers are equipped to solve common problems independently, letting agents handle complex tickets. This improves agent efficiency and rids the call centers of excessive calls. 

 5 ways in which effective knowledge management strengthens self-service

In the current competitive scenario, giving customers exactly what they want is vital to stay relevant in the CX game. An effective knowledge management strategy works wonders to deliver superior self-service support. A knowledge management platform essentially acts as a single source of truth for customers to access answers to their questions easily on their own. 

Here are some best practices within knowledge management for efficient self-service:

#1 Maintain a centralized knowledge base that can be accessed via all channels

A centralized knowledge base can be the underlying repository of information that can be pushed across all channels, including web portals, in-app support, chatbot workflows, etc. It ensures information consistency and helps in providing a seamless, omnichannel customer experience across all customer touch-points. 

 #2 Keep the content of your self-service knowledge base simple and easy to understand

Don’t use jargon. With complex language and technical terms, your customers are likely to get confused. Try to keep the language clear and as simple as possible for them to understand. With clear, to-the-point, and correct information, customer queries are resolved in a better manner. This improves the overall customer experience and enhances the C-SAT scores.

#3 Organize and update your knowledge base regularly

Indexed and search-optimized articles and FAQs can improve the searchability and findability of relevant information at the right time. With appropriate keywords and meta-tags, customers can access the correct content quickly while searching for answers to their queries. This results in faster and more accurate resolution. A well-organized and updated knowledge base is paramount for successful self-service. 

#4 Incorporate feedback to improve your knowledge base

Getting feedback from customers for individual support articles can help improve the content and tailor your self-service knowledge base to solve customer challenges more accurately. Hence, an effective feedback mechanism proves to help strengthen your knowledge base and enhance the quality of resolution. Having online communities where customers can voice their opinions and help each other is also a growing method that brands are experimenting with.

 #5 Measure the content performance of your self-service Knowledge Base 

Tracking the performance of and optimizing content can go a long way in increasing the overall effectiveness of your knowledge base. Knowing what content proves to be useful in solving the said query and what doesn’t can help in tailoring the knowledge base according to customer requirements. It can also help in shaping the overall customer service strategy of your organization. 

Why do you need a knowledge management system and help desk integration?

72% of consumers say that when contacting customer service, they expect the agent to know who they are, what they have purchased and have insights into their previous engagements.

Enterprises are now convinced how help desk software and a knowledge management platform complement each other. A robust knowledge management solution deeply integrated with the help desk solution makes the query handling hassle-free by auto-traversing customer information, reducing the resolution time. 

Streamlining communication across all channels and providing correct, contextual knowledge at the right time leads to better customer engagement across all customer touchpoints. As for call centers, it improves the agent experience, which ultimately translates into customer satisfaction. 

Businesses can use Freshworks and Knowmax in collaboration for optimizing costs and achieving a superior customer experience. We have seen how knowledge management can help in customer service, but to effectively do so, information from the help desk solution has to be leveraged to provide accurate and faster resolutions across assisted and self-service channels. 

A knowledge management software should be integrated with a help desk solution because –

• It enables superior self-service support: An ever-increasing need for contactless service is encouraging businesses to provide the best self-service customer support. Both the help desk software and a knowledge management platform must work together to provide customers with the exact information they need at a given time. With multiple open APIs, this ultimately enhances the overall customer experience and contributes to an elevated C-SAT.
• Customers are served with the right information: Think of the customer and knowledge base as two pieces of the same puzzle that connects individual customer problems to their right solutions. You need to know the details of who your customer is and what they are asking for to help them. With help desk integration, your customers can input information such as order ID number and other contact details to find relevant help. A help desk solution stores customer information, and a knowledge management system can be used to disseminate answers for customers in case of dissatisfaction or troubleshooting.
• Acts as a great feedback mechanism: A key benefit of knowledge management and help desk integration includes getting valuable feedback. Feedback of any form is important to improve strategy and optimize processes. A help desk integration with knowledge management helps understand the nature of complaints or problems faced while also enabling businesses to delve a little deeper into their customer base’s demographics and other details.
• Optimizing cost and efficiency: As seen above, using a help desk solution with a knowledge management platform improves the efficiency of the overall query handling process. With quicker resolution using an intelligent KM platform and deflecting of calls to self-service channels, the contact time is reduced. Additionally, it also helps agents save time by preventing screen toggle. This relieves pressure from the system and leads to increased savings on support costs, thereby achieving greater productivity.

Conclusion

A knowledge management system integrated with a help desk solution helps with strategic self-service. As discussed above, with the complex intricacies of solving customers’ problems in a fast-paced contactless world, the coming together of a help desk and knowledge management system prove beneficial for all stakeholders. Knowledge management and help desk software go hand in hand to maintain efficiency while catering to customer-centric demands and striving to improve self-service abilities. 

Source:
1.http://www.slideshare.net/stevenvanbelleghem/the-self-serving-economy
2.https://www.forbes.com/sites/jefffromm/2021/01/07/on-youtube-tiktok-and-ben–jerrys-five-undeniable-truths-about-marketing-to-gen-z/