Agent Training and Knowledge Objects - Strategies to Deliver on the Customer Experience

Many organizations have already initiated the necessary steps to align knowledge objects for customer contact consistency across all contact channels (phone, chat, email, IVR/VRU, web site self help….) while many more are either starting or considering this strategic move.

The opportunity is now to take the next step that links agent training to the customer knowledge base for consistent customer answers across all contact channels. In many cases, agents receive training on handling a contact one way while the customer facing knowledge base presents conflicting information that causes customer confusion. This issue is compounded by use of separate response libraries for chat, email and IVR/VRU responses.

The root cause of this is many well-intentioned organizations do not practice a holistic approach to knowledge management across all potential customer touch points. The problem manifests itself by inconsistent responses when the customer crosses channels. In many cases, the customer unsuccessfully attempted self-help and is now a live customer call.

No matter where your organization is in the contact channel convergence journey, a rigorous evaluation of the knowledge content delivery process will provide a foundation for a consistent customer experience. Some suggested best practices:

1. Establish a periodic process review to evaluate training and knowledge content across all
knowledge repositories to ensure alignment.
2. Start with highest volume contacts.
3. Use people (agents if possible) most familiar with the actual customer contact to ensure
consistency between how it supposed to be performed with how it is actually performed.
4. Highlight opportunities for contact prevention/elimination of contacts and reduced handle
times as part of the review process.
5. Develop an agent knowledge contribution process that focuses on key needs such as issue
resolution and customer satisfaction.
6. Reward and recognize employees with valid knowledge contributions for improvements on a
regular basis. Establish this practice as a pillar of your continuous process improvement
culture.
7. As you plan for new work or changes to existing work, put in place the process for concurrent
knowledge base updates and agent training.
8. Finally - Test for consistency across channels. Mystery shop phone calls, email, chat, and
search the web to ensure your agents are ready before the customer attempts to contact you.

In establishing this rigor into your knowledge content management process, you can review across all contact channels to ensure a consistent end-to-end customer experience. This process will allow you to reduce costs, avoid confusion and deliver on your customer service mission.

About the Author: Les Hyde has an extensive leadership background in customer service and IT operations with two Fortune 500 companies and the United States Air Force. He holds a B.S. in Information Systems from Park University, an MBA from University of Phoenix, and numerous technical certifications. He is an active board member of the Kansas City Association of Customer Contact Professionals (http://www.associationccp.com/) and also serves as the Vice President of Marketing.