On Tuesday, David Karandish, CEO and founder of Capacity, took the stage with Stéphan Donzé, founder and Chief Strategy Officer of AODocs, and Mark Hammer, CEO of Bloomfire, during the KMWorld webinar, Top Trends for Knowledge Management for 2021. During the webinar, each panelist shared insight into the knowledge management (KM) trends that they were seeing and provided strategies for achieving and implementing said trends.
During David’s section, he used Amazon as an example of a company that has implemented great ways to manage and share knowledge. He went on to recommend that viewers should borrow some of the concepts shared and implement them in their organizations if they’re striving to provide a perfect experience.
David explained that Amazon provides a perfect experience in everything they do because they are SAASIE. SAASIE is an acronym that features the following six concepts that can improve knowledge management.
Self-service.
David described self-service as providing team members and customers with easy access to information from any device or interface at any time, eliminating the need to use an agent for level-0 support, and democratizing knowledge by making all information available to employees and customers. Providing access 24/7 to information can support customers and team members when they need it most.
Fun fact: According to Statista, 89% of US consumers expect companies to have an online self-service support portal.
Anticipation.
As a business looks to please customers and team members, it’s essential to be attentive to their needs. David recommends that organizations anticipate the questions that customers and team members ask about products or services, create detailed information on the topics, and make it all easily accessible. Being prepared for countless questions ensures that end-users can ask almost any question and get routed to an appropriate answer.
Organizations should train the knowledge management worker to stay on the lookout for stale information. We’ve found that customers ask the same question multiple ways, so KM workers should also consider importing variants of the question-and-answer pairs to the knowledge base. David recommended keeping knowledge management fresh by considering the follow-up questions that customers might have on a product or service and adding those to the knowledge base.
Fun Fact: According to Epsilon, 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase when brands offer experiences personalized to them.
Automation.
When it comes to providing a perfect experience, nothing will help an organization get the job done more accurately and effectively than automation. Taking your repetitive questions and requests and automating the responses or processes can mean instant gratification for your customers and less cumbersome work for your team. If you’re interested in automating your processes, David outlined the following steps to do so:
- Create a digital representation of the process
- Assign steps to the machine
- Use ML to figure out how to improve
Fun Fact: According to BCG and MIT, 84% of executives and analysts say AI will enable them to obtain or sustain a competitive advantage.
Speed.
The time it takes to complete processes like onboarding, submitting requests, and processing transactions can be cumbersome. However, consumers and employees expect immediate responses and answers at all times. David explained that by making knowledge instantly available, organizations can speed up processes and exceed customers’ and employees’ expectations. The use of workflow automation, 24/7 chatbots, and support automation are all forms of technology that can kick knowledge management up a notch.
Fun Fact: According to HubSpot Research, 90% of customers expect an “immediate” response to their support questions (10 minutes or less).
Integration.
Sharing information with team members and consumers can be difficult for organizations if all of the information is stored in separate locations. Integrations can reduce the time it takes to log in to systems and search for information, enabling you to provide instant information when a team member or customer asks.
David reaffirmed that integrating apps and key systems isn’t a tedious task. There’s a lot of low-code technology available that organizations can implement to make knowledge accessible for everyone.
Capacity’s Developer Platform enables users to create app integrations that assist with tasks like scheduling meetings, searching for files, creating tickets, managing leads, accessing information, and logging in and out of systems.
Fun Fact: According to Salesforce, 75% of customers desire a consistent experience regardless of how they engage a company, e.g. social media, in person, by phone, etc.
Escalation.
When it comes to using chatbots to share information with customers and team members, it’s critical to ensure there’s a graceful handoff between the bot and the support agent. Regardless of the industry, everyone wants to have the option to discuss their question or problem with a human if a chatbot isn’t providing an accurate answer. By enabling seamless handoffs, there’s no false dichotomy. The support agent can pick up right where the bot left off and the user doesn’t have to repeat themselves. David shared that a huge benefit of seamless escalation is to improve customer satisfaction.
Fun Fact: According to Aspect Consumer Experience Index, 84% of customers believe there should be an “escalate to agent” option when talking to a chatbot.