SAMPLES FROM THE BOOK

Index

Part I – Why?

Introduction self-service and Knowledge Management

Why is self-service increasing in popularity?

The growing iceberg and shadow support

The shift from perfect to good enough

Self-Service means new metrics for your organization

Just in time vs just in case

The Hero is The King - Not Content

The Millennials - Digital Natives

Encourage your employees to share their knowledge?

How do you evaluate employees without rating them?

When information becomes valuable knowledge

The key to self-service success is re-use

A knowledge tool is an important enabler

How many articles do we need to go live with self-service?

Part II – How?

Introduction to creating the future support organization

5 Essential Tips for self-service Success

The process for capture, structure, reuse and improve

Capture knowledge

Structure knowledge

Reuse knowledge

Improve knowledge

Content health

Process integration

Performance assessment

Leadership and communication

Marketing

Ditches

Glossary

References and sources

Part I – Why?

Understanding and background to self-service and Knowledge Management and the shift in technology and behavior.

Introduction to self-service and Knowledge Management

Basic knowledge and understanding is always the first step towards any change that provides new advantages and increased benefit when compared with the current situation. Without this knowledge and understanding, we cannot see the opportunity or need to develop.

Self-service and Knowledge Management are terms that are more culturally significant than ever, and an increasing number of companies and organizations recognize that there is huge profit to be made for those who succeed in harnessing these terms. Other popular terms that are closely connected to self-service and Knowledge Management are automation, shift left and level zero support or zero level support.

We are asking all those who are interested, to understand what self-service is and what it is that pushes this strong trend forwards. We are particularly keen to ask companies and individuals with some link to a support organization and who need to understand how self-service and knowledge methods like KCS (Knowledge-Centered Service) can affect them; and/or those who need to develop and improve their support and service. The readers will obtain an in-depth understanding in these areas, as well asrecei ving concrete tips and recommendations on how to introduce working methods that utilize the opportunities this will provide.

Self-service and knowledge methodology such as KCS (Knowledge Centered Support) are creating new possibilities to generate real customer value and long term success for service and support organizations and on a higher level for the hole organization. Organizations that see it as a temporary trend and not as something necessary risk losing customers who will get help elsewhere.

It is time to stop viewing self-service as a project or as an initiative. Self-service should be a natural part of almost everything we do, and cannot be separated from other parts of a support or service process.

For a support organization, the development, availability and use of self-service should be just as obvious as supporting their higher goals and core operations. Another reason to take a closer look at self-service and your way of working with knowledge methodology is because users have an increasing number of different options available to find online support, such as through Google – and there is a large gap between an organization's total number of problems and the number of incidents that actually reach service desk. Therefore, in addition to improving how to manage existing incidents, there is great potential to reach more of the issues that, for some reason, are never picked up by service desk.

An improved knowledge flow, plus updated and available self-service can thus reduce the need for alternative solutions.

We have a tendency to focus too much on technology in the early phases, as it is simple, easily-available, is visible and easy to adopt. It is much harder to assess customer requirements or to compare our service with the alternatives offered by competitors. All too often we look for the solution to larger issues and challenges in technology. As technology grows, matures and becomes matter-of-course, we shift our focus to the key question and the actual needs. This is when we approach successful service and begin to achieve a function at a higher level.

Regardless of which support and knowledge methodic we practice customer always has to come first and customer success and customer satisfaction is the primary goal for our efforts.

One successful way to approach this kind of new behavior is to learn from the old way of working, to really understand the basics and what the customer needs. When E-commerce f eks. where at an early stage we regarded it as an entirely new business, and where purely e-commerce businesses sprang up. Now that it has matured, we can see that it is increasingly growing together with physical commerce, and established companies with physical sales have progressed with their e-commerce, they tend to quickly become market leaders and successful in this field.

They simply know their customers, products and understand market needs, regardless of whether the sale is made in a physical store or online. What we learn from this is that it is the same basic driving forces in both instances, and it is very difficult to separate them successfully. They should provide power to each other and create added value, both for the customers and the business. There are always exceptions, but this is the general picture.

This is exactly how self-service and traditional staffed service and support work. As soon as we separate them, they lose power. They are just different distribution types for the same service. When they are linked together in work processes, people and technology, they strengthen and guide each other, leading to faster, better and more efficient support and service. This does not mean that all types of issues should be managed the same way. Some questions are better suited to be solved through self-service and others through manned support.

Many companies make the mistake of allowing their intranet or communication teams to be responsible for and maintain all information within the company, even such information that touches on self-service. The problem with this is the same as e-commerce teams. They are involved in the technology and distribution channels but rarely understand the complexity of the service provided or the customers' requirements.

This is why the support organization should own, be responsible for and manage the company's self-service Knowledge, regardless of whether or not it is made available on the intranet.

Self-service and Knowledge Management are two parts that give each other huge synergy and strengthen each other. They also need each other to function, and in this book we will explain why a key factor to success is to integrate these parts. We will specifically talk about self-service Knowledge and how the popular knowledge methodology KCS can be practiced and help your organization capture, structure, reuse and improve knowledge as an integrated part of your service and support.

A company's or organization's collective knowledge is of greater value as the majority of businesses develop towards more knowledge-intensive business. Today there is a huge need to find ways to get access of and use this knowledge. The companies and organizations that succeed with this will be tomorrow's winners, and will prosper. The companies that don't succeed will find it harder and harder to keep up in increased competition and the constantly growing need for quick access to knowledge.

We will also deal with the key aspect of "what's in it for me?" for the end customer, support agents, management and the entire organization. To convert towards a successful Self-Service and functioning Knowledge process, where the entire organization contributes, we need to be clearly able to present to all target groups our response to the question: "what's in it for me?"

We will deal with self-service primarily from a general perspective rather than a technical one. Self-service is a wide term and we are focusing on it from a knowledge perspective, or self-service Knowledge.

We see how a working method where the entire organization is involved and contributes to the combined knowledge will contribute to better support and supports the overall business value. As a complement to this, more practical and technical self-service functions can also be connected, such as password management, permissions and incident request. These we reasonably view as being on another level.

In terms of what Knowledge Management is, we get as many different answers as people we ask. For you to understand what we mean by Knowledge Management, we will explain and give a brief description. At a general level, Knowledge Management is about how a company or organization handles, manages, transfers and shares its inherent knowledge.

The purpose of Knowledge Management is to share what we know (ideas, experience and information) so we can improve our efficiency by reducing the need to rediscover knowledge. Structured and functioning Knowledge Management is a key process and enabler for self-service.

Knowledge Management (KM) is formed of three key parts. These are: People, Process and Technology (sometimes known as System or Platform). These three parts form the basics of Knowledge Management and all three are required in order for Knowledge Management to work. Without the right processes, neither the people nor the system know what should happen and when. Without the right people, everything stops, as there is no force to drive the implementation and development forwards. Without the right technology, there is no system and technology to obtain the structure needed for success. It is meaningless to try and rank these in order of importance; essentially they are all needed.

Self-service is a concept where - by offering knowledge or services via self-service - we can allow customers and users to solve issues themselves without needing to contact a staffed support every single time.

For the concrete question of "Why?" we primarily find the answer in the measurable positive effects that a functioning self-service provides, and a workplace with knowledge at its center, where the support teams goal is to solve as many customer issues via self-service as possible. Below are some examples of concrete results that this working method creates.

The result is itself a reason to start a knowledge incentive with KCS and self-service:

• Up to 50% case deflection

• 50 - 60% improved time to resolution

• 30 - 50% increase in first contact resolution

• 70% improved time to proficiency

• 20 - 35% improved employee retention

• 20 - 40% improvement in employee satisfaction

• 10% issue reduction due to root cause removal

Our expectations and hope

We (the authors) hope that this book will encourage new ideas, provide useful tips and most of all inspire and create change. We hope to help all those who are thinking of starting a knowledge initiative and providing a functioning self-service and increased customer satisfaction as two of the outcomes. Our experience is that every organization is unique but that there is a lot to learn from what other organizations have already achieved. Please share your thoughts and experience in this area and the content in this book with us at www.selfservicesuccess.com

Thank you for reading the introduction to Self-service and Knowledge Success.

Comments:

"Great piece. I agree that with self-service becoming more of what customers are clamoring for, the old matrices of measuring customer experience are no longer the best indicators of a satisfied client or their likelihood to return to the brand to buy again."

Mike Muson - VP, Customer Experience & Innovation at SmartAction

Great! Digitalisation of Customer Service need to happen now, where timing and content will be the King:)

Tomas Yangbyn - Head of Customer Service & Insights at Viaplay/MTG

"Well spotted, thanks for sharing this!"

Jindřiška Sklenářová -Manager - NNIT