KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT FOR AN

INTEGRATED SERVICE EXPERIENCE

November, 2015

Omer Minkara, Research Director,

Contact Center & Customer Experience Management

Aly Pinder, Senior Research Analyst,

Service Management

Report Highlights

p2 p5 p6 p8

96% of service Service Savvy service Top performing

organizations are organizations incur organizations are service teams are
not fully satisfied an average of $1.68 65% more likely to 22% more likely to
with their ability to million each in regularly assess the connect field
deliver data-driven unnecessary costs effectiveness of technicians to
customer due to poor access to knowledgebase remote experts to
interactions. insights. articles. share knowledge.

Knowledge is no longer a nice-to-have. Savvy organizations

utilize knowledge as a strategic advantage to differentiate from
peers. This is especially true in customer service where client
needs and problems rapidly evolve based on myriad factors. This
report highlights the business value of empowering the entire
service organization with timely and relevant knowledge. Well
specifically highlight the activities companies must use to
connect the field to the contact center, and deliver an integrated
service experience that is consistent and exceeding of customer
expectations.
 Knowledge Management for an Integrated Service Experience

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Service organizations
today need to be Service Organizations are Thirsty for Insights
more agile than ever Its no secret that customer expectations have evolved
before. Knowledge significantly over the past decade. With availability and
increased adoption of digital interaction channels, such as social
management helps media and websites, todays buyers expect truly personalized
accomplish this goal and timely service with minimal effort. This requires companies
to gather a rich set of insights, including customer data and
by enabling service knowledgebase articles to deliver a data-driven and
staff with timely and personalized service experience.

relevant insights to Findings from Aberdeens July 2015 Customer Analytics: How to
meet (and exceed) Make Best Use of Customer Data study revealed that 96% of
companies are not fully satisfied with their ability to use
client needs. customer data as part of their business activities. The primary
reason why companies struggle is the difficulty in converting
data captured across multiple channels into actionable insights.
For the purposes of this research, Providing all the relevant stakeholders with easy and timely
Aberdeen makes the following access to these insights remains as yet another challenge for
definitions: businesses.

Knowledge management: a Observing the aforementioned findings leads into the question
centralized repository (online
of, How are leading service organizations accomplishing their
portal or content management
goals such as employee productivity, reduced time-to-
system) enabling organizations to
identify, capture, access and share
resolution/fix and, most importantly, customer satisfaction?
numerous types of content (e.g. Figure 1 provides the answer. It shows that service organizations
documents, images, videos and call adopting knowledge management (see sidebar) as a key part of
recordings). their business activities excel across a number of key
performance indicators (KPIs).
Integrated service experience: an
organizational program designed
to enable seamless communication
across the service organization,
from the contact center into the
field and back-office (e.g., repair
and warranty management) with
the goal of solving client needs in a

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 Knowledge Management for an Integrated Service Experience

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Figure 1: Knowledge Management Helps Improve Agent
Research shows that knowledge
Productivity & Customer Satisfaction
management users rely on a series
8.0%
8% Knowledge Management Users of technology enablers helping
Year-over-year percent change

Non-users
6% them establish and manage the
4.5% 4.1% activities highlighted in Figure 3
4% 3.5% 3.2%
2.7% and 4. Those technologies and their
2%
0.6%
respective adoption by knowledge
0% management users vs. non-users
-0.4% are:
-2%
-1.8%
-4% -3.2% CRM: Knowledge management
Number of Customer Number of Improvement in Agent utilization
n=215 positive satisfaction quality SLAs met number of rate
users: 91% vs. Non-users: 62%
mentions customer
through social complaints Contact center & CRM
media channels
Source: Aberdeen Group, October 2015 integration: Knowledge
management users: 74% vs. Non-
users: 30%
As depicted above, service organizations incorporating
knowledge management, within their business activities, enjoy Enterprise social collaboration
far superior results in improving employee (contact center agent tools: Knowledge management
and field technician utilization) utilization rates. This is largely users: 64% vs. Non-users: 32%
enabled by providing these team members with the insights they
Single sign-on: Knowledge
need to do their jobs and, therefore, reducing the time it takes
management users: 61% vs. Non-
for them to resolve client issues, which can now be allocated to
users: 36%
serve other customers. As a result, these improvements
positively influence (decrease) service labor costs. Unified agent desktop:
Knowledge management users:
In addition to helping service organizations contribute to 60% vs. Non-users: 28%
bottom-line results through reduced costs, the ability to handle
customer issues in a timely (and personalized) manner helps Desktop analytics: Knowledge
companies improve satisfaction rates (e.g. net promoter score) management users: 54% vs. Non-
year-over-year. In conjunction, these knowledge-enabled users: 30%
businesses reduce the number of customer complaints, which is
Enterprise search: Knowledge
yet another factor contributing to reducing service costs as well
management users: 53% vs. Non-
as increasing revenue, as happy clients are more likely to
users: 24%

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 Knowledge Management for an Integrated Service Experience

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continue spending with the business as well as refer their peers
to work with the organization.
Service team members Empower the Agent to Excel at Service
spend 14% of their time
on average seeking While knowledge management systems work in helping service
organizations improve their performance, are service team
information needed to members actually seeking yet another technology tool to help
their jobs. This lack of them do their jobs? The answer to this question is important as
productivity drives providing field technicians and contact center agents with
unnecessary and ineffective tools will simply result in poor or no
unnecessary costs. utilization, and hence become an ineffective investment. To this
point, Aberdeens March 2014 Streamlining the Agent
Experience Reduces Unnecessary Costs study asked
Savvy CSOs and VPs of organizations about a number of factors influencing contact
Customer Experiences center agent experiences. The top factor companies identified as
the primary driver of agent productivity and performance was
address this problem availability of effective technology tools, such as knowledge
by making it easier for management (see sidebar).
their teams to access
Figure 2: Technology Tools has the Greatest Impact on Agent Experience
relevant content via a All Respondents
centralized system. Technology tools facilitating
agents' ability to conduct day-to- 47%
day tasks

Sense of empowerment in
35%
addressing customer needs

Compensation and benefits 25%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Percent of respondents, n=373
Source: Aberdeen Group, October 2014

Findings from Aberdeens March 2015 Big Data in CEM: The Path
to Productive Employees & Happy Customers study shows that
an average employee spends 14% of their time looking for

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 Knowledge Management for an Integrated Service Experience

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relevant insights to serve customers. Assuming that a service
Its important to note that all
organization has 300 active field technicians and contact center companies capture and store
agents at any given point in time, and that the average labor cost customer data, as well as product /
for each team member is $40,000, means that companies lose an service information, across
average of $1.68 million each year (300 times $40,000 times different systems and locations. As
14%). This loss is due to service team members spending their such, all service organizations use
time on non-value add tasks, such as seeking knowledge across knowledge. However, use of
disparate systems instead of being able to access it seamlessly knowledge management systems
through a centralized system. As such, investing in knowledge enables companies to capture and
management tools is a wise decision for businesses looking to store all content within a
reduce costs while simultaneously boosting employee centralized system organized by a
certain taxonomy, whereas
productivity and satisfying clients.
companies depicted in the All
Others category lack such a
Now that weve covered the business need for knowledge centralized system, which hinders
management, as well as its value, lets drill-down into key steps their ability to easily organize and
to successfully incorporate it within customer service activities. access relevant content needed to
serve customers.
How to Get Started with Incorporating Knowledge Management
within Integrated Service Activities
Read the Report:
Enabling the service team with the right insights first requires
identifying the relevancy of each piece of content to help field Streamlining the
technicians and contact center agents do their jobs. As such, Agent Experience
Figure 3 shows that savvy service teams using knowledge
management systems are 65% more likely than All Others to Reduces Unnecessary
regularly measure the effectiveness of each knowledgebase Costs
content by helping employees do their jobs (81% vs. 49%). These
insights are gathered by first identifying the specific Read the Report:
knowledgebase articles employees use to resolve customer
issues and fix down assets. Once identified, companies need to Big Data in CEM:
use business intelligence tools to link how the use of content The Path to
correlates with key metrics, such as average handle times and
time-to-fix. The resulting insights enable organizations with the Productive
ability to identify how each piece of content helps employees do Employees & Happy
Customers

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 Knowledge Management for an Integrated Service Experience

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their jobs and optimize the content, as well as how its presented
to employees accordingly.
Figure 3: Use Reporting & Analytics to Provide Timely & Right
Knowledge to your Service Teams
90% 81% Knowledge Management Users
Non-users
70% 59% 58%
49%
50% 40%
30% 25%

10%
Generate tailored reports to
assess effectiveness of
knowledgebase articles
Do you know the
Monitor the keywords used to Repeat customer contacts are
optimize query of analyzed to evaluate the
knowledgebase based on impact of knowledgebase
context articles

accuracy and relevancy Percent of respondents, n=215

Source: Aberdeen Group, October 2015
of your knowledge in
One of the most common methods of evaluating the
resolving customer effectiveness of content stored in knowledge management
needs? systems is reflecting the voice of the customer. Specifically,
using behavioral data (repeat contacts and visits to sites) as a
gauge to identify if and how each content influences the overall
Savvy service customer experience. Knowledge management users are 45%
organizations dont act more likely than All Others to instill such customer-centricity
based on gut-feel. when building and managing organizational insights to enable
They rather use service team members.
analytics to gauge the When building and managing a knowledge management system,
effectiveness of each its also vital to remember that customer experiences are highly
content influencing dependent on internal user experiences. This means making sure
employee productivity that each field technician and contact center agent has an
optimal experience by being able to access the right knowledge
and resolving client
to do their jobs. Knowledge-enabled businesses build this
issues.
capability by regularly monitoring the keywords employees use
to access specific content. For example, if a field technician uses
a particular knowledge base article to change a server blade its

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 Knowledge Management for an Integrated Service Experience

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important that the company monitors the keywords each The Field Service
technician uses to access the same article. Identifying the Workforce
common words used in those searches then allows the company Management Best-in-
to easily associate each content with relevant keywords and Class Defined
enable employees to easily find articles. This capability
ultimately helps companies reduce the employee time spent
looking for information and, as such, maximizes overall In the February and March 2015
Field Service Workforce
productivity. Management study, Aberdeen used
three KPIs to distinguish the Best-
The Customer Support Team Must Connect to the Field in-Class (top 20% of aggregate
performers) from the Industry
When managing organizational knowledge, service teams must
Average (middle 50%) and Laggards
remember the importance of delivering customer experiences (bottom 30%) organizations, with
that are integrated across the contact center and field service. the mean performance amongst
Field technicians are often off on an island in front of customer the Best-in-Class as follows:
equipment and assets without the safety net of desktop screens
with detailed information. They depend on their mobile devices 87% performance in first-
and the connection to the support team to ensure they can time fix rate
resolve issues that couldnt be closed over other support 81% performance in worker
channels. Technicians need to have detailed information so they utilization
know in advance the issue they will face when they get on site. 11% annual improvement
in worker productivity
Too often technicians get scheduled and dispatched to a job
without a proper diagnosis of the issue in advance. Not having
access to insight gleaned through the contact center is a clear
missed opportunity to help customers on a first visit, as there are Related Research,
too many variables that need to converge in real-time (i.e., the Field Service
right part, the right skill set, the right appointment). Further
complicating this scenario is the challenge of a retiring and aging Workforce
workforce. Many new service technicians are coming to the Management:
workforce with less knowledge or years of expertise. However,
not having expertise or the right part is not acceptable for Empower Tech 3.0
customers. Top performers leverage knowledge management

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 Knowledge Management for an Integrated Service Experience

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tools to connect the field to the support staff that together can
The foundation of an execute valuable interactions with customers (Figure 4).
integrated service
experience is data and Figure 4: The Field and the Contact Center Must be Linked to
insights. If your Support the Customer
employees dont have
Best-in-Class Industry Average Laggards
relevant insights needed
3.9
to do their jobs, or easy 4.0
Scale 1 - 5, 1 = Poor, 5 = Excellent

access to tools that 3.5

3.5
provide these insights, 3.3
3.2
3.4
3.2
3.2
then we highly 3.1
3.0
2.9
3.0
recommend using 2.8
2.8

technology as a key
2.5
enabler to determine Provide field workers Integrate data Make data captured Leverage data
with access to captured in the field in the contact center captured in the
and address your remote experts while into back-office available to field contact center to aid
knowledge needs. at the customer site systems (i.e., CRM,
ERP)
support teams in the scheduling of
technicians
n = 182 Source: Aberdeen Group, October 2015

Connect the field not every problem encountered in

the field is the same and sometimes technicians do not
have the answer. Enabling technicians to connect to (i.e.,
have access to) the right answer at the right time, either
in real-time or via a knowledgebase with a remote expert
while in the field, is integral to solving customer issues
the first time. Extended downtime, secondary service
visits, and lost productivity have a direct impact on
customer satisfaction. Therefore, knowledge
management tools and access to experts strengthens the
likelihood of quickly finding the right answer in the field,

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 Knowledge Management for an Integrated Service Experience

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and is extremely important to creating a happy customer
experience.

Integrate the data flow access to information is

imperative when there is a dispersed workforce
attempting to tackle complex customer issues. Retaining
knowledge is difficult as workers retire or leave the
business for other reasons. Have a knowledge
management capability which can capture, make
accessible, and update insights to ensure tribal
knowledge doesnt leave with technicians. Real-time
data, which is integrated across device forms, separates
the Best-in-Class from peers. Considering the Best-in-
Class adoption of this capability in Figure 4, it clearly
shows that savvy service organizations understand the
importance of overcoming data silos in the business.

Recommendations

Contact center agents have enough on their plate as they are

tasked with solving complex customer issues as quickly as
possible, while also ensuring the customer is happy in difficult
situations. For this reason, it is imperative that these support
agents have the technology tools to not only make their jobs
easier, but also empowering them to add value to the integrated
service team.

If your company struggles with a lack of insight into relevant and

timely content service team members need to their jobs, then we
recommend investing in knowledge management systems. Top
performers have implemented knowledge management tools
and have benefited through a seamless agent experience, faster

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 Knowledge Management for an Integrated Service Experience

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issue resolution, and integrated insight collaboration with the
field team.

We recommend following the steps below to successfully lay the

foundation for knowledge management systems, as well as
managing them for continuous success.

Empower agents with the insights to act. Agent

productivity and high levels of performance are
dependent on having the knowledge tools to support
customer issues. Quickly finding answers to complex
issues, while ensuring customers have good interactions
with the service team, is paramount to a successful
organization in this era of the empowered customer. This
level of access to insights also helps organizations reduce
the cost of service, while allowing the service team to
help more customers with the time gained from not
having to needlessly search for information.
Consistently measure and re-assess the value of your
knowledge capabilities. The value of knowledge
management tools is found in the ability to provide users
with relevant content needed to be more productive
while having more valuable interactions with customers.
Organizations must ensure that they evaluate the
technology being provided to the team in order to ensure
that the investment evolves with the agents, the field
team, and customers, as all the stakeholders have
changing needs.
Dont forget about how the customer support team
impacts the field. Issues that cant be resolved in the
contact center depend on the field for the delivery of an
end result. But if organizations fail to leverage knowledge
management tools to connect the integrated team, issues

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 Knowledge Management for an Integrated Service Experience

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will still go unsolved. Therefore, connect all parts of your
service organization through knowledge to ensure
delivering a successful end-to-end customer experience.

For more information on this or other research topics, please visit www.aberdeen.com.

Related Research
Agent Desktop Optimization: Three Strategies to Field Service Workforce Management: Empower
Maximize Agent Productivity & Customer Tech 3.0 ; May 2015
Experience; October 2015 Omni-Channel Contact Center: The Smarter Way
Employee Engagement: Paving the Way to Happy to Engage Customers ; November 2014
Customers; September 2015 Key Technologies to Optimize your Agent
Contact Center WFO: How to Balance Customer Desktop ; December 2014
Needs with Agent Productivity; May 2015
Authors: Omer Minkara, Research Director, Contact Center & Customer Experience Management
(omer.minkara@aberdeen.com), LinkedIn, Twitter & Aly Pinder, Senior Research Analyst, Service
Management, (aly.pinder@aberdeen.com ), LinkedIn, Twitter

About Aberdeen Group

Since 1988, Aberdeen Group has published research that helps businesses worldwide improve their performance.
Our analysts derive fact-based, vendor-agnostic insights from a proprietary analytical framework, which identifies
Best-in-Class organizations from primary research conducted with industry practitioners. The resulting research
content is used by hundreds of thousands of business professionals to drive smarter decision-making and improve
business strategy. Aberdeen Group is headquartered in Boston, MA.

This document is the result of primary research performed by Aberdeen Group and represents the best analysis
available at the time of publication. Unless otherwise noted, the entire contents of this publication are copyrighted
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