Road Map for Implementing Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS)

Introduction

Knowledge-Centered Support^SM (KCS^SM) can be the catalyst for huge gains in call center efficiency and capacity metrics. This world-class methodology enables the efficient capture, reuse and publication of knowledge. This paper describes implementation experiences my colleagues and I at Stone Cobra have had deploying KCS^SM principles and methodologies. It discusses the challenges that have been faced and how the hurdles were overcome.

Mapping Call Center Processes

The starting point for any KCS^SM project is creating a baseline. This includes flowcharting both the perceived (stated) and the actual processes along with current metrics. Most call center managers are tracking standard metrics such as First Call Resolution Percentage, Percentage of Calls Escalated and Monthly Call Volumes. The perceived process is what management believes is happening or how the call center was designed to operate. This flow may already be documented in training materials. To flow chart the actual processes, you will have to be an observer and ask many questions. There is no substitute for doing this on the call center floor. Perceived and actual processes are seldom the same. The delta reflects the workarounds that have crept in over time or in some cases just laziness. If you see stacks of binders and reams of sticky notes with phone numbers, it is likely that workarounds are in place. Agents have figured out that it is faster to have their own binders to look up information than it is to use the system as designed. The purpose of mapping out the processes is not to pass judgment but rather to understand precisely what is happening.

Identifying the Bottlenecks

The next step is to analyze the current situation for bottlenecks and to understand the agent’s pain. Sometimes the bottleneck and the pain are one and the same. Often though, the root cause of the problem is not readily apparent on the first pass. KCS^SM is a methodology that needs to be adapted to each unique situation. Companies vary dramatically in regard to culture and business drivers, so there is no such thing as a rubber stamp fix. However, there are almost always a few commonalities. These are review/publication queue overload, the inability to find content, the need to increase call center capacity and motivating people to create and reuse content.

Review/Publication Queue Overload

Recently I spoke with a tech reviewer that had 600 articles for review in his queue. The backlog was two months and growing. The situation was constantly exasperated by people inquiring when their article would be reviewed. The agent was frustrated as there was no real way for him to ever catch up.

Both KCS^SM and Lean Six Sigma perspectives can provide relief for this situation. A basic tenet of Lean Six Sigma is to decide if there are any steps in the process that are not necessary. KCS^SM provides an excellent framework for helping to make the evaluation. It turns out that 80% of solution documents will never be used again. Both the review and the publication of these documents are not necessary. In my example, the review of 480 of the 600 solution documents is a time wasting activity. Of course, the trick is to figure out the 120 that should be reviewed. KCS^SM lays out content reuse as a metric. In most call centers agents can search solution documents that are pending review. As these documents are accessed, a counter is incremented. The documents with the highest use then float to the top of the queue for review.

KCS^SM also embraces the concept of licensing agents with different rights. Some agents upstream of the reviewer can be given the rights to bypass the review process and publish themselves. This decreases the number of documents that initially enter into the reviewer’s queue.

Inability to Find Content

When content can’t be found there are typically three root causes. Let’s examine the causes and possible solutions.

• Root Cause 1: Your Company has a limited amount of content already created. Even with the best search tools, most searches would return “item not found.” Typically this is what I call the binder syndrome. Some form of basic call tracking system such as Remedy or Siebel is installed but agents solve problems using binders and with conversations between other agents. Some solution documents are being created in a program like Primus but with limited search capability.

  The solution for this scenario involves both process and technology. A Search and Knowledgebase System needs to be implemented that both meets the needs of the business organization and that can provide the sophisticated search of documents required for reuse of existing solutions. There are currently eight companies that are KCS^SM verified and a growing number entering the verification process. This means these companies can provide at least 90% of the recommended KCS^SM functionalities. A vendor independent consultant should be hired to scope and recommend the best technologies to implement.

• Root Cause 2: Your Company has a significant amount of data but the tools are not available to adequately search the database. Some content gaps exist. The data may be stored on Media Servers or Lotus Notes databases that your content crawlers are not able to access.

  This is a common scenario. The call center is well run, content creation processes are in place but the technology, especially the search technology is weak. Look to companies like InQuira, Knova and Talisma to provide the missing pieces. Adding in Analytics technology pieces will quickly identify the missing gaps in content. Analytics provide a myriad of data views regarding content use and publication.

• Root Cause 3: Your Company has a mature product with massive amounts of information. Tremendous amounts of duplicate and marginal quality content exist. Searches return too many documents and call agents are not sure what solutions to use.

  In this scenario, processes need to be established to review, clean up and/or eliminate documents, phase out unused or outdated documents and define the process for creating better documents going forward.

The Need to Increase Call Center Capacity

Every call center manager I have met is in the same scenario. They are being asked to keep constant or reduce staffing while the sales of the organization increase. In other words, they need to create more capacity with what they have. KCS^SM can help with this scenario on a number of levels.

With good content and search processes in place, the duplication of solutions will be minimized. Each time agents are able to “reuse” a solution capacity is increased via speed to closure.

The goal is not to eliminate support staff but rather leverage their abilities and/or free up time to work on more complex issues. Ideally at least one agent can then spend time in the role of a Knowledge Domain Expert (KDE). This person analyzes trends and clusters of support issues. He/She then creates high value content that leverages the classic 80/20 rules. 80% of the support tickets are often caused by 20% of the problems.

Capacity improvement can be tracked as a metric such as “Total Number of Agents to Revenue”. If the company is growing, customer satisfaction remains the same or improves and the headcount remains constant then capacity is increasing. Capacity can also be increased by call deflection. This is one of the most exciting aspects of KCS^SM. Call deflection solves problems before they ever reach the agent. This is accomplished via an outward facing knowledgebase. For example, a customer submits a trouble ticket via a web site. The call deflection system intercepts the request, searches the database with the problem description that the customer has written in his/her own words. Possible solutions are then emailed. If the solution is not acceptable to the customer, the ticket then moves to the call center agent. Call deflection can solve up to 70% of the web generated trouble tickets. 70% is probably the exception rather than the norm but certainly 30-50% self-solve rates are attainable. Multiply these high deflection rates by savings of $15 a call and the return on investment is easy to see. A key underlying factor is how fast the content is being published. Most complaints on a given issue will peak in the first 30 days. If the time to publication is 90 minutes, your company is in good shape. If your time to publication is four months, then the value of the solution article is greatly diminished. You may want to consider an aggressive Stone Cobra out-of-the-box tactic for publication. In this scenario, solutions are published as rapidly as possible and it is then Legal’s responsibility to keep up with the review process. Again, the after publication queue flowing back to legal can be prioritized by the use count of each solution document.

Motivating Call Center Agents to Create and Reuse Content

Implementing KCS^SM can be broken into three facets; Change in Processes; Technology Upgrades and Cultural Shifts. The first two require a lot of planning and work but are simply analysis, design and execution. The third, cultural, is the real challenge on many levels.

Any company can mandate employees to operate in a particular fashion. However, getting compliance and compliance with quality are two different ball games. Employees move in the direction of incentives. How employees are incented in regard to KCS^SM is a big driver of success or failure.

It is easy to “game” any performance metric. If bonuses are tied to “number of calls closed”, agents will sacrifice quality for speed. They may have to deal with a higher number of complaints but quickly learn that the agent with highest number of closed calls gets the largest bonus. If bonuses are tied to creating content, then lots of content of dubious quality gets created. KCS^SM provides a solution to this dilemma by recommending that agents be incentivized across multiple performance metrics. These metrics should be in balance with each other. All agents should be participating in both the creation and reuse of content. The ratio of these actions will depend on the product being supported. A new release will of course have a higher percentage of new content being crated. Random samples of content should be graded against a quality matrix on an ongoing basis.

Tips from the Field

Choose multiple measurements from the following list to prevent gaming. Give weights to each one so there is a balanced scorecard that reflects the needs of your organization.

• Incidents Closed
• New Documents Created
• Current Solutions Reused
• Reviewed/Published
• Solution Quality Index (Duplicates, Incompletes, etc.)
• Ratio of New to Reuse
• Solutions Modified
• Average Time to Resolution

If data values are normalized to 1, then a radar chart (easily made in Excel) will provide a nice graphical view of a balanced effort. If a particular metric is being gamed, it becomes readily apparent.

Creating Return on Investment (ROI)

When call deflection is implemented, each hour of a call center agent’s time creating a solution document is highly leveraged. Not only will internal agents benefit but the number of self-service customers will continue to increase. The Consortium for Service Innovation believes that when a customer can find the answers they need at least 50% of the time via self service, that customer will return again to the knowledgebase.
Traditional Lean Six Sigma tools such as Pareto Charts and Fishbone Diagrams along with Cause and Effect matrices can be utilized to find the biggest bang for the buck.

Summary

With good scoping and planning upfront, KCS^SM can dramatically increase call center capacity and improve customer satisfaction. Creativity and persistence is required to overcome process, technology and cultural challenges. The rewards far outweigh the effort. It is not necessary to change the whole world at once. Just fixing the bottleneck of overloaded review queues can quickly get solutions published with immediate ROI.

Resources

For a more detailed discussion of KCS^SM, I recommend a downloadable primer written by the Service Innovation Organization.

About the Author

Randy Ross is a Senior Implementation Manager at Stone Cobra in Rocklin, California. He is a KCS^SM advocate and a Lean Six Sigma Champion. Please send email to rross at stonecobra dot com or visit kcs.stonecobra.com, where you may download whitepapers, training materials and join KCS^SM community discussions. KCS^SM is a registered service mark of the Consortium for Service Innovation.