Why organizations must ”do something” with knowledge management
The term knowledge management is most likely one you hear often within organizations. You have to do something with it. But what? And what does the reality look like in many companies?
Knowledge is often scattered throughout the organization. Why? Because it is in the heads of employees. Then, when a customer or employee question needs to be answered, a round of different colleagues is the result. There is an unnecessarily long search for information if there is already a colleague who knows the answer. In fact, it also happens that a search must be made in one of the systems the organization uses.
But what if that knowledgeable colleague leaves the organization and has not transferred anything before then? That’s a missed opportunity. A shame. We asked customer contact consultant and knowledge manager Ger Koedam why organizations should “do something” with knowledge management.
What is knowledge management?
”Well-established knowledge management allows an organization to answer customer and employee questions properly and validated at once.”
But what exactly is “knowledge management”? “In practical terms, it is a process by which you secure knowledge in an organization and then cleverly distribute it so that relevant knowledge is available to everyone at the right time and place,” Koedam says.
“Compare it to a library. When you walk into it, you know there is a lot of information. But what you see are books. Not yet directly applicable knowledge. If you want to find that, you will first have to look for that one book that contains the answer to your question. And you don’t just have to look for that book; you have to look in the table of contents, you have to flip to the right page, and then while reading, you have to look for the answer.
In short, a long process with quite a few steps that takes up a lot of your time. If you set up knowledge management properly, you are able to find and use applicable knowledge in one go with a few simple clicks of the mouse.”
But what exactly is “knowledge management”? “In practical terms, it is a process by which you secure knowledge in an organization and then cleverly distribute it so that relevant knowledge is available to everyone at the right time and place,” Koedam says.
“Compare it to a library. When you walk into it, you know there is a lot of information. But what you see are books. Not yet directly applicable knowledge. If you want to find that, you will first have to look for that one book that contains the answer to your question. And you don’t just have to look for that book; you have to look in the table of contents, you have to flip to the right page, and then while reading, you have to look for the answer.
In short, a long process with quite a few steps that takes up a lot of your time. If you set up knowledge management properly, you are able to find and use applicable knowledge in one go with a few simple clicks of the mouse.”
Why knowledge management?
Knowledge management prevents knowledge from disappearing from an organization or having to keep reinventing the wheel, as in the library example. It helps employees quickly find an answer to that one important question from a customer or colleague.
But there are several reasons why organizations should deploy it. We name four.
Answering customer questions efficiently
Customers ask questions. And that’s fine, because it shows that they are interested in your organization. But such a customer does expect a good answer at once. And if these are common questions, they can usually be answered quickly and well with a standard answer. However, it becomes different if it is not a standard question. Even then, an answer has to come from somewhere. What you as a customer service employee would rather not say then, is: “Good question, I’m going to find out for you, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible”. Because if that “as soon as possible” is not fast enough, the customer will ring the bell again via telephone, e-mail or other customer contact channels.
”If you apply knowledge management properly with software, for example a knowledge base, you make it possible to answer even more difficult customer questions right the first time, without having to go through the company and among colleagues. And then history doesn’t repeat itself when the same question is asked again three weeks later,” Koedam explains.
Uniform responses through every channel
”And how nice would it be if that same customer does not contact a customer service representative, but finds the answer at once on the organization’s website. Surely that is much nicer than sending an e-mail, waiting three days for an answer or standing in a telephone queue for a long time only to be told after live contact that you will be called back.”
Koedam says this is possible with a knowledge management system, in which you store all knowledge centrally and make it accessible to anyone who needs it. Why centrally? It still happens that organizations maintain separate databases containing knowledge for each customer contact channel. This is not only a lot of work, but also prone to errors.
If you use one central source, then you can be sure that answers through different channels are always the same. Connecting all those systems has long since ceased to be as difficult and costly as it used to be. And knowledge can be made available at different levels. For example, one article can contain information, 80% of which can be found on a website and the other 20% is only available to customer service agents.
For organizations that want to go one step further, an additional option is a software robot. That can review incoming e-mail, check to see if there is an appropriate response in the knowledge management system and then send a response in a fully automated manner.
”This way, you not only ensure that processes are more efficient, but also that you provide uniform answers through all customer contact channels. For both customer and employee, processes become clearer and more efficient. And you build a consistent brand experience.”
Making business processes more efficient
Using a knowledge management system also has another added benefit. “Of course it is nice that answers to questions can be found quickly, but if the same question is asked 10 times a day, that also says something. You might just have to adjust a process as an organization, by changing text or providing more information. So knowledge management also provides insight,” Koedam says.
Faster onboarding of new employees
Organizations cannot avoid inducting new staff. A knowledge management system can provide important support there as well. Especially if there is a high turnover of employees. A well-designed system allows them to be inducted quickly, because content from the knowledge management system could, of course, also be an e-learning or handbook.
In an average customer service department, the familiarization process can be as short as two to six months before an employee can start working independently. New people mainly have questions. And these questions are answered by colleagues who have been working a little longer. So two people are needed for knowledge sharing. If you replace part of this process with a knowledge management system, then the new employee will have his own point of inquiry. And the helping colleague can get on with his own work. 
”Knowledge in the right place gives unambiguous answers” – Mediq
A great example of successfully designed knowledge management is Mediq. Within this organization, validated information is sometimes literally a matter of life and death. Mediq has used knowledge management to organise its processes in such a way that all employees now always know what is going on in the organisation and can quickly access the correct information. And that in several physically separate locations, where information was scattered across different departments. Mediq uses knowledge management for five key pillars:
- On boarding of new employees
- Knowledge sharing within the organization
- Validated responses across all channels and from all countries
- Specific medical instructions always properly carried out
- Self-service via website
Read more about the Mediq customer case here.
Companies’ biggest pitfalls in knowledge management
So is knowledge management always a bed of roses? Koedam is clear on that: “no.”
”Sometimes people don’t give much thought to what is involved when you start doing something with knowledge management. Often it starts with awareness within the organization, creating support and setting up your business processes so that your organization can grow from it.”
No support
The most important thing within an organization is that everyone initially realizes that knowledge management is necessary. Because the moment an organization does not realize that, then it is a nice term and implementing a knowledge base is wonderful, but no one is going to do anything with it.
No knowledge team
In addition to creating support, it is important to assemble a team to work on the knowledge management system. This can be existing employees who are assigned additional tasks, as well as new employees. If you do not have that dedicated team, a knowledge base will quickly become outdated and new content will not be added. Before you know it, you’ll be back to square one and everyone will proverbially go back to the library.
Copy and paste existing content into the new system
“We already have some kind of knowledge base, in the form of SharePoint or a Wiki page. We can simply put that content into the new system, right?” Technically that is certainly possible, but the question is whether it is smart. Garbage in is garbage out, might be the case here. In the beginning you save time, but in the long run you can invest that time again in questions from people, because they can’t find the answer. After all, they couldn’t in the old system either. Why should they be able to in a new knowledge base if it contains the same old content?
Why businesses can’t do without it
”Knowledge management helps organizations get a little better every time. It provides insight into customer queries and business processes and ensures their efficient handling. It also ensures uniform answers via every customer contact channel and employees are trained faster. Provided, of course, that knowledge management is properly set up with a knowledge management system to match.
Perhaps I can help you get started with this. Feel free to contact me for a conversation.”
Why businesses can’t do without it
”Knowledge management helps organizations get a little better every time. It provides insight into customer queries and business processes and ensures their efficient handling. It also ensures uniform answers via every customer contact channel and employees are trained faster. Provided, of course, that knowledge management is set up properly with a knowledge management system to match.
Perhaps I can help you get started with this. Feel free to contact me for a conversation.”
Want to know more about knowledge management in your organization?
Download your free whitepaper here. In this whitepaper we tell you how knowledge management can be a complementary application within your organization and give you 5 tips on how to complete a knowledge base completely and correctly.
Want to know more about knowledge management in your organization?
Download your free whitepaper here. In this whitepaper we tell you how knowledge management can be a complementary application within your organization and give you 5 tips on how to complete a knowledge base completely and correctly.
