Introduction
If Knowledge Management is based on the idea that an organization’s most valuable asset is the knowledge of its people and if we accept the fact that Knowledge freshness can be volatile then it becomes clear that both Knowledge Management and Learning Management are to be considered together.
Operational Context: what are the issues?
When running a Contact Center Operation, the relation between Knowledge and Learning is even more critical:
Once the initial and fundamental trainings are delivered, how to ensure your teams’ knowledge keep up with new information, changes, update?
How to avoid to pile up the necessary updates in one regular training session (ie 1hr per week or half a day per month), stuffing the staff with a lot of new things at the same time, and with little or no chance to digest the info?
Knowledge content changes every day, product specs, processes, regulations, business rules, opening hours, financial conditions, software versions just any piece of knowledge is bound to become obsolete one day.… |  |
As a result it is difficult for customer fronting staff managers to keep their team knowledge up to date.
Operational and Financial impact
The regular training updates, (are they short and weekly or long and monthly), bring constraints and costs such as having staff not productive for hours, training room, trainers, support materials…
| To make it even worse, those update sessions are most of the time a compilation of a lot of different topics: new product specs, new legislation impact, new process, new application version, new… |  |
It can be hard for contact center agents (for anyone!) to digest in one batch a lot of updates on a lot of different topics. It is also very well known that it is difficult to get trainees full attention and focus if there are a lot of different subjects to be covered in a short time.
Real time can be critical:
Regular consolidated updates can’t be real time by essence. So info freshness is at risk and communication to clients can be obsolete during a few days, meaning some customers might be given wrong info for a while.
In the other hand providing updates in advance, before the changes are implemented can also be misleading and confidentiality has also to be considered: some info can be under embargo (till they are live) like: product new specs, new price list, promotion…
Home working:
Today’s natural trend to favour Home Working can make the situation worse, it can be difficult to ensure that everyone is aware that they have news in the mail box which requires attention!
Knowledge Quality:
Knowledge Quality is extremely dependant on its freshness: Knowledge is alive, Training is its heart and KMS is its blood…
One strong point having a Knowledge Management System (KMS) is to get feedback on the content, so authors, writers can amend and improve their articles and make them easier to understand and to share.
In the contact center daily context, it is easy to understand that an agent looking for a solution in the KMS will not spend a lot of time about what could be done to improve the article, he’ll (rightly) focus on the customer experience not on the knowledge improvement.
When reading a training update during a quiet time during the day, the agent is not under the same immediate delivery stress so not only he can read and absorb better the content he’s submitted but he’s more likely to provide useful and relevant comments to the article.
Conclusion (and Solution)
We at SHA, led by experience, strongly believe Training, Learning and Knowledge Sharing are tightly interconnected.
This means that both Knowledge Sharing and Training have to be considered together.
We’d all agree that fundamental, theoretical, specialised trainings require hours/days and most of the time require classroom setup, but Knowledge update, process adjustments, products specification upgrade and the likes can fit in a totally different and far more efficient format.
That’s why SHA has developed a Training Module to “Close the Loop”
With SHA Training Update Module solution you will:
- Avoid double flow management (training delivery and content sharing) for new updated, adjusted knowledge workflow.
- Free up your training resources (trainers, equipment, rooms…) from the heavy load of minor training updates.
- Keep your agent productive and focused during the peak periods.
- Provide your agent guidance and support to absorb new things at the right moment.
- Track and monitor training progresses and fix potential stress areas within the team
- Provide your team more time and thoughts to give feedback on existing solution, hence enhance the content!
- Manage your knowledge freshness and deliver real time up to date solutions to your clients and prospects.
Contact us to see more about SHA!
SHA put together your massive Knowledge Encyclopaedia and your Real Time Training News Feed, in one app!
Never let your precious knowledge get obsolete!
Use SHA KMS Training Module and close the loop!
