Yes, they should. However, they should exercise caution and be mindful of utilizing secure, safe, and trusted sources of information to guide their staff, customers, prospects, partners, and providers.
This is an obvious and logical approach as the reputation and core existence of these businesses are built upon the values of Trust, Safety, and Security.
Which types of businesses are we referring to?
Immediate and evident answers include Banks, Financial Institutions, Insurancecompanies, as well as other compliance and risk-driven activities such as healthcare and accounting. Furthermore, industries like aeronautics, construction, and transportation have their own unique compliance requirements, expanding the list beyond the aforementioned sectors.
When customers or prospects inquire about the recommendations of SHA team Knowledge Experts regarding the implementation of AI Conversational Tools and Bots, our stance as Knowledge Management Operational Experts is unequivocal:
AI Bots and Conversational tools can undoubtedly fulfill CSAT, Cost Reduction, Productivity, and Reputation objectives, but only if there is a solid Knowledge Management foundation supporting these AI tools.
And yes, you’re correct in suspecting us of promoting our own business (solid KM), but it is worth noting that independent voices are echoing the same message: “Do not allow your AI-bot to scour uncontrolled areas for information; maintain control and ownership.”
Additionally, it is imperative to ensure the seamless functioning of your data infrastructure (SHA cloud architecture excels in this regard).
For instance,
Gartner recently proclaimed:“By 2025, 100% of generative AI virtual customer assistant and virtual agent assistant projects lacking integration to modern knowledge management systems will fail to meet their customer experience and operational cost-reduction goals.”
According to IDC’s 2024 white paper (IDC #US52048524 sponsored by NetApp), “Around 20% of AI projects may encounter failure without adequate support in data infrastructure,” as revealed by a recent study conducted by intelligent data infrastructure provider NetApp.
SHA is a Knowledge Management System designed and developed by experienced seasoned Customer Service experts who have brought their vision and daily operational experience to deliver a system that enhances Customer Experience, improves Staff Experience, and reduces the cost of service!
For more information on how SHA can support your Customer Service Operations get in touch with us:
SHA is a platform that combines Learning Management functionalities with Knowledge Management tools, or in simpler terms: SHA offers a solution that merges LMS (Learning Management System) functionalities with a KMS (Knowledge Management System).
Introducing Solution Management System (SMS) by SHA, a new concept that simplifies Knowledge and Learning Management:
SMS is the result of combining KMS and LMS.
The SHA platform is for companies that handle a lot of information daily and need to ensure quick and easy access for their teams to share it with customers, prospects, suppliers, etc. These companies understand that knowledge is an essential part of their value and must be managed effectively. Users should also be able to contribute to improving the data by providing their opinions on its relevance.
SHA combines Knowledge Management with advanced Learning Management features by directing users to important content for optimal task performance (Cost, Quality, Velocity).
The sectors that benefit most from these tools are those that interact with customers (Customer Services, Call Center, etc.), but all divisions of a company seeking operational performance optimization are involved.
Through extensive discussions with our customers and prospects, we have identified the different types of content and their volatility over time (an important factor for content management).
The documents are the ones most frequently cited as priority content in KMS and LMS.
Tableau Statique
Category
Types of Documents
Activity Staff
Format
LifeCycle
Policies & Procedures
Employee handbooks, SOPs, guidelines
HR, Admin, Legal, General Affairs
PDF, Word (protected)
Medium (annual updates)
Contracts
Client contracts, vendor agreements
Legal, Sales, Providers, Customers
PDF (protected)
Definitive (rarely updated)
Financial Reports
Balance sheets, income statements, audits
Financial Staff, Admin
XLS, PDF
Medium (quarterly or annual updates)
Marketing Materials
Brochures, campaigns, presentations
Marketing, Sales, Communication, Prospects
PDF, PNG, PPT
Short (frequent updates)
Design Documents
Blueprints, CAD files, design drafts
Design, R&D
CAD, PDF, proprietary
Short (frequent updates)
Production Plans
Schedules, specifications, quality logs
Production, R&D, Customers
XLS, Word
Short (frequent updates)
Customer Records
CRM entries, customer feedback
CS Staff, Sales, Customers
XLS Database export
Medium (periodic updates)
Training Materials
E-learning modules, onboarding guides
HR, Service Staff, General Affairs
PDF, Video, PPT
Medium (review every 1-3 years)
Meeting Records
Agendas, minutes, action items
General Affairs, Admin, All Teams
Word, PDF
Short (specific project cycles)
Legal Filings
Compliance reports, patent filings
Legal, Financial Staff, R&D
PDF, Word
Definitive (rarely updated)
Internal Memos
Announcements, updates, notices
Admin, All Staff
Email, PDF
Short (one-time use)
Service Logs
Maintenance reports, issue tracking
Service Staff, Production
XLS, Word
Medium (regular updates)
Supplier Records
Invoices, delivery logs, contracts
Providers, Financial Staff, Admin
PDF, XLS
Medium (periodic updates)
Employee Records
Performance reviews, payroll, leave forms
HR Staff
XLS, Word
Medium (yearly updates)
R&D Reports
Experiment logs, technical reports
R&D, Design
PDF, XLS
Medium (review post-project or annually)
Key Highlights:
Formats:
The document format often balances usability (e.g., Excel for analysis, PDF for sharing) and security (protected formats for sensitive information).
Life Cycle:
Short: Updated frequently due to dynamic needs, e.g., marketing materials, production plans.
Medium: Updated periodically based on cycles, e.g., training materials, financial reports.
Definitive: Rarely updated, often for records with legal significance, e.g., contracts, legal filings
The most common question our prospects ask is how SHA manages to be efficient by merging two activities that usually require separate platforms.
How does SHA introduce LMS capabilities into a content management KMS platform?
It’s simple, thanks to three main factors:
Consider training content as standard “knowledge” content, even if the format, life cycle, and structure may differ from other content.
Use the Content/User duality, which is one of SHA’s unique features. SHA manages the interactions between content and users, always considering the relevance of the content from the user’s perspective. Did the information help them complete their tasks, or does it need improvement?
Focus on apprenticeship rather than training. Operational managers know that training doesn’t always have an impact, but learning does. Taking a training course doesn’t always lead to progress or improved KPIs, whereas learning with SHA’s quality control and monitoring tools ensures that training brings the expected benefits.
Whether your organization already uses an LMS or not, SHA easily integrates learning content, from structured courses to flash briefs, and helps management teams ensure knowledge acquisition.
If you’re already using Knowledge Management tools without Learning Management features, SHA can easily integrate your existing content and facilitate Knowledge Management while providing the benefits of Learning Management for your teams.
To experience the advantages of unified Business Knowledge and team Learning management, contact our Solution Management System experts. They will share their extensive experience in this field!
SHA is a Knowledge Management System designed and developed by experienced seasoned Customer Service experts who have brought their vision and daily operational experience to deliver a system that enhances Customer Experience, improves Staff Experience, and reduces the cost of service!
For more information on how SHA can support your Customer Service Operations get in touch with us:
Are all Customer Service queries (Pre-Sales, Sales, and Post-Sales) the same across industries and organizations? Let’s first acknowledge that the general requirements for Customer Service are:
Staff with extensive product and process knowledge
Customer-oriented processes and policies
Waiting time (including abandon rate and other operational KPIs)
Empathy (among other soft skills)
Strong leadership from agents to guide customers to the desired solution.
Let’s now try to answer the next question: are those requirements’ expected level of delivery similar across all industries?
The initial answer that comes to mind is that different products/services may require different levels of delivery. However, it’s not necessarily because the products/services are different, but rather the potential consequences of failing to meet the expected level that differentiate businesses.
For example, having an issue with a delivery address can cause a 24-hour delay in delivering a book, which is frustrating for the client. However, a wrong address entry can have severe consequences for an emergency ambulance.
Another factor is the organization’s setup, which means that the ways processes, policies, and product/service knowledge are generated and shared depend on the overall business organization.
For instance, if all business activities are in-house and located in a single location, the workflow for sourcing, authoring, and sharing key information (knowledge) will be completely different compared to an organization with multiple sites and a mix of in-house and outsourced service operations.
The level of compliance and legal constraints can also vary greatly depending on the type of service. Certain markets are subject to strict legal rules and are required to provide information within a specific format.
For example, if you’re selling shoes online or if you’re in the bank loan business, your constraints and corporate liabilities are of a very different nature.
Additionally, some industries have inherently complex processes and must keep track of historical legacy. Keeping track of past policies and long-term procedures requires managing a significant amount of information and knowledge with discipline.
For instance, in the consumer electronics industry, it’s not vital to keep track of the hardware specs of a CD ROM burner a customer purchased 10 years ago, but it is critical for a bank to understand the conditions under which a client was granted a certain mortgage rate 15 years ago.
Now, let’s review what makes Financial Services Customer Support so specific in terms of expectations for Customer Service and what makes Financial Industries (banks, credit providers, insurances, etc.) different in the way they provide information to customers.
At SHA, we worked closely with one of our highly reputed financial institution clients to ensure that our Knowledge Management Solution fits their market-specific quality levels while improving their cost of service and enhancing the staff experience.
So, what is so specific about financial information provision? Based on SHA’s experience, the following points stand out:
Massive volume of information from different data sources and formats. Financial processes often include legacy documentation as well as recently edited documents from legal, financial, commercial, and marketing departments.
Long and complex processes and procedures. This requires special techniques, such as tree-decision flows, to improve communication and interactions with customers. It’s not feasible for Customer Service staff to absorb all the details of each procedure.
Bidding procedures with legal exposure most of the time. Providing inaccurate information can lead to major image and financial risks. If Customer Service is outsourced to a BPO, the content must be validated by in-house experts as critical responsibilities cannot be delegated.
Customer experience affected by being “easy to do business with.” It’s a known fact that Customer Service staff can explain things better and faster when information is presented in a friendly manner.
Difficulty in training and retaining knowledge by users. With volatile product specifications and policy changes, it’s challenging to keep up with knowledge even on basic questions like exchange rates and interest rates.
Addressing 100% of the questions is crucial. Unlike other businesses, even a non-frequently asked question deserves the same attention as the top 10 queries. Public AI knowledge tools cannot be considered safe enough to retrieve critical information.
SHA-SAAS also brings our Customer Expertise to the solution, providing the following areas of opportunities:
Single system to control all processes and procedures. All inputs from legal, marketing, sales, finance, etc. are consolidated into one system with a simple and highly efficient search tool.
Quality control and distribution control. Agent and client experience feedback is used to identify the most difficult-to-understand processes, allowing authors to rework and improve them.
Change management. Knowledge must be dynamic, and ways of providing knowledge require continuous improvement plans for both the knowledge itself and its users.
Creation of formal/approved documentation/standard operation procedures. Thorough approval processes ensure compliance with Financial Institution governance rules, accommodating both simple and complex operation setups.
Integrated training control and planning features. The knowledge is critical, but the usage of knowledge by Customer Service staff is even more important. Advanced training modules, individual customized training programs, and individual knowledge performance monitoring are integrated into the Knowledge Management System.
Gap analysis and suggestions for improvement. Our in-house AI-based Knowledge Management Quality tools enable the detection of low signals of quality drifts in the content and suggest improvements.
SHA clients have enjoyed the following benefits using our Knowledge Management System:
Major reduction of paperwork. Not only eliminating “paper” based knowledge, but also reducing and optimizing process flows in a one-stop-knowledge shop.
Reinforcement and streamlining of approval processes. Alignment of approval processes with Corporate Governance Guidelines, providing a transparent, fast, and thorough workflow for authoring knowledge.
Reduction of “in class” training needs. Reduced training duration for new staff and update training, leading to higher productivity per head and better synchronicity with new products and policy announcements.
Improvement in troubleshooting accuracy and reduction in invested time. Better information provided to Customer Service teams leads to better productivity.
Improvement of Customer Experience and Staff Experience. Accurate, up-to-date information provision and efficient guidance result in an improved experience for both customers and staff.
Generic Requirements
SHA Features & Benefits
Financial Services CS Fit
Staff with top product and process knowledge:
Core Knowledge Management with integrated Training Feature
supports multi-format information and ensures freshness of data used by Customer Service teams. It is a perfect fit for in-house core validation governance with remote BPO operations.
Integrated Customer Service staff feedback on the Knowledge Management System and SHA coaching module enable continuous staff improvements.
Clear explanations are essential for complex financial processes.
Waiting time
Reduced call duration with easy-to-find accurate information improves operational efficiency,
Crucial for cost-efficient financial operations
Empathy (within other soft skills):
Well-trained Customer Service staff provided with clear support information can focus on customer satisfaction and improve retention and acquisition.
Customer satisfaction has become a strong differentiator as financial services customers are becoming more volatile with the growth of online banking and insurance offerings.
Agent strong leadership to guide customers to the expected solution or offering:
Staff training and education focus shifts to call flow management rather than pure hard knowledge. Individual and team training track monitoring reinforces the quality of interactions with clients and prospects, leading to cost reduction and revenue growth through
First-time resolution for support and conversion rate, up and cross sales for commercial interactions.
Table1: quick summary of SHA KMS fit with Financial Services CS needs.
In conclusion, while Financial Services requires the basic Customer Service requirements to be fulfilled, there are additional elements that must be considered and addressed. SHA’s Knowledge Management System delivers these elements in a practical and cost-effective manner.
And if SHA excels in delivering the most demanding expectations, it is also a great fit for all other markets with different levels of expected performance.
SHA is a Knowledge Management System designed and developed by experienced seasoned Customer Service experts who have brought their vision and daily operational experience to deliver a system that enhances Customer Experience, improves Staff Experience, and reduces the cost of service!
For more information on how SHA can support your Customer Service Operations get in touch with us:
Can Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) really save the day for Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives? Let’s dive into the action-packed world of possibilities!
1. Environmental Sustainability:
Sustainable Practices: KMS spreads the word on sustainable practices, like reducing paper usage and recycling, while embracing renewable energy sources. It’s like a green cape for the planet!
Energy Efficiency: KMS swoops in to share best practices and innovative ideas for energy efficiency, fighting wasteful villains and reducing carbon emissions like a true superhero!
2. Social Responsibility:
Knowledge Sharing for Social Causes: KMS becomes the ultimate sidekick, sharing information and resources on social causes, diversity programs, and philanthropy. Together, they fight for a better world!
Employee Well-being: KMS provides a secret stash of resources on health, safety, work-life balance, and professional development, ensuring employees have the superpowers to thrive!
3. Governance and Ethics:
Compliance and Risk Management: KMS gathers all the intel on compliance requirements, regulatory changes, and risk management protocols, protecting organizations from the evil clutches of legal and reputational risks!
Ethical Decision-Making: KMS becomes the guardian of ethical guidelines, codes of conduct, and corporate values, ensuring organizations stay on the path of righteousness!
4. Data Transparency and Reporting:
ESG Reporting: KMS assembles all the data and performance metrics across environmental, social, and governance dimensions, creating a powerful report that shines a light on the heroic efforts of organizations!
Stakeholder Engagement: KMS fosters communication and collaboration with stakeholders, building trust and forming alliances with investors, customers, employees, and communities. Together, they conquer the world!
In the epic battle for ESG objectives, KMS emerges as the ultimate hero, promoting environmental sustainability, social responsibility, ethical governance, and transparent reporting. With knowledge management tools and practices, organizations can unleash their superpowers and create a brighter future for all!
SHA is the perfect solution to strengthen your ESG strategy, for more information get in touch with us:
Few minutes each days can build hours of monthly training!
Hot off the press: SHA Knowledge Management has received some juicy feedback from their clients about integrating training in a KMS.
The clients were like, “Hey, it’s a great idea, but wouldn’t it be even cooler if Management could keep tabs on how much time each individual spends on those trainings?” We were like, “You know what? That’s a brilliant suggestion!”
So, we made it happen, and now Team Leaders, Account Managers, Operational Directors, and HR executives can have a blast checking out the Educational Time with just a click.
Oh, and here’s a little secret: in certain countries (looking at you, France, but not excluding others), certified training centers have to keep track of the Learner Satisfaction Index (LSAT) to get those sweet subsidies. But guess what? We’ve made managing and reporting LSAT assessments a piece of cake with our training survey module. We’re not just closing the loop on training quality; we’re tying it up with a fancy bow!
Creating, completing, compiling, and analyzing are all as easy as pie.
So, get ready to dive headfirst into the world of SHA surveys and our Training Quiz. It’s like a wild rollercoaster ride packed with mind-blowing insights, sky-high satisfaction, and a whole lot of laughs!
You’ll also stumble upon another code name for it: The Learner Satisfaction Index (LSI), which is like a secret decoder ring for measuring learner happiness and contentment. It’s used by educational institutions, training programs, and e-learning platforms to gauge how stoked learners are with their learning experiences. It’s like a satisfaction score that uncovers hidden treasures of improvement. So, buckle up and get ready for an adventure of a lifetime with SHA!
Level up your coaching sessions and unlock the superpowers of SHA’s integrated coaching features.
Image by gstudioimagen on Freepik
For those who, like us, believe that coaching is the secret sauce to fix Customer Service operations, SHA swoops in to save the day!
Say goodbye to:
Quality issues like an increase in repeated calls rate.
Customer experience issues like incorrect or incomplete solutions.
Productivity issues like call duration drifts.
With SHA, you’ll become the superhero of knowledge management, creating improvement plans for KB users and saving the world from content chaos.
Training and coaching are your trusty sidekicks, helping you close the loop and conquer any challenge. Let’s dive into a (not so) imaginary business case and unleash your coaching superpowers!
Meet Peter Tek, the rookie contact center agent fresh out of onboarding training.
Armed with a technical background, Peter has been assigned to the prestigious technical team.
However, trouble lurks in the shadows as his quality coach has detected some chinks in his armor while listening to a few calls.
The coach has also taken a peek at Peter’s SHA Knowledge Base usage and confirmed that Peter needs to pay more attention to administrative policies instead of relying solely on his technical prowess.
Brace yourselves for the shocking revelations from Peter’s SHA KB usage reporting:
Stellar follow-up on tech training.
Lackluster usage of the KB for policy content.
And a disappointing performance in policy update training.
Image by vectorjuice on Freepik
But wait, there’s more!
During the coach’s undercover mission of call monitoring, they stumbled upon a few calls that seemed to last longer than a Marvel movie.
Why, you ask? Peter’s hesitation with administrative details left callers hanging, resulting in a second call for help.
Fear not, for the coach has prepared a top-secret coaching session form integrated in SHA. This form will be shared with Peter, outlining the good, the bad, and the ugly, and setting the stage for improvement.
And here’s the cherry on top: the coach can sprinkle some magic training articles into Peter’s curriculum using the “push” feature.
Witness the wonders of SHA’s short training modules in a previous publication and get ready to save the day!
As most of tools existing for quite a while, Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) were recently challenged by tools that looked more dynamic and more adapted to current tech trends: CHATBOT for example were expected to take over the support of clients having all kind of questions & queries.
Image by kjpargeter on Freepik
After a few years of hype, where do we stand?
Facts:
Let’s look at the bright side first:
Yes, CHABOT are up and running 7 days a week
Yes, CHABOT can address some easy to ask and easy to analyse queries. It is important to note that those queries have to be easy ones – means the customer have to ask those queries in a very simple manner, so the bot replying, will not get lost with too many words …
BUT
Facts again:
Studies shown that users don’t like to get support from bots (and very probably it is because they could not get proper answers from them…) Recent studies (ie study from Statista.com) found that the huge majority of customers (rough average 80%) prefer human interaction to AI driven interfaces as chatbot.
More studies forecast that bot assistants lacking integration with Knowledge Systems will NOT bring the expected CS and savings.
Very few businesses require 24/7 replies on queries, and when there is a critical need (health, security, financial transactions for instance) most of the time it is low volume and high quality required so human interfaces have to be there.
So KMS seems to be considered as the fundamental foundation which should not be neglected for both human and virtual Customer Support.
Designed by rawpixel.com / Freepik
Knowledge Management: a fundamental element that is here to stay?
No surprise that some other studies shows that KM has a bright future to help and support human beings (but not only) to reply accurately and consistently to queries from other precious human beings: customers and prospects.
Gartner found that 74% of Customer Support Professionals mentioned improving knowledge and content to their customers and employees as a priority.
There is a spot for bots and probably in the forthcoming years, technology will evolve so the current rejection could reduce. But we also need to consider that robots need to be fed, and when they’ll be working better, they’ll need to use some fundamental pieces of knowledge, and they’ll find in your KMS.
The days IA/Bots/ML will create their own knowledge (and mimic the current knowledge life cycle and workflow: identification of need, authoring, validating, monitoring, improving, and managing obsolescence…) are not there yet. And when it will happen, we’ll still have to ensure that 2 different lines of code would not generate 2 different solutions to similar queries just because some synonyms were used…
Some advices from the Customer Support Experts at SHA:
Start today with a KMS solution that will enable you to create, maintain and monitor your enterprise knowledge for your contact center staff as well as for your digital virtual agents, today and tomorrow!
Video might have killed the video stars some years ago (same as streaming has killed some others) but LPs are still there and Chatbot did not killed KMS, just made their existence more critical and more visible…
If you need to set up a KMS from scratch or move your existing KMS to a much more agile and cost-efficient system, have a look at what SHA can provide you!
Knowledge Management System Return on Investment (aka KMS ROI) … trust me, with such a headline it can be difficult to attract someone’s interest, we all keen on reading easy stuff and learn new things and much less likely to read complex calculations that are not fitting our business specifics (and we ALL have our own specific business, don’t we?)
So instead of writing a nice and long article on the hidden benefits of KMS or a very comprehensive suite of questions to estimate what could be the ROI (basically, when would your KMS bring tangible, monetized value to your business) we decided to play an easy game: just allocate points to each of the 10 features below
0 point if you believe this item is irrelevant to your business
1 point if you believe this item is of low importance to your business
2 points if you trust this item is important to your business
3 points if you strongly believe this item is totally critical to your business
And to have a proper evaluation: provide DELTA in the second column to evaluate how far you think you are from where you’d like to be. (using the same logic with points: 0 is low, 3 is high)
“your business” is not restricted to your bottom line, your sales number, but you’d agree that the your business’ ultimate value is made of a lot of others items such as: brand image, product innovation, customer experience, talent retention, financial health…
Irrespective of how you performed this test, just contact us at SHA, we have extensive business experience on how KMS can support your business and operations and get a fairly good estimate on how quickly you can achieve a proper ROI using KMS (it can be a few weeks!)
