A major telecom was undergoing a significant transition. Faced with increasing competition they needed to cut costs and attempt to improve customer service. A strategy consulting firm suggested that they consolidate their small business customer service call centers from over thirty different ones to a single access point. In the process, they could significantly reduce their call center staff, cutting costs.
The only problem with this approach is that now the remaining call center people would only know less than one thirtieth of their job, having to cover the over thirty areas instead of their original one. The normal training period for a new area was 12 weeks of classroom instruction followed by months of on-the-job coaching. This would mean that it would be well into the next century or two before the agents knew how to service the different areas. So it was decided to greatly reduce time spent in the class room by building a knowledge management system that had much of what the call center reps needed in an easily accessed format.
The business case was two-part, a reduction in time spent in the class room and a reduction in the learning curve back on the job. This is a common business case for call center knowledge systems. The other business case was the fact that without the knowledge support, the proposed transformation of the call centers would not be practical and those benefits unrealized. This system was very well received by the agents and it did ease the pain of the transition. It was eventually adopted across much of the enterprise beyond its initial implementation for business customers.
However, it could have been more. The business units championed the knowledge management effort. They controlled HR and brought it along; however, the IT organization was very powerful and severely limited the technology that could be used, so the implementation did not have the fullest possible effect. It remained primarily a text-based look-up system, a huge improvement over what had been available but one that could have gone further.
Despite these limitations, the system continued to be improved over time. I had the fortune to be able to return some years later to look at its effectiveness as an upgrade was being considered. It turned out to have a very tangible impact on a number of key call center measures (e.g., cross-selling success, escalations to supervisor, repeat calls, etc.).
We were able to determine a clear impact because the call monitoring system used by supervisors allowed you to both see the rep’s computer screen and hear the conversation between the rep and the customer. With this input you could clearly see if the knowledge management system was being used. This way you could segment the calls into those where the knowledge management system was used and those were it was not used. Then you could compare these two groups of calls on performance on the call center business measures such as those I mentioned above. In this way you could attribute significant positive financial impact to the use of the knowledge management system even with its relatively limited functionality.
It remains one of the most tangible examples of knowledge management financial benefits that I know. These benefits were also incremental to the original business case of reducing the learning curve, but certainly consistent with it. This consistency is supported by the fact that the benefits of the knowledge management system appeared to be even more pronounced in call centers with higher turn over, especially those that are outsourced.
In addition to the positive financial metrics, focus groups with the reps were a testimony to its value. They said if it was not for the knowledge management system, everyone would be forced to make up answers, put people on hold to go to supervisors, or other bad consequences. Several people said that you might as well just close the center. They loved to complain about the difficult navigation and the non-intuitive search function, but they all relied on it every day, especially the high performers.
Lessons Learned:
What was Done Right:
Listen to the Users
Align Knowledge Applications to Key Business Goals and Process
Develop a Clear Business Case
Design Measures Aligned to Business Processes
Simplify the Access of Knowledge
What was Could Have Been Done Better:
Gain and Enlist Top Down Support to Overcome Turf Issues
This is somewhat consistent with the last case, except that enough support was available to move to implementation. It is once again ironic that this example, like the first one, does not have the most comprehensive and creative design. The most advanced design was contained in the second one that never got beyond the prototype. In all three cases so far, it is the quality of the leadership which is the critical success factor.
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