How Knowledge Management Improves Customer Engagement?

Building a positive customer experience is one of the most critical priorities for business today. Meaningful customer engagement and superior customer experience are among the de facto demands from customers.

According to a PwC study, 73% of customers say an excellent customer experience influences their loyalty to a particular brand. 

At the same time, 81% of companies believe that customer experience can emerge as a competitive differentiator.

As consumers engage with their favorite brands, the quality of their experience defines the road ahead for the relationship. As customer service is primarily based on knowledge exchange, organizations aiming to improve customer engagement must ensure efficient knowledge-sharing practices across the organization. 

Top 5 ways knowledge management improves customer engagement

1. Eliminates data silos and brings information under a single source of truth

One of the biggest challenges in delivering great customer service is data silos. When knowledge is scattered across multiple sources, customer service agents take longer than usual to search for the proper knowledge. 

Due to time crunch and information overload, they fail to deliver satisfactory customer service. 

However, Knowmax’s knowledge base comes with a google-like elastic search function that delivers contextual knowledge to agents at their fingertips. 

As an agent starts searching, the meta tags displayed with the keywords help identify if a particular content piece is an article, FAQ, picture guide, or a guided workflow. 

Agents can also search for any content within the documents with an in-document search and access relevant knowledge without wading through the lengthy text documents. 

A knowledge management solution with advanced search capabilities increases the findability and searchability of information and empowers agents to engage meaningfully with customers throughout their journey. 

2. Creates omnichannel customer experiences

Imagine this scenario

A customer who wants to cancel her hotel room booking checks the FAQ section on the company’s help center to learn about the refund policy and cancellation process. 

The website mentions a 50% refund for cancellations made one month in advance (for example, if a customer cancels a booking made for September in August, they are eligible for a 50% refund). 

As the customer cancels the bookings, she needs help understanding the cancellation process and calls customer support for assistance. 

As she details the agent about her problem, the agent offers help while informing her of the new refund policies, according to which she is eligible for a 25% refund. 

The customer gets the booking canceled anyway but is frustrated with the conflicting information held with the agent and website. 

Disintegrated channels hamper customer engagement, a situation many organizations struggle with. 

According to a CCW digital survey, contact center leaders identify disintegrated systems as the #1 cause of poor productivity, technology challenges, and agent complaints. 

With disintegrated channels, customers are forced to repeat information as they switch from one channel to another, and agents cannot meet customers’ expectations for a low-effort, seamless experience across touchpoints. 

A centralized knowledge repository maintains the consistency of information across touchpoints. The customer receives the same information regardless of the touchpoint; chat, email, phone, or social media.

When customer relationship management (CRM) is integrated with knowledge management solutions like Knowmax, customers can easily switch from one channel to another.

At the same time, an agent receives the information from the last touchpoint customers use. Creating an omnichannel customer engagement strategy is a must to stay relevant in a rapidly evolving CX landscape.

3. Enables customer self-service

Today, 50% of consumers expect to solve product or service-related issues alone, while 70% expect a brand to offer a self-service portal. 

Therefore, it is essential to understand your customers’ most common problems and cover them as part of the self-service solutions.

Modern knowledge management solutions for customer engagement integrate the centralized knowledge repository with all self-service channels like web chat, in-app support, chatbots, etc., to enable customers to solve their issues independently.

Any content changes made in the centralized knowledge base are updated automatically in all the self-service channels, ensuring seamless customer self-service. 

With a knowledge management system for self-service, not only do your customers benefit, but your agent experiences improve too. As customers can solve the most common queries, the inbound call volume at the contact center reduces. This gives agents the time and energy to focus on critical customer queries and focus better on delivering highly engaging customer service.  

4. Empowers support teams to deliver top-notch customer experiences

Time is of the essence in customer service, as 90% of customers say an immediate response is critical when they have a problem. 

The essential advantage of using knowledge management for customer engagement is that it empowers the support teams to deliver top-notch customer experiences by providing the correct information at the right time.

For instance, without the right nudges and answers to customer queries, it may get difficult for agents to identify the root cause of a customer’s problem in the first place. 

Knowledge management systems for customer engagement help you to organize complex customer service SOPs into guided workflows that equip your agents with the next best action steps during customer interactions. 

Depending upon the use case, all your customer service-wide information can be organized into suitable formats like picture guides, articles, FAQs, and guided workflows with the right knowledge technology. 

By making knowledge available to your agent in easily consumable formats and readily accessible with intuitive search, knowledge management empowers your agents to deliver delightful customer experiences.  

5. Improves critical contact center metrics while reducing support costs

Today customers want instant answers whether they call your support representative, read quick FAQs on the website, or interact with a chatbot. Knowledge management for customer engagement plays a crucial role in determining any business’s success. 

Knowledge management systems enhance the searchability and findability of information across channels. 

This affects contact center metrics such as average handle time, first contact resolution, CX, etc. 

When knowledge is readily available to agents, it naturally reduces the time taken to solve a problem and increases the possibilities of resolutions at the first contact. 

With modern knowledge management systems integrating seamlessly with self-service channels and existing contact center technology, agent productivity and customer self-service quality start aligning with your business goals, resulting in solid ROI and a reduction in support costs. 

Conclusion

Customer service depends significantly on an organization’s knowledge management practices. 

Irrespective of your company size and market dynamics, the ease of access to the relevant knowledge makes up for the difference between superior customer service and unsatisfied one. 

Given the rapidly evolving customer expectations, knowledge management technology is no longer a good-to-have option; instead, it is a need to stay relevant in the new-age customer service world.