We had a great World Tour in Silicon Valley at the Santa Clara Convention Center on March 3rd. It was fantastic to see the diversity of the participant companies (high tech, fast food, universities, car wash, and more) and the diversity of KCS-enabled Services (Customer Service Management, IT Service Management, HR Service Management, etc.). … Continue reading KCS Academy World Tour Wrap Up
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Just three weeks ago, we hosted a one day KCS Coach Workshop taught by Dr. Beth Haggett, who developed the KCS Coach program. We had a great day together: about 30 people exploring the role of a coach, and learning skills, techniques, and frameworks for effective coaching. This week, Dr. Beth published a post about … Continue reading Virtual Connection
We often talk about how customers want to know what we in support know, as soon as we know it. Publishing knowledge to requestors quickly is one of the benefits of having responders create knowledge in the workflow! However, we recently got a question about how that plays out in practice. Should we really publish … Continue reading Should Not Validated Articles Be Visible Externally?
We always stress the importance of ensuring KCS articles are written in the customer context and are problem-centric rather than solution-centric. We might capture and publish an article on "How to Change a Battery," but if the customer is searching for “my car won’t start,” the likelihood they will find the appropriate article and resolve … Continue reading Context is More Important Than Content for Executive Buy-In
I often think about how the people-side of KCS® is what makes it special. When you read how to implement a KCS program in the Adoption Guide or you reference how to start the Solve Loop in the KCS v6 Practices guide, it doesn’t talk about the relationships you build when you go through a … Continue reading KCS with Friends
The KCS Academy hosted a KCS in Action web session on September 25 about how to improve collaboration between groups who contribute differently to essential knowledge capture in organizations. Watch the recording here (YouTube). With well over 100 attendees tuned in live, the chat window was full of valuable insights and conversation. It’s no surprise … Continue reading Tech Writers and KCS
Vocabulary is important! I propose there are three words we should eliminate from our service and support vocabulary: deflection, avoidance, and consumption. These three concepts are very self-centered; they reflect a vendor-centric perspective, not a customer-centric view. "Deflect" and "avoid" are often used when discussing the value of self-service, as if deflecting and avoiding our … Continue reading Vocabulary is Important
How do we deal with very generic issues or problems that have multiple possible causes? There are two ways to approach this: a master article or a resolution path. While the structure of these types of articles is the same, the intent is different. As a general rule of thumb, we want to have … Continue reading Master Article or Resolution Path?
We always caution KCS design efforts to not “over engineer” the process or the content standard. This is particularly true when it comes to article templates. People often ask, "how many templates should we have?” The answer is ONE… keep it simple! Because many of the KM tools offer us the capability to create different … Continue reading How Many Article Templates Should We Have?
KCS is a significant culture change for most organizations. We are attempting to shift the culture away from recognizing people for what they know, and toward recognizing people for their ability to learn, collaborate, and share. KCS Coaches play an integral role in making this shift, both by helping knowledge workers integrate the new KCS … Continue reading Coaching and Motivation