Every service desk’s core function is knowledge. It reflects how agents solve issues and gain knowledge of the control systems they oversee. It is what we explain to clients when we guide them through a fix. Additionally, prior to the implementation of knowledge centered service (KCS), this idea was restricted to the minds of the customer service representatives and agents who were directly involved in those fixes. All of that changed in 1992 when experts began to advocate integrating the development and upkeep of knowledge bases into the customer service process.
And now, after years of testing, development, and improvement at many significant, flourishing companies, KCS is widely used. It isn’t easy for many people to easily understand the concept of KCS. Moreover, there are also many misconceptions about it. Moreover, we have not discussed this topic in our previous articles. That’s why, in this article, we have discussed the concept of knowledge centered service. In this regard, we discussed its main concept, origin, principles and benefits.
A non-profit alliance of support organizations called the Consortium for Service Innovation (CSI) was established in 1992. The membership-based organization concentrated primarily on creating tools with particular features and functionality to help organizations capture and reuse knowledge as a byproduct of work done.
After a few years, the Consortium’s members came to the realization that, despite the quality of the tools, people and their actions ultimately determine the success of knowledge management. By the middle of the 1990s, the Consortium shifted its attention to developing enterprise best practices that put people before technology. In the 2000s, CSI began to support and facilitate learning about and put the KCS knowledge management approach into practice. The methodology of today places a strong emphasis on knowledge as a crucial organizational asset.
It’s important to mention here that knowledge centered support and knowledge centered service are the two names of one methodology. Now, it could be confusing why developers give it two names? The answer is till v6 of KCS, which was released in 2016 by CSI, it was called knowledge centered support, but after 2016, its name was changed to knowledge centered service. It is because its developers think that it is more than support, which is why they changed its name.
Knowledge centered services provide complete detail and description of how service operations are running within an organization. According to Consortium for Service Innovation (CSI);
“Knowledge Centered Service operationalizes knowledge management concepts into your existing workflows, holistically improving customer experience, employee engagement, and organizational learning.”
From the above-given definition, we learned that KCS inserts the concepts of knowledge management into an organization’s existing workflows and working mechanisms, resulting in the enhancement of end-user experience level, employee engagement and management, and organizational learning. Heléne Källgården defined KCS as;
“Knowledge Centered Service (KCS) is a best practice methodology that provides a detailed description of how service organizations can work more effectively with knowledge.”
Knowledge centered service also works according to some principles like other methodologies. It has four guiding principles. It always strives through these principles. The following four are the guiding principles of KCS;
Now, the question is, why should we adopt KCS? It is a valid question because, due to several methodologies and concepts, it became difficult for an organization to adopt a new one. That’s why they felt a little bit hesitant to adopt it. To answer this question, we have given some benefits of adopting KCS. These benefits push an organization towards KCS. Following are some common benefits that an organization has by using knowledge centered service.
The well-documented solution always saves time spent on problem-solving. Research shows that knowledge-centered support decreases 50-60% of time spent on service requests and complaints. It can do so by providing complete knowledge to employees and customers about common issues. It is simple: why would you contact the service team if you know what to do in certain conditions. And definitely, the service team could solve the problem efficiently if they perfectly know how to solve them.
Knowledge centered services undoubtedly optimize resource consumption. It can do so by preventing repetitive processes. Moreover, providing proficiency to new employees increases employee retention by 20-30%.
The greatest way that leads to employees’ frustration is the insufficient knowledge that is provided to them. Due to this insufficient knowledge, they have to face many problems in their daily routine. Knowledge centered service could be the best way to provide them knowledge about common issues that they face during their daily routine service operations. Knowledge centered support provides them with complete guidance; hence employees’ satisfaction levels could be improved through it.
Knowledge centered service not only affects employees’ satisfaction but also substantially affects customer satisfaction levels. It’s simply how a customer could be frustrated if he is getting complete knowledge about the common issues and even in case of some complicated problem he always got rapid services. That’s why knowledge centered support improves customer satisfaction levels.
It is, and it would be a primary goal of every organization to set the enhancement of ROI as their primary and basic goal. The sales department or production department always gives a sufficient return on investment, but it is very difficult to get or measure the ROI from the services department because they indirectly shift their return to another department. There are many ways of increasing the return on investment. Knowledge centered service is one of these ways. Through it, visibility and level of service department returns could be easily measured.
Knowledge centered service not only affects the performance and returns of the service department, but it also affects the overall performance and overall productivity of an organization. For example, satisfied employees could play their role more effectively than frustrated employees, and satisfied customers could build long relationships with the organizations. That’s why it could help in the enhancement of the overall productivity of an organization.
We have discussed in many previous articles that there is always intense competition between organizations. This competition decides their position in the market and before customers. Knowledge centered support could help organizations to be better than their rivals through all the above factors. That’s why in that case, it becomes important for the organizations to adopt KCS to beat their rivals in that competition.
After reviewing all the aspects of knowledge centered service, we concluded that KCS could take up an organization to the next level of success and glory. That’s why it becomes important to adopt knowledge centered support if they want to increase their overall performance and return on investment. There are many ways to implement the KCS in your organization, but choosing an ideal help desk software could be the most easier, most efficient, and risk-free way to do so. It is because help desk software commonly provides a complete and systematic way to do any process.
Many tools provide effective KCS implementation, but, in our view, TIKTING help desk & change management system could be the best way to do so because we have developed it as a knowledge centered help desk software that can help you get an enhanced return on investment from your service department. That’s why we would strongly recommend you choose TIKTING or any other help desk of your choice to improve your organization’s overall performance. It might be helpful for you to satisfy your customers and employees.
