116 Curious about...Knowledge Management Systems in the Contact Center & its Emerging Role Today w/Vicki Brackett, Chief Knowledge Officer|Knowledgely
Welcome to the My Curious Colleague podcast with me, Denise Venneri. I am a twenty year practitioner in the consumer engagement space, having worked for two large CPG organizations. My intent here is really to share best practices with particular focus around the specialist and analyst roles and to give back to this great community because CPGCX rocks.
denise venneri:Hello, my curious colleagues. This week, I'm curious about knowledge management in the contact center and its emerging role today. And to help me do just that is my colleague, Vicki Brackett, chief knowledge officer at Knowledgely. Hi, Vicki. Welcome to the podcast.
vicki brackett:Thanks for having me, Denise. I appreciate it.
denise venneri:Oh, my honor. My honor. You know, as I often say, people follow the podcast or my LinkedIn, I am a worker band. So I have been, you know, my my view of knowledge management and knowledge knowledge bases, we call them KB, specifically has come a long way from my vantage point, you know, from and maybe yours too, from, you know, binders and binders of information and post it notes, you know, up in the agents cubicle to databases with a few hundreds, maybe thousands of articles for the agents to access. And ultimately, today, some of these things I'm hearing about some very sophisticated knowledge bases out there.
denise venneri:And hence, that's why I have you here because this is not my wheelhouse. So let's start though with you at a high level. How did you get to this point in your career?
vicki brackett:Well, very interesting. I got into the industry sort of like everybody else does by accident. My mother actually answered an ad and put up put my resume together using plaques on her wall for my sales and leadership awards through the years. Long story short, I was hired by a BPO to change the culture in the contact center from customer service to sales. They wanted to be more sales focused.
vicki brackett:I didn't even know what a contact center was, but I love people. I love serving them, and I just got hooked. And my passion is to take organizations that are struggling and help them build their efficiencies and their processes and mentoring programs. And so I've been spending the last twenty years turning around struggling sales organizations, customer service, technical support contact centers. And I've developed a set of tools, and wrote a book and I've worked, I would say 65% of my career in BPOs, 35% in internal.
vicki brackett:I've worked for small, medium, large companies, fortune 500 companies like Apple in a variety of different industries. And then three years ago, a CEO approached me about and he wanted to show me a software, and it was a knowledge management system. So every company has a knowledge base. Most people have what they call is a document management. It's it's sort of like a SharePoint.
vicki brackett:Everything's sort of in there. It's it's, categorized or by topics or you have a search bar at the top. IT builds it for you. But when I saw this software, Denise, I had never seen anything like it. It was a very holistic system with key components that would give the information at conversational speed.
vicki brackett:So no more putting the the caller on hold. And the same systems have can be integrated with all different types of softwares, but they've got feedback loops for the agents. They've got AI. A lot of them are powered by AI now. They've got reporting or or business analytics.
vicki brackett:It has different components, decision trees, talk tracks. So really it's a a system to help the whole operation with knowledge, and it's a live breathing system. It's constantly changing because that's what happens in a contact center.
denise venneri:So you're hooked after seeing the software, then what happened?
vicki brackett:So I sold software for about a year, and then I went to work for Knowledgely. And today I'm head of CXN, the chief knowledge officer here. And, you know, we work in the contact center space exclusively in the knowledge space for them, helping organizations with their framework. And we have some other services.
denise venneri:Yeah. Yeah. Again, from my vantage point on the brand side, like, knowledge base was always that really, you know, it was a strong piece of process on the back end. Right? A lot of people didn't talk about it back in the day again, and consumers, like, they knew that there was a script going on.
denise venneri:But anyway, I love the the way you articulated this role of this little quiet process engine in the back, the engine that could. I love seeing where it it's it's going today. But I'm gonna take let's take us back just a second and let's level set everybody because you mentioned knowledge management. And I always actually, I never looked at it that way. Again, that's why you're the expert.
denise venneri:Why don't you just love us with everybody with your view of knowledge management and this, this three management pillars that you talk about?
vicki brackett:Okay. Well, what I didn't know, and obviously now I do, is that knowledge management sits behind three what we call elements or pillars. And one of them is giving knowledge to the agent in any of the the, channels. So email, chat, text, social media. Right?
vicki brackett:Phone, video chat. The second pillar or element would be the customer self serve. So the company app or the chatbot or the the website that customers go to, those frequently asked questions. A knowledge management system sits behind that. And the third is all the integrations.
vicki brackett:So integrating with your CRM, your learning management system, the IVR, the agent assist, quality, all of the pieces of software that we use, it actually can can integrate with those. And that's that third pillar is the integration. So picture like three intersecting circles. And in the center is the knowledge management system powered by AI.
denise venneri:Speaking of AI, where do you see the future of AI as it portends, excuse me, pertains to knowledge management? And it sounds like I know the answer, but where's the future of AI?
vicki brackett:It's here, Denise. And it's it's moving very, very quickly. And a lot of these companies that that have these knowledge management systems that sell this software, they're constantly improving and utilizing more and more functions for AI. It's it's absolutely fabulous and fascinating really what's happening in the space. And usually when someone purchases software, as their contact center, as there's upgrades, those those usually come with it.
vicki brackett:So that's great. You'll get the latest and greatest, whatever system that someone purchases.
denise venneri:Right. Because there's a lot out there. For the future of AI is here, we've we've definitely determined that. Can you get back into some of the examples specifically of AI in this space? And then I'm gonna have you also add on some misconceptions, about AI.
denise venneri:But first, let's do some examples.
vicki brackett:Okay. So AI is used in different places based on the software that the contact center or customer service organization purchases. So for example, a client may choose a piece of software that helps pull everything together using generative AI. So it'll pull from a SharePoint. It'll pull from, you know, a proprietary, knowledge base.
vicki brackett:It'll pull from all this from the website and put it into the user interface for the agent. So that's one way that happens. Now one of the challenges, of course, is if it's not written correctly, then there's so much for the agent they have to read through. But some software companies are taking it one step further. They're actually having the contact center pick out what we call templates.
vicki brackett:So they use icons and colors and positioning on the screen. And now the AI can pull in and and actually put it into that template. So that's another way that AI can be used. Wow. The third way with processes is that they will literally you can literally go through a process on the computer like an agent would, and it's recorded.
vicki brackett:And then the software will put it into the process, into the user interface, and actually do the screenshots and and tell you what to do first, second, third. So that's how AI is used in a lot of different types of softwares. Again, what are you what are you trying to accomplish? Some even go as far as taking the conversation that they hear on the AI hears on the phone and the knowledge that was used by the agent and can put together an email. Some can use agent assist.
vicki brackett:So you can literally pop the knowledge while the agent is on the phone because AI is listening to the phone call or reading the email or the chat or the text. So AI is used all through knowledge management systems. It just really depends on which one you purchase and which one is best for your particular contact center.
denise venneri:Okay. Okay. What are some of the misconceptions about AI? I'm hearing so many benefits for sure. I'm loving everything I'm hearing.
denise venneri:I'm kind of blown blown away. What are some of those misconceptions of the VA of AI
vicki brackett:that It's got it out there. It's plug and play. Oh, you just plug it in. You push your button and miraculously it happens. Remember, think about it.
vicki brackett:Think about inside of a contact center. How many times has a return policy been written and changed and changed and changed? If someone's not managing that, then all of that information is gonna be pulled into the template or pulled into the user interface. And so there's gonna be a lot to weed through. So it's sort of like we say in the space, garbage in, garbage out.
vicki brackett:That has to the knowledge has to be gone through by a human being to see what's valid and what's not valid, what's current and not current. So this idea of just hitting a button and it all just sort of comes together, it'll do that. But is it even usable? Because you could have five return policies or 10 return policies inside what AI pulls together. Does that make sense?
denise venneri:Anything you say makes sense to me because it's very knowledgeable. Yeah. Because you're very knowledgeable. Misconception. Yeah.
denise venneri:Okay. I think I maybe can guess at some of them, but what are some of the outcomes that maybe you've seen or read about, specifically?
vicki brackett:Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, our clients' average handle time is reduced. That's that's a huge that's a huge outcome because you don't have to put your caller on hold. For example, my husband recently retired. And so I called a cell company and asked a question that probably nobody has ever asked.
vicki brackett:Do you have a senior citizen discount? And the agent put me on hold for eight minutes while he looked, and then he was super nice, came back, and he said, could I put you on hold just a few more minutes? I said, sure. Yeah. And twelve minutes later, he came back, and he said, no, that they didn't, and we came up with plan b.
vicki brackett:But what was interesting is I asked him, what when when you put me on hold the first time, were you looking in your in your knowledge base? And he said, yes. And when I said, when when you put me on hold the second time, what were you doing? And he said, oh, I was in on hold with the support desk. So now we're on we're on hold or we're talking to the support desk for twelve minutes plus the original eight.
vicki brackett:So just reduction in labor costs because of the reduced reduction in average annual time.
denise venneri:Average year of time. Okay. So that's one outcome.
vicki brackett:Another outcome, this was a financial services company that had twelve weeks of new hire training. Because the training methodology changes when you truly have a knowledge management system, because you don't have to teach agents how to memorize. So this particular financial institution cut their training from twelve weeks to three weeks because you were just training them on where to go look. And so think about this. Think about training.
vicki brackett:When you're you could actually pipe in very I mean, live calls. And the new agents and new hire training could actually be following along and going to the knowledge management system. So it helps them know where to go quickly without all these tests and quizzes of memorization. So you can and the speedy competency is another outcome. So not only can you reduce average handle time, reduce training time, the speed of competency is huge, and the and the agents feel more successful faster.
vicki brackett:Because think about it. Where's the biggest attrition? When you when between training and the floor, there's attrition in most organizations because agents are overwhelmed because there's so much information they have to memorize. That goes away. And then there's mitigating risk, and that's huge.
vicki brackett:So think about if you're with a CPG company, right, and someone ingest something, and all of a sudden, the customer's calling into the contact center. You have to make sure everybody's on the same page immediately. You don't have time to pull people off the phone and give them training. You need to be able to put it in the same place. And if they know where adverse reactions are because they've been trained to go there, it doesn't matter if it's the leg itches or someone is gonna be their body's reacting in a different way because they know where to go.
vicki brackett:And that's the key. So mitigating risk, when you get into court, you could literally the legal department loves knowledge management systems because everything has an audit trail. So they know exactly when the knowledge hit and when the when the actual agent used that piece of knowledge. So it really helps the legal department as well and compliance as well, being able to go back and know when knowledge has been changed. So these are huge outcomes for organizations.
denise venneri:Yeah. Does it take long to let's say you have a a knowledge base you've been using for years and you're made aware of what's out there. You want to upgrade a bit or lay in AI is the integration time to do that two months, three weeks? Or does it depend?
vicki brackett:It depends, and it depends on a number of factors. Like, right now, we have a client that has over 20,000 pieces of knowledge, and they go back decades. So what you really wanna do at best practices is the eighty twenty rule. What are your key call drivers or customer interaction drivers? That's where you start.
vicki brackett:And then you add the other 20 or 30%. So you can stand these up in weeks. You can stand them up in a few months. And sometimes the software company will do an implementation. Knowledgely can help with that, of course.
vicki brackett:It really just depends on on how much knowledge you have and what your key drivers are. It's it's a pretty easy stand up if you've got the team to do that. And what I would also like to say is one of the biggest challenge that CX and customer service leaders have is that they go get try to get a req to get to FTE for their knowledge team because most contact centers don't have a knowledge team. It usually is housed with supervisors or in the training and development arena. You're already you're already have a support desk with SMEs.
vicki brackett:You've already got your supervisors helping. You already have the labors in there. You just gotta massage your organizational structure, your labor dollars. There's no reason to go get more FTE. And this actually holds customer service leaders back because they're trying to get a new rack pushed through for to FTE.
vicki brackett:And there's just no reason to do that.
denise venneri:It makes more sense in your in your, estimation to try to upgrade your technology versus increase your labor because that's more of
vicki brackett:a Absolutely. And the systems with AI now make it so much easier to do and less heavy lifting. And and really what it's about governance. It's about hierarchy. It's about best practice.
vicki brackett:How do you author? Which templates do you use? The standard operating procedures. Right? Those are the key parts of laying the foundation.
vicki brackett:Authoring the knowledge is it's like an assembly line. Once you know what to do and and what that hierarchy and those permissions and the SOPs look like, then then it's a relatively then it's just putting labor in it into it. And your agents can help. You don't have to go out and get expensive labor.
denise venneri:Interesting. Hey. Let's get let's get into a little bit about, top line of what your company knowledge. Ly, can do for their clients and how would people contact you if they want to learn more?
vicki brackett:Okay. I appreciate the opportunity again, Denise. I love this subject. I I was a CX leader for over twenty years. Right?
vicki brackett:So I I can see where this can benefit, and that's what that's what gets me up every day and gets me excited. So Knowledgely has three different types of services, and it depends on what you need. The first one is we do knowledge framework assessment. So what are those workarounds costing? For example, I have a client in Texas, nine hundred agents.
vicki brackett:They have 85 SMEs, four team leaders, three supervisors, and ops manager to a tune of over $4,000,000 a year to support those 900 agents because the agents can't find the answers in their SharePoint. So, you know, we come in and we do a framework and say, you know, what is these workarounds costing you? Where are the gaps? And so that's the first thing we do. And some people just know they need a system, and we can help them, actually go through an RFP and and put together the business requirements once we do that that that framework.
vicki brackett:The second service is we have fractional knowledge managers. So we meet a client where they're at. So you need someone part time, full time, no long term commitment to get your team up and going, or elevate what you currently have, we can send in one of our fractional knowledge managers. And the third, we have enterprise knowledge teams where we just come in and we do it for the client. Those are the three things that we do.
vicki brackett:So anything knowledge inside of a contact center, we're the knowledge experts.
denise venneri:Hence the name, knowledgely. What's the name? It's a little hard to pronounce for me. But I I think am I saying it right? Knowledgely.
vicki brackett:Knowledgely. Yeah. Just knowledgely at the end of it. Knowledgely.com. Hello at knowledgely.com will will will get us out on LinkedIn.
vicki brackett:And by the way, we are posting knowledge nuggets a few times a week, very, very small post that you can read in less than a minute to give you a nugget about knowledge because it's a complicated subject if you're not used to thinking of it in in the new way, the best practice way. And so we're trying to educate people in the space by putting out these knowledge nuggets.
denise venneri:I've seen those, Vicky. I think they're great, and I love short and sweet. I think that's the way to go sometimes. Alright. Well, sadly, we've come to the end.
denise venneri:Just wanted to say thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.
vicki brackett:Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. A lot of fun.
doug venneri:You have been listening to the My Curious Pali podcast with Denise Vanier. Thank you for your time.
