Knowledge Centered Service (KCS) is a service delivery method that focuses on knowledge as a key asset of the organization implementing it.
Knowledge Centered Service (KCS) is a service delivery method that focuses on knowledge as a key asset of the organization implementing it. Development began in 1992 by the Consortium for Service Innovation, a non-profit alliance of support organizations. Its methodology is to integrate use of a knowledge base into the workflow.
While the legacy of KCS lies in customer support organizations, the methodology is now being adopted across all the functions of business.
KCS seeks to:
· Create content as a by-product of solving problems.
· Evolve content based on demand and usage.
· Develop a knowledge base of an organization’s collective experience to-date.
· Recognize learning, collaboration, sharing and improving.
With over 20 years in development and over $50 million invested in developing the methodology, KCS has produced significant benefits for support organizations around the world, including: Apollo Group, Autodesk, Avaya, Dell, EMC, Ericsson, HP Enterprise, Omgeo/DTCC, Oracle, PTC, Salesforce.com and SDL.
The KCS Academy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Consortium for Service Innovation. The KCS Academy is the designated certification body by the Consortium for Service Innovation. The KCS Academy offers certification programs for people and a KCS Verified program for knowledge base tools that enable the KCS practices.
KCS is not something to do in addition to solving issues, KCS becomes the way in which you resolve issues. KCS does not replace the knowledge and experience of your support agents—rather, it complements them. Organizations that have implemented KCS report dramatic improvements in operating costs, incident/request resolution, customer satisfaction, job satisfaction, and significant reduction in training times.
Knowledge-centered support follows a continuous loop of capturing, structuring, and reusing content.
Step 1: Capture Knowledge
Knowledge starts with the customer. When requests come in, articles are created as a by-product of the problem-solving process. This means that your team writes articles in the customer context, making information inherently relevant and easily searchable.
Step 2: Structure Knowledge
The best way to write an article from the customer’s perspective is to work from a template or form. This keeps things simple for service desk agents and promotes consistency in the knowledge base.
Step 3: Reuse Knowledge
When working on customer issues, agents should search through the knowledge base. They can then link incidents to relevant articles, making sure the team works from their collective knowledge.
Step 4: Improve Knowledge
The next step is improving content. When agents reuse articles in their problem-solving process, they’re reviewing them at the same time. Frequently used articles are constantly being seen and therefore remain current. This keeps your knowledge up-to-date and shares ownership across the entire team. Once an article is ready, it can be pushed to customers.
Step 5: Content Health
One way of improving the quality of your content is knowledge monitoring. Measure how effective each article is at solving problems and only put resources toward high-demand, cost-reducing knowledge.
There’s more to knowledge-centered support than just process. Cultural changes play a big part—applying KCS shifts your team from relying on individual experiences to working from collaborative knowledge. Collective wisdom enables more than just the service desk team, it provides resources for organizational learning and helps onboard new agents as they come.