An Overview of the Knowledge Management Software in a Call Center Platform

Digital innovation has fueled growth, ushering in the "Big Data" era. In 2022, 56.5% of respondents from Statista's research report were using big data to drive business innovation, while 26.5% created a data-driven organization.  Businesses are realizing the importance of data-driven tools and tactics to get deeper insights into their customer's needs, expectations, and demands. Knowledge base software is one such innovative tool that contributes to business intelligence. A knowledge management system integrated into your call center enhances customer service quality automatically. How?

It not only combines data from multiple sources but also analyzes them to improve operations or fix loopholes in business processes. If you are still unsure how knowledge management software can help your business, you have come to the right place. Find out what it is, what it offers, and how your business can use it to increase efficiency.

What is knowledge management software?

 A knowledge base is the business resource that stores all the data about business processes, employee activities, customer information, etc. Any IT system that saves and retrieves knowledge to enhance comprehension, teamwork, and process alignment is referred to as a knowledge management system. It can create, organize and access your knowledge base among companies or teams.

Knowledge management is often called "information-driven business management" in organizations where it supports using methodologies for knowledge exchange to encourage learning and innovation within the company.

The goal of knowledge management software is often to capture and share knowledge. Software for knowledge management systems includes all networks, processes, behaviors, learning, and technology. This is what makes it a fascinating discipline that is constantly developing. An interesting fact about knowledge management software is the fact that it can be used as a standalone tool or as an integrated function of another tool like a call center.

Top 5 features of Knowledge Management Software

The feature set of knowledge management system software depends on the offerings of the service provider. Selecting the right features is essential to make it a value-add for your business. The following are five features that every knowledge management solution must have, especially if it is integrated with a call center solution.

1. Multi-lingual support

According to a study by Harvard Business Review, customers are spending 72.1% of their time browsing websites that are in their mother tongue. So, businesses need to create a knowledge base in whatever language their customers use.  When your business starts to attract clients from various regions of the market, it is crucial to create a centralized knowledge base that captures information in different languages.

Customers are increasingly valuing familiarity for developing brand loyalty and trust. Therefore, businesses must focus on providing multilingual support for leveraging knowledge management system software as an asset.

2. Omnichannel communication

Utilize your business website, social media accounts, virtual agents, and email responses to deliver consistent customer support material across channels—all coming from one knowledge base.  Businesses can utilize this software to create broadly integrated customer service by stitching together all the data from multiple channels. 

Knowledge management software ensures reliability when handling client complaints across various channels. It helps in maintaining consistent contact with customers and provides prompt responses without ignoring any inquiries. It helps in establishing strong lines of communication with clients at all points where they have requested your services through any channel.

Your customer-facing knowledge base serves more than simply customers. It gives agents and staff members access to an internal knowledge base containing customer insights. This will enable them to provide dependable, up-to-date responses and information from the outset.

3. Third-party integration

A third-party integration connects two or more business tools already used by your company. Integrating and interlinking business tools provide a consolidated approach to your business operations.

For instance, CRM integration allows businesses to follow a prospect's interactions with the agents to gain information such as how they discovered your business, their content consumption preference, etc. It also helps in keeping tabs on the conversations between sales teams and leads throughout the purchasing cycle. 

Your entire team will be able to comprehend the customer relationship thanks to the customer data you save in a call center knowledge management software, allowing you to respond to potential problems more intelligently.

4. Self-service capabilities 

Knowledge management software helps in implementing self-service capabilities that dynamically adjust to a customer's channel-to-channel trip. In real-time, you can continue current transactions or start customized sales, collection, or retention efforts by these two approaches:

• IVR

The call center software cost per call will drop, and your agents' burden will be reduced when a self-service IVR is put in place to handle incoming client inquiries. In collaboration with conversational IVR, agents can focus their attention on handling trickier consumer issues.

All incoming calls can be routed through a self-service IVR system as it helps in identifying the problem and route to the right department. It can also handle transactional problems, and give information to resolve simple customer issues. It only forwards calls to live agents that require highly emotional, unduly complicated conversations, or where a live agent was specifically requested.

• Speech Analytics

Another approach would be “speech analytics," where the voice remains the preferred channel for customer support inquiries despite the rise of digital channels. Unstructured voice data is easily transformed into usable insights using speech analytics.

Speech analytics uses word recognition and audio pattern analysis to determine frequently used words or phrases, and identify emotions. Such data can be utilized to create relevant content in form of FAQs, blogs, or newsletters to make it easier for customers to gain the required knowledge.

5. Analytics & reporting

Metrics for call center software have always been significant. Reporting and analytics demonstrate agent performance, assist in assessing important performance metrics, and provide contact center management with the information required to make wise decisions. 

Reporting procedures have become increasingly crucial as more contact centers switch to a remote, and work-from-home model. Businesses can get the information needed to understand what's occurring in their contact center and workforce through real-time and historical reports. 

They also assist you in enhancing customer satisfaction and service by tailoring personalized customer service experiences. Moreover, by using this knowledge, you can create and maintain a business that excels in customer engagement.

Organizational benefits of call center knowledge management software

Call center knowledge management software plays a significant role in business revenue generation. It offers a plethora of advantages as follows.

1. Eliminates information silos

When data systems from a contact center are not integrated with other data systems, typically as a result of architectural incompatibility, silos can develop. With the help of knowledge management software, anyone with a need may simply access the multi-channel data to gain quick access to insightful information. 

2. Boosts agent productivity

The knowledge management system (KMS) supports the agents with resources such as customer information, customer profiles,  customer insights, knowledge bases, and more. A centralized knowledge base helps in delivering stellar customer service by providing agents access to the right customer insights before/during the conversations.

3. Empowers strategic decision-making

Enterprise knowledge management software offers analytics on the large volume of data gathered. It provides insights into agent performance, customer preference, customer behavior trends, etc. Therefore, businesses can act on these actionable insights to make their business processes flawless and optimize workflow.  It empowers your workforce to work independently, fosters more meaningful interactions, and enables your team to provide the best experience to the customers. 

4. Enhances security and privacy

The information in the knowledge base management system houses a wealth of organizational data only accessible to company employees. Therefore, it is important to look into the security and privacy of the software that stores these invaluable resources. Knowledge management software comes with multiple security compliances along with privacy measures like end-to-end encryption. It also executes regular security audits to prevent data breaches.

5. Supports modern work culture

Businesses are adapting remote and hybrid work models owing to the drastic shift in employee behavior. Therefore, teams need to communicate, whether they are seated in the same office or at homes hundreds of miles away. Adapting a centralized knowledge base through software that offers multiple advanced communication and collaboration features is the wisest decision to make for businesses right now. An enterprise knowledge management system support these modern work culture by ensuring

• Seamless project execution
• Efficient collaboration
• Increased output

6. Improves customer satisfaction

80% of customers believe that customer service experience is just as essential as its goods or services. A knowledge base for call centers aids agents with a variety of tools to enhance the service experience for customers. It also helps businesses to provide personalized suggestions and recommendations that suit customer needs. As a result, the customer service experience is elevated leading to greater customer satisfaction.

7. Drives business efficiency

According to Salesforce’s The State of Customer Report, 76% of B2B buyers and 63% of consumers both anticipate that businesses will be aware of their particular requirements and expectations. A knowledge management system truly serves as an organization's go-to software for fulfilling this purpose. 

With the use of knowledge management systems, the entire cycle—from data gathering to dissemination—can be completed without difficulty enabling businesses to make better use of their data. It facilitates in getting more leads, smooth functionality, and cutting operational costs.

Conclusion

A knowledge management system is no longer an expense or afterthought. It is essential for any business, be it small, medium, or large, to leverage its human and intellectual capital currently for dominating the market. Investing in knowledge management software that improves your call center functionality is the smartest decision you can make. Employee communication is enhanced as well as customer interactions are improved. Take a look at HoduCC, a leading call center software that provides awesome knowledge management functions. Explore more about HoduCC here.