If you manage a contact center, you’re always on the lookout for opportunities to reduce average handle time (AHT) and increase customer satisfaction. But have you assessed your contact center knowledge base? Experienced agents and new hires alike rely on your knowledge base to address customer inquiries with speed and accuracy. Their ability to find clear answers quickly—regardless of experience—improves AHT while also reducing errors and customer call backs. Start with these four questions to uncover opportunities to optimize your contact center knowledge base and improve AHT.

Is the writing style concise and consistent?

A challenge contact centers face is the varying levels of agent experience. Tenured agents rely less on detailed instructions than new agents, although they still need to find critical information quickly. Newer agents appreciate step-by-step details, but don’t want to sift through long-winded blocks of text. Which means you need to adopt a writing style with the right level of detail to satisfy the needs of both.

1. Keep titles and headings short but descriptive. Use simple, consistent language and include target keywords.
2. Likewise, use plain, consistent language across all articles. For example, stick with the same, familiar commands throughout, such as “click” versus “select.”
3. Choose concise words, such as “use” over “utilize” and “start” over “commence.”
4. Trim redundant and other unnecessary words. For example, change “two different methods” to “two methods.”
5. Keep sentences short, putting new ideas into separate sentences.
6. Choose active voice over passive voice whenever possible.

Are the articles (or user interface) visually user-friendly?

In addition to a concise and consistent writing style, make knowledge base articles visually scannable and easy to navigate. User-friendly navigation within articles helps agents find what they need faster.

1. Use white space to separate information visually. Too much information crammed onto the page can make information difficult to find.
2. Use consistent, accessible heading styles to make scanning easier.
3. Number steps and keep them short.
4. Bold key commands and options, such as this example: “Go to Home > Styles, and then select Heading 1.”
5. Make critical information easy to identify on the page.
6. Ensure consistent navigation across knowledge base articles.

Do articles support contact center workflow?

To optimize your contact center knowledge base, consider the agents’ workflow. Tap data insights around typical call flow and agents’ next steps to understand workflow needs. Ensure articles align with workflows, so agents can resolve calls more quickly.

1. Put priority, need-to-know information first. For example, ensure that critical policy, cautionary, and other crucial information appear first, with supporting detail after.
2. Provide links to commonly accessed, related articles and next steps.

Does functional design enhance efficiency?

Functional design elements can enhance AHT when used strategically. Apply functional design elements such as decision trees and popups to support efficiency while striking a balance to avoid unnecessary noise.

1. Use decision trees for scenario-based processes. For example, if a process varies based on caller location, use a decision tree to direct the agent to the correct article.
2. Popup windows can be great for removing clutter on screen. But they can also be annoying and occasionally, easy to miss. Use popup windows selectively and ensure they don’t block other content.
3. Drop-downs and expansion elements help save space but should be reserved for supplementary information. Keep critical information visible to ensure it gets read.

Get a no-cost contact center knowledge base assessment

As a trusted global managed services and service desk provider, Beyondsoft has comprehensive experience implementing and operating global contact centers for some of the world’s leading companies, including Microsoft. Our consultants have deep expertise across verticals in building and managing effective knowledge bases. If you’re interested in seeking ways to optimize your contact center knowledge base, reach out to us for a brief, no-cost assessment.

We’ve recently been exploring the importance of access to clean, quality data in your globally distributed contact center. Real-time data insights drive better business decisions, increase productivity, and elevate service quality and customer satisfaction rates. Data access and aggregation can help you optimize your workforce, inform contingency planning. And in our most recent article, we learned how metrics can improve issue identification and resolution.

In this article, I’ll share why access to quality data is essential to reporting and process refinement.

Metrics grounded in reality

Metrics help organizations proactively improve performance when aligned with business decisions and business needs. Metrics based on historical data and grounded in reality help inform thresholds that trigger alerts upon detection of potential issues. In fact, the most meaningful thresholds are dynamic, accounting for a variety of circumstances and not just the worst-case scenario.

Here’s what I mean: let’s say your target wait time is less than two minutes, and you’ve set your threshold based on this number. On a slow day, you’ll likely meet your target, and no alerts will be triggered. However, you may not realize that despite lower call volumes, actual wait times still exceed 90 seconds— longer than they should be given current staffing levels. Without meaningful, dynamic thresholds, it’s easy to miss factors impeding performance and opportunities to enhance service levels.

Additionally, with the right reporting tools, you can use data to make business decisions at a higher level — not just tactical ones on the ground. In other words, instead of using data to put out the fire, you can use data to fireproof the house.

For example, perhaps you’re not hitting wait time targets. Without data insights and detailed reporting, you might assume that you have a staffing issue, so you bring 30 more agents online. But with robust reporting capabilities, you can dig into the data and surface trends and determine if you truly have call volume spikes or if something else has gone amiss, such as a system that gets taken offline for regular maintenance at an inopportune time — something easily remedied through a process change.

A data-driven approach to process refinement

Robust reporting can be beneficial for ongoing process refinement. It can help you assess process effectiveness and identify upstream or downstream changes that impact process efficiency. For instance, you might have a process that’s been in place for years. Only through reporting might you see that upstream changes, such as the introduction of chat support, have rendered this process inefficient or obsolete.  

The ability to report on issues experienced over a period of time and the actions taken to resolve those issues can provide insight into recurring patterns and potential process shortcomings. Without adequate historical reporting, you may not realize that the same issue keeps popping up—and that your existing process is addressing a symptom rather than a deeper cause.

With high-value reporting, you can make better business decisions and ensure your processes evolve to meet those business needs.

A more intelligent solution

Data aggregation, reporting, and process refinement across the globally distributed contact center comprise a few reasons we developed the Beyondsoft Intelligent Operations Platform (BIOPs). Part of our managed service offering, BIOPs provides a unified solution for multi-system monitoring, analytics, and workflow automation across disparate systems. It helps to reduce manual processes while allowing us to glean metrics and insights that inform decisions around staffing, issue detection, and resolution—all while reducing the need for human intervention and headcount. 

For a more holistic understanding of your organization’s strengths and weaknesses in this area, I highly recommend completing this free survey.

Nary a day goes by that we don’t hear about a disaster somewhere in the world—whether man-made or natural—impacting hundreds or even thousands of lives, livelihoods, and business operations. Small or large, disasters run the gamut from floods and fires to network outages, cyberattacks, and supply chain disruptions.

Take, for example, the 2008 Black Thunder mine accident. Based in Wyoming, this massive coal operation planned to install a 250-ton, 260-foot tube designed to convey coal to a silo for loading trains. The mammoth structure would be mounted by a crane atop pylons over three railroad tracks—tracks traveled by 80 trains every day, delivering coal to power plants across the US.

But on the day of the installation, the unexpected happened: the crane collapsed, dropping the tube across the tracks. Because three workers were injured, the US Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) wanted to conduct an investigation in three days’ time and insisted that nothing be moved from the tracks–a delay that would cause substantial supply chain consequences.

Thanks to robust coordination with the mine, BNSF Railway VP of Engineering David Freeman developed contingency plans, including putting repair crews with four large tractors on standby at the site. Freeman convinced the MSHA to allow crews to shift the tube off the tracks without disturbing evidence. The operation took just 21 minutes—and soon, the trains began running again.

Each year, disasters like the Black Thunder mine incident and other unexpected events knock global businesses off course. Such incidents frequently impact globally distributed contact centers. Below I lay out some insights and takeaways from the Black Thunder mine disaster that global contact centers can apply to their own contingency planning efforts.

Expect the unexpected

Organizations must establish contingency plans to ensure business continuity—a concept BNSF took to heart. BNSF had built a strong relationship with the Black Thunder Mine teams and was able to gain visibility into the operation and provide inputs. This collaborative relationship enabled BNSF to proactively plan for the unexpected, putting teams on standby and processes in place to respond quickly. When disaster struck, they executed their contingency plan and got trains moving that very day.

Takeaways for contact centers

• Think through plausible emergency scenarios for your globally distributed contact center, and then build contingency plans around these scenarios.
• Overprepare your contact center communications network to ensure appropriate and immediate action against disruptions.
• Coordinate across the entire organization to ensure everyone understands their role and required actions.
• Establish clear protocols to extract and manage constant data thresholds from all parties involved.
• Define a precise series of actions and metrics to know when an issue is resolved and normal operations can resume.
• Incorporate processes to assess root cause and success at contingency plan execution.

Leverage data and analysis

Planning for and detecting issues in real-time can save precious time and ensure a better customer experience. BNSF used data to inform their contingency planning and response efforts and assess a disaster’s potential impact on deliveries and end customers. They also relied on data to know what it would take to clear the railway of obstructions, fast-track repairs, and coordinate with federal agencies.

Takeaways for contact centers

• Assess and resolve technical debt, data gaps, and data access issues across your global contact center partners.
• Aggregate and leverage real-time data from contact center partners and other departments across your business to monitor and predict call volume, staffing levels, inbound events, and more.
• Analyze data trends to predict and (potentially avoid) possible events and quickly detect events already underway.
• Use real-time metrics to trigger contingency measures and troubleshoot and resolve issues. Ensure that data is detailed enough to understand what happened, so you can take steps to minimize recurrence. 
• Finally, use data to measure success and inform process improvements for the future.

Have clear visibility across your interconnected global contact center

BNSF had built a robust communications network both internally and externally, giving them clear visibility into the breadth and impacts of the construction plan. Their collaborative relationships with key stakeholders and deep project visibility enabled them to plan to identify potential issues and response scenarios that didn’t depend upon other parties.

Takeaways for contact centers

• Gain clear visibility across your interconnected global contact center to make faster decisions regarding contact center management and health.
• Break down silos within the business to streamline operations and keep everyone on the same page.
• Establish a centralized response plan that doesn’t rely upon any single partner or stakeholder.

Disasters and other unexpected events happen. Preparation is key. Anticipating plausible emergencies, using data to your advantage, and having clear visibility of your interconnected global contact center will help you respond quickly, protect your business, and limit impacts. To assess the health and operational efficiency of your globally distributed contact center, complete this short survey.