Some organizations make a subset of their knowledge base available to the user community. Callers are invited to try to resolve their issue with the tool before talking to an analyst. This strategy has led a few organizations to realize modest benefits. However, most organizations fail to get measurable results that significantly decrease the pressure on the classic model. Even those organizations that have achieved modest benefits have been unable to decrease their dependence on human knowledge and expertise to deliver services.
Technology enables processes.
To truly improve, you need to modify the core process in order to take advantage of the new technology. Adding a knowledge tool to any traditional support model, but not changing the model, can result only in modest gains. To reap the promised rewards of knowledge management, you'll need to move to a new model designed to leverage knowledge. In the next installment, Part II will cover evolving to a knowledge-enabled support model.