CRM Software Resource Library

Done right, KM can deliver tremendous value to service and support. Yet for all the benefits, the software category is marked by confusion - many very different solutions purport to be KM, and the term means many different things to different people.

Download this paper now to learn about the many product categories that are called knowledge management and determine which might be right for your organization.

It's the suggestion that anyone proposing a knowledge management initiative fears most. After presenting requirements, almost inevitably someone at the table looks thoughtful and says, "I think you should use our content management system."

Download this paper if you’ve found yourself in the position to make the case for a much-needed KM tool to a skeptical IT audience focused on consolidation.

Successful KM initiatives need people, process, and technology working together. In the past, organizations have erred by focusing only on the tool, ignoring people and process issues. More recently, the industry has turned its attention on people and process, almost to a fault. This paper recommends a focus on three the knowledge experience "moments of truth" -- the big tasks that users need to accomplish urgently with tools.

Get this paper now and learn how to make these experiences easy and rewarding so that users are hooked.

TSIA members are reporting that after initial successes many KM projects are de-emphasized, and a year later, a once-popular knowledgebase stops delivering value. It’s not hard to imagine that such disregard can quickly diminish ROI, and neglected knowledgebases can impact long-term customer satisfaction. It turns out the real challenge is keeping funding—and employee interest—attached to the project long term.

Download now to explore common reasons for “launch and leave” with recommendations for avoiding each scenario. The value of ongoing maintenance is investigated, including best practice recommendations on metrics to maintain the health of your knowledge implementation.

An analysis of data from multiple TSIA sources paints a disturbing picture of self-service in 2011. Successful visits are continually trending downward, customers have all but abandoned online knowledgebases, and employees are dissatisfied with knowledge tools in place.

Download now and learn TSIA's top recommendations to reverse the downward trends, improve self-service success, broaden the audience to include new customer demographics, and leverage innovative technology to dramatically improve deflection rates.

In tough economic times, companies look for more cost-effective ways to implement enterprise software applications. While rewarding, new deployment strategies often introduce new risks. The key is achieving the cost benefits while maintaining or improving a corporation's risk posture.

Download now to see how analyst firm IDC addresses concerns regarding the viability of cloud hosting, including ways in which to protect mission critical applications, choose the most appropriate hosting model for your environment and implement security best practices.

Social media is fundamentally changing how businesses and their customers interact. And nowhere will the impact of the social web be stronger, or more beneficial, than in Service and Support. It's true that Marketing is pioneering the enterprise's involvement with the social web. But for them, it's a double-edged sword. Brands are no longer in the control of advertisers, but in the words, messages, and videos of consumers.

Download now to hear from industry thought leaders David Kay and Tim Hines as they identify some of the broad trends in social media, and provide specific guidance on how to use social media to deliver support better, faster and cheaper.

A vendor with a knowledgebase module for sale is telling you that they think knowledge is an extra, a side dish to the CRM main course. Nothing could be further from the truth. Knowledge management must be the core of any successful service and support deployment, not an add-on module. Knowledge is power, but only when it is deeply integrated into the customer experience, the agent experience and the enabling technology.

Download now  to explore the astonishing power of knowledge in supporting every channel, speeding problem resolution and driving a better customer experience.

Traditionally, measuring support operations has been straightforward: shorter hold times are better, higher abandonment rates are worse. Adding knowledge management to case management makes measurement much more complicated, especially in today's increasingly complex service and support operations. But, in conjunction with our customers, we've developed five measurement principles that lead to success.

Download now and learn how to build your roadmap to success using analytics.

The choice for service and support executives is simple. Do you want to be managed down as a cost center or squeezed as a direct profit center? Or do want to take your proper place in the boardroom as the chief customer advocate and the driver of customer loyalty, revenue, and profit?

Download now to hear from industry thought leaders David Kay and Tim Hines about the astonishing power service and support organizations have with a new kind of technology that tightly integrates case tracking and knowledge into a seamless whole, using knowledge to improve the resolution of every customer case.

The case for effective enterprise search is clear: enterprises are drowning in unstructured information, and search can help employees collaborate, reuse existing work, and get the specific facts they need to do their jobs. But to be effective, enterprise search demands effective knowledge management.

Download now to find out why search alone isn't enough.

Too often, organizations equate implementing knowledge management with buying, installing and training agents on a knowledgebase tool. Technology is a critical component of KM success, but it's only one component. Further and, unfortunately, many of the knowledgebase modules on the market don't support healthy practices for capturing, maintaining, and improving knowledge for service and support.

Download now to learn about the common traps to avoid when launching (or relaunching) a KM initiative.

Digital Service Providers (DSPs) – including broadband, television, communications, and wireless service providers – are required to play an expanded role in the digital home. Facing competitive threats from both fellow DSPs and alternatives to the services that they have provided for decades – if not generations (voice, video, data services, communications, etc.) – DSPs face a risk/opportunity paradigm today.

Download now and read what Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst at Parks Associates, has to say about the important elements of the DSP and the digital home, with a specific focus on device and service activation, provisioning, and management.

Broadband is now a mass market product where customers expect installation of their connectivity and configuration of their basic services to be quick and easy. Although the subject of activating a subscriber may seem a little mundane, Consona believes it's one of the most exciting parts of the customer lifecycle and one which relatively little investment is made by digital service providers.

Download now and learn how a well thought through activation process can reduce costs, improve subscriber retention, differentiate service from that of competitors and generate revenue; issues with which every digital service provider is struggling.

Many companies struggle to extend, integrate, customize and twist their legacy tools to meet the demands of today's customers and business models. But with new technology, organizations can dramatically lower costs by empowering customers to help themselves and each other. They can measure and manage the entire support experience--not just what gets logged as a service request. And they do this without trying to teach an old tool new tricks.

Download now to hear from industry thought leaders David Kay and Tim Hines as they explain why it's often better, easier and cheaper to start fresh.