You’re using a KCS Verified tool. How come it’s so clunky to do KCS?
The majority of our clients use technology that have been KCS v6 Verified by the Consortium for Service Innovation (CSI). KCS Verified tools have demonstrated that they “provide a complete set of capabilities required to enable all eight KCS practices.” They should deliver those capabilities with only configuration—that is, using the out-of-the-box features of the tool. Configuration-only deployments require relatively little effort and reduce the risk of breakage when rolling out new versions of your tool. In theory, effective KCS implementations should be easy.
Looking at KCS in practice, though, we see
- Too much copy / pasting and rework
- Multiple steps required to improve an article in the moment
- Barriers to capturing knowledge in the workflow
Every extra step in the tool—every single click and keystroke—is like a boat anchor on your implementation. Solve Loopers are busy! They were busy before KCS, and now it feels to them like you’re adding grunt work…like you’re not respecting their time. This makes them less likely to follow the practices.
How did we get here? Well, most likely your company uses an implementation partner to work on your tool. Big consulting firms and specialty implementors have experience and expertise in Salesforce, ServiceNow, or whatever KCS Verified tool you use, so naturally they should know how to implement knowledge and KCS.
But they don’t. Implementation partners are good at administration and configuration in general, but it’s rare they’re experienced with the tool’s knowledge features. And even if they do have KM experience in the tool, it’s likely 180 degrees from what KCS needs. They know how to implement the approval workflows that KCS eschews, while knowing nothing of the Content Standard Checklist, KCS Licensing Levels, Article States, KCS templates, coaching, or the Process Adherence Review (PAR). Fundamentally, they don’t get the importance of integrating knowledge into the case / incident / ticket workflow, so their attempts at KCS will always go sour.
How do you ensure a great KCS tool implementation with partners who aren’t KCS experts? By providing them with expert partners! We know the right ways to implement KCS in popular tools—and all the ways not to. We’ve done implementations ourselves and have worked on many implementations done by others, so we can be very clear with your partners on how they should approach your requirements. We can get as technical as they need, whether it’s how a Salesforce Flow for KCS should work, how to create a Field Mapping in ServiceNow, or how to implement the PAR in any popular tool.
Tool implementations can be complex and expensive, but we’re not. We can bring your partner up to speed on how to implement KCS in just a couple of days. This means we can save weeks and thousands of dollars of implementation for less than the price of three Dreamforce conference badges. And, most importantly, you’ll end up with a tool that Solve Loopers will want to use.
You have your implementation partners. Let us be your partner’s partner, and unlock the promise of the KCS Verified tool you’ve invested in.
