Answer: As knowledgeable as you make them.
A chatbot, virtual assistant or voicebot has little to no value without access to knowledge and the means to share it. The same can also be said of a contact centre agent.
Whether it is technology, a real life human or a combination of both powering an organisation’s customer service capabilities, the quality of that service is directly linked to: 1) the quality of information available, 2) how the information is shared, and 3) the accuracy of the information. Get these three elements right and the customer experience will be all the more better. The answer – knowledge management.
Knowledge management powers great customer experiences
Impacting every great customer experience, whatever the customer service channel, is the often neglected and over-looked discipline of knowledge management.
Any organisation believing that technology alone will take care of the transfer and sharing of ‘knowledge’ will not only be disappointed but will quickly find that they have put their business at risk. Without human know-how and input the technology has no chance of being a key enabler of better customer and employee experiences.
Knowledge management powers chatbots, virtual assistants, voicebots and empowers customer service agents. The quality of the responses and interactions with customers that a company is able to deliver directly correlates to the quality of knowledge management. It is the key to providing accurate, up-to-date information to customers across every communication channel, the first time, all the time, every time.
AI is transforming knowledge management
Today, many systems and processes are being transformed by AI. Whilst in many instances it is claimed that AI is replacing or taking over roles and functions and making them redundant, this is far from the case when it comes to knowledge management. In fact, AI has made knowledge management even more essential.
The information that feeds an AI model – whether for conversational AI or generative AI – determines the quality and accuracy of its output. If accurate, up-to-date and well-organised information is used alongside AI, then the responses it gives will be accurate.
Any organisation that uses AI powered customer service can only provide accurate answers to complex customer queries, accelerate resolution and handling times, and ensure customer satisfaction, with the right level of investment in knowledge management. An investment in knowledge management is an investment in customer experience.
Knowledge management then and now
Content explosion
Most organisations have mountains of content accumulated over many years, sometimes even decades. This content has more likely than not been developed across multiple areas of the business, housed in silos on unstructured platforms, and saved in a multitude of databases and formats, including lengthy document articles, PDFs, brochureware etc. The content is often difficult to retrieve, is inconsistent in structure and design, and sometimes even contradictory. It is an inefficient and costly process to be able to use it at scale.
Tech consumerisation
The dawn of the consumerisation of technology drove the need for ease and speed of organisational content sharing across multiple channels, and across every imaginable use-case. The tech consumerisation trend and the shift in power from business to the customer, necessitated a move towards structured content platforms and the requirement for a single source of content and unified knowledge management.
Customer experience economy
Power in the hands of customesr led to the age of a ‘customer experience economy’. Just as we saw the consumerisation of technology we are now seeing the massification and accessibility of AI tools which are driving further advancements in knowledge management.
Every day the amount of content being generated by organisations continues to expand exponentially. It is being created across, up and down an organisation, and information about and relevant to organisations is also being developed externally.
The sheer number of information sources coupled with the volume of information now available, has driven a shift in knowledge management systems from being single, source structured platforms to being ‘orchestration’ platforms. These orchestration platforms are able to handle content from all sources (internal and external), can organise and contextually understand all information in whatever format it comes, and then deliver accurate, up to date personalised content through whichever channel the customer has chosen – either technology or human – at any time. The content is both personalised, channel relevant, highly consumable, accurate, compliant and approved.
Generative AI and Knowledge Management
The popularity of generative AI and its acceptance for organisational use is becoming more and more common as technology advances. Whilst generative AI has been around for some time, in the world of chatbots, voicebots, virtual assistants and all things conversational AI, the true transformative potential of generative AI and its relationship with knowledge management lies in its ability to make it easier to find and capture information. Specifically, it can help companies ensure that Large Language Models (LLMs) are aligned with organised and accurate data that facilitates knowledge creation, cultivation, and categorisation at an enterprise level rather than just for individuals.
Real business issues addressed with effective knowledge management
Today’s customer has demands and expectations of what is acceptable customer service. They will take their business elsewhere if these needs can’t be met. Providing fast, accurate, personalised responses to customer enquiries and questions, via technology or humans, is all about knowledge management.
Leveraging AI, a modern knowledge management system can break down the information-silo walls, removing the frustration of laborious searches to find information, as it is all orchestrated centrally and fed to the user.
Faster, fit for business knowledge management
AI’s transformation of knowledge management as well as its reliance on knowledge management to be of use is enabling businesses to operate at a pace demanded by customers, deliver better working environments for employees, and meet scalability needs for growth and market relevance.
AI-enabled knowledge management systems are enabling content integration from numerous sources to create the single unified knowledge repository. Just as we have seen in products like Agent Assist where AI is used to automate post-call time consuming, administrative tasks, AI in knowledge management systems can be used to automate routine tasks so that humans can use their time for more strategic value-adding activities.
Knowledge management systems powered by AI can also easily and quickly scale, handling large volumes of data and users, as a company grows over time, or during periods of heightened use.
Knowledge management is also benefitting from AI as it can easily and automatically summarise lengthy documents, so users don’t have to trawl through reams of page heavy information – giving users the information they want rather than a document that will have the answer somewhere in it.
Customer experience a priority?
Organisations that have customer experience as a strategic priority need to have knowledge management investment on their radar as a critical success factor. Without investment in knowledge management and partnering with an expert who understands this discipline and its interlock with conversational AI, generative AI and all business systems, a business is at risk.
Knowledge management powering chatbots, voicebots, virtual assistants and customer service agents gives organisations a competitive edge.
The growing sophistication of chatbots and virtual assistants and the value these have for a business will be reliant on the quality of knowledge management.
With AI, the quality of what you put in determines what is put out. This same principle should apply to your service provider. The quality of your service provider advising and implementing your conversational AI solution, whether it be a chatbot, voicebot, virtual assistant or tools to assist customer service agents, together with their experience and expertise in knowledge management systems and structures, will directly determine the quality of your output, and the experience your customers receive.
To hear more about Creative Virtual’s V-Studio platform and V-Person solutions that leverage fully integrated, modern, AI-powered knowledge management systems contact us.
