Even if your position has “sales” in the job title, you should know about and influence the practices and processes used in your customer support organization.

Your customers’ post purchase or implementation service experiences will impact your future sales revenue and quota achievement.  And, strong internal practices add to your company’s value proposition and can be used to close new deals.

Process improvement methodologies such as Six Sigma, Lean and COPC (Customer Operations Performance Center) get a lot of airtime, but there is another practice that world class service and help desk organizations use to create consistent and effective customer experiences… KCS.

I recently had the opportunity to be formally trained and certified in KCS and am now an evangelist. I drank the Kool-Aid and want to share a glass with my blog readers.

What is KCS?

KCS, short for “knowledge centered support” is a methodology and set of practices used in customer support organizations, to solve problems using “knowledge”. As Agents, Analysts and Engineers find answers to frequently asked questions, or solutions to solve technical problems, they record them in a knowledge base, which is accessible by other employees and by customers.

Employees populate the KCS knowledge base while the conversations are happening and/or while the problems are being solved. Even a partial solution can help other employees or customers solve similar problems.

What KCS Is Not

KCS is definitely not the flavor of the week. (We’ve all experienced those!) It is a practice that changes the customer support culture, must have top down and front line manager support, and requires an investment in resources, including knowledge base technology.

The WIFM of KCS

A successful implementation and ongoing management of KCS provides benefits to employees, customers and the organization. Here are some examples.

• Solve Customer Problems Faster: With KCS, both employees and customers will benefit from increased speed and accuracy of problem solving. Instead of resolving every customer issue “from scratch” employees can access the knowledge base to immediately find a proven answer or solution. If you offer web based support, customers can solve their own problems, 7X24, leveraging the KCS database.

Faster problem resolution will increase your customer service capacity to offer new services and provide value add activities (e.g. proactive customer service calls).

• Less Training, But More Knowledge: Is there anyone who actually enjoys sitting in classroom training for weeks, trying to memorize product information and features? Even if you do enjoy it, you will retain only a small portion of the information shared.

Once you’ve built a robust, KCS knowledge base, employees can get answers to their questions “just in time”, to help customers, instead of having to rely on memorization or complex, product specs. This helps brand new employees get up to speed much faster and also allows your existing employees to be proficient across multiple product lines.

To learn more about KCS, check out the website for The Consortium for Service Innovation, based in California. They are considered the managing body for creating and maintaining the KCS standards.

Have your service organization practices helped you sell more? Have you implemented KCS in your organization? Please add your comments….