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Consortium for Service Innovation

Appendix C: Stakeholder Engagement

Techniques to create and sustain stakeholder engagement in KCS, by adoption phase.

Plan and Design

Executives

  • Develop the Strategic Framework
  • Engage C-level executives in Strategic Framework 
  • Review cost benefit analysis and baseline measures
  • Understand the timing of benefits
  • Understand the impact of self-service success on traditional measures
  • Support the introduction of new measures for the health and value of support, and set C-level expectations for new measures
  • Contact references (executives at other companies who have been successful)
  • Fund and support KCS Council and the coaching program

Managers

  • Representative managers involved in KCS Design Session and adoption planning
  • Receive KCS overview and information about how it will help them
  • Help with identification of early adopters and KCS Coaches

Knowledge Workers

  • Receive KCS overview and information about how it will help them
  • Representative knowledge workers involved in KCS Council participate in KCS v6 Practices Workshop and Design Session 

Business Owners

  • Representative managers participate in KCS v6 Practices Workshop and Design Session

Adopt in Waves

Executives

  • Review Strategic Framework
  • Receive regular updates on the status of adoption activities and success stories
  • Build relationships and communicate with Business Owners about the value of article reuse reporting and root cause analysis
  • Advocate the value support creates for the business (to C-level executives)
  • Align Director goals and measures (VP direct reports) to re-enforce/recognize KCS behaviors and contribution
  • Support KCS assessment program for teams (KCS Council manages and evolves)
  • Review plans and reporting to support new value-based measures 

Managers

  • Receive training on KCS concepts and new performance assessment model (old measures can disrupt KCS success)
  • Align team goals to reinforce and recognize KCS behaviors
  • Celebrate achievement of KCS licensing levels (recognition of those who earn license)
  • Support KCS Coach activities
  • Coaching for managers
  • Management representation on the KCS Council (selection and/or rotation)

Knowledge Workers

  • Attend KCS training and get a KCS Coach
  • Share anecdotes about success
  • Recognition for achievement of KCS licensing levels and creation of value in the knowledge base

Business Owners

  • Periodic status updates on progress

Build Proficiency

Executives

  • Review reports on the benefits: performance against baseline measures
  • Review top reused article report with analysis
  • Implement the new measurement model for self-service measures and cross-functional measures (time to cure)
  • Acknowledge KCS impact and value in communications (news-letters, all-hands meetings)
  • Advocate for the value support creates for the business
  • Review new value-based measures with C-level executives
  • Support the KDE program
  • Review analysis from the New vs Known studies done by KDEs

Managers

  • Training on new measurement model
  • Develop team measures
  • Provide constant feedback to knowledge workers on the impact of their knowledge contribution
  • Acknowledge knowledge workers who are creating value

Knowledge Workers

  • Review article reuse reports - both internal and self-service.  (Knowledge workers must be able to see the impact of their contribution.)
  • Receive feedback from the Content Standard Checklist and PAR reviews
  • A few knowledge workers take on the role of KDE 

Business Owners

  • KDEs review article reuse reports and analysis with Business Owners
  • Develop plans for root cause analysis and corrective actions for pervasive issues

Optimize and Innovate

Executives

  • Review/update Strategic Framework
  • Review reports on customer success with self-service measures and a summary of top reused article (internal reuse and customer use) reports
  • Review cross-functional measures (time to cure)
  • Acknowledge KCS impact and value in communications (news-letters, all-hands meetings, ops review with C-level)
  • Advocate for the value support creates for the business
  • Review analysis from New vs Known study

Managers

  • Celebrate customer success with self-service
  • Celebrate changes in the products, services, and/or policies due to patterns in the knowledge base
  • Acknowledge knowledge workers who are creating value 

Knowledge Workers

  • Access to internal and external reuse reports
  • Acknowledge contribution to self-service success
  • Visibility to and acknowledgement for changes in product due to patterns in the knowledge base (their contribution)

Business Owners

  • Review information about self-service activity patterns, trends and customer feedback
  • Review information about community activities: patterns, trends, and sentiment

You Know You Are Doing KCS When...

Adopt in Waves phase

Operational Improvements

  • Knowledge workers integrate use of the knowledge base into their problem solving process 
    • It is a faster way to identify known issues
    • Access to others' experience helps them solve new issues faster
    • Creating and maintaining articles in the workflow takes zero (0) incremental minutes 
  • Percentage of problems recognized as "known" doubles
  • Average time to resolve drops by 20-50%
  • Support capacity increases by 20-50%
  • The biggest cynics become KCS advocates because they have “experienced it”
  • Knowledge worker morale is at an all-time high
  • Turnover rate is at an all-time low
  • Peer pressure becomes a primary motivator: knowledge workers don’t tolerate their peers messing up the knowledge base

Build Proficiency phase

Leverage knowledge to improve self-service and the business

  • 90% of customer usable content is published to the web when the resolution is known (90/0)
  • Customer use of and success with self-service is over 70%
    • Content in the customer’s context
    • Self-service design: choices on how to find content (browsing and searching) and no dead ends
  • The work in the support center shifts from mostly known to mostly new
    • Perceived incident complexity in the support center increases
  • Knowledge workers are spending a higher percent of their time on new, challenging issues
  • Support process evolves to a non-linear, collaborative network

 

For more information the organizational benefits and measures of KCS please see the Measurement Matters v6 paper.

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