Technique 3.3: To Search is To Capture

Search Activity is Useful Information

The words and phrases we use to search are content for improving existing KCS articles or creating new KCS articles. They are especially valuable because they capture the requestor's context. Content used for searching should be saved, updated based on search results, and become the beginning of a new KCS article if a relevant article does not already exist.

Content like the issue and environment statements frame the KCS article. This content should be saved and shared even if we don't yet have a resolution. We may continue to work on the issue or escalate to the appropriate people for resolution. A Work In Progress article (or searchable case notes) lets others know that the issue has been reported. When the resolution is determined, we use it to finish the WIP article. We consider this KCS article complete and mark it with the appropriate state based on our KCS training and our confidence in the resolution. In the event that other open cases have been linked to this article while we were working on it, they can be quickly resolved.

The process of framing and finishing KCS articles draws people into using the knowledge base as the basis for resolving issues. This, in turn, ensures that the collective experience is being captured in the process of resolving issues.

Every Search Has Value

Environments where requestors use self-service as the entry point for assistance offer a great opportunity to capture the requestor's context. Capturing the words and phrases they used to search, their clickstream as they browse, and/or articles they opened can be very helpful in the event the requestor moves from self-service to the assisted path. 

First of all, this guarantees that we are capturing the requestor context, and secondly, making this information available to the responder helps the requestor feel like the effort spent pursuing a resolution through self-service was not a waste of time. This information can help expedite the process as we can review what has already been done. We call this "no dead-ends" for the requestor, and is a critical factor in creating a positive experience with self-service.

The requestor's search terms can be used to modify an existing article and improve its findability, or to create the problem/issue statements in a new KCS article, if one doesn't already exist. Because the problem statements came from the requestor's search activity, they are sure to be in the requestor's context.

If, in working on the issue, we eventually find an article in the knowledge base, we should improve that article so others can find it.

• We have already captured the information, which we can use to update and improve the findability of the existing article. 
• If the existing article was available to the requestor but not findable, we use the requestor experience (and their context) to improve the findability of that article for the next requestor.
• If the existing article was not available to the requestor, we update the confidence and audience metadata indicators if we are trained to do so.  

Reuse drives both improvement of the articles being used as well as increasing the visibility of article being used.