Build a customer service knowledge base
Overview
This standard is part of the customer service competence area related to Impression and Image. It covers building a customer service knowledge base. It includes area that covers the customer service behaviours and processes that have most impact on the way your customer sees you and your organisation. Remember that customers include everyone to whom you provide products and services. They may be external to your organisation or they may be internal customers.
Your organisation has a systematic or technology supported approach to building a customer knowledge base. You maintain and improve customer service by using a customer service knowledge base. This knowledge base is built up continuously as your organisation learns from interaction with its customers. Your organisation's knowledge base may contain a wide variety of information about customers and their transactions with the organisation and is drawn from a wide variety of sources. You and your colleagues build and grow the knowledge base as a customer service tool.
This standard is for customer service professionals who build a customer service knowledge base to develop and improve the way their organisation deals with customer transactions.
Performance criteria
You must be able to:
- identify information for inclusion in the knowledge base by actively listening to customers
- classify information collected during customer interactions for inclusion in the knowledge base
- identify questions frequently asked by customers for inclusion in the knowledge base
- identify the broad customer service messages of your organisation's answers to frequently asked questions
- develop responses to customer queries and requests by working with colleagues
- contribute ideas and proposed responses to the customer knowledge base which build on key organisational customer service messages
- monitor the effects of proposed knowledge base responses with customers during live customer service delivery or in trials
- analyse your organisation's customer service knowledge base to identify trends and patterns
- access information from the customer service knowledge base using specific search criteria
- explore the customer service knowledge base to research a topic of interest or project area
- access the customer service knowledge base to inform the introduction of a new product or service variation
- use the customer service knowledge base to respond to a specific customer request or query
- assist colleagues to locate the information they require in the customer service knowledge base
- add to the customer service knowledge base after dealing with a customer request or query when required
- follow the legal, organisational, codes of practice and policies relevant to your role and the activities being carried out
Knowledge and Understanding
You need to know and understand:
- the structure and content of your organisation's customer service knowledge base
- how to actively listen to customers to identify the information that they need
- the input and update processes for adding to your organisation's customer service knowledge base
- the ways in which information for a customer service knowledge base can be drawn from different sources, including social media platforms
- the ways that information in a customer service knowledge base can be classified and why this is important
- the questions frequently asked by customers of your organisation
- the importance of working with colleagues to develop responses to customer requests and queries
- the importance of trialling or testing proposed responses to frequently asked questions, and how to do this in your organisation
- how to analyse your organisation's customer service knowledge base to identify patterns and trends, and how this information is used
- your organisation's key messages in relation to the services or products you are delivering
- the ways to interpret information in a customer service knowledge base
- the techniques for assisting a colleague to locate information in your customer service knowledge base
- the legal, organisational, codes of practice and policies relevant to your role and the activities being carried out