January 27, 2011

By Susan J. Campbell

TMCnet Contributing Editor

 

Knowledge Management can deliver considerable value to the enterprise, if you know how to use it. One key integration for knowledge management is into the customer relationship management (CRM) system. The two work well together as you build your overall knowledge management as a result of information captured within the CRM system. 

This recent ECRM Guide piece focused on this concept and how CRM has truly evolved to support sales force automation and customer service. CRM was once defined as the systems that support basic customer information. The “New CRM” that delivers value today truly incorporates knowledge management, mobile support and social networking. Knowledge management focuses on the ability to capture, store and intelligently search for information throughout the web. This included the ability to index information within documents. 

The ultimate goal of knowledge management is to create end user self-service to ensure answers can be found without needing to speak with a live individual.An important part of knowledge management is intelligent call routing, or the ability to route customer questions to the proper agents. This is critical in the new CRM that leads to a robust knowledge management platform. And, now that there are many more channels of access, including chat, voice, e-mail, wikis and forums, the organization can gain even greater knowledge management from multiple sources. 

With so many sources and so many clients operating on mobile platforms now, mobile support fully integrated into CRM is also essential. The robust CRM products available on the market today will support the top mobile platforms that interact with them. These platforms offer the ability to solve a customer situation, even when they are mobile. 

This capability is critical to building a positive brand for the company. To build the right base for knowledge management, the organization must have information to work with. In basic CRM, information is captured around cases, contacts, opportunities and all information is tied to the back-end ERP system. The goal of this overall system is to create the ultimate in end user experiences so that the organization can streamline its customer support costs, while still ensuring the ultimate in the customer experience. Knowledge management can also benefit from social networking forums and connections to channel partners. 

The new CRM offers the ability to host user forums and let the community solve many of the problems. At the same time, greater knowledge is gained for the knowledge base to drive optimal management of that information.

Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan’s articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Juliana Kenny