Let’s face it--as Marketing and Customer-focused professionals, the topic of Knowledge Management (KM) probably isn’t first thing we think about each day, what gets us fired up during brainstorming sessions, or what keeps us up at night.

But it should be. It is how we organize, manage, access, and distribute knowledge to help our customers, constituents, and prospects fulfill their wants and needs. Delivering the right information and messages at the right time can dramatically improve service quality, marketing effectiveness, the success of new products and services, customer advocacy, profitability, and much more.

But information delivery is just one part of the equation. The often overlooked--yet absolutely crucial element—element is learning. Effective KM also enables us to learn from our customers, prospects and employees, helping us to better serve their needs while improving our businesses.

Here we will discuss how these aspects of KM impact Marketing every day.

Ensuring Message Accuracy and Consistency Across Channels

With information being delivered through multiple Web sites, contact center agents, outsourced contact center partners, sales representatives, customer service personnel, IVRs, brochures and advertising—how do you ensure they are consistently delivering the “right” answers and the “right” messages to protect and enhance your brand? This is a major challenge for Marketers because inconsistencies and inaccuracies can have widespread negative impact--particularly with the proliferation of blogs and feedback sites—including the erosion of customer trust and emotional equity in your brand.

On the other hand, there are numerous benefits in providing an easy-to-access, self-learning, and highly accurate Knowledge Management system that enables all customer-facing channels to answer questions and deliver consistent and accurate information. These include reducing costs, increasing satisfaction and retention, and reducing negative word of mouth and liabilities.

Additionally, a unified KM system can help to optimize promotions, create cross-sell and up-sell opportunities, and reinforce the brand promise by enabling all channels to deliver the right message at the right time.

Guiding the Self Service Experience for Optimal Results

Just what is the “right” message? Your Web site is a vast repository of knowledge with thousands of anonymous and known visitors daily or monthly. You can’t personalize your site for every visitor. However, with just seconds to engage their interest, should you place the burden on your visitor to navigate your site, dig through keyword search results, and/or scan through a list of FAQs to find information that is relevant to them? No, but this happens more often than we care to admit.

For the visitor, this process is inefficient and lacks the elements of “great service.” It’s no wonder why, despite the widespread use of the Web, Web self-service adoption and satisfaction rates are low.

For Marketers, this approach negatively impacts Marketing effectiveness. You’re depending on the visitor draw conclusions about your products and services based on a long list of information—not an effective marketing message you want them to hear or read.

What if your KM and self-service solution could quickly uncover their needs, provide them the shortest route to finding relevant information, and deliver well-crafted and well-timed response that guide them to an optimal outcome?

Conversational KM and self-service technologies (sometimes known as Conversational Agents) enable your visitors to ask a question in their own words and receive a direct and precise “conversational” response. When appropriate, they engage visitors in a “conversation” to better understand their needs or solve their problems, and then personalize responses in context to those needs. Not only does this result in more accurate and precise answers to their questions, but also allows you to deliver the most relevant and effective messages their situation and needs. This ensures a unique and superior experience, while enabling you to deliver effective messages that drive revenue.

Increasing Revenue and Reducing Abandonment

Over 50 percent of online shoppers abandon their carts. An even higher percentage of visitors abandon sites within the first couple of clicks. Against these odds, the ability to quickly understand and address specific needs become paramount.

When you have an opportunity to learn about a visitor’s specific interest(s) during their research, and then adjust your marketing message based on his or her intent for that particular visit, you have an opportunity to create significant value in the mind of that individual. Delivering targeted, well-crafted messages can strengthen their interest in your products and services, increase their willingness to pay and intent to purchase (whether on-site or in the store), and improve their overall purchase experience.

A Conversational KM solution can drive revenue in this manner by:

Embedding intelligence into an individuals’ search and self-service experience
Creating a personal dialog with them
Determining purchase intents and delivering specific value-oriented messaging based on those intents
Helping them make informed decisions
Improving the speed, ease and quality of the purchase experience.

These capabilities dramatically impact your online and offline conversion rates, marketing effectiveness, revenue growth, and customer satisfaction through your online and offline channels.

Learning Through Conversations

If you don’t want your customers to abandon you, don’t abandon your customer before their needs are fulfilled! Your visitor or caller may have multiple related questions—not just one. While some search- and FAQ-based KM and Web self-service solutions answer the first question fairly well, that’s where it ends.

When a visitor enters their subsequent question(s), the system is not able to factor in what it “learned” about the visitor or caller during the first interaction to personalize or contextualize the response it delivers. Instead, each interaction is treated as a new one, and your visitor or caller must “start over” with each question they ask. This can be very frustrating, not only from a time and hassle perspective, but also because the customer or potential customer feels unappreciated.

On the other hand, a Conversational KM solution that “learns” about the individual’s needs and can leverage that information ensures a much more accurate and informed response, and improves the overall customer experience.

Personalizing Responses

When a customer asks "When does my warranty expire?" they deserve the right answer—not a generic response or list of links. The right KM tool can access multiple customer and knowledge repositories, incorporate this information into a decision making process, and formulate personalized responses with precise answers and the supporting content you wish to push.

Boosting SEM and Landing Page Effectiveness

We do a great job of driving potential customers to our Web sites through search engine marketing, advertisements, emails, etc., but we don't always meet their expectations once they arrive.

Engaging visitors in conversations, understanding what they want and guiding them to it is the pathway to a purchase. A Conversational KM solution can do this for you 24x7. Leveraged throughout your site, it helps you uncover visitor needs quickly, create value around the solution, and improve the likelihood of conversion or purchase.

Knowing what Influences, Impacts and Moves Your Customers

You can gain superior customer insight by viewing the raw, unsolicited input of your site's visitors. The right KM system captures customer "conversations" word for word—the true "voice of the customer"—providing valuable real-time insight. Learn what they're asking about, the intent behind their questions, and those that remain unanswered. This knowledge improves your search engine marketing, promotions, advertising, and Web content; while helping you get a leg-up on competitors with new and targeted offerings.

Streamlining Administration

Your KM system should provide a centralized point of administration to push knowledge out to all channels (Web, intranet, email, chat, phone and IVR), while enabling you to differentiate responses by channel and by user roles. The right KM tools enable Marketing and subject matter experts to quickly create, edit and update content for all channels, while leveraging your existing enterprise content and systems. You'll gain control over the messages being delivered, simplify information distribution, ensure information consistency across channels, and improve the overall quality of information.

Conversational KM Solutions Can Improve Next Generation Marketing Capabilities with Rapid ROI

Think about it. And visit www.astutesolutions.com/marketingkm for an extended write-up on KM and Marketing. While you're there, learn how our RealDialog™ Conversational Knowledge Management and self-service solution can help you.