A leading software product developer in the antivirus and internet security market desired to become more customer centric. Several factors were forcing this change: commoditization of its core product line was forcing the progression to a solutions orientation; increasing product complexity and support requirements necessitated higher levels of customer service; and new business models and channel strategies were needed for greater market penetration and growth (e.g., ISP, device manufacturers).
The company’s inbound call center operations were failing. The caseload for the existing technical support organization was growing significantly but the capacity to handle the increasing volume lagged behind the growing demand. The company had inadequate web-based self-service, and while there was plenty of technical content available, its quality was mediocre and it was difficult to find on the website.
The company’s customers were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the long cycle times it took to resolve their issues. The company launched an initiative to significantly upgrade its support infrastructure, focusing on case capacity and responsiveness.
Iknow, in partnership with a large systems integrator (SI), was selected to design, develop, and implement a world-class customer support infrastructure for this software product company.
The project team developed a comprehensive solution that addressed the content management processes and technical infrastructure. The solution involved four core elements:
- A robust content management process that was integrated with the new product development process. The enhanced process included all of the necessary business functions and departments for the creation, review, and approval of technical customer support knowledge.
- A taxonomy for simplified content indexing and retrieval.
- A technical environment that incorporated a leading commercial enterprise content management (ECM) application suite.
- A global content management organization, with both distributed and centralized functions. This organization was accountable for the global content creation, publishing, and delivery processes.
Iknow, working collaboratively with the SI and the client’s development staff, built the knowledge repository, content search, and content-display system. Four separate interfaces with specific functionality were created for the four end-user groups: customers, internal technical support staff, sales engineers, and business partners.
The software company achieved several significant benefits, including a smaller number of open technical support cases, shorter case durations, greater end-user satisfaction levels, and increased scalability of the technical support infrastructure—all of which contributed to lower overall technical support costs.