Part 1 of this blog series introduced the need for knowledge management (KM) software applications as part of a more comprehensive and strategic service management (SSM) suite. One such broad SSM suite has been advanced by Servigistics, and Part 2 zoomed into the capabilities of one particular part of the Servigistics SSM suite: Service Knowledge Management (SKM). Read the rest of this entry »

The title of this blog post might sound like a no-brainer: as clear and indisputable as the “motherhood and apple pie” adage. Yet how many times have you dealt with a seemingly not-really-knowledgeable call center person over the phone or a clueless technician that showed up at your door? To be fair, maybe those folks were knowledgeable in principle, but were still ill-informed about your particular problem, previously explained at a great length to someone else within their company.

Why on earth then did the call center agent ask you to repeat all those personal and problem-related details, or why did you have to explain yet again the problem and symptoms to the field technician, who then had to go back to the office to bring the (hopefully) correct part? In the do-it-yourself (DIY) self-service scenario, how many times have you had to plow through numerous pages, pesky hyperlinks, and/or an abundance of annoying questions (that endlessly branch into more questions)?

And all those attempts only to eventually give up on the self-service diagnostic adventure, and to yet again be put on a lengthy hold (with “sleepy elevator” Kenny G’s music being periodically interrupted with the annoying “please hold the line, as your call is important to us” mantra) in order to talk to a human being? And as Murphy’s Law would have it, the solution often turns out to be as asinine as you just needing to plug the machine into the wall or removing a lost sock from the filter. Read the rest of this entry »