A knowledge management system is the system you have in place to answer customer or employee questions.
Some companies upload Word docs to SharePoint or an internal drive, or they create docs in Google Drive. When employees or customers have questions, they navigate through folders to find documents that have answers. Other companies have moved away from uploading PDF guides and manuals and have adopted cloud-based systems that are easier to search and browse.
Regardless of the technology you use, knowledge management systems hold similar types of content such as:
- SOPs (standard operating procedures)
- How-tos
- Call flows
- FAQs
- Job aids
- Quick-reference-guides
- Troubleshooting guides
- Courses
And any other type of content that can help employees or customers answer questions.
The purpose of a knowledge management system
The goal is to help end users who have questions find (and use) answers on their own.
One of the shortcomings of knowledge management systems that rely on uploading PDF, Word, PowerPoint, etc. is that end users are unable to quickly find the answers that they need via keyword search. Those types of systems expect end users to navigate through the different folders to find the document they need.
Another shortcoming of knowledge management systems is that they are not easy to read. Customers and employees may be able to find the applicable information, but if the content is too technical, not visual, only available in one format (e.g. video or e-Learning) then they may find it easier to just ask a co-worker or a support agent for help.
A good knowledge management system makes it easy for end users to find applicable answers and use those answers effectively.
ScreenSteps is a cloud-based knowledge management system
ScreenSteps is a cloud-based knowledge management system specifically designed for answering questions related to policies, procedures, and software applications.
Companies use ScreenSteps in two main ways:
- To help employees find answers related to operational questions
- To help customers find answers related to using applications
Here is how managers use ScreenSteps in those two situations.
1) Help employees find answers related to operational questions
Operations Managers and Trainers use ScreenSteps to help employees learn how to do their job. That could include backoffice work such as accounting and billing, or it could include customer-facing roles such as sales reps and customer support agents.
This reduces the time it takes new employees to become proficient at their job. It also helps competent employees do those irregular tasks that they are not very familiar with.
2) Help customers find answers related to using applications
Customer Support Managers use ScreenSteps to reduce the number of "How do I...?" support tickets coming in from customers so that customer support teams can focus more of their time on addressing bugs and design issues.
Cloud-based knowledge management system
Knowledge management systems can be installed locally on internal servers or they can run on the cloud.
ScreenSteps runs securely in the cloud and does not support local installations. The benefit of running in the cloud is that you always have access to the latest and greatest version of ScreenSteps and you can take advantage of the technological advances that are native to the ScreenSteps system (e.g. foldable sections, inline links, workflow articles, checklists, etc.).