TO PKB OR NOT TO PKB. A New Approach to Implementing Salesforce Knowledge

Transcription

1 TO PKB OR NOT TO PKB A New Approach to Implementing Salesforce Knowledge

2 SALESFORCE KNOWLEDGE IS HOT. PKB IS NOT. Salesforce Knowledge is the ideal vehicle to help companies enhance their customer relationships since so many departments benefit. The sales department is happy because happy customers positively impact revenue. Marketing is happy because it increases their brand equity and ups their search engine standing, customer service is happy because self service cuts down on workload and finance is happy because it provides positive ROI. The only group that may not be happy is technical because out of the box, Salesforce Knowledge is notoriously difficult to design, structure and deploy taking too much time and delivering results that aren t quite up to the original vision. So, for most companies, it s not when or why they are going to deploy Salesforce Knowledge, it s HOW and unfortunately how may be the most difficult part.

3 PROBLEM SOLVED. For many companies, this is a common scenario and a situation that begs for a new approach. The good news is that with a little ingenuity, Salesforce Knowledge can be designed and deployed in a fast, elegant and infinitely dynamic way. In this ebook, we ll be sharing some of the best practices around strategy, planning, and implementation for Salesforce Knowledge and the ways that Eustace has harnessed the power of Salesforce Knowledge and tamed the implementation nightmare to deliver cutting edge frameworks for clients. We ll highlight a great case study, HomeAway, a company that utilizes Salesforce Knowledge to help multiple types of visitors to find information efficiently. We understand the pain (and the promise) and that s why we set out to fix the situation. 91% OF CUSTOMERS would use an online support center if available and tailored to their needs. (Source: Salesforce) 92% OF PEOPLE use search engines to find information. (Optimize content for frequent customer searches to generate more traffic.) (Source: Pew Internet) 72% OF CUSTOMERS are going online to serve themselves, but only 52% are finding the information they re searching for. (Source: Zendesk)

4 THE BEST LAID PLANS Flesh out the long term plan. Many companies end up reacting to an immediate need when it comes to Salesforce Knowledge. Most have a lot of useful information they know will help customers in some way, it s just a matter of putting it up. Make sure you fully understand all of the capabilities (and possibilities) available through Salesforce Knowledge. It may influence a broadening of the strategy and content. Invite your technology partners or resources to weigh in they have the benefit of showing how other companies were successful in their implementations (and conversely, know where there may be problems). Salesforce Knowledge is used for multiple purposes and audiences will you be moving from a FAQ approach now and later design a partner portal? Understanding the longer term plan can help guide the decisions you make today and may make it easier down the road as you expand. Create the Right Content. Understand how your audience consumes information and map your content accordingly. Having information available in different formats allows a better experience for customers and enables people with different learning styles to benefit. For example, a highly visual learner won t find a long document easy to consume. Keep your eye on the metrics of what types of information are performing better than others and how you can refine and add to information sources so they are improved.

5 THE BEST LAID PLANS Strategize Navigation. Chart the course for success. Just like a great website, Salesforce Knowledge should be easy to navigate so visitors can quickly find the information they need. Some companies are so anxious to get the information populated, they spend little time thinking through how knowledge should be structured, the inter-relationships of information and the way that external or internal visitors get where they re going with the least amount of aggravation. In our implementations, Eustace allocates time and attention to building a structure that is intuitive and adaptable should changes be required. And breadcrumbs, of course, we have breadcrumbs. Don't forget responsive design and translations. With the growth of mobile and handhelds, customers are more likely to be accessing Salesforce Knowledge on a number of devices. We have become a society accustomed to immediate answers and that answer is often sought on-the-run. The usage patterns of your users becomes of paramount importance for how to integrate, test and deploy your Salesforce Knowledge program. Of equal importance is language and translations. In today s global economy, all our customer interactions should support the visitor s language requirements if possible.

6 THE BEST LAID PLANS Maintain Branding and Graphics. No surprise Salesforce Knowledge is another extension of your brand, so keeping it aligned to brand standards is something that shouldn t be ignored. It reinforces to the visitor that they aren t lost and when they have a great experience with your fantastic Salesforce Knowledge portal, you want your brand to be front and center. For most companies, a customized template isn t just a nice to have, it s a necessity, so don t settle for something out-of-the-box, it s too important not to personalize. Although Eustace doesn t do the graphic design, we do respect the importance of each client s brand throughout the implementation. Create Crawlable Content. What a waste of critical information if no one can find it. We know that great content can improve search engine results (the eternal quest to reach Page 1), so ensuring the site map is implemented using XML is imperative. Not only does it help in rankings, but users most often START with a search engine to locate the help they need. You ll get double value points by taking this approach.

7 THE BEST LAID PLANS Employ Metrics for Constant Improvement. As your knowledge base grows, don t forget to continually revisit metrics. What content is delivering the best results for case deflection? Are any of the content pieces being accessed, but reviewed unfavorably? What is consistently on the top read list? Can that inform necessary changes in other areas like product enhancements or documentation requirements? What are the usage rates and how can you increase accessibility? Dashboards can be created to track the critical areas of importance for your organization. Expand with Salesforce Communities. Salesforce Communities are a logical connection for Salesforce Knowledge and the two can (and should) be tightly integrated. Often knowledge bases are greatly enhanced by user helping user knowledge it s kind of like open source help. Monitoring feedback and upvoted content keeps your finger on the pulse of the community and can inform and round out potential areas where your PKB is lacking giving you the opportunity to expand or modify content and anticipate visitors needs.

8 Get a jumpstart on your Salesforce Knowledge project with Eustace. Like any good development company, we wanted to find a better way to alleviate the headaches around Salesforce Knowledge to enable our clients to get where they wanted to go. Salesforce Knowledge is a great idea, it s PKB that s painful to implement. With our new framework, you can get up and running quickly with page templates, navigation, search, custom objects and more. Entirely hosted on Salesforce and you get the source code. It s a partnership right? We take that seriously so let s touch base and see if we can help. With over 1 million vacation rentals in over 190 countries, HomeAway has grown astronomically over the years. Servicing and supporting a diverse visitor base including listing agents, homeowners, property managers and renters requires an extremely robust knowledge base with clear navigation to ensure visitors are able to quickly find the information they need. The company has done a phenomenal job of customizing the navigation, highlighting popular searches, and connecting the knowledge base to the community. The result is impressive. Check it out here. eustaceconsulting.com