Your role as a KCS coach
As a KCS coach for your Tech Support SME team, you will have received the corresponding training and now you are expected to have a deep understanding of the KCS practices and processes as we have implemented them at ServiceNow.
Promoting the benefits of KCS
The main reason for a support organization to start using the KCS methodology is to provide better service to their customers. This usually means:
- shorter resolution times
- When an issue has been solved before and documented in the knowledge base, other TSEs will be able to provide the solution quicker than the first time the issue was investigated.
- consistency in the quality of response
- When all TSEs provide the same solution to the same issue, this is perceived as a more valid response.
For more information, see KCS Benefits (Consortiums for Service Innovation).
Meet with your coachees
Since you are helping them to build skills and develop a new habit, it's very important to keep in touch with your knowledge workers. Here are a few opportunities you can use to stay connected:
- Standup meetings (either your regular team standups or one you set up yourself)
- Keep Knowledge as a regular topic
- Talk about KB articles your team has published and fi they helped solve an issue.
- Bi-weekly one-on-one meetings with each knowledge worker
- Go through a sample of their closed cases and see if there are more opportunities to create knowledge
- See the progress in the quality of their published articles
- Check if they are running into any difficulties regarding their KCS skills
Assess the quality of your coachees' articles
The main responsibility of a coach is to review their Knowledge Workers’ articles. This is done using the Article Quality Index. Once you have set up reports or dashboard, you should regularly (daily) check if your knowledge workers have published an article that you need to review.
REMEMBER:
- KCS Candidates
- All articles are reviewed.
- Articles must be Published with Internal audience.
- KCS Contributors
- Only a sample is reviewed (focus on the articles with Public or Customer audiences).
The technical accuracy of the article is not the only thing that matters; remember that articles need to:
- Have a good title and structure
- Be helpful to the customer
- Be easy to find in the Knowledge Base
- Use words that a customer would use
Also, remember that the article has to be "good enough." You are not rewriting or editing it.
| Note: Candidates have to publish all their articles with the Internal audience. After the AQI is done, and any issues have been addressed, you will decide together with the candidate if you publish the article to the Public or Customer audience. |
We recommend doing the AQI in the first 48 hours after the article is published. This will help build trust between you and your coachees and keep them engaged, knowing that their work is appreciated.
Provide feedback to your coachees
Providing feedback can be a delicate issue, especially if the one on the receiving end takes it personally, as criticism on their way of working.
The key to making the coaching relationship work is to provide positive, constructive feedback using a coaching style. It’s all about the words you choose, your tone, and providing practical suggestions for making the article better.
Sometimes it helps to show how to do it so that the TSE understands that what you are asking is not that hard to do.
Have a look at this short video with some good tips:
Schedule regular coach meetings
Invite your coaches to join regular coach calls where you can share updates regarding tools, processes, projects, etc. and you can ask any question you have related to the KCS process. The joint experience of all participants in the meeting is a great source of tips and tricks that can help you keep your coachees engaged and focused on sharing their knowledge.
Promote best practices
Once a knowledge worker is used to creating content from their cases (the hardest new habit to acquire), it's time for them to step up their game and focus on the finer details of writing.
For example, have this series of Knowledge Bytes handy and provide them to your colleagues so they can improve their content:
- Code Blocks
- Use Article titles in links to other documents
- Make a list and check it twice
- Searching for Knowledge from your browser's address bar
Deciding when a candidate is ready to be a contributor
The goal of all Candidates is to become a Contributor, but it’s important not to rush anyone through this process. If someone is struggling, don't push them through just to conform to this timeline. Instead:
- If someone is struggling within the first 15 days, reach out to their manager.
- Decide whether they are demonstrating the behaviors we want to see.
- Use your dashboard to assess the 3 main KCS behaviors: Search, Attach, Create (Improve)
- The number of articles they've written is not the most important factor; the quality of articles should determine if someone is ready to be a Contributor.
- Coaches and managers decide together when a Knowledge Worker is ready for the Contributor role. The key point here is quality, not timeline!
- Once you think a candidate is ready to be a contributor, inform your RKTL so that they can update
