KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
WHY KM IS NO LONGER OPTIONAL
A few years ago, a relatively new agent received a challenging call when I was a team lead working the late shift at a health insurance call center. A mother wanted to switch her son ' s health plan to match the one her other child was on. But the agent wasn ' t sure if such a change was allowed mid-coverage.
After completing the standard HIPAA verification— a routine process in healthcare call centers for authenticating callers— the agent checked the child ' s open enrollment status.
According to the system, the child could not change plans for another eight months. Confident in what she found, the agent informed the mother that her son was locked into his current plan until then.
But the mother pushed back. She explained that both the child ' s current health plan and his doctor had told her the change could be made through the enrollment broker.
Unsure and feeling the pressure, the agent placed the caller on hold and reached out to mentors and other agents, but no one was available. Four minutes passed. The total call time hit 12 minutes and the agent was still searching for the answer.
Monitoring the call queues- a dashboard that shows agent activity- I noticed the long call and checked in. The agent quickly briefed me on the situation. I recalled a policy update: in specific cases like this, where continuity of care was involved, and siblings could be on the same plan to keep their doctor, a " just cause " form could be submitted to override the default enrollment lock.
We resolved the call at the 16-minute mark. The key information the agent needed had been sent in a team-wide email three weeks earlier. But like many call center emails, it had been buried under a pile of daily updates, making it a challenge to recall or find.
This situation from my past could have easily been avoided with a well-maintained knowledge management system( KMS). Instead of digging through old emails or waiting on unavailable support, the agent could have typed a few keywords into a centralized tool and instantly retrieved the policy details and the next steps needed to assist the caller.
Unfortunately, this challenge remains far too common, especially in small to mid-sized contact centers that rely on outdated resources, such as archived emails, bulky training binders, printed handouts, or scattered shared drives.
While these methods may have been effective in the past, they often result in longer hold times, agent uncertainty, and customer frustration. Over time, this lack of efficiency not only impacts the CX but can also result in missed service level agreements( SLAs), increased escalations, and lost business.
Today, a robust KM tool is no longer optional but a core part of delivering seamless CX while improving the real-time agent experience( AX).
But implementing KM isn ' t just about buying a tool and dumping information into it: it ' s about adopting the right strategies that help knowledge flow naturally through your people, processes, and platforms.
WHAT SHOULD YOUR KMS ACHIEVE?
Whenever a department or contact center asks me to help build a KMS, I always start with one simple question: Why are we doing this?
Understanding the purpose behind the system sets the foundation for everything that follows. It guides how the content should be organized and makes it easier to engage subject matter experts( SMEs) in gathering information and approving the site ' s design and structure.
Before diving into methodologies, defining what success looks like for your center ' s KMS is essential. A KMS isn ' t just a storage solution; it should solve a specific operational or experience-based challenge.
Ask yourself:
• Are we trying to reduce average handle time( AHT) by giving agents faster access to answers?
• Do we want to improve first call resolution( FCR) by ensuring consistency across responses?
• Are we aiming to shorten new hire ramp-up time with better onboarding content?
• Is our goal to capture tribal knowledge before it walks out the door?
Your goals will help shape the following KMS components:
How you structure the knowledge base
If your goal is to improve speed and efficiency during live calls, your knowledge base( KB) should be structured to facilitate quick searches and provide instant clarity. That means short, concise answers, easy-to-understand categories, and minimal clicks to reach what matters.
On the other hand, if you ' re focused on onboarding or training, you might organize knowledge to build understanding progressively, from basic to advanced.
Example: a KMS designed for call handling may lead with " Steps to Process a Premium Payment " or " 20 Common Medical Claim Denial Reasons." At the same time, a training-focused layout might start with " New Agent Essentials " and procedural walkthroughs, such as how to document a call.
What content gets prioritized
Your goals determine what content gets built or updated first. If you ' re losing time due to agents hunting for escalation rules, then that ' s where your initial KM effort should go. If policy updates are frequent and confusing, your focus should be on maintaining clarity and implementing effective version control. NOVEMBER 2025 39