1to1 Magazine Demo

orga n iz a tio n by Committee customer service employees and the organization at large. custo rs me IT decision-makers using wikis were asked, “For which of the following business reasons are you using wikis?” Knowledge management: Collaborative document creation: Collaborative workspace: 85% 59% 42% Source: Forrester 2007 Web 2.0 survey control and trusting people to do the right thing can be tough, but fortunately, Wikipedia’s popularity has shown everyone how wikis can be self-policing.” The greatest advantage for wikis, Yehuda says, is they make finding answers more natural because they use links and meta-tags that organize information in the familiar way people see it online. “Since wikis don’t follow a strict hierarchy and instead rely on categories and tags, all the information is very searchable in a way you wouldn’t see with a shared drive.” As employees and customers get younger, hard-to-use information storage systems just aren’t practical, Kay adds. “At some point, it comes down to the coolness factor,” he says. “The people who will be using these systems grew up with social media. Employees and customers expect to find information fast and without having to answer a million questions.” > Jeremy Nedelka Opening Up to Customers Allowing employees to add to and edit technical support isn’t accurate or needs to be said in a different way, he can documents is one thing, but isn’t opening up that kind of inforrevert the page to its previous version and change it himself. mation to customers dangerous? Not at all, according to Internally, Angel.com uses wikis for content management, Angel.com. The on-demand provider of IVR systems document access, and sharing sales information. At first, has been using SocialText’s wiki internally for 10 Padha says, buy-in was difficult. “Slowly the years, and recently created a knowledgebase nontechnical staff has adopted the wikis,” he says. for customers to find and post answers to “First we ask them to create a profile and introproblems. duce themselves, and when they see how easy “Using our tool requires some training, it is to post content and edit entries, they so we’ve set up pages around simple become comfortable.” processes and how to integrate different Angel.com doesn’t have set metrics for tasks by posting instructions and videos,” tracking wiki usage, but Padha says he does look says Sameer Padha, Angel.com’s tech support at overall participation levels, the number of lead. “As they work through these issues, our comments, and page views to indicate the customers let us know when something needs program’s success. About 40 employees and 100 “We chose wikis because to be changed by either commenting on the customers are active on Angel.com’s wikis, and the they’re a great tool page or by editing it themselves.” company is planning to add more video and a client for collaboration.” Padha says because most of his customers community within the next year. aren’t used to wikis yet, they tend to add comments asking for “It’s all very organic and self-evolving,” Padha says. “We the changes. Whenever a page is changed or a comment is chose wikis because they’re a great tool for collaboration and posted, Padha receives an email notification and can see what making sure knowledge is distributed equally throughout our the entry looked like before and after the edits. If something organization and our customer base.” September/October 2008 43 yees plo take the opposite path. “Surprisingly, the correlation between company size and interest in wikis is that larger companies are the ones using this technology,” Yehuda says. “I had thought large businesses would be slower to the new trend than their agile counterparts, but large companies have a greater need to capture and share knowledge among more people.” While most wikis begin as a knowledge management tool, their use can spread through the enterprise once non-IT employees realize their potential. Kay says he’s seen a number of companies begin with support manual wikis for internal documentation, and quickly move to solving customer problems in the same way. “It all comes down to realizing that the guy at the top doesn’t have to be a bottleneck for sharing information,” Kay says. “Giving up Who Uses Wikis and Why em vic e er http://Angel.com http://Angel.com http://Angel.com http://Angel.com http://Angel.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of 1to1 Magazine Demo

1to1 Magazine Demo Contents 1to1media.com Editor's Note Feedback Putting Care in Patients' Hands Loyalty at Work Redefining the Contact Center Agent Introducing Enterprise 2.0 Cigna Dental Drills for Loyal Customers On the Beat 19 Ways to Succeed Miami Heat Schools Its Staff on Sales and Service Marketing Lends a Helping Hand More Than Meets the Eye Customer Service by Committiee Textron's Business Soars by Tracking Customer Loyalty Resources Contact Center Agent as Trusted Advisor Mastering Global CRM Face to Face with Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D.

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