In the current business landscape, all businesses, whether big or small, are concerned regarding their ability to cope with incoming customer service calls. Call volumes can be highly variable, with large peaks and valleys; customer service teams need the flexibility to scale up or down based on the demand.
This is not feasible from a resourcing standpoint, so a core focus of most Dynamics 365 for Customer Service implementations tends to be a combination of the following:
- Smoothing out the peaks and valleys of incoming call density
- Increasing the efficiency of resolving each call
- Reducing total call volume
Reducing total call volumes is often missed in implementations. Many organizations do not know where to start as the process is complex and involves a lot of layers. For example, the company needs to ensure that their customers are comfortable in reaching out to them. At the same time, they need to reduce the load on their customer service teams. The Knowledge Base in Dynamics 365 is the perfect tool to make this possible, especially when combined with Power Apps Portals and smart categorization.
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What is the Knowledge Base?
The Knowledge Base is an all-in-one package in Dynamics 365 for Customer Service that helps business manage their customer-related process information, both internal (call scripts, internal processes, etc.) and external (FAQs, shipping information, etc.). Articles can be authored directly by customer service representatives. They can also include streamlined configuration for approval processes in the Knowledge Base. The Knowledge Base also includes features like version history (Updates preserve previous states) and translations, for global use.
FAQs and customer self-service
One of the easiest ways to reduce call volumes is to give customers the tools to answer their own questions before they need to reach out to customer representatives. The Knowledge Base, when combined with the Power Apps Portals, allows customer service teams to directly curate their own content. The content can then be selectively published onto a customer facing interface (the portal). This combination allows customer service teams to build a repository of information that can be proactively shared with customers, effectively reducing the number of calls received.
Customer self-service can also be extended past customers’ relationship. Dynamics 365 portals are equipped with additional features that allow businesses to meet customers where they are, further reducing call volumes.
Categorization and customer feedback
Another key component of a well-organized knowledge base is how the articles are categorized. This helps with how customers will engage with your knowledge and how customer service departments can build insights from the articles frequented by customers.. The Knowledge Base includes a built-in functionality for seeing both the number of views and customer ratings for each article.
In conclusion
The Knowledge Base is one of the most useful features in Dynamics 365 Customer Service but tends to be underserviced in implementations. The combination of internal process management, cost savings, and customer engagement all from a single source makes knowledge management a great value. Furthermore, when paired with an externally facing Power Apps Portal, the Knowledge Base helps both customer and customer service teams streamline and improve their interactions.
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