NetApp

Key New KCS Enhancements added in 2022 

Tracking and auditing KBs created or updated by support engineers while resolving customer cases, auditing cases closed by support engineers on a regular basis, and addressing user feedback on KBs in the database are important activities that help evaluate and sustain the success and maturity of a KCS program. The NetApp KB team has created multiple dashboards (general and personalized) using CXone Expert APIs, DekiScript and custom Java script to track authoring activities, manage feedback, and address audit process gaps. 

• User activity Dashboard or My Dashboard: Allows an engineer to see their contributions to the KB database, which includes the articles they have created or modified along with the timestamp. They can  see whether the articles they created are in Work in Progress (WIP), Not Validated, Validated or Archived confidence states. They can also see the visibility status of their articles. Additionally, managers can see the activities data of their teams. 

o   We invested time and resources on this dashboard because the native user contribution feature provided by CXone Expert only shows basic information such as the create date and name of the article. It does not show the confidence and visibility of the articles, which are very important in ensuring proper adoption of Knowledge-Centered Service Version 6 (KCSv6) practices at NetApp.  

• Global User Dashboard: Gives KCS coaches and managers a birds-eye view of their team’s KCS profiles. Using this dashboard, leaders and mentors can view the KCS licenses of individuals by manager, coach, team, or region.  
• Coach Dashboard: Allows coaches to view any pending Process Adherence Review (PAR) and Content Standard Checklist (CSC) audits assigned to them and complete them on time. We are now able to track KCS audit processes within the CXone Expert platform, a feature that the native CXone Expert platform does not offer. 
• Feedback dashboard: Allows the NetApp KB team and the Knowledge Domain Expert (KDE) teams to track, assign and close feedback within 24 to 48 hours of receiving them. In addition, it allows us to segregate feedback as  technical, non-technical external , and Internal so that we can prioritize and forward the feedback to the right SMEs to address. 
• Link Manager: Some articles are added as referral links within other articles to provide customers with additional information about a topic. However, when the linked articles become obsolete or irrelevant, it is important to archive/delete the articles and remove the link to these articles from the articles in which they are referred. The CXone Expert platform does not provide an easy way to identify all articles that refer to an obsolete/archived link. The NetApp KB team developed a customised widget using CXone Expert APIs and DekiSript, which allows us to identify all articles in which an archived or deleted article link is referred. This ensures that our customers do not inadvertently click on broken links. 
• Case citations: We are in the business of resolution. Therefore, it is important for us to know how many KBs from the database are used to close customer cases. The NetApp KCS team developed a customized script that connects the CXone Expert tool with NetApp Support CRM to display all cases that have used a particular KB as resolution at the bottom of that KB. 
• Managing visibility of Archived Articles: By default, the CXone Expert platform allows archived articles to only be visible to KCS publishers. This is not optimal for NetApp KCS practices; it is important that KCS Candidates and KCS Contributors have visibility to archived articles. The NetApp KB team used CXone Expert APIs and a customised script to control the page restrictions for archived articles, which allows us to show archived articles to a privileged set of individuals, which includes KCS candidates, contributors and any other internal employees that benefits from this information.  
• Managing Confidence and Visibility of Moved Articles: There are several instances when we have to bulk move articles between guides to manage the number of articles available within a specific guide. However, this movement, by default, changes the visibility and confidence of the moved articles to Internal and WIP, respectively. This may remove the article from Google, and affect our SEO metrics. The NetApp KB team used CXone Expert APIs and a customised  script that helps retain the confidence and visibility of any article that is moved between different guides. This script has significantly improved the operational efficiency of our KCS program. 
• Alerts for KB discrepancies: Sometimes, we see certain discrepancies in the KB articles created by our engineers. For instance, an engineer would have inadvertently set the visibility of  Not Validated KB to Public, or may have forgotten WIP articles that need to be completed and published. The NetApp KB team has built a script using CXone Expert APIs to send us regular email alerts on any such discrepancies, which includes WIP articles pending in the system for more than 30 days, articles created under a category instead of a guide, and not validated articles that are public or customer facing. 

Key KCS Features Available since 2020 

1. KCS Article Structure--Templates that adhere to our content standards: 

• Customized templates for both Experience-based or Solve Loop and Compliance-based or Evolve Loop content requirements. 
• Conditional content containers to manage visibility for customers, partners, and internal users. 
• Authoring and editing privileges based on KCS license of the author—KCS ReaderPlus, KCS Candidate, KCS Contributor, KCS Publisher. KCS ReaderPlus is a new KCS license, that allows us to differentiate between a new employee and trained employees. 
• Use of draft manager to manage Evolve loop content by making them KCS enabled=no 
• Flexibility to create content formats such as Interactive Workflows and Resolution guides. These workflows and guides are designed to provide our customers the convenience of finding articles related to one topic or a common theme within the same location.

   2. The Solve Loop:  Capture Manager for appropriate authoring controls 

• Ability to set or change visibility and confidence 
• Ability to flag or fix content issues 
• Ability to create new and update content in the workflow based on the KCS license of the user.  

   3. The Evolve Loop and Content Health: 

• Draft Manager provides an alternate authoring workflow for Evolve Loop articles like Resolution paths, Resolution guides and Interactive Workflows, by limiting the editing privileges for these articles to small group of Subject Matter Experts.  
• Feedback feature allows customers to be part of the content creation process by providing them means to ask for content improvement. 
• CXone Expert APIs allow customers accessing KBs from outside the KB site, for example from the support site, to provide feedback using the TouchPoint functionality. 
• CXone Expert APIs allowed us to create multiple personalized and general dashboards that help identify content process gaps, track author activities, etc. Some of our most popular dashboards are coach's dashboard, archival dashboard, and WIP dashboard. 
• CXone Expert reports to help us identify top-used content and broken links. Top-used content is further optimized for search engines. 

  4. Process Integration: CXone Expert APIs allow TouchPoints to be integrated into the Case Management tool, thereby providing the following functionalities. 

• Knowledge Base is integrated into the SmartSolve search allowing the engineer to find appropriate knowledge articles from within the tool without opening another tab to search the KB database. This has improved the efficiency and time taken to resolve cases 
• Touchpoint integration allows engineers to create, update, or flag content while working on a customer case. 
• KB articles created using WIP editor within SmartSolve can be added to the KB database with a click of a button ensuring a seamless experience for our engineers and improving employee satisfaction. 
• KB articles can be searched and directly linked to a case from within SmartSolve, for later review and analysis to drive process improvements or product refinements as part of the Evolve Loop process. 

   5. Performance Assessment: Integration of Content Standard Checklist (CSC) audit form into CXone Expert platform. 

• To provide our coaches the convenience of doing CSC audits from within the CXone Expert platform, we integrated the CSC audit form from SmartSolve using an iFrame.  
• The coaches can review the first version of the article when it was created during case closure. 
• The coaches can review and add the audit scores within one platform, which saves time. Previously, they were required to audit in SmartSolve and view the article in CXone Expert platform. 

Note: Seamless integration and ease of use of all tools required for case management and closure has greatly improved the process adherence score of our technical support teams 

Results and Impact 

Our KCS program has yielded exceptional results: 

• Performance Assessment – over the last year 
  • Process Adherence Review maintained at >85% 
  • Article creation rate: improved by 64% 
  • Article reuse rate: improved by 25% 
  • CSC: maintained over 90% 
• Team Licenses 
  • 90% of support engineers are licensed publishers 
  • 100% coaches are licensed 
  • 96% support leadership are licensed  
• Digital Support Success 
  • Adopted industry-leading KCSv6 Practices 
  • ~52 Industry Certified KCSv6 Practitioners 
  • > 800 Knowledge Articles published per month, close to 30K articles. >10K in 2022 
  • 94% of our Knowledge Articles are shared externally—a 40% increase from pre CXone Expert days 
  • Time to publish content reduced from 43k minutes to less than 1 minute 
  • Orphaned WIP articles in the system reduced by 84% (Dashboards provide engineers ability to review the status of articles created by them and complete them on a timely basis) 
  • >3.5M monthly page views to our digital support sites and > 700K monthly page views on the KB site. 
  • 99% of support journeys include digital channels 
  • >80:1 Contact Ratio across our 5-Channel Support Delivery model—more-than doubled since realigning to KCSv6 Best Practices. (Contact Ratio is the number of Digital Support Engagement (web sessions) seen for every Assisted Support Case that is opened) (Goal was 30:1) 
  • <5% of all answers are assisted support cases 
  • Our CSAT scores are at an all-time high of 4.5/5 
  • Our Customer Effort Score is also at an all-time high with 98% 

These exceptional results tie directly to our KCS program success for which we owe a big thanks to CXone Expert platform. 

Sites

• kb.netapp.com
• kb-cn.netapp.com
• kb-ja.netapp.com

Team

Ryan Mathews 

Padma Prasad 

Rajesh Panda