To augment Tactics Online, Marconi chose software from ServiceWare Technologies, in part because its technology would integrate easily with the company’s Remedy CRM system, which agents use to log incoming calls from customers and track other customer interactions. In addition, says Breit, Marconi wanted its agents to populate its existing Oracle database of product information.

Breit’s division spent six months implementing the new system and training agents. The system?dubbed KnowledgeBase?is linked to the company’s CRM system and is powered by the Oracle database. The integrated view of Marconi’s customers and products provides agents with a comprehensive history of interactions. Technical support agents can, for example, put markers in the database and immediately pick up at the point where the customer last spoke with another agent.

On the Front Line

Tactics Online complements the new system. "The data stored in KnowledgeBase are specific troubleshooting tips and hints on our various product lines," says Zehra Demiral, manager of knowledge management systems. "Tactics Online, on the other hand, is more of a doorway for customers to come into our customer support organization. From there, customers can access KnowledgeBase or their service requests or our online training manuals."

Technical support agents now rely on KnowledgeBase for the latest solutions to customers’ product and systems problems. Level 1 agents answer all incoming calls, solve customers’ problems when possible, record the calls in the company’s CRM system and transfer the more difficult calls up the line to Level 2 agents. Level 2 agents, meanwhile, are the heart of the organization, composing about 70 percent of the technical support organization. They handle the more difficult calls and troubleshoot and diagnose equipment and network problems. "They’re the majority of our knowledge users and contributors," says Breit. "They write up a synopsis of the call and feed it into KnowledgeBase [on an ongoing basis] so that other agents can refer to the solution later."

After Level 2 agents submit their knowledge "raw" to a holding queue, Level 3 agents confirm the accuracy of the information, make any necessary changes and then submit the document to Demiral. (Level 3 agents also act as consultants, helping Level 2 agents solve problems and serving as intermediaries between the agents and the company’s engineering departments.) The entire process of updating the KnowledgeBase system with a new solution typically takes between three days and two weeks.

Changing Roles

As Breit anticipated, implementing KnowledgeBase has changed the agents’ roles. Level 1 agents, for example, now do more in-depth troubleshooting because they have more information available at their fingertips. In fact, they solve twice as many calls themselves (50 percent instead of 25 percent) in a shorter time (10 minutes versus 30 minutes). Since Level 1 agents can handle more calls, this group has doubled in size during the past two years.