Business Continuity with Knowledge Management
Business continuity planning and call center continuity planning go hand-in-hand. The same sorts of disasters that impact other business operations often hit a call center twice as hard. Business continuity plans help organizations avoid and mitigate risks associated with a disruption of operations caused by unplanned events like power outages, natural disasters, and other crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Companies that invest in information and knowledge management increase their chance of success by facilitating decision-making, enhancing their employee experience, and improving customer service. And when people retire or quit, or when businesses split or merge, having a knowledge base management strategy in place ensures no valuable knowledge is lost.
Implementing a Call Center Business Continuity Plan
The main task of any call center is to communicate with customers and give them an experience that leaves them satisfied. If the ability to serve customers is disrupted for any reason, the result is inevitable: the call center loses customer trust and the company as a whole loses revenue.
Fortunately, technology makes it much easier to capture, curate, and store knowledge and make it readily accessible to the people who need it from wherever they are and on whatever device they choose. When designing a call center business continuity plan that includes knowledge management, there are four steps an organization must take:
- Identify unique and critical knowledge.
- Assess risk regarding the level of knowledge each person might have.
- Develop practices that minimize the impact of disruption.
- Track results and regularly make necessary adjustments.
By doing this they’re able to understand the threats and potential costs the business would face if critical components stopped working or became unavailable.
Knowledge Management’s Role in Business Continuity Planning
Providing continuous service to customers and important information to employees is vital to a business’ success. Because call centers and other departments rely heavily on technology to keep running smoothly, having a reliable backup plan is a must.
Traditionally, data has been secured using on- or off-site physical backup servers. That can be a real problem if the catastrophe that occurs damages the servers. Today’s cloud solutions keep businesses safe from any system-threatening issues while meeting business continuity requirements. And because the information customers and employees need is in the cloud, it can easily be accessed on any device at the exact moment it’s needed.
A reliable cloud-based solution is easily implemented and is more cost-effective than having a physical backup system. For businesses who still rely on inhouse or outsourced physical servers, it’s well worth looking into moving institutional knowledge to the cloud where they can be sure it’s sufficiently secure and future-proof.
The Takeaway
A detailed, updated business continuity plan that includes cloud-based tools, including a knowledge base, is one of the best solutions an organization can invest in if it wants to best serve its customers, improve the employee experience, and position itself for the future.
KMS Lighthouse offers innovative AI-driven knowledge management solutions that take an organization’s decision making strategies, collaboration, and organizational workflow to the next level. With the important role knowledge management plays in continuity planning and success, KMSLH is designed to help businesses run a smarter, better prepared, and more informed workforce through shared knowledge and collaboration.
