213: Knowledge Management with Simone Secci

Charlotte Ward: 0:13

Hello and welcome to episode 213 of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. The theme for this week is knowledge management. So stay tuned for five leaders talking about that very topic. I'd like to welcome back to the podcast today. Simone Sechi. Simone, it's been a little while since you joined me, but um welcome back. Always a pleasure to talk to you and to show over the support card. Hello, and uh this week we're going to be talking about knowledge management. So um I I just want to hear all about the journey you've been on with regards to getting a knowledge base off the ground again at Doodle and uh and the challenges that you faced and the benefits that you've seen from that whole journey.

Simone Secci: 1:08

Absolutely. So, first of all, um thank you for having me again. Uh always a pleasure. And um yeah, so let's start from the beginning. So when I started uh my role as um head of support at Doodle, we had um besides the the task of rebuilding the team, we had the task of like building the the knowledge base, um which I had seen as one of the main um you know tasks that that we the one of the most difficult ones, but um also because of the fact that this uh was taken um into account as uh uh as an an enterprise as a task to uh to undertake a few years before I was hired, but it was sort of like um they let's say they upkeep the maintenance of it uh shown to be proved to be like too uh too much of a burden for the non-support team that started that project. So that that project was started by product managers and designers, and then they they soon understood that that you know the what uh it's needed for the maintenance and the upkeep and the success of a knowledge base is beyond uh just a side project, is a a full-time uh position.

Charlotte Ward: 2:34

Yeah, yeah. And we know there are we know there are organizations out there that have full knowledge management teams, but I think in my experience, if you don't have a full knowledge team, then the best place for it is otherwise support, isn't it? Because they're constantly referring to these documents, constantly using them, constantly validating them.

Simone Secci: 2:56

Absolutely. So there are two main arguments that I will make for a good uh knowledge base and the knowledge base manager as a role. So the first one is it's a great uh position as in career growth and support. So for an agent studying at the entry level, um, some people might have, for example, like a background in literature or or anything um you know related to um journalism or or something of that of that sort. And uh it might be a good like uh marriage of like their academic uh background and their support experience to transition into into being a knowledge base manager. Um, so that's number one. Uh and then obviously one thing to notice is, and I'm gonna go to some numbers like related to doodle, for example. We have 140,000 views of the knowledge base uh every month on average.

Charlotte Ward: 3:58

Wow.

Simone Secci: 3:59

So one thing, if we think it just you know, from the business perspective, um many probably have done an exercise in calculating what is the cost of a single ticket or an exchange or a call or whatever, you know, depending on on the support system that you know company is adopting. Um, if you you know multiply that by let's say a quarter of those views, then you're you're in front of you, you have an enormous amount of work and an enormous team needed to support even like like I said, 25% of those views. Yeah. And so that's when like the concept of deflection really comes in, uh, and optimization of costs, uh, which are you know two fundaments of the idea of a good knowledge base. Just to start, um, not to mention, like, you know, um, we know this by building, rebuilding this knowledge base, uh, making it updated, um, you know, uh acquiring all all this this uh uh attention from our user base that number one, we had less tickets. I think we went from you know having an average uh of between like 3500 to 5,000 that we had the 5000 the highest months to probably like about a thousand thousand five hundred less. Wow, wow, um yeah in the range of like a couple of years. I mean it's not like an immediate process, but it it does have that's a that's a third of your workload, yeah, exactly.

Charlotte Ward: 5:41

Yeah, yeah.

Simone Secci: 5:42

And and then additionally, um we became uh we we started a more collaborative effort with other teams because they started to acknowledge the importance of this. Uh, and this, you know, this contribution from the support team in the sense of the knowledge base was something that didn't exist before, and that we created this synergy from like out of thin air. Uh, but the benefits were so apparent that the collaboration with the marketing team, the collaboration with the product team became a reality.

Charlotte Ward: 6:17

So, was there a point at which so from what I'm hearing, you you built a certain momentum once you'd got to a point of having a reasonable to good quality, up-to-date knowledge base, and you'd proven value just from the point of view of the support team and to customers, like in terms of those views that you were getting and that ticket reduction that you were getting. Was there a point that it tipped into? Were there aha moments, if you like, with other teams? Did did you get people approaching you saying, ah, we see now that we're that the knowledge base is doing this and we're able to do this because of it? What were those kind of conversations you were having?

Simone Secci: 7:00

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, especially with people that the you know that that just joined, when they, you know, um we actually showed them what we did, they were first of all, like very impressed by the fact that there was, you know, there's such a comprehensive uh amount of like uh of um uh knowledge uh and and articles and uh and just like there's another aspect to it. You build this knowledge base in time, and so there's an accumulation of of information that um is always available. So, you know, there are some I don't know, uh technical limits or questions or very specific things that you might ask yourself uh at any point, um, but no matter what you're doing in a tech company, that you're an engineer, that you're a product manager, that you're in support or success, and you know, you will find them uh in uh in your repository of information, which is the knowledge base in our case, you know, because we built it in time and you know, by continuously keeping up with it and you know, updating it and updating the screenshots that we use and updating, you know, all the material that we use. Um it's so at some point it sort of um sustain itself.

Charlotte Ward: 8:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I guess you get you once it begins to show value for those other teams, particularly, you get contribution and validation from those other teams as well. So it doesn't become the sole remit of your support team to maintain it, although they might be the primary owners of it. It becomes uh you get inputs from other places in the company, other people who have expertise. And I think I think one thing that um I'm super curious about is in those early days when you made the decision to bring back to life to resuscitate that old knowledge base and and to to begin again with uh with this reincarnation of it, which has clearly been very successful. You took that initiative entirely in support. Did you have to um though effectively justify and evangelize about that initiative outside of support, or did you just get going first? What was your approach like when you decided it was a thing you wanted to do?

Simone Secci: 9:31

Well, I always um so working remotely for a long time, um, documentation is sort of like you know, my my go-to place, um, because for asynchronous communication, like I always work with a um uh very consistent amount of of documentation and collaborative effort with people in different time zones, for example. So I always, you know, I was thinking in terms of like optimization rather than in terms of like scaling. So I was thinking, okay, before I even consider uh I don't know, adding this many people, uh, let me see what I can do in terms of deflection. Um, and I consider that that project. And so when you present it that way, uh it's very appealing.

Charlotte Ward: 10:19

Yes.

Simone Secci: 10:20

Um, you know, because it it's it's gonna cost less.

Charlotte Ward: 10:24

Yeah.

Simone Secci: 10:26

And also, yeah, it's you know, it's going to to provide um a fundament for the future.

Charlotte Ward: 10:35

Yes, yeah, absolutely. What investment did you make early on? Was it did you need budgetary investment, or did you just get going with you know a few hours and a couple of support staff in a darkened room or a darkened zoom somewhere, and just it just kind of get going producing and collating knowledge. How did you get going?

Simone Secci: 10:56

Well, it had to start with the with the project. Um, and this is like also in the many reincarnation that that it that it took, like there is uh also a designing, uh a design project involved, like rethinking it, like uh also you know, bringing the bringing up the argument. We want all pages in the website to be aligned in terms of design. So I got help from the design team initially. Those were like the very first people that helped me rethink it because you know, I I sort of like bank on their their um, you know, the inability to deal with the with the fact that there were pages that were not uh uh having the same design, which is something that's very annoying for a design is to like not accept that. And so I sort of bank on that sentiment and I uh uh you know used it in my favor. And and uh, you know, uh I got them to no, but seriously, I got them to help me on. There was a very fruitful um cooperation, and and since then I always had um colleagues, uh designers that you know jumped in and helped me rethink uh everything from IUX perspective, which is also very important in a in a knowledge base. Um and then after that, uh after the project, or like what is this gonna look like in terms of structure, then it came the idea, okay, we need a full-time person to initially was 50%. Um, but you know, that transition to be full-time that uh works on the on creating new content, but especially on maintaining the existing content.

Charlotte Ward: 12:41

Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What would you say was the point at which um the rest of the organization came to appreciate it then once it matured? Was was it you you're obviously demonstrating already ticket deflection. You you mentioned before you definitely had these aha moments with other teams. What what were the were the defining factors in those aha moments different from team to team? Was it the the mo or was there just a general kind of there's a moment at which it becomes individually useful for that business function?

Simone Secci: 13:18

Well, I would say um from my specific uh situation, the support team was already part of uh the product team. So we have visibility within that team um to begin with. But I would say this that no matter how an organization is structured, to validate any support project, you need visibility. So what we need is that we what we did is that we presented it uh at an old end to the whole company. We presented the project, and I presented the person behind the project, which to that until that moment, I was sort of like the only face of support. And then I started to introduce these other characters, so to speak, like this is the knowledge base manager that's you know, and and gave her a gave her a voice, and since and sort of like started this um process in which you know other people know this their existence and their value, and then um sparked uh ideas from there. You know, how can we use this knowledge, uh, this knowledge base for all the projects, and then the cooperation starts.

Charlotte Ward: 14:30

So so I I think the final thing then I I would like to think about is from the other end of this experience, having a mature knowledge base in place, having had all of those aha moments, you know, given your knowledge base manager a voice, given you know the the early investment and that early playing on the feelings of your UX designer, having been through that entire experience, what what do you think is is the next step now for knowledge? Uh is it is it continued maintenance and that's all like it's just uh it's its own kind of it has its own momentum, it keeps going, you don't need to do anything else, or do you see it evolving beyond what it already is?

Simone Secci: 15:19

I think it really depends uh on you know the organization. I I heard some amazing things from um some teams that are using their knowledge base as um uh for example, like UX uh tips uh on on uh for onboarding. Um you know, or yeah, customer success using it also for onboarding. Um so I think it really depends. On my end, um I think you know, there's a continuous effort as you sort of like go step by step through maybe I don't know it. This depends. Like we uh have a website in in five different languages, so maybe this does not necessarily apply to everyone, but you know, uh updating uh we we have our knowledge base for now in in two of those languages, but like we plan to expand two other languages, of course. Um and uh, you know, that's a big undertaking, but also um there's an organic evolution to it that is uh I guess uh that sort of aligns with the evolution of uh the business and the direction of the business is going into, and the changes uh that the that the business sort of like goes through. So I think the attempt is to always be aligned. So rethinking this project, rethinking the structure of it, especially. It's it's sort of like an exercise that you want to do um, you know, uh periodically, which is to sort of not stay in that silo.

Charlotte Ward: 17:05

Yeah, I I think I think I I truly believe that too, and I think some of the things that you touched on there around how it can initially support and then grow, not necessarily to envelop, but but to um bring like increasing uh support and uh an inc an incre a larger platform to some other business functions, particularly such as success. And I think I think to me that's an obvious one. Like you talked about customer onboarding and uh and I think a lot of that can sit inside a knowledge base, right? And and I I think I think that that is different from documentation. Fundamentally, I believe knowledge bases are not documentation, although I know that there are other organizations out there like GitLab for whom it is it all it you know it's it's a single handbook, everything sits in this concept of you know, the knowledge is the document, right? So um, but but I do fundamentally think that for certain types of organizations, for certain types of of customer short form access to knowledge is different from documentation, which is you know more of a reference material than a knowledge base really truly is. Um, but that that I definitely believe it can form part of customer onboarding. I think that talks to something that you were just saying as well, which is that how it evolves depends on the direction of the business, which I think is going to be driven largely by how the business wants those relationships with customers to develop.

Simone Secci: 18:45

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And um, yeah, when I what what I mean with structure, you sort of like I noticed that you what you want to do and what you end up doing is mirroring the changes um that come from the product in my case. So, you know, for example, we're launching a beta, we add in a beta category to the knowledge base. You know, it's very organic. You you sort of like uh you know, you have these twins that interact, like your knowledge base is like a twin of the product. So as the product changes, you add in a piece, you're taking away a piece, like for example, you're you're adding a piece a category for the for the beta. The beta becomes the actual product, that category disappears and sort of like uh you know emerges into um the another, you know, uh category that was there before. Um, and so this is very uh it fluctuates uh somehow. You know, it's not it's not very it should never be um static because when you have a static knowledge base is when it becomes outdated.

Charlotte Ward: 19:52

Yes, yes, exactly. And and I think something else that I truly fundamentally believe about knowledge bases is that they should. Should be a hub for all of your knowledge in you know in the organization. But that doesn't mean that every piece of knowledge has to sit as an article inside that knowledge base. I think so. Customer onboarding materials, for instance, can be part of a training program that you have as you onboard, but but that you can reference that consistently. If people could see me now, they'd see me almost drawing spokes of a wheel that come out from a knowledge base, right? To different parts of your onboarding and to different parts of your documentation and to different parts of other institutional knowledge that your business puts out there. Maybe it's maybe it's articles on the website, maybe it's the blog or whatever. But there are there are these pieces of institutional knowledge. And I think that the knowledge base can sit at the hub of all of that for your customers.

Simone Secci: 20:50

Yeah, and you know, one I think one last point to touch, which is uh could be very interesting to some people, is um you can have a data-driven approach to knowledge base, which is something that we pay uh a good amount of attention to. Um, following which are your most viewed articles and which are the least viewed articles can inspire you to make choices and should inspire you to make choices in uh where to position articles visually, uh, which ones to rework, which ones to maybe merge uh all these choices. You you know, uh if you have a good reference on views, if you are if you choose to have a customer effort score or any type of like uh voting mechanism on the articles or comment um can help you make inform those decisions.

Charlotte Ward: 21:45

Yeah, for sure. And and actually inform whether you elevate that knowledge outside of the knowledge base into other forums. So is this perfectly written, often often used how-to guide, is this actually a missing missing piece of documentation? Or is or is this worth writing a blog article about or creating a social element about? And I think I think that's that's where it becomes it that's where it becomes usable in so many different forms. And those those, as you rightly said, are data-driven choices. Every single one of those choices can be driven by what your customers or your prospects are are looking for and looking at.

Simone Secci: 22:27

Yeah, absolutely.

Charlotte Ward: 22:30

Thanks so much for joining me again, Simonet. Lovely to talk to you.

Simone Secci: 22:33

My pleasure.

Charlotte Ward: 22:38

That's it for today. Go to customersupportleaders.com forward slash two one three for the show notes, and I'll see you next time.