KCS 7.21 Assessing Knowledge Article Value – Knowledge Centered Support
The 8th Technique of the Content Health Practice is Assessing Knowledge Article Value
As we move through the KCS adoption phases, the knowledge base will grow. As this happens we will want a way to assess knowledge article value in the knowledge base.
There are three perspectives to keep in mind when assessing the value of articles:
- The Frequency of reuse,
- The Frequency of reference, and
- The value of the collection of articles.
The reuse frequency is a strong indicator of the knowledge article value and is fairly easy to assess for an individual knowledge article. The frequency of reference is equally important and is much harder to assess. The value of the collection of articles has to be looked at from a systemic point of view.
Knowledge Article value based on reuse
The value of any particular KCS article can be measured by the number of times it is used to resolve an issue. If we are linking articles to incidents, we can easily calculate the reuse count. As we move to Phase 4, Leverage, of the KCS adoption, measuring the reuse of articles becomes much more difficult because customers using the article through self-service do not link articles to incidents nor do they show much interest in answering the often asked question, “was this article helpful?”
To assess the value of individual articles in a self-service model, we have to infer value based on a number of factors. A few of the members have developed article value calculators that take into account knowledge events like:
- Page views
- Internal links, and
- Customer feedback (Consortium member experience indicates that customers provide feedback on a tiny percent of articles viewed; 1-2%)
Knowledge Article value based on reference
The second perspective is the value of the collection of articles. Even though a specific article may not be the resolution to the issue, an article about a similar issue may provide some insight or remind us of an approach or diagnostic technique that we know but had not thought about. The frequency of reference is extremely valuable and hard to measure.
The value of the collection of articles
The indicators for the value of the collection of content can be calculated based on the rate of customers’ use and success with self-service. More specifically, support organizations often look at the subset of the self-service success rate that represents issues for which the customer would have opened an incident had they not found an answer through self-service.
This is often referred to with the unfortunate vocabulary of “call avoidance” or “case deflection.” This avoidance or deflection view represents a vendor-centric view of support, not a customer-centric view. A customer-centric view does not avoid or deflect customers; it promotes customer success through the path of least resistance and greatest success – for the customer.
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Content as shown in KCS Version 5.3 Knowledge-Centered Support Practices Guide (2012) S3 [26.1-8]. KCS v5.3 was written and edited by Melissa George, David Kay, Greg Oxton, Rick Joslin, Jennifer MacIntosh, and Kelly Murray.
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