In January 2013, Salesforce’s Service Cloud proudly announced that it had achieved the KCSsm Verification – Version 5. At the time, KCS Verification v5 was the highest level of KCS the Consortium for Service Innovation had to offer. Salesforce.com’s Service Cloud was the only product to have ever achieved that level. (Update: it took two and a half years for Oracle to become the second, in November 2015.) With this verification, the Service Cloud made itself the most qualified CRM for helping businesses with knowledge management and service.
The Consortium for Service Innovation
Founded in Seattle in 1992, the Consortium for Service Innovation serves as a non-profit coalition of support and service organizations. The Consortium developed the KCS to emphasize its dedication of knowledge as one of the key foundations of any organization . The KCS stands for Knowledge-Centered Support and outlines “a proven methodology for integrating the use, validation, improvement, and creation of knowledge into the workflow.” To critically assess products and their ability to use and support KCS, the Consortium created the KCS Academy and a verification process.
While perhaps an abstract idea, the goal is to understand and measure how data and workflow can impact the real delivery of knowledge (and service) to a business’ customers and constituents.
KCS Verification Process
Some consider the verification process as particularly demanding. Before a vendor can even try to obtain KCS v5 Verification, they have to have a KCS Practices v5 Certification and other prerequisites. Much like PMP Certification (Project Management Professional) the process often takes years and requires multiple business documents, reports, and interviews. Throughout the process, the KCS Academy reviews the vendor’s work to determine whether its standards have been met.
Salesforce and KCS
The KCS certification carries an elite status; Salesforce.com clearly views it as a useful objective measure for how one can drive service with technology.
In this day and age where there’s a wealth of knowledge available to us all, KCS Academy offers both valuable and aspirational goals for companies seeking to create relevant, useful, structured bodies of knowledge to:
- Integrate into operational processes, the creation of reusable knowledge
- Evolve content based on demand and usage
- Develop a knowledge base of collective experience
- Reward learning, collaboration, sharing and improvement
Creating a collaborative library of driving knowledge for your business means empowering your employees. It places them in a position where they can easily get the training and information they need to excel at their jobs, on their own. This indirectly fosters a company culture encouraging contributions to collective knowledge and mentorship. It also ties the value of knowledge to its usefulness to the business.
By subscribing to the principles of the KCS Academy, Salesforce.com provided some compelling leadership in our industry.
