Connecting people to knowledge: The foundation for delivering great service Presentation by Michelle Noyes, Knowledge Management & Information Specialist at Mothercare. Given on Wednesday 21 May 2014 at the Transversal Customer Experience Summit, Lancaster Hotel, London. Find out more: https://www.transversal.com/events/2014/05/21/connecting-people-to-knowledge-summit-2014 Michelle's career has always been intrinsically linked with customer care and great customer service. After seven years with Mothercare, starting as a Customer Care Representative and Product Specialist and moving into her current role as Knowledge Management and Information Specialist, Michelle has developed a determination to put customers first, finding the right answers and making them available in the right place to improve the entire customer journey. In her current role, Michelle is responsible for all aspects of Mothercare's self-help system across multiple channels including the customer-facing website, the in-store tool and the agent-facing tool. She is involved with tasks such as facilitating the sharing of knowledge across the business, analysis of customer feedback and ensuring content is current, accurate and up-to-date as well as accessible to all who need it. Michelle is actively involved with her local community, making use of her knowledge sharing skills at home and setting up a facebook page and group for her local area, which is growing rapidly with over 500 people now involved. A little known fact about Michelle is that she actually trained as a nurse after leaving school and before finding her feet in customer care!

1. Michelle Noyes
Knowledge Management & Information Specialist
Connecting people to knowledge:
The foundation for delivering great
service
“We passionately believe that if we provide the very best
knowledge to our customers and our agents we will be able to
deliver a service that is the best in class”

2. Mothercare Plc
‘’Our aim is to be the world’s most caring retailer,
making life easier for families the world over with
improved value, choice, service and delivery’’

3. Our Challenges
» Why would customers choose
Mothercare and Early Learning
Centre?
» How do we know what our
customers want?
» How do we deliver service
consistency across brands in a
omni-channel business and including
in-source and outsource
environments?
» How do we manage training to
resource for a 100% contact
increase in peak?
» How do we reduce contacts and
cost?

4. What’s the answer?
» We need more information from our customers first hand – better
feedback on what our customers want and why they come to us.
» Smarter communication – we need to share information across two
contact centres, multiple stores and with our customers.

5. Self help
» Help - Ask A Question – in our help section on
customer facing website – answers to 100’s of FAQ’s.
» Ask Mothercare Contact Centre – a web-enabled
solution for our call centre staff which shared the
same knowledge base as Ask A Question but added
more detailed information that isn’t publicly available.
» Ask Mothercare Store Facing – Self Help for stores
staff – we created a tailored interface for in-store staff
– one that enables them to access this common
knowledge base, and therefore all the same
information, straight from the tills.

6. The benefits
To the store & the contact centre:
» Easy access to consistent quality answers across the group
» Opportunity to easily feed back and improve the information delivered
» Keep up-to-date with all business news
To the business:
» A suite of reporting that is able to identify what our customers are asking us
» Identify what information we are lacking & produce FAQ’s upfront – giving the customer
information before they ask without having to contact the customer care team
» Sharing of Best Practice – The Best Agent
» Consistent answers and information
» Reduced contact to the customer service teams & Head office with unnecessary queries
To the Customer:
Empowered customers who self-serve – being able to get answers quickly and for free.
Customers can ask whichever questions they like on products or parenting advice and
have the answers at their finger tips.

7. Internal tool: Contact Centre

8. The benefits
To the agent:
» Easy access to consistent quality answers across the group
» Opportunity to easily feedback and improve the information in Ask Mothercare
» Have their praise and recognition shared throughout the teams & peer groups
» Keep up-to-date with all business news
To the business:
» Sharing of Best Practice in-house and with the outsourcer
– The Best Agent
» Reporting that enables us to understand what questions the agents are
searching for most and therefore what our customer are calling for
» Reduced staffing costs:
 Reduced AHT and Outbound calls
 Reduced training time for new starters – a saving of two weeks
 Less management resource needed in the contact centre for floor walking

9. Engagement
» Allow agents to be part of the journey and make improvements using their
feedback
» Use the tool for to share information about the people and not just the
processes
» Share praise and recognition using Ask Mothercare
» Key Business objective to improve Self Help
» Reap the savings that the tool achieves and invest some back into the
team
How do we make the tool the best it can be? … Internal engagement

10. » Expanding across new channels
» Social media and live chat
» Going Global with our franchise partners
» Continuing to collaborate and engage with our colleagues and our
customers
» All using the underlying knowledgebase for consistency
Next steps and our future

11. Positive
Collaboration
Shared
Culture
One
Vision
“We passionately
believe that if we
provide the very best
knowledge to our
customers and our
agents we will be able
to deliver a service that
is the best in class”
The Message :
Connecting people to knowledge -
the foundation to delivering great service

12. CONNECTING PEOPLE
TO KNOWLEDGE
The foundation to delivering
great customer service
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