Guest Post: Importance of a Single Source of Truth for Customer Service 

This week we feature an article by Sowmya Juttukonda, content developer & digital media strategist at Knowmax, a knowledge management system to enhance customer service. She shares the advantages of a single source of truth for customer service.

A single source of truth organizes information models and related data schema so that each data element can be altered or mastered in a single location.  

Deployment of a single source of truth architecture in current enterprise settings is critical in our time to prevent the danger of retrieving obsolete and erroneous information due to de-normalized or duplicate data pieces.

What does it mean to have a single source of truth? 

The term “single source of truth,” or single source of truth, is used in knowledge management to refer to a credible source of information that everyone can rely on. It’s everything in one place, on one platform, and it’s all managed by the best authority. In other words, it is known as the ‘brain’ of the company, containing all of the company’s operations, procedures, and intellectual property.  

Any revised or new material is promptly pushed out to the entire network so that members have instantaneous access to firms that use the single source of truth technique of knowledge management. Employees rarely take information offline into locations where it cannot be monitored. Therefore complications are unlikely. 

The advantages of a single source of truth:

1. Your Information

You can manage the knowledge sharing using the single source of truth platform to put out changes and avoid the problem of out-of-date reference materials and cheat sheets. Due to strict governance, only authorized members can develop, modify, approve, and publish updates on a single source of truth platform.  

Because they are no longer dealing with issues related to obsolete data, contact center employees gain confidence in their single source of truth platform. Duplicate records and version control issues are no longer an issue with a single source of truth. A single source of truth provides a complete audit trail with the ability to access prior versions.  

The consumer experience (CX) and the employee experience (EX) are instantaneously raised when reliable, accurate, and timely information from a single source of truth is communicated across platforms.  

2. A single source of truth boosts efficiency significant

A knowledge base software for customer support keeps up-to-date, accurate information in one central location that’s easy to find. A single source of truth is not geographically confined like a database because it is cloud-based. With their browser, users can get up-to-date information from any location. 

A single source of truth solves the problem of gaining access to critical data appropriately stored with a single source of standardized, relevant data from across the organization. Data from production, customer service, and sales and marketing can all be used to inform corporate leaders as they make strategic decisions. 

Employees can quickly and easily locate the knowledge they need with a single source of truth, promoting communication, cooperation, and production. 

Process of creating a single source of truth

1. Determine your data requirements 

At this point, many firms learn how to locate data requirements. They must be able to identify, characterize, and explain all of the data pieces they require and contain cleaning, formatting, and standardization processes. They must understand how different applications can access and use the entire data

2. Analyzing data 

Businesses can use data analysis to locate and map data sources and determine domain standards. It also determines how the data can be represented by mapping the source data items to their objectives

3. Designing for integration 

Pulling data from various sources is greatly aided by interior design. It’s more than just data retrieval; it’s also helpful in matching and merging different processes. It makes decisions based on the information gathered. It aids in the creation of complete extraction and transformation processes for obtaining vital consumer information

4. Development of integration 

It’s all about figuring out how to extract and manipulate data in integration development. It implements the logic created during the design stage, which is when a single source of truth occurs

5. Validate and verify 

After you’ve completed the organizing stage, you’ll need to double-check that the data meets the reception and qualification standards. It verifies incoming data and allows each user to test the solution before implementation. 

6. Create a solution and implement it 

A single source of truth will provide you with numerous advantages. You can concentrate on effectively leveraging the single source of truth to improve various elements of your company.   

When all of the requirements are verified and validated, the single source of truth is deployed, making all of the data available for organizations to use through customer data extraction and application coupling.  

Importance of a single source of truth in customer service

1. Intelligent and experienced retailers deliver seamless omnichannel support. Customers are frequently frustrated by gaps in these relevant commerce experiences. Some businesses find creating a unified commerce experience challenging because each channel evolved separately throughout time with various technology, systems, and databases. 

2. The best solution to this problem is to bring all of the data into a single source of truth with unified data that can be accessed by each channel in real-time and used to create experiences that are consistent with each customer’s shopping history, media, location, preferences, and other factors. 

3. For a successful consumer relationship, increased personalization is necessary. 

4. Customer data is unified, allowing for a single-point view of overall shopping and browsing habits. Everyday actions can be factored into entire marketing messages across all channels and touchpoints. Customization that is timely and precise is critical for a positive shopping experience, creating trust with all customers, and making marketing messages that they enjoy. 

5. Cost and time savings have been realized as a result of improved operations. 

6. Retailers can plan inventory, improve order management, and expedite logistics by having access to all logistics, inventory, sales, and fulfillment data in one place. 

Conclusion

A single source of truth system solves present and future data problems by making correct data easily searchable and accessible. Silos of data are routed to a central location, where knowledge is synthesized and incorporated into a user-friendly interface that prevents drama or confusion. In a word, we handle the complicated stuff to focus on your business.  

Creating a knowledge base aids in the creation of a firm foundation in a commercial setting where the customer experience (CX) is critical to success and data influences corporate strategy. 

Sowmya Juttukonda is a content developer & digital media strategist at Knowmax, a knowledge management system to enhance customer service.

For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com.

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