How to Optimize your Knowledge Foundation Doug Warner Director of Product ManagementKnowledge Foundation

Knowledge Optimization is a process – there is no single best approach or quick fix! Analyze Adjust I will cover a few key topics, but you must apply them to your specific business needs!

How to evaluate effectiveness: Analysis How to evaluate effectiveness: Compare ratios, focus on Answer Views Answer Views Tells you success stories! Searches Tells you only expert interactions and content failures! Sessions Tells you only number of visitors, not importance of interaction! Service -> Site Reports -> Service Summary

Keyword search report: Review regularly! Analysis Keyword search report: Review regularly! Popular Searches Sort by search frequency, descending Shows most important content in KB—polish these results! Failed Searches Sort by number of results, ascending Shows where content is missing—look for popular searches with 0 results! Noisy Searches Sort by number of results, descending Shows opportunities for tuning and content cleanup: stop words, topic words, bad aliases? Service -> Site Reports -> Keyword Search Define “regularly”: 1/day, 1/week, 1/month?

Use topic words to their full potential Adjustment Use topic words to their full potential Umbrella Answers Promote frequent landing points Teach users how to search/access your content Topic Word Search Query Web Page Answer List Answer 1

Using keywords vs. aliases Adjustment Using keywords vs. aliases Less than 20% of Answers have keywords Keywords used for universal synonyms Aliases used for common acronyms and misspellings Aliases entered symmetrically (A=B and B=A) Keywords used to boost rankings Aliases match content NOT in Answers

Trends to watch Emerging trend: Issues: Search is “primary” Site search mandates Issues: Search is best for experts, not good for novices Expect ↓ CSAT and ↑ Incident submissions! Site search is outside local control Tuning? Emergency changes? Popular culture is changing expectations of how to access information. The Google-world has come to expect search as the primary method for accessing content. Search fails when domain expertise is low, such as with customer support. Browsing is more accessible to novices. More and more corporate sites are mandating a single search interface for their entire site content. In addition to harming novices, this raises many issues that need consideration as you approach a solution.

Knowledge Base and Search Tune-Up Additional Resources Knowledge Base and Search Tune-Up http://community.rightnow.com/customer/support/tuneup.php Knowledge Base Optimization http://communities.rightnow.com/files/14e9681120/KnowledgeBaseOptimizationSteps_May_2010.pdf

Questions from the Community Q1: how to optimize a new KB Q2: suggestions to increase our KB usage