{"id":23095,"date":"2022-01-05T09:00:47","date_gmt":"2022-01-05T09:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/?p=23095"},"modified":"2022-01-10T11:28:34","modified_gmt":"2022-01-10T11:28:34","slug":"knowledge-sharing-customer-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/knowledge-sharing-customer-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Brew and Review: Building a knowledge sharing loop for Customer Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was almost a year ago when our Customer Success team<\/a> came up against an issue that all growing teams face: knowledge sharing.<\/p>\n

We had a large group of talented people<\/a> \u2013 some who knew features and workarounds better than anyone else, some who were experts in technical concepts, some who excelled in project and relationship management, and others who had a deep knowledge of particular industries.<\/p>\n

The only problem? We were operating in silos. Our de-facto ways of working made it difficult for us to learn from one another, especially when it came to sharing best practices for talking to our customers.<\/p>\n

For rapidly scaling teams<\/a> like ours, the value of knowledge sharing can\u2019t be understated. Breakdowns in knowledge sharing are expensive \u2013 a study from Panopto and YouGov<\/a> found that these inefficiencies can cost large companies more than $2.7 million a year in lost productivity.<\/p>\n

Not only does knowledge sharing save time and resources, it also prevents information from disappearing when employees leave. And best of all? It creates a more cohesive, friction-free experience for your customers, no matter who they’re talking to.<\/p>\n

\"Cost<\/p>\n

When \u201criding along\u201d on calls isn\u2019t enough<\/h2>\n

More often than not, knowledge sharing in customer-facing roles means doing \u201cride-alongs\u201d where teammates shadow each other on calls or in meetings. There\u2019s nothing wrong with ride-alongs in theory. After all, aren\u2019t we taught to show rather than tell?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly what we tried to do at first, taking what seemed<\/em> like a logical approach. We would invite each other to our meetings with customers whenever the other person had free time and encourage each other to ask, \u201cHow did that call go?\u201d<\/p>\n

“As with any high-performing team, free time is more myth than reality and we weren\u2019t transferring much value doing ride-alongs”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But it turns out, as with any high-performing team, free time is more myth than reality and we weren\u2019t transferring much value this way. Sometimes we would end up being double booked and unable to join a meeting to listen in. Other times, customers would get distracted when a new person joined the call or we would unknowingly skip over helpful details when summarizing what was discussed.<\/p>\n

We needed a better solution \u2013 one that could accommodate our growing team and jam-packed schedules while making time for us to learn from each other.<\/p>\n

Building our own knowledge sharing loop<\/h2>\n

Enter \u201cBrew and Review,\u201d a lightweight process that I created for our Customer Success team. Brew and Review pairs us up every two weeks with the goal of reviewing and giving feedback on recorded calls \u2013 all done on our own time. After reviewing the call, teammates are encouraged to grab a cup of coffee to discuss in person, hence the \u201cBrew\u201d \u2615 part of the name.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how I quickly got Brew and Review up and running at Intercom, along with a few tips to help you create your own version.<\/p>\n

1. Define the parameters for success<\/h3>\n

The first step is to define what, how, and why. What problem are you solving? How do you plan to solve it? And why should you do it that way? I started by meeting with my team to understand why ride-alongs were failing. These became a few of the parameters for the tool I built:<\/p>\n