Browsing by Author "Uronen, Oona"

The aim for this research was to describe practices for knowledge management and learning processes of case company's customer service. In addition this research examined current challenges and listed development ideas. The aim was to make practices visible in order to develop working procedures. In the context of this research knowledge management processes included knowledge storing and distributing. Learning processes included different learning processes through which people assimilate know-how knowledge. The research questions were: 1. What kinds of practices for knowledge management and learning processes can be found in the customer service? 2. What kinds of challenges can be found in these processes? 3. How the examined processes can be developed? In this kind of customer service context, that is done via phone, it is important to emphasize sales negotiators' knowledge and competences that are essential to ensure customer satisfaction. The data was collected among 6 sales negotiators, which were interviewed with theme-interview. Interviews were recorded and data was analyzed with theme-analysis. The research showed that current practices included many challenging processes and working procedures. Storing knowledge was based on retaining knowledge in people's minds. This was said to be burdening both to the person who searches for knowledge but also for the person who retains the knowledge. There were no singular system for sharing knowledge. Thus knowledge sharing was based almost entirely in face-to-face social interaction. The challenge was based on different levels of basic knowledge but also in the burden of few key persons who retained great amount of knowledge. When it came to learning processes, apprenticeship training of new sales negotiators was considered functional but there was lack of documented material that would have supported the training process. Also trainers' possible lack of competence was seen problematic. The main concern was that wrong knowledge was delivered to new employees. Based on this research it can be concluded that development of customer service practices the following aspects should be taken into account; development of training procedures, processes of storing knowledge, deburdening of key sales negotiators and standardization of procedures. These developmental aspects could be supported by a technological solution in which documented knowledge could be easily retained and shared.