Knowledge Management (KM) is different things to different people. Most organizations see it as using technology to share critical information. KM, to many businesses, is maintaining a document repository that lets engineers share design data or consultants exchange best practices. To contact center and helpdesk managers, knowledge management usually means providing agents with a problem resolution tool, which could be anything from a simple answer database to a sophisticated guided help system. We take a broader view of Knowledge Management and define it as a set of practices to maximize the business value of an organization’s knowledge by gathering, maintaining, and delivering it at critical points in business processes.

In this paper, we begin by explaining why knowledge management is critical for service organizations both big and small. Then we present best practices gathered from successful knowledge initiatives of Global 2000 companies. The last section of the paper describes eGain’s innovative and award-winning knowledge management tools.