The Digital Products division of Toshiba America Information Systems, part of Toshiba America, Inc. is responsible for computer products, projector products, PDAs, and some digital cameras for the U.S. and Latin America. The division is headquarterd in Irvine, CA. Toshiba Corporation has estimated annual global sales of $52 billion. In Q2 2004, personal computer shipment figures (from IDC) was 390K units accounting for year-over-year unit growth of 32.1% from Q2 2003 to Q2 2004.

Jim Rohrer has been with the company for 16 years and manages the technical communications group, part of the technical service and support department for the digital products division. It includes a technical training group that provides authorized service providers with the training they need to support the division’s digital products. We also train our technical support center agents.

The group also manages a web-based support site for customers as well as internal support reps. Partners and other service providers can also use the web site to get information on Toshiba’s digital products.

Finally, the group manages and publishes technical documentation for the division’s products.

There are staff members in the Irvine office that take call escalations and are responsible for authoring support bulletins for distribution. If tech support reps in Irvine don’t find answers to issues they’re presented with in the knowledge base (KB), they create the necessary solutions and post the documents for everyone to use.

The division closely tracks stats related to what all users request online to identify any possible gaps in the information provided.

The company recently implemented Kanisa Support Site 5 to improve users’ ability to find solutions on the web and to get better, more dynamic reporting on web usage. Prior to implementing Kanisa Search, the company had only monthly reports with which to evaluate the success of the web-based solutions but couldn’t do any ad-hoc queries or run reports as needed.

The knowledge base is a home-grown Oracle database. Now that the system is installed and running, Rohrer says the company is looking into training staff to optimize the Kanisa application to keep it performing well.

What we were shooting for was to improve our customers’ and support agents’ ability to find solutions and get problems resolved. That’s where most of our efforts are being focused.

We’ve also added other resources to the knowledge management functions because it’s a place we felt we could invest and save a lot in the long run. We now have someone analyzing reports, someone dedicated to reviewing new documents as they’re created, and an editor to improve support bulletins and ensure they clearly communicate information to users. “I’m really excited about adding the person to edit the documents before they’re released,” says Rohrer. “I’m sure that will increase the value of the solutions for customers. It makes a big difference to have someone who is an excellent communicator and writer.”

The solution was launched just a few months ago and “it’s too early to see any real trends,” says Rohrer. “But so far, we’ve seen a 25% increase in the use of our search engine which is a good sign. Based on the surveys we include in our solution documents, we’re seeing an increase in the ratio of people who find solutions they need.” The company is encouraged by the progress and is looking to improve even more.

The company so far has essentially just put the Kanisa search on top of the database without changing anything else. Not that they have that up and running, with dynamic reporting capabilities, they plan to move to a “more typical” Kanisa implementation where they take advantage of other functionality like better click-tracking and what Kanisa calls guided search, which automates the navigation for customers.

The Kanisa system that Toshiba plans to move to will also automatically help them track and analyze some desired metrics. “Through surveys, we measure whether we were able to resolve the user’s problem, and whether the customer intended to call us if they didn’t find an answer on the web site,” says Rohrer.

Because Toshiba uses the same solution in their call center, Rohrer expects to see an improvement in their first call resolution as well as reduced time on calls. Improving self-help will ultimately reduce the number of calls support has to take, though Rohrer says that wasn’t a prime motivator for the project. “To a large degree, people have a preference and people are going to go to the web or pick up the phone,” he says.

“We also want people to have some kind of escalation process available and can get the help of agents without having to call us.” Future plans call for e-mail integration with the CRM system to better track online requests and resolutions.