In December of each year, representatives from Benefactor- and Sponsor-level Member companies are invited to meet for the Leadership Committee. During this meeting we dive into the business of the Consortium and sketch out topics of interest for the membership moving forward.
25 leaders from 19 companies engaged in a dynamic mix of presentations, discussions, and collaborative sessions, exploring ongoing innovations in the services industry. As expected, the growing recognition of AI as a collection of tools that can enable organizational efficiency, customer engagement, and employee success was an area of focus.
After level setting on service excellence and the Value Stack, we reviewed what we’re hearing across the services and knowledge management industries. This led into Open Space sessions which included (but weren’t limited to):
- AI for KCS or KCS or AI: how to get energy/attention on foundational work in the age of shiny things
- What is the currency for support in the future?
- Scoping a modern definition for unified content strategy (with AI)
- Expanding the licensing model and training for KCS in non-support functions
- What could an AI Tool Verified/Aligned checklist look like?
Consortium Members can review notes from these sessions (and the whole meeting) in the Member-only Wiki (contact us for assistance accessing).
We spent time validating a section of the forthcoming AI Blueprint, where attendees gave us their best advice on connecting AI strategy to business goals, gaining buy-in for use cases of all kinds, and building a coalition (or AI Council) to enable organizational readiness.
Here’s what we learned:
How quickly the role of the service organization is changing.
This idea that our services organizations are a central connector between our customers, our company, and the different business units within it is clearer than ever. Support is so much more than “break-fix”- we have information about the customer experience, the ways in which customers use (and don’t use) our products, and organizational processes that the rest of the organization doesn’t have visibility to. We can use our role as connectors for the benefit of the organization as a whole.
As the role of services shifts, the way we think about value has to shift.
Some really interesting discussions took place around the value of support. Because of what we capture and share about the customer experience, the way we present our value to the organization has to include more than traditional activity metrics like number of cases closed. Based on the amount of energy around this topic, we’ll be revisiting the definition of value, how we measure value, and what value looks like moving forward.
AI is just a tool that can help us reach desired outcomes.
A lot of energy has gone into building AI implementation strategies in 2024. One of the realizations Member companies have come to this year is that from a strategy standpoint, we can largely treat AI like the tools we’ve already implemented: it’s not that we have to have an AI strategy, it’s that we have to have a strategy for reaching business outcomes, and then decide how we might use AI tools to help us reach those goals.
It was another successful Leadership Committee meeting: aligning the Consortium’s events, working groups, and engagements with the topics that are important to both attendees and the membership at large. We are looking forward to continuing to explore these topics and themes with you in 2025!
