A large majority of banks and credit unions use SharePoint as their intranet platform of choice, counting on SharePoint to be an effective content and document management system. While SharePoint has its advantages, it also has a number of disadvantages. One of the more common complaints from employees is that finding what they are looking for is too hard on SharePoint. User adoption often lags with SharePoint as employees struggle to find value in the tool. This is especially true for front-line staff who rely on the policy and procedure information in SharePoint to answer customer queries. When SharePoint fails to deliver, frustrated employees beget frustrated customers. In this blog, we discuss the three primary reasons SharePoint is failing your bank or credit union’s front-line staff.
1. Employees Can’t Find the Information They Are Looking for Via SharePoint Search
One of the reasons for this is that SharePoint’s search engine is not banking specific, meaning that it has not been trained on all the banking synonyms, stop words, common misspellings and so on. Another reason for the poor performance of SharePoint search is that content is typically not structured in a way that is easily found by the search engine. For example, if content headers and titles are not consistent and keyword specific, search may bypass them assuming they have no relevancy to the search query. Similarly, search often struggles to find meaning within long, dense, arduous documents. Ultimately, when content structure is inconsistent, users receive inconsistent results.
If those users, specifically front-line staff, can’t quickly find the answer they need to satisfy a customer question, via a simple SharePoint search, the customer may end up waiting on hold. The end result is a poor customer experience, which ultimately effects revenue.
2. There are No Controls Around Who or How Many Users Can Add Content to SharePoint
SharePoint’s open access creates a great way for teams to collaborate, as anyone is able to add or update a document within the system. However, this open access creates major problems when it comes to quality control of content. With no central process around content management, consistency, quality and accuracy are negatively impacted. That means that when front-line staff are looking for the most recent version of a document, or the most up-to-date product, policy or procedure information, they have to dig to find it (all while a customer waits on hold). And even if they think they have found the most recent version, with the most accurate information, how do they know for sure? Employees begin to distrust the information that SharePoint is giving them. With no designated oversight of the content process, information remains scattered across the intranet, creating huge inefficiencies for customer service staff.
3. The Content on SharePoint Is Not Written for End Users/Front-Line Staff
Most content that is stored on the Intranet and searched for by front-line staff and general bank employees was written by and for someone with deep knowledge in the financial services space. Which means there is a disconnect between who the content was written for and who it is being consumed by. To answer customer questions with confidence and speed, employees need to be able to comprehend the policy, procedure and product documentation SharePoint search is serving up. But if the content was not written in a way that is easily read and understood, employee confidence suffers and their ability to effectively answer a customer’s question is severely hampered.
At Engageware we help banks and credit unions supercharge their intranets, making SharePoint work for employees, not against them, with a product, policies and procedures application that integrates seamlessly with the most popular intranet platforms on the market today. If you’re ready to learn more, check out our Employee Knowledge Management solution.