Chapter 13 The News About Copy Right & Fair Use

Top 10 Copyright Infringement News Stories of 2011 | Copyright Laywer

January brought more seizures by ICE and copyright infringement lawsuits by media giants. Here are the top 10 copyright lawyer stories of January 2011:

1. Justin.tv sued for copyright infringement. Copyright gorilla Zuffa, LLC, owner of Ultimate Fighting Championship, has sued video streaming website Justin.tv for failing to adequately implement measures to prohibit users from streaming copyrighted materials over the service. Though the DMCA typically shields service providers like Justin.tv from these types of lawsuits, Zuffa's copyright lawyer argues that Justin.tv does not do enough to prohibit copyright infringement.

2. RIAA sends threatning letter to ICANN chair Peter Dengate-Thrush. The Recording Industry Artists of America sent a threatening letter to ICANN chair Peter Dengate-Thrush in January. The letter, which can be readhere,expressed that the RIAA is concerned that a new music themed generic top-level domain name (gTLD) "will be used to enable wide scale copyright and trademark infringement." The RIAA is concerned that a pirate may "choose to hijack a music themed gTLD to enable wide scale copyright infringement of [the RIAA's] works." 

3. Adult content providers continue to sue downloaders. Adult content providers continue to sue downloaders, while groups, such as Adult Copyright Company, US Copyright Group, and John Steele's Media Copyright Group continue to identify porn downloaders on behalf of content providers. Most notably, XPays has sued 843 individuals for downloading or distributing copies of the Paris Hilton Sex Tape.

4. Movie studios continue to sue downloaders. Much like the adult content providers, movie studios continue to sue downloaders. US Copyright Group, which had filed suit against 4,577 downloaders and had its case dismissed due to joinder issues, has now initiated copyright infringement lawsuits against individuals in jurisdictions around the country.

5. 26 record labels sue BitTorrent search engine ISOHunt for copyright infringement. 26 record labels, including Sony, EMI, Warner, and Universal, have sued BitTorrent search engine ISOHunt for the alleged facilitation of copyright infringement in Canada. The record companies are seek approximately $4 million in statutory damages.

6. Google censors BitTorrent-related terms from autocomplete and instant search features. Google, under pressure from the MPAA and RIAA, has begun removing "piracy-related" search terms from its autocomplete and instant search features, such as torrent, BitTorrent, and uTorrent. Google has also removed the term "RapidShare," which is a web-based file sharing service.

7. MPAA and BRIEN take down 51 websites for copyright infringement. Through the joint efforts of the MPAA and BRIEN, 51 websites have been taken down for alleged copyright infringement. This is a continued effort to seize domain names that are alleged to have been used in the distribution of copyrighted materials.

8.Anime studios begin suing individual file sharers. Texas-based attorney Evan Stone, who was previously known for his representation of adult content producers, such as Larry Flynt Productions, has begun filing copyright infringement lawsuits against individual file sharers on behalf of anime producer Funimation. In a not-so-comedic twist, the first lawsuit has named 1,337 file sharers as defendants, which, to the uniformed, is the leet-speak spelling of "leet."

9. Blizzard sends DMCA takedown to YouTube over game mod, then backtracks. Video game developer/producer Blizzard entertainment sent a DMCA takedown notice to YouTube over a video that purported to display the fan-developed "World of Starcraft," a World of Warcraft mod. YouTube quickly removed the video, and Blizzard reached out to the developer and requested a name change after the modding community reacted.

10. Napster loses (again). Napster has lost a lawsuit to recover the $1.3 million in copyright attorneys fees it expended to defend against claims of infringement made by MSC Music America, which sued Napster for copyright infringement after record label Rounder, which entered into a publishing deal with Napster, failed to license Napster adequate copyright rights.http://tcattorney.typepad.com/digital_millennium_copyri/2011/02/top-10-copyright-infringement-news-stories-of-january-2011.html

Fair Use 

Cases Involving Text

• Fair use. A biographer of Richard Wright quoted from six unpublished letters and ten unpublished journal entries by Wright. Important factors: No more than 1% of Wright’s unpublished letters were copied and the purpose was informational. (Wright v. Warner Books, Inc., 953 F.2d 731 (2d Cir. 1991).)
• Fair use. Publisher Larry Flynt made disparaging statements about the Reverend Jerry Falwell on one page of Hustler magazine. Rev. Falwell made several hundred thousand copies of the page and distributed them as part of a fund-raising effort. Important factors: Rev. Falwell’s copying did not diminish the sales of the magazine (since it was already off the market) and would not adversely affect the marketability of back issues. (Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Moral Majority, Inc., 606 F. Supp. 1526 (C.D. Cal. 1985).)
• Not a fair use. An author copied more than half of an unpublished manuscript to prove that someone was involved in the overthrow of the Iranian government. Important factors: A substantial portion was taken (half of the work) and the work had not been published yet. (Love v. Kwitny, 772 F. Supp. 1367 (S.D. N.Y. 1989).)
• Not a fair use. A biographer paraphrased large portions of unpublished letters written by the famed author J.D. Salinger. Although people could read these letters at a university library, Salinger had never authorized their reproduction. In other words, the first time that the general public would see these letters was in their paraphrased form in the biography. Salinger successfully sued to prevent publication.Important factors: The letters were unpublished and were the “backbone” of the biography—so much so that without the letters the resulting biography was unsuccessful. In other words, the letters may have been taken more as a means of capitalizing on the interest in Salinger than in providing a critical study of the author. (Salinger v. Random House, 811 F.2d 90 (2d Cir. 1987).)
• Not a fair use. The Nation magazine published excerpts from ex-President Gerald Ford’s unpublished memoirs. The publication in The Nation was made several weeks prior to the date Mr. Ford’s book was to be serialized in another magazine. Important factors: The Nation’s copying seriously damaged the marketability of Mr. Ford’s serialization rights. (Harper & Row v. Nation Enters., 471 U.S. 539 (1985).)
• Not a fair use. A company published a book entitled Welcome to Twin Peaks: A Complete Guide to Who’s Who and What’s What, containing direct quotations and paraphrases from the television show Twin Peaks, as well as detailed descriptions of plots, characters, and setting. Important factors: The amount of the material taken was substantial and the publication adversely affected the potential market for authorized books about the program. (Twin Peaks v. Publications Int’l, Ltd., 996 F.2d 1366 (2d Cir. 1993).)
• Not a fair use. A company published a book of trivia questions about the events and characters of the Seinfeld television series. The book included questions based upon events and characters in 84 Seinfeld episodes and used actual dialogue from the show in 41 of the book’s questions. Important factors: As in the Twin Peaks case, the book affected the owner’s right to make derivative Seinfeld works such as trivia books. (Castle Rock Entertainment, Inc. v. Carol Publ. Group, 150 F.3d 132 (2d Cir. 1998).)
• Not a fair use. Although the creation of a Harry Potter encyclopedia was determined to be “slightly transformative” (because it made the Harry Potter terms and lexicons available in one volume), this transformative quality was not enough to justify a fair use defense. Important factors: An important factor in the court’s decision was the extensive verbatim use of text from the Harry Potter books. (Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. v. RDR Books, 575 F. Supp. 2d 513 (S.D. N.Y. 2008).)
• Not a fair use. In a case involving the author J.D. Salinger, an author wrote a book in which a character known as Mr. C was allegedly modeled after the character of Holden Caulfield, from Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. After Salinger sued, the sequel’s author claimed that his work was a parody, an argument rejected by the district court. Important factors: Aging the character and placing him in the present day does not add something new, particularly since the character’s personality remains intact as derived from the original work. (Salinger v. Colting, 641 F. Supp. 2d 250 (S.D. N.Y. 2009).)

Artwork and Audiovisual Cases

• Fair use. A search engine’s practice of creating small reproductions (“thumbnails”) of images and placing them on its own website (known as “inlining”) did not undermine the potential market for the sale or licensing of those images. Important factors: The thumbnails were much smaller and of much poorer quality than the original photos and served to help the public access the images by indexing them. (Kelly v. Arriba-Soft, 336 F.3d. 811 (9th Cir. 2003).)
• Fair use. The makers of a movie biography of Muhammad Ali used 41 seconds from a boxing match film in their biography. Important factors: A small portion of film was taken and the purpose was informational. (Monster Communications, Inc. v. Turner Broadcasting Sys. Inc., 935 F. Supp. 490 (S.D. N.Y. 1996).)
• Fair use. In a lawsuit commonly known as the Betamax case, the Supreme Court determined that the home videotaping of a television broadcast was a fair use. This was one of the few occasions when copying a complete work (for example, a complete episode of the Kojak television show) was accepted as a fair use. Evidence indicated that most viewers were “time-shifting” (taping in order to watch later) and not “library‑building” (collecting the videos in order to build a video library). Important factors: The Supreme Court reasoned that the “delayed” system of viewing did not deprive the copyright owners of revenue. (Universal City Studios v. Sony Corp., 464 U.S. 417 (1984).)
• Fair use. It was a fair use, not an infringement, to reproduce Grateful Dead concert posters within a book.Important factors: The Second Circuit focused on the fact that the posters were reduced to thumbnail size and reproduced within the context of a timeline. (Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley Ltd., 448 F.3d 605 (2d Cir. 2006).)
• Fair use. A publisher of monster magazines from the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s sued the creator and publisher of a book, Famous Monster Movie Art of Basil Gogos. (Gogos created covers for the magazines.) The book publisher had obtained licenses from the artist directly, but not from the magazine publisher who claimed copyright under work-made-for-hire principles. The district court determined that the use was transformative. Important factors: The use was for a biography/retrospective of the artist, not simply a series of covers of magazines devoted to movie monsters. In addition, the magazines were no longer in print, and the covers amounted to only one page of the magazine, not the “heart” of the magazine. (Warren Publishing Co. v. Spurlock d/b/a Vanguard Productions, 645 F. Supp. 2d 402, (E.D. Pa., 2009).)
• Fair use. A Google search engine infringed a subscription-only website (featuring nude models) by reproducing thumbnails. Important factors: The court of appeals aligned this case with Kelly v. Arriba-Soft (above), which also permitted thumbnails under fair use principles. (Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon. com, Inc., 508 F. 3d 1146 (9th Cir. 2007).)
• Not a fair use. A television news program copied one minute and 15 seconds from a 72-minute Charlie Chaplin film and used it in a news report about Chaplin’s death. Important factors: The court felt that the portions taken were substantial and part of the “heart” of the film. (Roy Export Co. Estab. of Vaduz v. Columbia Broadcasting Sys., Inc., 672 F.2d 1095, 1100 (2d Cir. 1982).)
• Not a fair use. A television station’s news broadcast used 30 seconds from a four-minute copyrighted videotape of the 1992 Los Angeles beating of Reginald Denny. Important factors: The use was commercial, took the heart of the work, and affected the copyright owner’s ability to market the video. (Los Angeles News Service v. KCAL-TV Channel 9, 108 F.3d 1119 (9th Cir. 1997).)
• Not a fair use. A poster of a “church quilt” was used in the background of a television series for 27 seconds. Important factors: The court was influenced by the prominence of the poster, its thematic importance for the set decoration of a church, and the fact that it was a conventional practice to license such works for use in television programs. (Ringgold v. Black Entertainment Television, Inc., 126 F.3d 70 (2d Cir. 1997).)
• Not a fair use. The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) licensed the use of a photograph of the Korean War veterans’ memorial sculpture for a postage stamp, but failed to obtain permission from the sculptor who held copyright in the underlying three-dimensional work. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that the use of the underlying sculpture depicted in the photograph was not permitted under fair use principles. Important factors: It was not enough to transfer the work from three dimensions to two dimensions (despite the creative use of photography and snow in conjunction with the photos). (Gaylord v. United States, 595 F.3d 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2010).)

Internet Cases

• Fair use. The Washington Post used three brief quotations from Church of Scientology texts posted on the Internet. Important factors: Only a small portion of the work was excerpted and the purpose was for news commentary. (Religious Technology Center v. Pagliarina, 908 F. Supp. 1353 (E.D. Va. 1995).)
• Fair use. Displaying a cached website in search engine results is a fair use and not an infringement. A “cache” refers to the temporary storage of an archival copy—often a copy of an image of part or all of a website. With cached technology it is possible to search Web pages that the website owner has permanently removed from display. An attorney/author sued Google when the company’s cached search results provided end users with copies of copyrighted works. The court held that Google did not infringe.Important factors: Google was considered passive in the activity—users chose whether to view the cached link. In addition, Google had an implied license to cache Web pages since owners of websites have the ability to turn on or turn off the caching of their sites using tags and code. In this case, the attorney/author knew of this ability and failed to turn off caching, making his claim against Google appear to be manufactured. (Field v. Google Inc., 412 F. Supp. 2d 1106 (D. Nev. 2006).)
• Not a fair use. Entire publications of the Church of Scientology were posted on the Internet by several individuals without Church permission. Important factors: Fair use is intended to permit the borrowing of portions of a work, not complete works. (Religious Technology Center v. Lerma, 40 U.S.P.Q. 2d 1569 (E.D. Va. 1996).)http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-c.html

Fair Use Case Studies

by CAROLYN BEELER

Fair use applies to intellectual property across mediums, from music to books to art. Because cases often don't make it to court and rulings are often contradictory, sometimes it's hard to say what is legal or illegal until a judge makes a ruling. A few recent examples:

EnlargeMannie Garcia/AP/Shepard Fairey

The poster created by artist Shepard Fairey, next to the AP photo upon which it was based.

Obama Hope Poster: Case Ongoing

Artist Shepard Fairey, who created the iconic Obama "Hope" image that was widely used during the 2008 presidential campaign, came under fire from The Associated Press for using a copyrighted image.

When the AP raised the issue with Fairey, he said the image was based off a photo of Obama and George Clooney that was taken at a Darfur event in 2007. He later admitted to having actually used a photo taken at a news event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. (pictured), which required less cropping to transform into the stylized image.

Fairey argues that he still changed the photo enough for the new work to fall under fair use laws. The AP says he didn't.

Fairey and the AP are suing each other for the rights to the images.

'Harry Potter Lexicon': Not Fair Use

Author J.K. Rowling sued the publishers of an encyclopedic Harry Potter guidebook called The Harry Potter Lexicon. Rowling argued that the guide did not fall under fair use standards because, unlike other companion or reference books to her series, it offered little new commentary or analysis, and lifted almost identical passages from her books.

EnlargeStaff/Getty Images

Gregg Gillis performs onstage during the Bonnaroo music festival in Manchester, Tenn., in June 2009.

In 2008, the judge ruled in Rowling's favor, saying that the reference work borrowed too much of Rowling's work and would cause her irreparable harm as a writer.

Girl Talk: Unchallenged

Mash-up artist Gregg Gillis, more commonly known as Girl Talk, mixes Top 40 hits together to create new music, sometimes sampling as many as 300 songs in a 50-minute set.

But unlike other hip-hop artists and DJs who have gotten into legal trouble for sampling, industry experts say Gillis has never been sued.

The fair use standards and legal precedent for sampling are murky, but they generally take into account the length of the sample, how much it is changed from the original, and if the new work could hurt the sales of the original.

AP/Fox

A parody of the song "When You Wish Upon a Star" was protected under fair use.

'Family Guy' Parody: Fair Use

Bourne Co., a music publisher that owns the rights to the song "When You Wish Upon a Star," sued Fox and the creators of the animated showFamily Guy for airing a parody of the song.

The lawsuit stated that the parody, called "I Need A Jew," was offensive and did damage to the original.

In 2009, the judge struck down the suit, ruling that the lyrics were "strikingly different" from those of the original.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123684026

Chapter 12 Example Of Knowledge Management

Knowledge management for call

center.

By any measure, call centres are a growing business, with many large organisations looking to them as the primary way of interacting with their customers.

Call centres provide many business advantages, including: improved efficiency, increased hours of operation, reduced costs and greater flexibility.

Perhaps the greatest challenge of running a call centre, however, is ensuring that customers are provided with the right information in a timely fashion.

Knowledge management (KM) has a number of practical tools and strategies for meeting this challenge, and call centre managers have much to gain by exploring KM principles.

Call centre challenges

A call centre is confronted with a number of considerable challenges:

• Potentially wide range of customer enquiries.
• Legal accountability for information provided to customers.
• Customers expect ‘instant’ answers to questions.
• High stress work environment for call centre operators.
• High staff turnover.
• Large and complex body of knowledge to be learned by new staff.
• Constant pressure to reduce call handling times.
• Continuous tracking and assessment of efficiency measures.

Inbound centres have an average annual turnover of 26% for full-time reps, and 33% for part-timers.

1999 Call Center Benchmark Report, Purdue University, Center for Customer Driven Quality.

Benefits of KM to call centres

In meeting these challenges, knowledge management has the potential to deliver some (or all) of these benefits:

• Reduced training time and costs for new staff.
• Improved call handing and response times.
• Increased staff satisfaction and morale.
• Greater consistency and accuracy of information provided to customers.
• Greater flexibility in handling changing business processes, products, and information.
• Fewer calls to second-level support or the help desk.

Applying KM to call centres

There are two aspects to knowledge management that must be covered in a call centre:

• Efficient processes must be put in place to ensure that the right knowledge is captured, managed, and kept up-to-date.
• Knowledge management systems must be established to support these processes. These IT systems are the core of a KM-based call centre.

Meeting both these areas will ensure that you have the resources in place to support frontline staff, and the processes to maximise their value.

Managing your knowledge

More important than any IT systems you may implement is the knowledge itself. Identify the information your frontline staff and customers require, and gather this together.

Once you have the raw information, shape this into a structured and usable knowledge repository. Only then will you be in a position to deliver a complete KM solution.

You are legally accountable for every piece of information provided to customers

Identify required information

Spend time to identify the actual information requirements of your customers and staff. This will ensure that you get the maximum benefit out of building your centre’s knowledge resources.

There are a number of practical ways of identifying information needs:

• Talk to both experienced and novice staff, to find out their requirements first-hand.
• Conduct an information review of the resources currently available (both online and on paper).
• Survey both call centre staff and customers.
• Talk to business and product representatives, to identify the areas they would like highlighted to customers.
• Examine the daily activities of frontline staff to identify key information needs.
• Analyse call logs and other statistics to find out areas of customer interest or confusion.
• Identify the typical questions and problems addressed by the help desk or second-level support.
• Evaluate whether sufficient documentation exists for frontline IT systems.

The end product of these efforts should be a long list of desirable information. Prioritise this to produce a ‘hit list’ of the key information to be stored in your KM systems.

The lower priority items then become a ‘wish list’, to be tackled once the initial benefits of your KM activities have been realised.

Structure your knowledge

It is surprising how often businesses spend considerable time and money building online knowledgebases, only to discover that staff can’t work out how to use them.

Effective structure and navigation is critical to the success of a knowledgebase. Without this, staff will not be able to find required information during the limited duration of a customer’s call.

Take these practical steps:

• Involve staff throughout the design process, to ensure that their needs are identified.
• Develop prototypes for new KM systems, and test these with real users.
• Apply information architecture principles and methods to all information repositories. This will determine appropriate groupings, menu items and navigation.
• Use card sorting to determine structure, and to identify any missed categories. (This process is described in an earlier whitepaper.)

Up to a third of any KM project should be spend designing and testing. Without this, the risks of developing a solution that does not meet your centre’s needs are much higher.

Operators may have as little as 30 seconds to find answers

Ensure information is accurate & up-to-date

Customer queries often relate to recent changes or product releases. The call centre must therefore be supported by up-to-date information on these areas.

Call centre operators must also be able to access the knowledge repositories confident that the information provided is both accurate and current. With a customer on the line, there is no time for double-checking against other information sources.

If staff do not trust the KM systems, they will rapidly find other sources, such as hand-written notes, or photocopied ‘cheat sheets’.

There are a number of practical steps you can take to ensure information accuracy:

• Put in place a permanent team to create and update content.
• Establish communication channels with the sources of new information (policy groups, business units, etc).
• Ensure that updating the call centre knowledgebase is part of the ‘sign off’ requirements for business development.
• Provide a simple mechanism for frontline staff to report errors and omissions.

Staff training

Ensure your staff are fully trained in the use of KM systems and processes. Make sure they are aware of the full range of information that is available to them.

Experience has shown that the use of a KM system is maximised by incorporating it into the initial training provided to new staff. In this way, it becomes the ‘default’ way of resolving problems, and finding answers.

Use web technology to build an integrated online KM solution

Develop KM systems

To support the knowledge management processes outlined above, you must put in place a range of KM systems.

Every call centre will have varying needs, depending on size, activities, and level of knowledge. This section should therefore be seen as a starting point for your own research and planning.

Build a call centre intranet

Every call centre should be supported by a comprehensive online resource. This could consist of a corner of the corporate intranet, or a completely separate intranet developed specifically for the call centre.

There is much information to put on this intranet, including:

• Latest product or business updates.
• Sales support information, including current company brochures, FAQs and pricing details.
• Corporate directions, and messages from management.

Develop a knowledge repository to capture your business information

• Current bugs and workarounds for frontline IT systems.
• Planned call centre changes, such as software upgrades or other infrastructure projects.
• Training materials.
• Policies and procedures.
• Help desk resources.
• Rosters and staffing details.
• Recreational activities and other community information.

Wherever possible, staff should be encouraged to use the intranet as their primary source of information.

This will only occur if you ensure that the information provided via the intranet is both comprehensive and accurate. Users will not give an inadequate intranet a second chance.

Knowledge repository

Several of the items in the previous list warrant the development of a substantial knowledge repository, including: policies and procedures, sales support information and help desk resources.

A knowledge repository is an online information resource that is:

• comprehensive
• accurate and up-to-date
• well-structured
• easy and efficient to use
• extensively hypertext linked
• supported by tools such as searching, indexes and browsing aids
• created and maintained using a content management system, or equivalent.

Converting a Word-format manual into HTML does not count as a knowledge repository.

The knowledge repositories in a call centre are the primary (or sole) source of information provided to your customers. As such, they warrant a substantial amount of effort to ensure that they are both useful, and used.

Spend time to make searching fast, simple and effective

While the effort involved is large, the payoff is larger still. These ‘knowledgebases’ will help to reduce call handling times, and increase the consistency of information provided to customers.

In one project, call centre staff were positively enthusiastic about the prospect of being provided such a resource. They were keenly aware of the information vacuum that they were operating in, and the effect it had upon their daily activities.

Much could be said about the principles behind designing, creating and deploying a knowledge repository. This is beyond the scope of this paper, however, and will be addressed in future articles.

Develop online solutions

Use web-based technologies wherever possible. These can be integrated into a single, seamless, and consistent interface for users. This leads to reduced staff training time, and greater efficiency.

Services delivered via the web are the ultimate in ‘thin client’ technology: all your staff need is a web-browser. Deploying new software, or upgrading existing software is also greatly simplified when using a server-based solution.

Effective searching and browsing

Call centre staff typically have only a minute (or maybe two) to find the information requested by their customer. Under this pressure, it is critical that staff have effective and efficient ways of locating answers.

A well-designed search engine is a necessary first step towards meeting this goal. Spend time designing and configuring the search engine: it must be simple to use, but still return a useful set of results.

(See the case study discussing the development of a search engine for use in a call centre, titled Deploying an Effective Search Engine.)

A search engine does not deliver the complete solution. It is also important to provide staff with structured and meaningful browsing and navigation methods. This ranges from ensuring the correct items are on the main menu, to creating related links between pages.

All of this must be supported with comprehensive meta-data, such as title, description and keywords. These combine to increase the effectiveness of both searching and browsing.

Analyse staff usage

Monitor what information your staff are accessing in your knowledge repositories. This can be done in several ways:

• Usage statistics: use a standard web statistics package to track the most popular web pages, and the trends in overall usage.
• Search engine usage: log all uses of the search engine, and generate summary reports showing the most common searches, along with failed search terms.

This information is invaluable in measuring the ongoing success of KM systems. In particular, they help to identify what the most valuable information is in the repositories, and what information is missing.

With this information in hand, you can expand areas of interest, and fill critical knowledge gaps.

Are the new KM systems being used by frontline staff?

Feedback

Implement a simple system than staff can use to provide feedback on the KM systems. This offers them a single point of contact to report missing or incorrect information, or to ask questions.

Allocate sufficient resources to track the feedback messages, and to respond to the sender where appropriate. Any updates to the knowledgebase that result from this feedback must be done in a timely fashion.

Once staff realise that their input is being acted upon, you will find them the most valuable source of up-to-the-minute information in the entire organisation.

Develop custom KM solutions

Be prepared to develop a number of little ‘applets’ to manage the day-to-day activities of your call centre.

These can be integrated into your online systems, to provide a seamless solution for users.

The advantage of these applets is that they capture the knowledge of the call centre into small customised interfaces, that are quick and easy to use.

Typical applications are database lookups, calculators and estimation tools.

An example: the RTA call centre frequently provides ‘stamp duty’ pricing information. Previously, this was looked up from a dozen pages of pre-calculated tables. This cumbersome solution was replaced with a ‘stamp duty calculator’, which provides a simple point-and-click interface.

Your frontline staff are an invaluable source of feedback

Integrate CRM and KM systems

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are all about knowing your customers, and their needs.

This ties in closely with the operation of your KM systems:

• Demographic information about your customers will allow you to ensure the right information is in your knowledge repository.
• Tracking customer queries is an excellent way of identifying frequently asked questions (FAQs).
• These FAQs should be easily available from within the CRM, to facilitate rapid responses.
• Information in KM systems should be broken down according to customer groupings in the CRM software.
• Escalation from the CRM system should be closely tied in with KM processes.
• Usage statistics gathered from the knowledge repository provide an indication of the ‘hot topics’ for customers. This is a valuable source of information for CRM activities.

Integrate help desk and KM systems

Most help desks and second level support teams are equipped with ‘call logging’ systems, which track the status of the reported problems and issues.

In conjunction with this, a repository of common problems and resolutions should be developed. (This may already be provided as part of the call logging software.)

This reduces the amount of knowledge the help desk staff have to ‘keep in their heads’ (tacit knowledge). It also helps to ensure that consistent responses are provided to frontline staff.

This repository is also an excellent source of frontline information. Distil the most common problems, write these up as procedures or workarounds, and provide them to frontline staff.

Such information will reduce the number of ‘simple’ calls to the help desk, which eases the workload, and allows help desk staff to concentrate on the more difficult cases.

Integrate IVR and KM systems

Most phone queues are now fronted with an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. These may simply direct incoming callers to an appropriate phone queue, or provide sophisticated phone transaction systems.

Integrate the IVR with your centre’s KM systems:

• Ensure that information provided via the IVR is consistent with the details in your information repository.
• Gather detailed breakdowns on the usage of the IVR. This will tell you the areas your customers are interested in.
• Document the exact script of the IVR for call centre staff. This will assist them to manage a clean handover when they answer calls.

IVR systems are normally only the first step in the customers’ interaction with a call centre, and they must be managed as such. There must be consistency across all methods of information delivery.

Ensure KM systems are integrated with other call centre solutions and software

Customer-facing resources

Many call centres now respond to online and e-mail queries, in addition to phone calls. With this broadened responsibility, call centres must manage the additional workload.

The call centre knowledge repository can be used in a number of practical ways:

• Publish a selection of customer questions (FAQs) to the website.
• Ensure online sales and product information is accurate and comprehensive. This will reduce the number of calls in these areas.
• Develop ‘standard responses’ to a range of common e-mail or website queries. Products even exist that will analyse incoming e-mails, and automatically select appropriate responses.

It is important that the information provided to customers is drawn out of the same repository used by call centre staff. (This is known as ‘single sourcing’.)

In this way, duplication is reduced, and errors avoided. Maintenance efforts are similarly reduced.

Deliver call centre knowledge directly to customers via your website

Conclusion

Call centres are all about getting customers the information they need, as quickly as possible. To meet this goal, the knowledge resources of a call centre must be managed in a coordinated and integrated way.

Knowledge management has a range of practical tools and approaches for meeting these challenges. Explore ways in which these can be applied within your organisation.

Take all necessary steps to ensure that your staff have access to accurate, up-to-date, easy to use, and comprehensive information. Doing so will generate rewards for both the call centre, and your customers.

Written by James Robertson, published February 6th, 2002

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Chapter 10 Pros and Cons of Information Techology

Some advantages of Information Technology

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Globalization - IT has not only brought the world closer together, but it has allowed the world's economy to become a single interdependent system. This means that we can not only share information quickly and efficiently, but we can also bring down barriers of linguistic and geographic boundaries. The world has developed into a global village due to the help of information technology allowing countries like Chile and Japan who are not only separated by distance but also by language to shares ideas and information with each other.

Communication - With the help of information technology, communication has also become cheaper, quicker, and more efficient. We can now communicate with anyone around the globe by simply text messaging them or sending them an email for an almost instantaneous response. The internet has also opened up face to face direct communication from different parts of the world thanks to the helps of video conferencing.

Cost effectiveness - Information technology has helped to computerize the business process thus streamlining businesses to make them extremely cost effective money making machines. This in turn increases productivity which ultimately gives rise to profits that means better pay and less strenuous working conditions.

Bridging the cultural gap - Information technology has helped to bridge the cultural gap by helping people from different cultures to communicate with one another, and allow for the exchange of views and ideas, thus increasing awareness and reducing prejudice.

More time - IT has made it possible for businesses to be open 24 x7 all over the globe. This means that a business can be open anytime anywhere, making purchases from different countries easier and more convenient. It also means that you can have your goods delivered right to your doorstep with having to move a single muscle.

Creation of new jobs - Probably the best advantage of information technology is the creation of new and interesting jobs. Computer programmers, Systems analyzers, Hardware and Software developers and Web designers are just some of the many new employment opportunities created with the help of IT.

Some disadvantage of Information Technology

Unemployment - While information technology may have streamlined the business process it has also crated job redundancies, downsizing and outsourcing. This means that a lot of lower and middle level jobs have been done away with causing more people to become unemployed.

Privacy - Though information technology may have made communication quicker, easier and more convenient, it has also bought along privacy issues. From cell phone signal interceptions to email hacking, people are now worried about their once private information becoming public knowledge.

Lack of job security - Industry experts believe that the internet has made job security a big issue as since technology keeps on changing with each day. This means that one has to be in a constant learning mode, if he or she wishes for their job to be secure.

Dominant culture - While information technology may have made the world a global village, it has also contributed to one culture dominating another weaker one. For example it is now argued that US influences how most young teenagers all over the world now act, dress and behave. Languages too have become overshadowed, with English becoming the primary mode of communication for business and everything else.