KCS is owned and maintained by the Consortium for Service Innovation, a US based non-profit organization. The majority of the input for improvements comes from members of the consortium which includes large companies like Dell, Hewlett Packard, Salesforce, Avaya, Ericsson and Oracle.

It is important to understand that the KCS methodology is tool-agnostic: you do not need a specific tool to start (and become successful) with KCS. That being said, having a tool that is based in KCS principles certainly helps. 4me is a service management platform which contains a knowledge management module that is based on KCS.

KCS is a knowledge management methodology, a way to create and maintain knowledge. Traditionally, knowledge is created and maintained at distinct moments by a distinct number of people. In KCS knowledge creation and maintenance is integrated in your support activities and performed by all support staff.

A content standard describes what your articles should look like. Important elements of the content standard are: the available templates (article layout), the type of language to use (formal, informal), the use of acronyms, jargon and terminology, article metadata like status, visibility and timestamps. The content standard is tailored to your organization and audience.

KCS stands for Knowledge Centered Service. In previous versions of the methodology it stood for Knowledge Centered Support.

The biggest benefit is increased operational efficiency. Due to the integration of knowledge management activities and support activities, knowledge is quickly available for reuse. This shortens the time (or eliminates the need) to answer repetitive questions and will in the end lead to cost savings. Case studies also have shown that KCS increases the motivation and engagement of your support staff. Product and service improvements based on patterns in the use of /  demand for knowledge will increase customer satisfaction.

Yes it is, you can download all guides and start the adoption by yourself. This is however not the most efficient way to to it. A foundations training combined with some initial guidance has shown be much more effective.

Although this depends on the size of your organization, the average adoption time is around 12-18 months. The main reason that this is relatively long is that it takes some time to build enough content (in KCS format) to provide your customers an opportunity to find the information they are looking for. A lot of the benefits of KCS like increased operational efficiency are noticeable way earlier however.

The most import characteristics of KCS are integrated and demand-driven. Knowledge is created, reviewed and improved while questions are answered or support cases are solved. This means that (updated) knowledge is available as soon as the case is solved. Therefore knowledge is quickly available for reuse and time and effort is only spent on knowledge for which an actual demand exists.

There are a few things that need to be in place before you can start using KCS:

1. An adoption team. This is the guiding coalition that will drive the adoption of KCS in your organization;
2. The adoption team needs to be trained. The quickest way is to follow a KCS foundation training to make sure all team members have the knowledge they need;
3. An adoption plan. The ‘project plan’ for the adoption.