I know I'm not the only veteran call center agent who kept several inches of resources in paper form on his desk. In fact, the more veteran the agent, the more paper they kept. I still have the phone research page I started with, with notes written in the margins of the margins. Everybody had their own collection of helpful numbers, procedures, and product information. Even an official company training manual can become so large it's unusable.
The Web (or a company intranet) makes it possible to get rid of all that paper, but many call centers are still learning the best way to create centralized repositories of information - the wisdom of the ages (or at least, the aged agents) stored in one place. Yet even with 89.7 million blogs in the world, many call centers still think that only the select few should be allowed to put information online.
Wikis, a sort of editable website, are almost ideal for maintaining tips and tricks, policies and product information, and other helpful resources. But only if it gets updated properly. The main advantage of a wiki is that the whole thing can be constantly edited, not just updated like a blog. So incorrect or outdated facts need to removed and replaced. When one agent figures out a better way to do something, they can add a description to the company wiki. If something is unclear, the description can be edited.
Real world example: the wiki software Atlassian has done wonders for the way the software firm GigaSpaces communicates with each other and with their customers.
How does information flow at your call center? Do you know the answers that you need, when you need them? If not, does it take long to find them? Is there important information that some agents have that others don't?
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