What is product knowledge? Definition + importance for CX

Today, customers expect support reps—both human and AI agents—to know everything there is to know about a company’s products and services. This is all very well when it’s just simple specs written in front of you, but when the line between sales and customer service becomes more blurred, then the level of product knowledge must get deeper and more technical, and good customer service becomes even trickier to consistently deliver.

More than half of customers already recognise the power technology has to offer product knowledge when they need it. This is a brilliant backup for busy customer service teams, but customer expectations are rising. So whether via human or chatbot, you have to show you know your stuff.

In this guide, we’ll share what customer service skills your team needs to hone in order to understand the importance of product knowledge in customer service in this changing CX climate—where delivering the moon comes as standard.

More in this guide:

• Types of product knowledge
• Why is product knowledge important in customer service?
• Product knowledge examples
• How to improve product knowledge in customer service
• Product knowledge training ideas
• Frequently asked questions
• Improve product knowledge with Zendesk

Types of product knowledge

Increasing agents’ product knowledge means being able to tackle in-depth topics, so your CX team is ready to field complicated customer questions—and answer them well. Broadly speaking, types of product knowledge fall into the following categories:

• Customer profile: Who is your customer and what problem is your product solving for them? Do your customer service objectives align with who your customer is and where they’re at?
• Brand identity: Is a specific product part of a larger brand story, or the beginning of a new chapter? Do you know how it fits into the scheme of things?
• Product lifecycle: Where on the growth to maturation life cycle is your product—are you learning as you go, or are you already established? How can this inform your CX?
• Tech specs and performance: Does your CX team truly understand the specific ins and outs of your product? Especially if it goes wrong or underdelivers in some way—can you solve it, or do you know how to escalate?
• T&Cs rules and regs: Are there legal, regulatory, or compliance standards that apply to your product? How does your product meet these?
• Others in the market: How does your product or service stack up compared to similar options on the market? What are the plus and minus points against its competitors?
• Sustainability and impact: Do your products, ways of working and team approach contribute to a better world? Think bigger picture by baking positive practices into your everyday processes—like inclusive hiring, ethically sourced materials and labour, and charity and social outreach. How does thinking about the future impact your product design, range, and availability?

Why is product knowledge important in customer service?

Product knowledge benefits

• Increasing efficiency and effectiveness by speeding up ticket resolution

• Empowering agents to deliver excellent support

• Improving CX and retention by providing accurate information

• Opportunities for upselling and cross-selling

• Brand building and reputation driving

• Upping sales success at every level

Increasing efficiency and effectiveness by speeding up ticket resolution

CX teams with in-depth product knowledge can troubleshoot issues faster, reducing customer frustration and improving overall efficiency. When agents can clearly understand and communicate product features, functionalities, and common sticking points, they can quickly identify and resolve problems—minimising customer waiting times and increasing overall Customer Satisfaction Scores (CSAT).

Empowering agents to deliver excellent support

When agents know their products inside out, they can confidently guide customers through issues, provide helpful tips, and build strong relationships. Good product knowledge—including product features, limitations, and best practice—enables agents to provide accurate and informative responses to customer enquiries. Create a swathe of trusted advisors who can help customers get the most out of their products and build long-term brand loyalty.

Improving CX and retention with more accurate information

There’s nothing more frustrating for a customer than reaching out to customer services and being given the wrong information, or the right stuff but too late to be of any use. A comprehensive understanding of products means agents can provide correct and informative responses to customer questions, addressing their concerns effectively.

Opportunities for upselling and cross-selling

Superpowered product knowledge allows agents to identify additional products or services that can benefit customers, driving sales and revenue. Knowing your way around the whole business offering means agents can effectively recommend complementary or upgraded options that meet customers’ needs. This increases sales and helps customers get the most value from their purchases.

Brand building and reputation driving

A knowledgeable team can enhance an organisation’s reputation by creating exceptional customer service that reflects their expertise. When agents know products inside out, they can build trust in the product and the brand as a whole. A top-tier customer experience can lead to positive word-of-mouth, driving long-term attachment and attracting new customers.

Upping sales success at every level

From sales representatives to customer support agents, product knowledge empowers individuals to close more deals and contribute to overall business growth. By cluing up on the full range of products and services offered, agents can effectively position products, address customer concerns, and close deals more efficiently. This can lead to increased sales revenue and overall business growth.

Product knowledge examples

Here are some product knowledge success stories that demonstrate how shifting to a knowledge base framework makes all the difference.

NHS Digital

NHS Digital had a seemingly insurmountable challenge when the pandemic increased demand for their NHS App and sign-ups exploded from 800,000 to 29 million—unsurprisingly, overwhelming their existing customer support capabilities.

To deal with this crisis, NHS Digital partnered with Zendesk. In just four weeks, they implemented a series of solutions that enabled the customer support team to handle a 20,000% increase in enquiries. Key to this was the roll-out of self-service internal knowledge base sharing, which surfaced answers to common queries effectively, leveraged through ticket routing and automation and reaching the relevant user when they needed it.

American Expediting

American Expediting, a specialised healthcare logistics company, was bogged down by cumbersome manual processes and outdated communication methods. By digitising and automating their operations through Zendesk, they saw marked improvements, resulting in big wins: a 49 percent reduction in time per order, a 3x increase in productivity, and enhanced customer satisfaction.

Through moving to a centralised knowledge base and integrating Zendesk with other tools, American Expediting created a more personalised and informative customer experience, as well as setting up an external help centre. By harnessing data-driven insights, the company also enabled agents to tailor their support to individual customer needs, further enhancing satisfaction and loyalty.

Discord

Discord, a popular yet niche communication platform, used Zendesk to embody this shared individualist spirit through embracing AI-driven self-service and personalisation. One of the key benefits of using Zendesk was the ability to deflect enquiries through self-service options like Answer Bot and the help centre. This freed up agents to focus on more complex issues, improving overall efficiency.

Additionally, through implementing Zendesk Gather, Discord was able to collect user feedback and prioritise product development accordingly. Together, they streamlined workflows across different teams, including support, community, engineering, and marketing. This improved collaboration and communication, leading to better decision making and a more cohesive customer experience.

How to improve product knowledge in customer service

Here are a few customer service tips for improving product knowledge in CX teams that you can kick off today.

Build an AI-powered internal knowledge base

Creating an internal knowledge base means that your years of experience, knowledge, and understanding are made available to your customers to help support customer service agents and enable customers to self-solve their problems.

Analyse support conversations and customer feedback

Listening to your customers’ concerns and suggestions shows you what’s working well and what’s not, so you can fix issues and make your products and services shine even more.

Share expertise through continuous training

Conduct regular training sessions to introduce new products, features, and updates, so your team is always in the know.

Learn with gamification and incentives

Leading a top-notch customer service team means engaging your staff. Encourage agents to learn and test their knowledge, while offering rewards and recognition to those who embody this learning mentality.

Product knowledge training ideas

Product knowledge training can be done in many ways, so think beyond the obvious (as much as we all love a PowerPoint).

Product quiz night

Create a fun quiz night to test agent knowledge. Divide teams, offer prizes, and include varied question formats—and don’t forget the music round. Make sure it’s entertaining and interactive, like a pub quiz down your local.

Role-play scenarios

Create realistic scenarios to mirror customer interactions where product knowledge is key. Assign roles, provide feedback, and vary the difficulty to help agents practise handling different situations and test their know-how.

Expert shadowing

Couple agents with product experts for observation and learning—these are the people whose knowledge the whole business relies on. Get agents to ask questions and reflect on the experience.

Make your own materials

Get your agents creating and demonstrating product knowledge materials, so they gain understanding but also up their presentation skills. This makes acquiring product knowledge an active learning process, rather than just trying to absorb it all with passive listening.

Frequently asked questions

Improve product knowledge with Zendesk

Customer service can only ever be enhanced by better product knowledge: the more agents know your product, the more they can share with the customer. Identifying the best way for customer service teams to access product knowledge is key to leveraging its true power—and helping those customers.

Say hello to internal knowledge base software like Zendesk. Creating, maintaining, and surfacing your knowledge base for agents to use and customers to self-serve means that product knowledge is woven into the entire CX journey. Add AI-powered knowledge base software, generative AI tools and powerful Content Cues that provide insights into trending support topics. All accompanied by industry-leading bots, pre-trained on over 18 billion real customer interactions, to help people where and when they need it, and you’re on your way to product knowledge nirvana.