#Know21: Take customer engagement to new levels with Customer Service Management

When customers have problems, they want solutions fast. That engagement may start online with self-service tools, or it might move to live agent-staffed channels. In this session, Terence Chesire, Sr. Director of Product Management for Service Now, discussed what’s available in Customer Service Management today and what’s planned in coming releases.

During the session, Chesire outlined how the customer experience is delivered today, the challenges with that approach, and the ServiceNow perspective. He stated that the traditional customer experience approach is broken because it focuses almost exclusively on improvements to the engagement layer.

The engagement layer is where the customer request is filed. But unless organizations also address challenges in the customer operations layer – where requests are fulfilled – they won’t be satisfied. Ultimately, what they care about is getting that request fulfilled.

Here are some key takeaways from this session:

• Requests are rarely “one and done.” Most customer requests involve a series of tasks (a workflow) that often span different departments. They may need to be done in sequence, or in parallel. Workflows that can help streamline and automate the most common requests will help reduce time to resolution.
• Focus on the reason a customer engaged. Not the channel. While it’s good to meet customers where they are, long delays and repeated requests don’t endear your company to them. You must ensure continuity of context as their request moves through the front, middle and back-office operations.
• Integration is key to a seamless customer experience. A jarring hand-off between AI-assisted self-service to agent-assisted service, or poor visibility from the agent workspace into ordering systems to deliver on what the customer needs can be the difference between a world-class customer experience and a disappointing one.

If you’re ready to start getting more out of yourServiceNow investment, this might be the right time toschedule a conversationwith one of our A-Team experts. Take what you’re learning during Knowledge, pair it with our proven service-centric IT processes, and see why our clients rave about their experience working with us.