Considering ServiceNow

ServiceNow creates cloud computing software that automates technology operations. Its cloud‑based platform and solutions are designed to help an organization's customer service team deliver digital experiences that drive business growth.The company believes the future of customer service lies beyond CRM systems focused on managing customer contact and individual interactions.With ServiceNow Customer Service Management, customer service teams connect to the rest of the organization through automated digital workflows. The solution equips agents to fix the root cause of issues, respond faster to customer concerns, and move beyond operational demands to provide better service.ServiceNow Customer Service Management usesAI, ML, and workflows to assign, manage, and resolve complex issues end to end, reducing costs and increasing customer satisfaction. Process automation speeds issue diagnosis, routes cases to the most qualified agents, and helps them resolve problems faster.Using the solution, agents can track the health of customers' products and services to identify potential issues and fix them proactively before customers know about them. Organizations can also analyze current and past performance trends to spot opportunities for automation and self service to reduce future case volumes.Solution features such as a portal, service catalog, virtual agent, and online communities are meant to deliver a personalized customer experience for instantly taking care of common customer requests.

Challenges
An end-to-end proactive service environment does not come packaged in a box. The leading challenges are:

Rationalization of channels: The morass of installed channels is an obvious area for rationalization. The challenge lies in accepting that the disarray is caused by the organic implementation of individual channels on top of an existing infrastructure.

A decision must be made regarding investment in an architecture capable of supporting multiple channels and sharing needed data and information. There is also the need to select technology for today's needs that is open and extensible for tomorrow's environment.

Workforce considerations: Working environments and needed skill sets are shifting, and agent retention remains a challenge for contact centers. Retraining and loss of intellectual property have costs that impact CX delivery. The types of inquiries that agents will receive and the way they support the customer are also changing.

Can organizations find and train the right agents with the right skill set to diagnose and field more technical questions? As new generations enter the workforce, they also expect a different level of job satisfaction.Having the appropriate tools to do their job is a consideration as is flexibility for remote work and advancement.

Data and knowledge requirements: Scaffolding data and knowledge management for rapid identification, assessment, and response to a proactive service environment is another significant challenge.

Historical data silos remain an issue.Data sharing and knowledge transfer don't happen without orchestration. Organizations must focus on the architecture of the data integrations required by an expanded number of customer channels and the need to maintain an interaction's context.

Back-end to front-end orchestration: Coupled with data requirements is the orchestration of back-end to front-end systems. Beyond integrations, there is the business process flow that enables customer-facing systems to share information with back-end systems that then provide an informed interaction to the customer.

The front end is responsible for monitoring and analyzing the product; identifying the need for service, self-healing update, or proactive service outreach; and servicing. When these systems are connected through technology, process, and people, insight through analytics is enabled.