Features and Supporting Capabilities of ServiceNow Customer Service Management

Improved customer experiences is the most important part of running a business. But in today’s world, customers are everywhere: online, in-store, making phone calls, etc. It can be challenging for businesses to offer consistent, quality experiences on every platform and device. Then, adding personalization to those interactions becomes twice as hard. Manual processes in customer service management further add to the challenge. To keep businesses from many intricate issues hindering customer service delivery, ServiceNow has a one-stop customer service management solution, the ServiceNow CSM module. ServiceNow CSM provides uninterrupted customer service workflows and service delivery experiences tailored to customers across any platform or device.

ServiceNow CSM Supporting Capabilities

ServiceNow CSM enables businesses to have seamless end-to-end connectivity with the enterprise in solving customer requests. The value of the ServiceNow CSM platform is it has a proactive approach in addressing customer issues, which results in increased customer satisfaction and reduced customer service cases. ServiceNow CSM modernizes CS management with intelligent automation of tasks like recognizing and assigning issues directly to the appropriate department or individual. Moreover, it keeps track of these issues from creation to resolution, without manual intervention.

AI-powered CSM studies customer behavior to identify and predict trends to derive actionable insights to enhance existing processes and automate resolutions for the most frequent issues. This way ServiceNow CSM intelligently automates the Customer Service Management process.  The CSM module provides a customizable service portal and empowers customers with fast and personalized self-service options.

Here is a list of capabilities the ServiceNow CSM module offers.

• Knowledge Management: Gathers customer support articles and shares it with agents and customers.
• Self-Service Portal: Enables customers to resolve their own issues without customer service agents.
• Virtual Agent: While the portal is handy, it can still be confusing to navigate through. Tools like virtual agents and chatbots can look through the portal for you and find the correct answer.
• Surveys: Gather and analyze customer feedback.
• Performance Analytics: Gain insights and predict trends to improve the service delivery process.
• Visual Task Board: Visual task tracking tool offers provides more transparency into the ticketing process.
• Automation Workflows: Automate processes with no-code and rule-based workflows.
• Intelligent Routing: Automatically route cases and work orders based on agent skills, location, and availability.
• Reports and Dashboards: Analyse and track customer service activities in the interactive and self-explanatory dashboards.

Features of ServiceNow CSM

Here is the list of some key features that add direct value to the customer service process.

1. New Application: Once the CSM module is installed in your ServiceNow environment, CSM will be a New Application in your system with new functionalities.

2. Case Management: The main feature in CSM is the ability to have hassle-free communication between customers and agents. Case Management features allow information from each case to be added to the Knowledgebase, which can be used to resolve other cases.

3. Portals: Service Now CSM contains two types of portals depending on your business needs.

B-B Customer Service Portal

• In-service portal, the header with UI actions allows users to create and view cases and assets and manage various users
• Customers can use a search console to find information from various repositories
• Direct links permit customers to use knowledgebase, community page, help page, and customer support cases

B-C Portal Consumer Service Portal

• A web interface meant for internal company use to provide information
• The Consumer service portal is based on the ServiceNow service portal application
• In the portal, consumers can search for information and get their queries answered by the customer service agent

4. Special Handling Notes: The special handling notes application permits users to create notes to obtain valuable information about individual records.

Figure: Special Handing application in ServiceNow CSM

5. Matching Rules: Create powerful matching rules by using scripting to assign resources directly to agents. This can be based on case attributes and details.

Figure: Matching Rules in ServiceNow CSM

6. CTI Softphone: CTI softphones can make and receive calls without leaving the customer services app.

7. Connect Support: Chat with customers or end-users and create cases directly from a chat.

8. Assignment Workbench: This permits customer service managers to assign tasks to agents. Managers can configure criteria (i.e. skills and availability) to rank agents in a selected group. Only managers can view these results and assign tasks directly.

Figure: Assignment Workbench in ServiceNow CSM

9. Performance Analytics: ServiceNow Performance Analytics dashboards generate context-sensitive analytics. Based on UI actions one can open context-sensitive PA dashboards in the customer service forms.

About the Author

Naveen Ananthula is a ServiceNow Developer at V-Soft Consulting.  He is a ServiceNow certified ITSM suit professional, ServiceNow admin, implementation specialist on ITSM and ServiceNow micro certified in agent intelligence, virtual agent, performance analytics, enterprise onboarding, and transitions. He has very good knowledge in ServiceNow configurations and implementations. He is also skilled in ITSM, CMDB, and JavaScript.