What's new in Customer Service Management in the Rome release

[kathyneff]

What's new in Customer Service Management in the Rome release 

The latest release of the Now Platform® brings us to Rome! For Customer Workflows, it means several exciting new capabilities in Customer Service Management. While this blog summarizes the most notable, be sure to review the release notes to get all the details (like giving agents the option to use emojis in chat…). Be sure to check out the Field Service Management and Connected Operations release blogs to learn about additions in those products, as well. 

Before we begin, please note: 

• Customer Service Management is licensed in three packages: Standard, Professional, and Enterprise. Each new feature highlighted here indicates which package includes it. You can compare the major features available in each by visiting the “Packages” section of the Customer Service Management product page.  
• Features are categorized in Customer Service Management as customer experience, agent experience, (these two comprising customer engagement) or customer operations (the flow of customer-oriented work within customer service as well as other departments). 

Let’s get into it! 

Customer experience 

Messaging has become a popular channel in customer service, and the use of Conversational Messaging makes it easy to adopt channels like SMS or WhatsApp using third-party services (such as Twilio, Nexmo, or Sinch). In the Rome release, messaging services can now be purchased directly from ServiceNow. While these services can still be contracted directly, ServiceNow® Messaging Service allows organizations to purchase a one-year term of fixed value messaging services at a discounted rate that is pre-negotiated by ServiceNow. This will support both the SMS and WhatsApp channels.​ Messaging Service is purchased separately, and is available with Standard, Professional, and Enterprise packages. 

While we’re on the topic of chat, let’s consider a typical scenario: a customer is in a live chat with a customer service agent and they need to accomplish a common task, such as creating a case or booking an appointment. Normally, the agent would ask questions to collect information and guide the customer through the steps. Having the agent perform this repetitive task is inefficient (and a mundane experience for them).​​ With Conversation Autopilot, agents in a live chat can hand off common interactions to Virtual Agent. This temporary transfer of control allows Virtual Agent to gather data for creating a case, trigger a workflow like booking an appointment, or handle sensitive data, such as performing a credit check. Conversations proceed at the customers’ pace and allow agents to work on other tasks. The agent can monitor progress and resume control as needed. Conversation Autopilot, an enhancement to Virtual Agent, is available in the Professional and Enterprise packages. 

While a customer service agent’s job can be stressful, that doesn’t excuse their use of unapproved terms or even profanity when chatting with customers. The new Chat Profanity Filter​ uses either machine learning or a keyword-based approach to detect profane words in live chats. Abusive or inappropriate chat messages entered by agents don’t reach the customer​ and blocked messages can be reviewed in the transcript offline by supervisors​. Chat Profanity Filter is available in the Professional and Enterprise packages. 

Several other enhancements to Virtual Agent and Messaging are also included in the Professional and Enterprise packages: 

• Conversational Appointment Booking supports an organization’s need to schedule customer visits or face-to-face interactions, such as banking transactions or vaccination appointments. With it, customers can book, reschedule, and cancel appointments using Virtual Agent.​​ (And remember, Virtual Agent can be accessed either from the portal or using Engagement Messenger.) 
• Conversational Integration with Facebook Messenger (released prior via the ServiceNow Store) enables customers to engage in conversations with an organization’s live agents and Virtual Agent using the Facebook Messenger app. Agents can respond to the Facebook Messenger messages in Agent Workspace or CSM Configurable Workspace. System-initiated conversations are also now supported. 
• Conversational Integration with WhatsApp (note: WhatsApp requires the Messaging Service mentioned above or a separate agreement with Twilio) and Conversational Integration with LINE, both previously available on the ServiceNow Store, have been updated to enable agent- and system-initiated messaging. 

Engagement Messenger–an organization’s shortcut for embedding customer service throughout a customer’s journey on their website–was introduced in the Quebec release. In Rome, case types, use of install-base list, support for walk-up service for both authenticated and guest users, and notifications, are now included. Engagement Messenger can now be launched from buttons, custom links, and URL parameters (in addition to the Engagement Messenger icon). Thedefault behaviorwhen launching can also be set; for example, to open a specific knowledge article during a retail experience or to initiate a chat on a specific topic​. Engagement Messenger is available in the Standard, Professional, and Enterprise packages. 

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 are a wide range of recommendations for making web content more accessible to people with disabilities. The addition of UI Builder to the platform has permitted ServiceNow to more quickly add WCAG 2.1 compliance across products.​ For Rome, navigation and use of the customer portal, knowledge portal, and knowledge pages on mobile devices will become easier as a result of WCAG 2.1 compliance. Changes include clarifying wording and providing better color contrast on buttons and icons to make actions clearer and right-sizing buttons and links to 44x44 pixels. These accessibility improvements are included in the Standard, Professional, and Enterprise packages. 

Agent experience 

Workforce Optimization (WFO) debuted in Quebec and is available in the Enterprise package. In Rome, it is further enhanced in three areas: Schedule adherence, Forecasting, and Skills and Coaching.

Having adequately staffed channels aligned to demand is critical for contact center success. Unfortunately, monitoring agent compliance with work schedules is difficult. Schedule adherence is a new capability in WFO that enables managers to monitor how agents’ work corresponds to scheduled work times.  Desired behaviors can be driven by setting adherence targets.Schedule adherence brings forecasting, scheduling, and actual agent activity together to better keep tabs on contact center activities, all in a single platform.​ 

Sometimes you just need to see it. We agree, and that’s why we've refined WFO’s Demand Forecasting. Managers can now visualize both the historical work/volume data and corresponding forecasts. In addition, forecasting for business changes–such as a new product launch–makes staff planning easier and helps ensure customer satisfaction levels stay high. The forecasting algorithm can be selected and forecast parameters can be adjusted to suit circumstances like volume spikes or vacation times. User experience improvements also make Forecasting easier to use.  

Every interaction an agent has with a customer creates an opportunity to provide feedback. Skills and Coaching in WFO helps managers evaluate agents’ work and to tie those interactions with coaching discussions or training to increase their expertise. Skills gaps can be managed at the individual, team, and cross-team levels. This can, in turn, help increase the pool of agents with needed skills and knowledge, making scheduling optimal queue coverage easier.  

Rounding out the improvements to agent experience is a visual refresh to the workspace. This is more than just looks. Spacing has been optimized in the case form and activity stream, reducing scrolling and making work easier. Session tab titles can be configured to better organize work. Ribbon data can now be placed in the contextual side bar on the right. The process for creating contacts or consumers has been optimized. These enhancements deliver a better workspace experience that should make agents’ work easier and are available in the Standard, Professional, and Enterprise packages. 

Customer operations 

Guided Decisions was added to Customer Service Management in the Paris release and enhanced in Quebec. Next Best Actions has been further refined in Rome. Now, it can offer not only decision trees, but also configurable guidance agents can take to resolve a customer issue. Imagine a customer has contacted customer service to address an issue with their product or service. As the agent works with the customer, Guided Decisions dynamically ranks the next best actions based on frequency and priority: perhaps it’s to register the product, offer an extended warranty, or a cross- or up-sell. Selecting any of these would provide guidance to the agent, and the suggested next best actions are dynamically ranked based on frequency and priority, making it easier for the agent to choose the optimum route.​ These recommendations can also trigger workflows to other people and systems outside customer service. With its simple, no-code setup, Next Best Actions guidance helps lead to consistent and faster issue resolution, resulting in a better experience for customers and agents. ​Next Best Actions, an enhancement to Guided Decisions, is available in the Professional and Enterprise packages. 

Playbooks, also added in Paris and enhanced in Quebec, are receiving some visual polish and improvements to boost agent productivity.

Focused layout helps agents zero-in on the steps they are responsible for in the playbook while providing full visibility into the other tasks. Depending on where the agent is in the process, the layout is dynamically optimized: the main task area is placed in the center of the workspace and related records are displayed in the sidebar in the context of the current step using dynamic related records (also new in Rome, see below). Focused layout helps agents improve their productivity, speeds addressing problems, and delivers a better experience.​ Focused layout, an enhancement to Playbooks, is available in the Professional and Enterprise packages. 

Prior to Rome, viewing information associated with some types of data required extra navigation to one or more lists​. Related records displayed were static and could not be dynamically updated. This changes with dynamic related records (DRR). DRR dynamically displays related contextual information such as contracts, interactions, and other relevant data based on the current state. This eliminates added navigation to access additional relevant information.​ DRR can be used with Playbooks or in other use cases and is only available using the CSM Configurable Workspace. DRR is available in the Standard, Professional, and Enterprise packages.

Data modeling is especially important in customer service because it helps better display and manage the relationships that exist within a customer’s domain (e.g. locations, contacts, etc.). Following the addition of Industry Data Models in the Paris release, the Rome release adds Customer Data Models for B2B2C​. By expanding support beyond B2B and B2C, relationships between account to consumer, contact to consumer​, and partner to consumer​ can be managed. Consider this scenario: a telecommunications provider offers reduced rate plans to companies, who then offer these services to employees. The telecom can provide better customer service to both the company and those employees when it has full visibility into the entire relationship, including the devices and even other family members who might be customers. Customer Data Models for B2B2C is available in the Standard, Professional, and Enterprise packages. 

​Last but not least, let’s talk about the need in customer service to connect people, systems, and processes to address customer issues as quickly as possible. For ServiceNow, IntegrationHub and its Spokes connect ServiceNow workflows to critical business systems and simplifies cross-enterprise automation. New Spokes have been added to connect Customer Service Management to Jira, Oracle EBS, Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM Finance and Ops, SAP ECC (IDOC/RFC), SAP Commerce Cloud, and more–making greater customer service automation possible and helping agents be more productive. A full list of available Spokes can be found here. 

Learn more 

These are just a few of the many new features coming to Customer Service Management in the Rome release. From here, review the release notes and product documentation to get additional detail. Attend the Now at Work 2021 Digital Experience to see some of these features demonstrated. Then, schedule a conversation and demo with your account team or contact us here. Don’t forget, the Customer Success Center is also available with essential resources to assist you in planning your upgrade. Benvenuto a Roma! 

Please note: other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.  

© 2021 ServiceNow Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. 

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Join us for the The Now Platform Rome event.

Mark your calendar for the Now at Work, Now Platform Rome release broadcast  

Join us at Now at Work 2021 to learn more about what’s new in the Rome release. You won’t want to miss the Rome release highlights in a keynote session with Dave Wright, chief innovation officer as well as 20 sessions on demand, where we’ll highlight different ServiceNow® products, innovations, the Now Platform, and best practices for upgrading to the Rome release. Register today based on your region:

AMS: https://www.servicenow.com/ams/en/now-at-work.html

EMEA: https://www.servicenow.com/emea/en/now-at-work.html

AP: https://www.servicenow.com/apj/en/now-at-work.html

Japan: https://www.servicenow.com/apj/ja/now-at-work.html

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