Getting Started with Customer Service Management - Part 1

[Pranav Bhagat]

Hi Everyone!

We(Mavericks) are starting a new series of blogs/videos on Customer Service Management.

The goal of this series is to cover the basics of Customer Service Management Application.

What is Customer Service?

Customer service is all about providing services to customers before, during and after the purchase of a product and/or service.

Why we need Customer Service?

As customers are income and revenue generating, how we service our customers has a direct impact on our organization's bottom line, and its overall success. Existing customers who are happy with the service provided are more like to try new products and services, they are also more likely to recommend an organization. Conversely, a customer who has a negative customer service experience will have no hesitation in sharing their views, regardless of how well a product performs.

Great Customer Service → loyal customers → buy more → improve business success

What is ServiceNow Customer Service Management Application?

ServiceNow Customer Service Management applies service management discipline to customer service and support for external customers and partners while residing on the same platform as Field Service, Problem, Change, and CMDB. Seamless intake and resolution on one system of record reduce mean time to restore services and the high cost in providing support to customers.

Customer Service Management reconciles Omni-channel Customer Engagement across the portal, call center, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, email, and chat; improving the customer experience. Customer satisfaction is directly correlated with the service experience provided by an organization. Poor customer experiences can lead to customer churn, loss of revenue, the tarnishing of brand image, and loss of brand value.

Why we should have separate CSM application?

Let’s take an example

Customers reach out to customer service support to report an issue or problem, ask a question, make a request or complaint, etc. in relation to products they have purchased.

 

Using technical terms when speaking with a customer may not only confuse them, it could also make them feel 'dumb'; not a good idea at any time but especially if a customer is calling with a complaint or an issue. It may also give the impression the company is 'hiding' behind these technical words.

Customer service support is responsible for streamlining customer interactions while acting as the intermediary between the customer and the service operations teams resolving product issues or defects. When communicating with customers, customer service teams should use terms that are clear and easily understood.

Key Features of ServiceNow Customer Service Management Application?

Case Management	Omni-Channel
Agent Workspace	Self-Service
External Access	Knowledge Management
Customer Portal	Consumer Portal
Major Issue Management	Virtual Agent
Walk-up Experience for Customer Service	Customer Service Management Mobile App
Service Management Integrations	Playbooks for Customer Service

 

And lot more….

CSM Vs ITSM

Customer Service Management and IT Service Management are two distinct processes. However, the differences between them are very subtle, which can be confusing.

Customer Service Management	IT Service Management
Its objective is Customer Satisfaction and retention.	Its objective is to support and enable business outcomes.
It is a scoped app.	It is not a scoped app.
Supports External Customer (B2B OR B2C).	Supports users of IT who are typically part of same organization.
Case is the primary Entity.	ITSM has multiple entities like Incident, Problem, Change and etc.
It supports Case types.	There is no case types supported.

Customer Service Management Plugins

Core Plugin

• Customer Service plugin (com.sn_customerservice)

Know more about core plugin.

Additional Plugins

There are lot of additional plugins available for Customer Service Application which you can install.

Link to list of additional plugins.

***My Tip to new developers***

If you just started with CSM application then I would say stick to core plugin for some time and then install additional plugins.

What are different types Customer Service Application Components/Entities?

Before we move into components/entities we should know that ServiceNow supports B2B as well as B2C business models.

So each Component is marked whether it is used in B2B or B2C or Both.

Case Table(BOTH): The customer service case is the primary entity of the customer service application. An agent creates a new case to identify a customer's question or issue and to track the activities related to resolving the issue. An agent also uses a case to track all of the communication to and from the customer, including the communication channels being used.

Account/Partner(B2B): The Account form stores the Account's information, such as name, account number, primary contact, phone number, address, and company website address. An account can be a customer account, a partner account, or both. A Partner is a supported external customer that, in turn, sells to and supports one or more customers. A partner can report and manage Cases on behalf of customers.

Contact(B2B): The Contact form stores the customer's contact information, such as name, phone number, and email. An external account can have multiple contacts, but a contact can be associated with only one account. A contact can have one or more associated assets and service contracts. A contact can also have a user ID and can log in to the Customer Portal.

Consumer(B2C): The Consumers table stores Consumer records which contains information about a consumer, including the name, addresses, and phone numbers.

Agent/Managers(Both): These are User records of agent/managers stored in User Table.

Products(Both): Goods or services a company sells to and support for their Customer.

Assets(Both): Asset records represent the specific product instances that are owned by accounts, customers, or consumers. Assets may have serial numbers and can be assigned to specific accounts, a contact within an account, or individual consumers.

Entitlements(B2B): An Entitlement defines the types of support that a customer receives and the supported communication channels for a customer. When a customer service agent creates a case, the system uses a configurable method to derive the entitlement based on several fields related to the case record. These fields include: Product, Asset, Account, Consumer, Contract, Case channel.

Service Contracts(B2B):These are nothing but Terms and Conditions provided to a certain account.

To know more >>> Link

Customer Service Case Flow

A new case is created with a State of New. An agent accepts the case, which sets the State to Open If the agent requires more information, the case is set to Awaiting Info. Once the information is provided, the case is set to Open again. The State is set to Resolved when an agent proposes a solution. If the customer accepts the solution the State is set to Closed, if the customer rejects the solution the State is set back to Open. Once the case is Closed, a survey is automatically sent to the customer.

👇 👇 👇 👇 👇 Session Video 👇 👇 👇 👇 👇 

In Upcoming sessions we will go deep dive into Customer Service Roles, Integration with ITSM and Case Types.

If you find the article helpful, please mark article as helpful and if you want you can bookmark this article for later review.

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In case you need any help, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn

Pranav Bhagat

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