What’s new in the Tokyo release for Customer Service Management

[ServiceNow]

Today more than ever, customer service organizations are feeling the pressure to deliver effortless customer experiences that will help keep and win customers. In order to do that, they need the right tools and systems in place to allow agents to put more focus on the customer and streamline operations.  

The latest Customer Service Management (CSM) innovations in the Tokyo release will enable you to drive agent efficiency, streamline your service operations, and deliver effortless customer experiences. So, let's dive into some of the top features you can expect to see. 

Order Management enhancements 

Today, order management is complicated. Take a refrigerator, for example. It may come in different colors, styles, sizes, textures, and more. Listing products that have multiple configurations requires each combination to be set up as a separate product.  

When agents help customers place an order, they're left navigating multiple product combinations to find what they need. And in the end, they must manually add each attribute to get the total order costs.   

In the Tokyo release, we're making it easier for businesses to streamline their product catalog management so agents and customers can place orders faster and more accurately.  

Admins can now define and schedule multiple product price lists, effective dates, and currencies in advance. Suppose a refrigerator is planned to go on sale next month. In that case, admins can schedule a go-live date and specific date range for the new price list that will automatically activate during those parameters.  

  

Further, there is a possibility that the refrigerator sale is part of a product bundle that includes a microwave and stove. Now admins can create fixed bundles that combine multiple products. In the earlier example, the refrigerator, stove, and microwave can be grouped into a single line item. This helps a business increase average order value, move products faster, and it allows agents to place orders more efficiently and accurately.  

Next, we're releasing product detail pages that offer agents rich product information and attributes on a single page view. For example, to see if a product comes in multiple colors, sizes, and more.  With all this information in one view, agents can spend less time searching through separate product listings and more time assisting, up-selling, or cross-selling the customer.  

Lastly, suppose a customer wants to place an order independently without waiting for an agent. Now companies can provide customers with the option to self-serve and place orders 24/7 through order forms via the portal. This enables customers to look up and place orders on their terms, thereby increasing overall satisfaction.  

These capabilities are included in the Order Management SKU, which can be added to CSM standard, professional, and enterprise licenses.   

Task Intelligence for Customer Service Management 

Next, we're introducing Task Intelligence for Customer Service Management. Task Intelligence helps increase agent efficiency using automation and predictive artificial intelligence or AI.  

Today, agents spend too much of their time on repetitive, self-solvable cases, data entry, and gathering context across recent customer activity. Task Intelligence capabilities bring AI to the forefront, so agents have the tools they need to resolve cases faster and do so with more empathy.   

With email to case categorization helps agents auto-categorize emails and cases. They’re routed to the right team at the right time, with the correct response, minimizing delay in replying to the customer.  

Sentiment Analysis detects initial and trending customer tones across communications to help agents triage and prioritize an incoming case appropriately.     

With Document Intelligence uses a predictive AI model to automatically extract data from attachments to populate case fields. Most AI models can only look at an attachment subject line and body. Document Intelligence looks at the content within the attachment.   

To set up these capabilities, admins can use the Task Intelligence Admin Console, a low-code builder with out-of-the-box templates for common tasks like predicting case fields and sentiment.  

Task Intelligence is available to all Next Experience customers with a CSM Professional or Enterprise license.   

Industry Data Models 

Next, we're excited to share that Industry Data Models now supports external business locations.   

External business locations are those that fall under a parent company but are managed and maintained independently. So, imagine a franchise or a dealership. These locations often don't have access to the parent company’s systems, processes, or customer database. If they want to create a case on behalf of a customer or get an onsite kiosk fixed, they need to contact the parent company's customer support. This makes it challenging to manage and operate an external location and creates a disconnected and off-brand customer experience.  

The new support for external business locations allows companies to unify their operations across all locations. And the new data model gives external business locations access to roll out consistent processes and enables staff to create and track cases on behalf of the customer, creating a consistent brand experience across every business location and touchpoint.  

In addition, we’re making it easy for all business locations to self-serve when an issue occurs with an installed product or service onsite. This allows external location managers to track and manage install base items like in-store kiosks, software, services, or security software.  

Industry Data Models is included in CSM professional and enterprise licenses.  

Sidebar 

Lastly, we're introducing Sidebar. This new feature enables agents to easily collaborate with other agents or subject matter experts to get answers faster while reducing escalations.  

In the past, if an agent struggled to find an answer when working from the office, they could have a quick side conversation with another agent or subject matter expert nearby. In today's hybrid workforce, that's not always possible, resulting in potential customer transfers and longer average handling times.  

With the Tokyo release, agents can easily initiate, favorite, and manage all discussions in a single panel. This discussion panel sits directly in the CSM Configurable Workspace alongside case record details, so agents have all the context they need on one screen.   

When an agent needs to refer to a past answer or attachment from a previous discussion, AI Search can be leveraged directly in the panel to re-surface those discussions more efficiently.    

 

Sidebar is available in all configurable workspaces for the Next Experience.  

Learn more 

These are just a few of the new features coming to Customer Service Management in the Tokyo release. 

For more information, review the release notes and product documentation for additional details. Attend the Tokyo Release Broadcast on October 5th at 8:00a PST / 11:00AM EST to see some of these features demonstrated. Then, schedule a conversation and demo with your account team or contact us here.  

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