Customer Service Management
When you take good care of your customers, they tend to keep coming back. The New York release of ServiceNow helps you do just that, delivering more of the kinds of consumer-grade experiences that customers (and your employees who help them) expect from brands, especially when it comes to mobile capabilities.
Take a look at the ServiceNow® Customer Service Management product enhancements and updates in the New York release.
What’s New for CSM in the New York release
Service-aware install base
- Product models for services: Create service product models to represent all of the services your organization wants to monitor. A service model is a class of product models to define Software as a Service (SaaS) products.
- Install base set up: Enable customer service agents to easily trace issues back to the right product, instances of that product, or other entities by capturing a customer’s install base. An install base lets you track which products and services have been purchased, how they have been installed or provisioned, and the detailed configuration of each item.
Proactive customer service operations
Proactively create cases from alerts, either manually or through automation. Identify customers and their corresponding install base items affected by the issue causing the alert. When multiple customers are affected, you can resolve these cases using the major issue management process.
Mobile experience for Customer Service Management
Manage customer service cases anywhere using the Customer Service Management mobile application. Stay connected and access case information to complete tasks quickly. Available for customer service agents.
Create cases on behalf of customers
Enable internal users in an organization to create and manage cases on behalf of customers. These internal users are typically in customer-facing roles such as sales and services. From the Customer Service Portal, internal uses can also follow up on cases that they have created.
Predictive Intelligence assistance with case creation
Use machine-learning algorithms to determine field values when creating a case, such as the category or priority. The Predictive Intelligence feature bases these values on data that the user enters when creating a case.
Rules to identify skills for work items
Use rules to automatically identify skills that are required for work items.
NLU models for Customer Service Virtual Agent conversations
Integrate Natural Language Understanding (NLU) models with your Virtual Agent chatbot topics to enable the chatbot to assess user intent and provide responses based on the context of the conversations.
Integrate Customer Service Virtual Agent with Facebook Messenger
Integrate the Customer Service Virtual Agent with Facebook Messenger to enable bot conversations in the messenger.
Case digests
Proactively provide updates about high priority customer service cases to customers and internal stakeholders. Send periodic case updates while the case is in progress using case action summaries. Provide a post case review document for a resolved case that captures details about the issue, root cause, resolution, and preventive measures.
Major Issue Management extension point
Use the sn_customerservice.CSMCaseSync extension point to customize the logic for major issue management parent-child case synchronization.
Automatically close cases in the Resolved state
Use the Auto Close Resolved Cases Flow Designer flow to automatically close resolved cases if customers do not respond within a specified time.
Agent Workspace for CSM landing pages
Configure landing pages in Agent Workspace for CSM for use by different agent teams. These pages can give the agents an overview of their high priority cases, assigned cases in various states, as well as cases assigned to their assignment groups.
Agent Workspace for CSM third-party data integration
Retrieve data from third-party applications at run-time and present the data in Agent Workspace for CSM without having to store it in your ServiceNow instance. From Agent Workspace for CSM, open a third-party application UI page in a new browser tab or iframe.
Agent Workspace enhancements and updates
View a list of Agent Workspace platform enhancements and updates that are available in Agent Workspace for CSM.
Respond to cases using quick messages
Use Quick Messages to insert predefined content (a signature, for example) into an email when replying to a case. Users using these templates saves time when replying to cases.
Configure signatures in quick messages and email client templates
Configure signatures in outgoing emails by using $current_user reference while configuring quick messages and email client templates.
Respond to cases using reply, reply all, and forward options
Respond to cases using the Reply, Reply All, and Forward options within Case forms. This enhances the agent experience because it works like email clients they already use.
Create rules for incoming emails and create and assign cases
Define your email-related business processes using inbound email flows. Define rules to create and assign cases to specific teams once you receive an email on a specified support email address. Use the visual flow designer to configure email flows for your business needs.
Change password for Customer Service portal user
You can change login password to access the portal using the Change Password option. Changing password periodically helps a user protect and reduce the risk of people accessing user accounts.
Contextual search while creating a case in the Customer and Consumer Service Portals
When you create a case and enter the case details, related content from knowledge articles in both the customer and consumer service portals are displayed. You can easily identify content relevant to the case without having to go to a separate portal.
Improved navigation in the Customer and Consumer Service Portals
Access knowledge applications and content widgets from Knowledge and Communities directly from customer and consumer service portals, saving time because you don’t have to log into separate portals to get useful information.
Enhancement to the user registration process for signing in to the Consumer Service Portal
Enable a two-step registration process in the consumer service portal. After sign-up, an email verification link is sent to the specified email address. Once verified, users can log in with their two-step credentials, enhancing the security of their account.
Password reset in the Customer and Consumer Service Portals
The Forgot Password option allows you to reset your password from both the customer and consumer service portals. This option helps you when you have forgotten your password or have accidentally entered a wrong password three times and have been locked out of your account.
Bot-based sessions separated out from usage reports in the Customer and Consumer Service Portals
Reduce costs for your customers by charging them only for live sessions. Bot-based sessions are separated out and not included in usage reports for both Customer and Consumer Service Portals.
Continual Improvement Management (CIM) with CSM
Use the Continual Improvement Management (CIM) application with Customer Service Management to request improvement opportunities and to implement phases and tasks to meet performance goals, track progress, and measure success.
Quick start tests for Customer Service Management
After upgrades and deployments of new applications or integrations, run quick start tests to verify that Customer Service Management still works. If you customized Customer Service Management, copy the quick start tests and configure them for your customizations.
CSM Changes in New York release
OpenFrame configuration
Changes made to the OpenFrame configuration:
- The navigation path to configure OpenFrame has changed from System Properties > OpenFrame to OpenFrame > Configurations.
- The icon class for Open Frame configuration only supports the phone and video icons.
OpenFrame agent presence
Changes made to OpenFrame Agent Presence:
- The OpenFrame Agent Presence module has been added to the OpenFrame application to enable the display of agent availability in Agent Workspace.
- The Presence field in the OpenFrame Agent Presence record gets updated when the agent presence is set in workspace CTI.
UI macros installed with OpenFrame
Changes made to UI macros:
- The show_phone UI macro is installed when the OpenFrame plugin (com.sn_openframe) is activated and not when the Customer Service CTI Demo Data plugin (com.snc.customerservice_cti_demo) is activated.
- The show_phone_customer_service UI macro is installed when the OpenFrame plugin (com.sn_openframe) and Customer Service plugin (com.sn_customerservice) is activated.
UI macros for CTI integration to make calls
If you are using a third-party provided CTI application, then you can integrate with the show_phone UI macro to make calls.
Comments and file attachments in Virtual Agent conversations
After you upgrade to the New York release, file attachments and comments that you add during a Virtual Agent conversation are added to the case record. In releases prior to New York, the attachments and comments are displayed in the chat window.
Roles for using response templates
Customer service agents (sn_customerservice_agent) inherit the response template reader role (sn_template_snip.template_snippet_reader) and can access response templates assigned to all groups to which they belong. Customer service managers (sn_customerservice_manager) inherit the response template author role (sn_templated_snip.template_snippet_writer) and can create response templates.
CSM dashboard enhancements
The Proactive Customer Service Operations dashboard helps managers track key performance indicators (KPIs) to understand how proactive they were in identifying and communicating issues that impact customers.
Agent Workspace for CSM enhancements
- View the account hierarchy on the Case form. Expand and collapse the hierarchy and click an account to view the account details in a sub tab.
- For cases that are created from a community discussion, customer service agents can view and respond to the discussion from the case form.
- The timeline ribbon component supports both contacts and consumers.
- The list panel includes a section for Major Issue Management and a filtered list of accepted major cases.
- View the Knowledge Gaps and Child Cases related lists on the Case form.
- View the Task SLAs and Approvers related lists on the Escalation form.
Roles for Customer Service Management integration with Service Management
Assign roles that enable customer service agents to view and create incident, problem, change, and request records for customer service cases.
Provide read access to problem, change, and request records for cases from the Customer and Consumer Service Portals
External customers with read access to customer service cases can view the case-related incident, problem, and change records. For problems, customers have read-only visibility to problems related to cases for their account. System administrators can define the problem view for external customers.
Create requests from the Customer and Consumer Service Portals
Contacts and consumers can browse the service catalog, make selections, and submit requests from the Customer and Consumer Service Portals. If a case is opened as a result of a request, the system enables the Initiated as request field on the Case form.
- With the case manager role, contacts can create and view requests for themselves or on behalf of other contacts from the same account.
- With the customer admin role, contacts can create and view requests on behalf of child accounts.
- With the partner role, contacts can create and view requests for other accounts.
Case tasks use the CSTASK prefix
When you create a task for a customer service case, the system generates a task number with the CSTASK prefix. Case tasks included as part of the Customer Service Management Demo Data plugin also use the CSTASK prefix. Case task records are stored in the Case Task table (sn_customerservice_task).
Upgrade to the New York release:
- New case tasks use the CSTASK prefix.
- Existing case tasks, regardless of state, use the TASK prefix.
Case Enhancements
End users can close cases from the Customer and Consumer Service Portals. After closing a case, the system redirects the user to a survey.
Enhancement to the Customer Service Management and Customer Service Portal landing pages
Widgets such as Most Viewed Articles and Most Useful Articles with metadata have been added to the landing pages.
URLs from the Customer Service Management and Customer Service Portal pages redirected to the relevant content pages
Link to Knowledge in the main page takes you to the kb_home page, which is the desired content page.
Enhancement to the consumer registration page
The consumer registration page has been enhanced for better user experience.
Enhancement to antivirus scanning for attachments
While creating cases, antivirus is enabled and attachments are scanned and notified.
Activation information
You can activate the Customer Service plugin (com.sn_customerservice) if you have the admin role. This plugin includes demo data and activates related plugins if they are not already active.
Accessibility information
Customer Service Management conforms to WCAG-AA, starting with the New York release.
Related ServiceNow applications and features
Agent Workspace
Agent Workspace for CSM is a customer service-specific implementation of ServiceNow® Agent Workspace. This configurable service desk application provides agents with an integrated and graphically intuitive user experience.
Communities
From the Customer and Consumer Service Portals, enable your customers to connect, engage, and collaborate using the ServiceNow® Communities application. Customer service agents can create cases from community discussion threads and resolve cases with community content.
Field Service Management
Customer Service Management includes an integration with the Field Service Management application. With this integration:
- Field service technicians can view customer account and contact information on work orders and work order tasks in the Field Service Management application.
- Customer service agents can create work orders from cases in the Customer Service Management application.
- Customers and consumers can view case-related work orders from the Customer Service and Consumer Service Portals.
Knowledge Management
From the Customer and Consumer Service Portals, enable your customers to search for shared information using the ServiceNow® Knowledge Management application. Customer service agents can resolve cases with knowledge content.
Service Management applications
Customer Service Management includes an integration with the Incident, Problem, Change, and Request Management applications. This integration enables users to create incident, problem, change, and request records from customer service cases. Customers can also submit requests from the Customer Service Portal.
Financial Management
Customer Service Management includes an integration with the Financial Management application. This integration provides cost allocations for Customer Service Management, which you can view on the Financial Management workbench.
Note: The Financial Management For CSM plugin (com.snc.financial_management_for_csm) is no longer available for direct activation by the system administrator. You can request this plugin through the HI Customer Service system.
Ready to implement implement or upgrade your ServiceNow platform to the latest New York release so you can make work, work better?
