04.12.2023

Successful Customer Service Management with omnichannel

The importance of omnichannel for customer service

Omnichannel is not only of essential relevance with regard to the customer in order to ensure that the customer can easily

• find information on existing requests,
• submit requests,
• provide additional information.

A well-organized omnichannel also plays a decisive role for downstream processes. The better the individual channels are coordinated with each other, the more targeted the processes can process the information and the better the handling can be controlled. By integrating the individual areas of the company, concerns can be brought together and processed across the board, ensuring consistently high service quality for the customer.

In addition to the established communication channels, the latest developments in the field of communication channels should not be left unmentioned. These include platforms such as Teams, Slack and similar services, which can be seamlessly integrated into the process for reporting concerns and status queries. These modern channels open up new dimensions for interaction and offer customers convenient ways to get in touch with customer service.

Self-Service Portal in ServiceNow

ServiceNow offers several portals for B2B and B2C as standard, in which customers can access the standard features of ServiceNow. These include:

• Service catalogues: for the standardized transmission of queries and requests
• Integration of knowledge: This can be integrated either in a dedicated portal or directly in forms.
• Forums and blogs: Here, customers have the opportunity to easily exchange information in a dedicated portal, with gamification incentives encouraging active participation.
• Proactive customer information: with the help of user-friendly UI elements in the portal

Various options are available in the ServiceNow portal to offer customers differentiated content, both with and without login. Registered customers can view their products and access their opened cases at any time. These cases serve as a central interface to customer service and can be forwarded to internal teams as special tasks (e.g. requests, changes, etc.) if required.

Additional channels for live communication with the customer can be offered in the ServiceNow portals, including the following ones:

Chat

Chat offers customers the opportunity to interact directly with customer service. Each communication is documented in ServiceNow using an interaction object. This method ensures that every interaction is recorded and allows the agent to get a comprehensive overview of the customer as soon as the chat is received. The interaction can either be assigned to existing open cases or serve as a starting point for new customer concerns.

Chatbot

The chatbot is designed to relieve the burden on customer service and support customers in finding solutions. This includes access to knowledge databases, status queries on existing cases or the ability to create new requests.

Telephone

Telephone communication with the customer is also documented using an interaction object. This enables customer service to call up all relevant, stored customer information at a glance and thus offer the customer the best possible service. The clear presentation of all relevant information (also known as a "360-degree view") enables customer service to act effectively and efficiently to ensure customer satisfaction.

External homepage

The external homepage allows data to be displayed and provides forms for users, where information is retrieved from ServiceNow and presented in a customized way. ServiceNow provides user-friendly functions to retrieve data based on an authorization concept. This retrieved data is displayed on the external pages and requests are sent to ServiceNow. These processes are documented using a case object. Integrating ServiceNow into the external homepage provides users with convenient access to relevant data and interactive forms.

Integration into a customer system

The integration of ServiceNow into external customer systems is straightforward and standard-compliant thanks to the use of ready-made integration modules (e.g. spokes of the Integration Hub) and standardized REST/SOAP interfaces. Integration in Customer Service Management (CSM) is mapped using a case to ensure uniformity and consistency. This approach also takes the omnichannel concept into account, giving customers who log in directly to CSM immediate access to relevant information and actions.

Email

This very common communication channel is easy to integrate and can be routed depending on the mailbox. However, one disadvantage of this channel is its unstructured transmission. This can mean that customers do not always provide all the necessary information from the outset, which often leads to queries from customer service. Despite this challenge, the entire lifecycle can be handled using email correspondence.

If this article has piqued your interest in omnichannel, I would be happy to provide you with further information and answer any questions you may have. Please do not hesitate to contact me.

Christian Seiberl has been focusing on customer service management processes since 2017. In various project roles, he has introduced these processes based on ServiceNow for local and global customers across all industries. As Product Domain Lead 'Customer Service and Field Service Management' at the iTSM Group, he is responsible for the further development of these processes. This also includes the integration of new technologies such as AI and augmented reality into the service management process.