How Customer Data Models for B2B2C improve customer service
Sharath Lagisetty, senior principal product manager for Customer Workflows at ServiceNow, co-authored this blog.
As companies engage with different customers and partners via digital channels, it’s critical to establish a rich understanding of each entity and their relationships, both to the company and to each other.
The latest release of ServiceNow® Customer Service Management extends Customer Data Models to support multilevel relationships. That means not only business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) relationships are captured and modeled, but also business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) relationships.
Organizations can now quickly understand complex, multilevel relationships in order to simplify workflows and optimize the value of their interactions.
Benefits of customer data models
Customer data models build the connections organizations need to understand their customers—and their customers’ customers—so they can innovate fast and serve all parties well. ServiceNow customer data models provide:
- Out-of-the-box capabilities that save organizations the time and resources typically required to build and customize complex, multilevel customer relationship models
- Visibility throughout the value chain that allows organizations to trace cases and optimize workflows—from business customers to end customers—and speed their completion
- Security that ensures customer data is only available to those authorized to see it, when they need to see it (e.g., when assisting a customer)
What multilevel customer data models look like
The best way to understand the benefits of these multilevel customer data models is with a familiar example.
Consider an automobile manufacturer that has both business customers (dealerships) and end consumers (car owners) who purchase its automobiles. The manufacturer needs visibility into the cars it sells to its dealers (B2B), as well as the end consumers who buy the cars (B2C).
Enhancements in the Now Platform Rome release enable manufacturers to take this visibility further, putting these pieces together to see which customers are connected to which dealerships (B2B2C: auto manufacturer to dealership to consumer).
This out-of-the-box functionality helps reduce customizations and speeds deployment of multi-relationship workflows. Now, when a customer calls the dealer to report an issue with their car, the dealer can create a case on their behalf that’s immediately visible to the auto manufacturer and routed to the appropriate customer service representative (see Figure 1).
Alternatively, when a customer goes directly to the manufacturer to initiate a case, the manufacturer will be able to see the customer’s relationship with different dealers and accommodate their preferences.
For instance, they’ll see the customer purchased the car from one dealer but subsequently had it serviced multiple times by another dealer. So, they’ll connect the customer with their preferred service dealer to get an appointment.
Figure 1: An auto manufacturer’s view of customer cases currently being handled by a particular dealership
Customer data models for all industries
Almost every industry can benefit from multilevel relationship data models. For example:
- Telecom companies need visibility into the connectivity/wireless plans they provide to their business customers, as well as the end users (employees) those businesses have signed up for different services and plans. The telecom provider needs to know which subscribers are employees of which business customers, along with the specific products and services they’re subscribed to.
- Insurance companies need visibility into the life insurance plans their business customers are using as part of their human resources benefits for employees, as well as the individual employees who are signed up for those plans. The insurance company needs to know which life insurance policy holder is an employee of which business customer, along with the specific policies they’ve subscribed to.
- Healthcare payers need visibility into the health plans they’ve offered their business customers, as well as the employees that business customers have signed up for those plans. The healthcare payer needs to know which member is an employee of which business customer, along with the specific health plan they’ve subscribed to.
Modeling complex relationships
ServiceNow Customer Data Models for B2B2C give organizations visibility into multilevel relationships that provide a more holistic understanding of a customer’s touch points and interactions. Prior to the Rome release, ServiceNow Customer Service Management made it easy to model complex relationships between:
- Accounts (and account contacts): Business customers and their employees
- Partners (and partner contacts): Partners of business customers and their employees
- Consumers: Consumers who interact directly with the company (B2C)
- Households (and household members): Household units and their members, as well as their relationships
With the Rome release, organizations can now also easily model complex relationships between:
- Business accounts and consumers
- Business contacts and consumers
- Business partners and consumers
Organizations can use these models to quickly see and understand what a customer bought and used, where they bought it, who they bought it from, who serviced it, any internal relationships (e.g., with a case worker, account manager) or external relationships (e.g., with a business customer or partner) they have, etc.
This allows the organization to better serve its customers while maintaining tight, secure control over the data—ensuring it’s only available to customers, partners, and employees when required.
Learn more about Customer Service Management.