AI and Automation
How improving service management can transform the customer experience
A popular saying says, “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” But at IT service company LG CNS in Korea, we saw an opportunity to elevate customer support even though our robust and effective service management solution had delighted customers for decades.
When cloud computing and smart technology started to get popular, the 10 legacy systems underpinning our 2,500-strong customer support team risked slowing us down, and we didn’t want to be in a position where we couldn’t deliver the great customer experience our customers had come to expect in a digital-first world.
The need for seamless customer experience
Good service management can be the difference between customer success and customer complaints. Our priority at LG CNS is to add value to the customer experience by proactively responding to changes in the market so we can help customers make the most of every new opportunity.
To keep our customers happy when they engage with our team, we needed to address their pain points and consolidate our legacy systems. The legacy systems lacked the agility to keep up with new innovations such as blockchain, AI, and big data, and the rise of smart cities, smart transportations, and smart logistics, for example. The project team decided to improve the systems by identifying key priorities:
Streamline request channels to avoid confusion without creating silos when users raise a ticket.
Implement integrated dashboards or inventories to improve customers’ visibility of their apps and infrastructure.
Accelerate service management processes and reduce manual work.
Improve support for new technologies such as cloud or software as a service (SaaS).
Transforming customer service in 3 steps
To address customers’ need for more sophisticated support, we rolled out ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM) and transformed customer service in three steps:
- Structured IT inventory
Using ServiceNow Configuration Management Database (CMDB), we cataloged application, infrastructure, and lifecycle data in one place. This enabled us to increase inventory mapping by 75% while improving accuracy.
We currently have 1,000 applications and 4,400 servers all managed from our IT inventory dashboard. The team can easily analyze the impact of applications on customer infrastructure and has visibility to support customers when they raise a ticket.
- Centralized service management
The company’s systems and IT service management are integrated, forming one platform that can be accessed via a single portal. Biweekly meetings were scheduled with 100 stakeholders to define the framework and design the portal. Using agile methodology alongside the powerful functionality of ServiceNow, we rolled this out in just four months.
- Connected ecosystem of tools
We have more than 30 years of experience in the service management field at LG CNS and, in that time, the team has used a broad range of tools. We identified the most effective and popular tools among staff and customers and integrated them with ServiceNow using APIs.
This ecosystem is called Next ITSM. It includes a chatbot, monitoring and collaboration tools, a user-friendly dashboard, managed service provider tools, and application lifecycle management capabilities.
We kicked off the project with the core functionality in place. The team continually works to streamline and automate service management. LG Group, our parent company, has 14 affiliates and has onboarded 10 of them to this ITSM system. By the end of 2021, the whole group will be using it and benefiting from smarter services.
Unlocking new opportunities
We set out with the goal to improve the customer experience and make service management more efficient. But the project also opened new opportunities for our business. For example, customers often ask if the framework could be used for other business areas, such as purchasing, logistics, or human resources—which is a potential new revenue stream.
This really highlights the power of the Now Platform. The products are flexible and can transform routine tasks into fast, efficient, and automated processes. Customers can improve employee satisfaction and productivity across their whole enterprise.
The second big opportunity to expand our business is around data modeling. Capturing business data and running it through simulations is a popular trend in Korea. ServiceNow allows us to benchmark customers against similar companies to identify what they’re doing well and where they could improve.
Such benchmarking exercises give customers insight into what their competitors are doing so they can work to stay ahead of the curve. If a weakness is identified, we can offer advice on how to strengthen their service in that area based on data, not guesswork.
Context is important when analyzing data. We don’t just share charts and figures with customers; we help them make sense of the data to truly understand what’s happening in their business and in their sector.
Now, LG CNS is not just managing customers’ infrastructure. Customers get more value from the relationship, a better user experience, and the tools and expertise they need to accelerate digital transformation.
Learn more about how LG CNS is transforming service management in ourKnowledge 2021 session. Registration is free.
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