Get your Service Desks to the next level and reduce your costs at the same time
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning as part of your digital transformation
Digital Transformation is a must for many companies. Organizations need to move away from the cumbersome paperwork, spreadsheets and emails and adopt an approach that creates a more efficient organization that is able to respond quickly to customers’ needs and provide them with the demanded superior customer experience.
Nowadays customers, but also employees of organizations are expecting an experience that resembles the experience that they have at for example Amazon, who makes it really easy to buy any item very quickly. But also, for example at Netflix, that provides recommendations for viewing other series based on your viewing habits. This experience is currently also expected from all the other companies and organizations that customers are interacting with. If an organization or company cannot provide the required experience, then dark clouds will appear at the horizon of the organization and a struggle to survive will start.
Artificial Intelligence
To get your organization and customer experience to the next level, the organization has to look at Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). AI and ML are great technologies to streamline the organization and to provide the required user experience. But what exactly are AI and ML?
Gartner provides the following definition of AI [1]. A technology or system that can emulate human performance typically by: learning, coming to conclusions, appearing to understand complex content, engaging in natural dialogues with people, enhancing human cognitive performance or replacing people on the execution of non-routine tasks. Machine Learning, Computer Vision and Language Processing are disciplines of Artificial Intelligence, where ML is about model algorithms and deep learning. Computer Vision is about facial processing and gesture recognition, and Language Processing is about speech processing, sentiment analysis and translation.
At ServiceNow we help organizations with their digital transformation and the required optimal user experience by leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning at the Customer, HR and IT Service Desks. The Service Desks of the organization can use ServiceNow Agent Intelligence and the ServiceNow Virtual Agent to optimize their way of working and to provide a better customer and employee experience.
Virtual Agent
ServiceNow Virtual Agent is a chatbot solution that helps with the interactions that customers and employees have with the Customer, HR and IT Service Desks. It is well suited to resolve common requests by using artificial intelligence. It understands complex intents and entities of persons by using Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies.
To understand what value the Virtual Agent has to offer one has to look at the costs that are incurred at a service desk. MetricNet has found that the average cost of a call of a ticket $15.56 and that the Cost per Minute of Handle time is $1.60. Furthermore, they found that almost 70% of the cost of a ticket is made up of the salary and financial benefits of personnel and 30% is made up of office space and items such as technology expenses and training [2]. The virtual agent is able to reduce the cost of the service desks by automating routine tasks. As an example, Grant Thornton found that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States of America, manages 116 million calls from taxpayers per year, at an approximate cost of $41 per call. AI chatbots can handle responses to many of these questions for as little as 40 cents per query [3].
The difference between $41 and $0,40 is a cost reduction of almost 99%. So hypothetical, if the IRS would be able to utilize the Virtual Agent for say only 10% of their calls they would save 10% of 116 million calls times ($41- $0,40) is $471 million. This $471 million cost reduction covers only 10% of the calls. Imagine, if you could increase the 10% to 20%, or even 30%, the financial benefits would be enormous.
In addition to the financial benefits that a Virtual Agent has to offer, it also can improve the service of the organization by providing 24/7 support and therefore providing the service experience that customers and employees nowadays demand from organizations.
Agent Intelligence
ServiceNow Agent Intelligence supports your Customer, HR and IT Service Desks by automatically categorize, route, and prioritize issues. It learns from patterns in your historical data, becoming increasingly accurate in its predictive recommendations as time passes. It boasts the efficiency of your service desks by using state of the art Machine Learning which will help to resolve issues faster and increase agent efficiency.
At most service desks customer and employee calls are routed through the organization based on the knowledge of the individual service desk agent. The call enters the organization at Level 1 support and if they can´t solve it, it will be re-routed to Level 2 and Level 3 if needed, and based on the knowledge of the agent the ticket is categorized and prioritized. These are all manual steps and with all manual activities sometimes things go wrong and adjustment is needed. That this can impact the efficiency of the organization is evident.
Forrester found that 43% of the IT Service Desk agents have more than 100 different assignment groups to choose from. Furthermore, they found that 21% of the IT Service Desk agents had more than 100 categories to choose from [4]. So, if choosing an assignment group and a category is based on the knowledge level of the individual Service Desk Agent than an error can easily be made.
Agent Intelligence is based on Machine Learning algorithms that analyze the organization´s historical data. The more data it can process, the more accurate the predictions will become. A Forrester study [4] showed that the Agent Intelligence prediction for the assignment group, priority and category was 71% accurate, which is approximately the same accuracy as manual decisions that are made by real service desk agents. Forrester estimates that on average 12% of the time of the service desks is spend on selecting the right assignment group, priority and category.
Remember MetricNet found that approximately 70% of the costs of a ticket is time based (personnel salaries), so Agent Intelligence could save 12% of these costs. If the 12% of potential savings is related to the previous IRS example where the cost of a call is $41 than a hypothetical potential saving of $3.44 for each call is possible. And when looking at the sheer number of 116 million calls from taxpayers per year, then you can image that you have again a substantial cost saving of approximately $400 million.
In addition to the financial benefits that Agent Intelligence has to offer it also can improve the responsiveness of the organization to services request from customers and employees. By providing quick responses to inquiries and more rapid resolution of issues the organization will provide a better customer experience.
In conclusion
In your organization’s journey of digital transformation AI and ML are essential ingredients. AI and ML decrease your operating costs and help to deliver the nowadays mandatory superior customer experience. Seen in this light, implementing ServiceNow Agent Intelligence and the ServiceNow Virtual Agent in your IT, HR and Customer Service Desks are no-brainers when it comes to artificial intelligence.
Sources:
- Building an Effective AI Strategy by Soyeb Barot; Gartner Catalyst Conference August 2018
- Metric of the Month: Service Desk Cost per Ticket by Jeffrey Rumburg; May 2017
- Citizen 2.0; AI will transform the relationship between citizens and government, bringing efficiency and consumer-grade experiences to the public sector by Grant Gross
- Enabling service excellence through ServiceNow's Agent Intelligence by Accenture Operations, 2017
