SANTA CLARA, Calif. – August 24, 2016 – ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW),
the enterprise cloud company, today released the findings of its new
survey that reveals why some companies are much better than others at
providing great customer service, without having to spend more.
In the “Putting
Service First” report, ServiceNow commissioned Intergram
Online Research Services to survey 200 senior managers in customer
service roles at U.S. firms with at least 500 employees to rate their
customer service approaches.
The analysis of the results revealed three characteristics that
separate the companies with the very best customer service (top‑tier*)
from those who struggle (low‑tier). Companies identified as top‑tier are:
-
More collaborative: 127% more likely to enable their customer
service agents to enlist the help of different parts of the
organization, partners and customers in real‑time.
-
Better problem‑solvers:163% more likely to be able to
correctly identify and resolve the root cause of a customer's
issue.
-
Self‑service providers:36% are more likely to offer
self‑serve for simple requests. This empowers customers to answer
their own questions, and enables customer service agents to focus on
more strategic issues.
These organizations draw direct lines between providing excellent
customer service and business success, and, interestingly, are able to
deliver these superior results without having to spend more. Even with
a comparable cost structure the top tier says they drive:
- A higher impact on revenue – 98% v. 64% at the lower tier
- Growing customer loyalty – 95% v. 67% at the lower tier
- Higher customer satisfaction – 94% v. 73% at the lower tier
Common Challenges
The survey also discovered the top challenges organizations face in
their customer service programs:
-
Solving problems (57%): Connecting all service processes to
effectively resolve issues for customers as they go from first
contact to permanent problem resolution.
-
Breaking down silos (54%): Bridging the gap between customer
service and other departments for collaboration, coordination, and
resolution.
-
Being operationally buried (50%): Manual workloads without
automation leave limited time for strategic initiatives.
“There is no better brand ambassador, salesperson and revenue
generator than the happy long‑time loyal customer, but how to achieve
that is an ongoing challenge for many organizations,” said Abhijit
Mitra, general manager, Customer Service Management, ServiceNow. “This
survey reveals specific gaps not served by today's CRM systems."
Lessons Learned
The survey findings present three key takeaways:
-
Treat customer service as a “team sport”: Engage everyone to
solve the problem at hand – customers, partners, and employees from
relevant departments.
-
Solve underlying issues that spawn recurring calls: Fix the
root cause in the underlying service or product to prevent repeated
calls about the same issue.
-
Be proactive: Get real‑time visibility into customer systems
to proactively solve problems before the customer even calls.
“Connecting customer service to the rest of the organization seems
like a natural part of delivering superior customer service, yet a
large percentage of companies are not doing this today,” said Mitra.
“There is an immense opportunity in applying a service management
approach to close that gap between engagement and resolution.”
About the Research
ServiceNow commissioned Intergram Research Services of Chicago to
run the survey in May 2016. Survey respondents answered seven
questions about their customer service practices. Point values were
assigned to each question based on industry best practices. Adding up
the points gave each respondent a total score. Those whose scores
ranked in the top third were classified as being “top‑tier”
organizations and those in the bottom third were classified as “bottom‑tier.”
About ServiceNow
ServiceNow is changing the way people work. With a
service‑orientation toward the activities, tasks and processes that
make up day‑to‑day work life, we help the modern enterprise operate
faster and be more scalable than ever before. Customers use our
service model to define, structure and automate the flow of work,
removing dependencies on email and spreadsheets to transform the
delivery and management of services for the enterprise. ServiceNow
enables service management for every department in the enterprise
including customer service, IT, human resources, facilities, field
service and more. We deliver a ‘lights‑out, light‑speed’ experience
through our enterprise cloud – built to manage everything as a
service. To find out how, visit www.servicenow.com.
###
ServiceNow and the ServiceNow logo are registered trademarks of
ServiceNow, Inc. All other brand and product names are trademarks or
registered trademarks of their respective holders.
