Personalized, seamless self-service is the new standard for customer support

Self-service is increasingly the preferred mode for delivering and receiving product support. It lets customers find answers to their questions in the channels and at times that suit them best, and it enables companies to scale support operations more effectively.

ServiceNow has prioritized self-service for years, but we had opportunities to improve. We wanted to make it easier for our customers and employees to solve their own issues without opening cases or interacting with agents. We wanted to anticipate customer needs, to reduce overall caseload and provide a better customer experience. And we wanted to personalize the self-service experience to drive customer satisfaction and loyalty.

We used our own technology

The Now Platform provided all the tools we needed to make it easier for customers to self-serve. Because it’s an intelligent platform that leverages cutting-edge applications of AI and machine learning, we knew it would be relatively simple to improve our content quality and accuracy, increase case deflection, and provide faster time to relief.

We used Customer Service Management (CSM), AI Search, and IT Service Management (ITSM) in concert to create a best-in-class solution.

• CSM gives us case management capabilities, self-service portals, multichannel support, automation, and analytics. We can track the progress of cases, measure our deflection rates, and better understand patterns and pitfalls. CSM has helped us progress toward our goal of 80% automated support and 20% support agents.
• AI Search uses AI, machine learning algorithms, and natural language processing to supercharge search capabilities on the ServiceNow platform and drive continuous learning and improvement. Search results are pulled from across the ServiceNow ecosystem—from knowledge bases to ServiceNow Community and more. They are then aggregated, ranked, and summarized for quick consumption. Ultimately, this makes it easier for customers to find what they need without opening a case. If the customer doesn’t get the help they need from search, they can always engage with one of our support agents or open a case.
• ITSM with CSM enables our AI-powered chatbots to execute instant changes or initiate workflows for customers and support agents. AI-driven automation and monitoring let our agents focus more on proactively fixing customer issues.

Self-service has made a real impact

Investing in and using our own ServiceNow solutions has delivered substantial business outcomes. With our self-service tools, we’ve been able to reach 85% value. Our support teams avoided more than 470,000 cases in a single fiscal quarter. We reached 15% in-case deflection during that same quarter and saved $40M across the company through case avoidance.

Improving self-service has also enhanced the customer experience. Customers can get the information they need, from numerous trusted sources, quickly and more easily—so they can get back to work growing their own businesses.