Data management for Customer Service Management

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 4 minutes to read
    • Summarize
    Summarized using AI
    This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete.

    Summary of Data management for Customer Service Management

    The Customer Service Management (CSM) application in ServiceNow helps organize and manage data for both internal users and external customers. It provides managers and agents with a comprehensive view of customer-related data including accounts, contacts, products, assets, contracts, and entitlements. This centralized data enables efficient customer support, issue resolution, and enhances customer satisfaction.

    Show full answer Show less

    Key Features

    • Customer Service Business Models: CSM supports different business models tailored to your products, services, and customer support needs. Choosing the right model helps deliver consistent, high-quality service that aligns with your business goals.
    • Customer Data Management: Maintains accurate information about external customers, including contact details. Supports both B2B (accounts and contacts) and B2C (consumers and households) models to enable quick communication by agents.
    • Product Data Management: Captures detailed information about products, product models, assets, sold products, and installed items. This helps agents select accurate product data when handling customer cases and accessing related knowledge and case history.
    • Contributor Users: Enables collaboration by engaging both internal and external users to assist in resolving customer issues and requests.
    • Service Model Foundation: Provides a pre-designed, industry-specific business and technical data framework that supports the customer service value chain, ensuring security and process guidance across industries.
    • Internal User Data: Manages information about internal staff such as managers and agents, including their roles and group memberships to support customer service operations.
    • Business Stakeholders: Identifies users involved in customer service processes who can create, view, and approve cases and requests organization-wide.
    • Customer Access Management: Supports multiple related parties with varying access levels to cases, sold products, and install bases. Enables naming relationships and facilitates collaboration and tracking for related parties.
    • Install Base Management: Tracks products and services installed at customer locations across industries. It provides visibility into product usage, location, and ownership to support maintenance, upselling, and faster issue resolution.

    Key Outcomes

    • Improved agent efficiency through comprehensive and accurate customer and product data.
    • Enhanced customer satisfaction by enabling faster communication, issue resolution, and personalized service.
    • Better collaboration among internal agents, external contributors, and stakeholders.
    • Opportunities for upselling and cross-selling by understanding customers’ installed products.
    • Streamlined maintenance and support processes through detailed install base tracking.
    • Secure, industry-aligned frameworks that support consistent customer service workflows.

    Organize and manage the data for both your internal users and external customers by using the Customer Service Management application. You can give your managers and agents a comprehensive view of customer data, including account and contact or consumer details, products and services, assets, contracts, and entitlements.

    Customer service business model

    Different business models are available to support your goals and business needs in the Customer Service Management application. The business models vary depending on the products, services, and support that you provide to your customers. With the correct model for your business, you can answer queries, solve issues, and provide consistent and high-quality service that focuses on increasing your customer satisfaction.

    To learn more about the customer service business model, see Customer service business models.

    Customer data

    Customer data includes information about the customers who are external to your organization, such as names and addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses. In the business-to-business (B2B) business model, customer data includes details about accounts and contacts. In the business-to-consumer (B2C) business model, it includes details about consumers and households. Maintaining accurate customer data enables your agents to communicate with customers quickly and easily.

    To learn more about the customer data, see Customer data.

    Product data

    Product data includes information about the products and services that an organization provides to its customers. This data can include information about products and product models, assets, sold products, install base items, and installed products. When assisting customers, your agents can quickly select the correct product data, add the details to case records, and view related details like knowledge articles and resolved cases.

    To learn more about the product data, see Product data.

    Contributor users

    Contributor users enable you to engage both internal and external users to assist in resolving customer issues and requests.

    To learn more about the contributor users, see Contributor users.

    Service Model Foundation

    Service Model Foundation refers to a set of pre-designed business and technical data frameworks that meet the business needs of a particular industry. Service Model Foundation provides the core framework and security for model entities in the customer service value chain. It also offers guidance across different industry verticals. By using these models, you can provide positive experiences for your customers, agents, and middle office workers as they execute the customer service processes.

    To learn more about the Service Model Foundation, see Service Model Foundation overview.

    Internal user data

    Internal user data includes the information about the people within your organization, such as managers, agents, and other employees. Internal users can belong to different user groups and can be assigned roles as customer and consumer service agents and managers.

    To learn more about the internal user data, see Internal user data.

    Business stakeholders for Customer Service Management

    Business stakeholders are users who are directly involved in your customer service processes. They can create, view, and approve cases and requests across your organization.

    To learn more about the business stakeholders, see Business Stakeholder for Customer Service Management.

    Customer Access Management

    Customer access management supports multiple related parties (contacts, consumers, and internal users) in handling cases, sold products, and install bases by providing them with varying levels of access. Additionally, it facilitates tracking and collaboration on specific cases and products for related parties, enabling for the naming of relationships. Related parties associated with a product can not only view the product but also track all of its cases.

    To learn more about customer access management, see Configuring customer access management and Using customer access management.

    Install Base Management

    Use install base management to capture a customer’s use or purchase of a product across any industry with the Customer Service Management application. You can track the products and services that are installed at the different customer locations. For example, you could learn how many products are at a location, who has the product, and how it’s being used.

    Install base supports all the industry verticals across tangible and intangible goods, providing expansion opportunities into post-sales support for any industry vertical.​ For example, in the banking industry, the install base could be an automated teller machine (ATM). Let's say that an ATM inside a grocery store isn’t working. That means, a repair request would have to be created to fix it.

    The key benefits of using install base management include:
    • Tracking the products and services that have been purchased by a customer.
    • Upselling and cross-selling other products from your product catalog. By knowing which products the customer already has installed makes it easier to upsell and cross-sell other products.
    • Knowing how the product is being used makes it easier for the field technician to service the product.
    • Fixing issues more quickly leads to a great customer experience.
    • Keeping a record of the installed base items enables you to maintain and replace the items more quickly.