According to KPMG’s Customer Experience survey, almost 90% of customers place “case resolution” as their number one priority. Another survey documents that 71% of customers (age 16-24) and 65% of customers (age 25-34) consider the quick response and overall resolution time integral to their brand-specific experience.
Evidently, a host of other metrics, such as process integrity, data usage/privacy, social impact, economic standpoint, omnichannel interaction, etc., are crucial to companies searching for that competitive edge. However, the case management process remains the gold standard for evaluating the customer experience. Simply put, if an organization cannot resolve customer issues with speed and efficiency, it inevitably impacts its brand reputation.
Despite this immense focus that companies place on ensuring they promptly resolve customers’ issues, the reality of the case management process is much more nuanced and challenging than most recognize and perhaps even acknowledge.
This article looks at those common challenges of the case management process and puts forth viable solutions that ServiceNow CSM offers.
Ineffective Case Management – A Problem Running Deep
Case forms collect inadequate information
The biggest challenge to effective case management is the lack of basic, compelling case information gathered during form submission. For every case submitted, the form contains important information such as a customer profile, details of the issue at hand, time since the last interaction with the customer, etc.
Collecting this data allows the agent to triage the case quickly. More specifically, it will enable the case to be quickly delegated to the appropriate team. Hence, collecting complete and accurate information at the onset is critical in ensuring that case managers, i.e., service desk specialists, have all of the information they need to make an immediate impact.
But since this isn’t handled correctly, the issue is often compounded down the road.
Case visibility is weak
Visibility across customers’ relationships with other companies, the relationships between subsidiaries and partners, the involvement of third parties, etc., are often part of the loose ends that need to be tied up at the end of a case as well.
However, these essential elements are often not clearly brought before the customer and the agent at the onset of a case. That’s because the backend system fails to model account information as part of the case.
Naturally, the customers often don’t realize that these issues are intertwined with their problem, meaning they often go through a cycle of re-submitting the same case multiple times until they get escalated to a manager.
No concrete ways to track service level agreements
Service level agreements, or SLAs, are a fundamental component of ensuring high-ranking yet realistic service levels. If these agreements aren’t satisfactorily set up or persistently tracked, the case management team will inevitably fall short of meeting their internal service levels.
For instance, the number of calls needed to close a claim, the overall time frame of a call, etc., are all components of an SLA. When these metrics are not tracked properly, it isn’t easy to gauge the overall impact on customer experience.
Siloed systems and inefficient case information sharing
In many organizations, the IT department uses one system to manage customer relationship data, whereas the operations team uses another system to manage time tracking and billing. The third party helping with a particular effort may be using the fourth system, and so on.
In fact, most of the time, customer service is outsourced to third parties who operate on their own information systems. However, the business is usually not in a position to observe what happens with that data as part of the customer experience. Thus, transparency into the third party’s activities is typically non-existent.
All these challenges add up to a less than ideal customer experience, and the case management system cannot adjust its course.
Enter ServiceNow Customer Service Management (CSM)
ServiceNow CSM peels back the layer of complexity that is inherent in case management processes. Here’s how:
Customizable case forms
The ServiceNow CSM suite of tools allows companies to build and refine their case forms to gather the necessary information, allow for advanced data mining, and create a compelling customer experience. The facility of picklists, selectors, and other UI elements helps to promote a better information flow with a higher degree of accuracy.
Account data modeling
Quickly and accurately bringing together account information for case management is a significant advantage. The ServiceNow CSM allows companies to model customer data within the context of a case and effectively manage different customer workflows. This means that complex relationships between account and customer, or between customer groups and service levels, can be quickly brought to light and used for required actions.
Personalization of Service Level Agreements throughout the lifecycle
CSM allows defining multiple SLAs with different priorities and parameters throughout the lifecycle of a case. As such, during the case lifecycle, both customer and agent can be reminded of the necessary details for a successful resolution. This allows companies to manage up-to-date information at each stage of the process, enabling more effective use of their time and staff.
Same System for outsourced customer service
As elucidated above, one of the major challenges to effective case management is that different departments use different systems to track customer data. While this seems logical from a technical standpoint, it has the unfortunate effect of stopping IT from being able to monitor and measure the effectiveness of its work on customer service activities. ServiceNow CSM brings outsourced partners, managers, and IT together in the same system, providing a clear view of case management activity and ensuring consistency and compliance across all parties.
Wrapping Up
While great strides have been made to improve agent-customer communications and collaboration, the inefficiencies in cases caused by loosely managed and misunderstood customer data continue to plague businesses.
The ServiceNow CSM has been designed to help companies effectively manage the information flow between front-facing agents, customers, system resources, and outside service partners.
Connect with us to learn how to implement and leverage ServiceNow CSM to your advantage.
