Working faster, better and simpler

Simon Bowker is Director and Head of Customer Workflow Solutions in Australia and New Zealand for ServiceNow and is responsible for managing sales, strategy and customer success for ServiceNow’s Customer Workflow and Industry Solutions. Here we talk with him about the customer experience, managing expectations and some of the key trends in those areas.

ServiceNow is renowned for providing a ‘next generation’ customer experience. Explain how the revolutionary ‘Now’ platform has assisted customers on their digital journey.

Behind every great customer experience are several processes. The Now platform digitises siloed processes – connecting teams and automating systems so that work flows more effectively through an organisations. This enables our customers to harness the power of their whole company to serve their customers with great experiences, rather than getting stuck in organisational silos,

delayed by different departments, or slowed down by manual processes.

How has ServiceNow consistently been able to deliver outstanding customer service results?

We help our customers by enabling them to provide a frictionless experience. Our research found that consumers are looking to get issues resolved as fast as possible. Where possible, people want to be able to automate the way they get services. Many of ServiceNow’s customers have been able to automate over half of the requests they

“The effects of the pandemic, with increased needs from customers in lockdown, combined with the challenge of teams working remotely, created a perfect storm of poor experiences and long delays”

How does ServiceNow address the key three areas of improvement identified in the report as priorities in addressing customer concerns?

ServiceNow allows you to not only provide self-service to customers, but to automate the tasks and requests that don’t really need a human involved – which helps customers have trust that they’re going to get what they need, when they need it.

Some customers still don’t feel comfortable using digital methods for help, so companies need to meet those customers where they are. A mix of channels and touchpoints is required, and our platform helps customers have fast and consistent experiences however they choose to engage. Most of all people want to trust that their issue will be solved –that they won’t be passed from team to team and asked to repeat themselves until they finally find someone who can help. ServiceNow allows you to link teams who are working behind the scenes to solve issues in a single, easy-to-use experience.

were receiving in the contact centre, freeing up their teams for more complex and challenging service issues. For those more difficult issues, consumers want visibility and trust that their needs are being addressed properly. Once issues are raised and passed between teams, our solutions let consumers have visibility into the end-to-end process, so they have trust in the process and that their requests will be resolved. How has ServiceNow remained ahead of changing customer expectations, and how have they helped their customers bridge the expectations gap?

What are some of the key trends/issues ICSS: 2020-2025 Webinar in the recent Evolving Customer Experience and Expectations in Australia report?

Digital transformation is a journey and as our customers see huge improvements, they can look to find new and better ways of staying ahead of the curve. Automation is just the beginning; understanding where it can be optimised or improved is the next step and that’s where the real magic happens. The Now Platform allows companies to use AI and machine learning to take their processes and automation to the next level. As teams integrate systems and processes, they look to automate more mundane tasks. The other big challenge ServiceNow is addressing for our customers is how to empower their teams to become ‘citizen developers’ – using our ‘low-code’ tools that let anyone build and develop digital solutions without having experience of coding. This means customer service teams can find new ways to solve problems, without being reliant on the small – and often stretched – pool of traditional developers and engineers. The Now Platform allows teams to build new digital processes with ease, and extend their solutions to solve issues that might be unique to their team.

Most surprisingly, our research showed that despite the continued effort and investment in improving customer experience, Aussies are experiencing poorer service than ever. The effects of the pandemic, with increased needs from customers in lockdown, combined with the challenge of teams working remotely, created a perfect storm of poor experiences and long delays.

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