UPDATED 15:57 EDT / MAY 18 2016

NEWS

Bringing customer service into the digital age with service management | #Know16

For most people, customer service is more a horror than help. Everyone has stories of waiting on hold forever, getting the runaround, or playing phone tag. On the other side, working in customer support is a journey through a dismal nightmare realm of helplessness and desperation. At no point does this situation benefit a business or the customer. A solution to this state of affairs could revolutionize customer-focused business.

To gain some insight on solutions to the customer service problem, Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, joined Dave Stephens, VP and GM at ServiceNow, Inc., during the ServiceNow Knowledge16 conference.

The state of customer service

“It’s all personal,” Stephens said. “People are infuriated by poor customer service all the time.” He explained how businesses are leaving billions on the table because of poor customer service. After a bad experience, customers go elsewhere. The systems companies use, he said, are part of the problem.

The customer service agent is not empowered, he continued, the service is super slow. In the digital economy, that’s not OK. A company might have a number of customer service systems that don’t talk to each other. They need to bring these systems together under a common platform.

Automation and going proactive

For most enterprises, Stephens said, deflection is the name of the game. They do not want the customer to call in. An automated system can solve this, allowing customers to do what they need to do through an online interface, and then they’re done with it. Service management, he said, means being able to diagnose and fix the reasons why customers would be calling in the first place.

Is customer service, Stephens said, on an island in an enterprise? “Do they feel the full weight of customer issues on their shoulders?” he asked. The service management approach, he said, is to connect departments together through the enterprise so they can collaborate on solving these customer problems and drive continual service improvement.

Watch the full video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of ServiceNow Knowledge16.

Photo by SiliconANGLE

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU