According to McKinsey, the pandemic has accelerated digital transformation efforts by up to seven years! This warp-speed transformation has impacted numerous industries, including those in customer service. Practically overnight, the need to deliver intelligent digital service experiences across channels — and to do it from your couch rather than a call center has become a must. Now that’s transformation!
So, if that is where we are today, what does the future of service look like? Gautam Vasudev, VP of Product Management for Salesforce Service Cloud, described four key trends for the future of the service industry during The future of service automation and integrations with MuleSoft Composer webinar:
- Continuing the digital transformation
- Connected service and intelligent automation
- Analytics and insights
- Proactive service
To deliver a connected service, agents need access and visibility to critical customer data in order to provide personalized service at scale and resolve customer cases efficiently with the help of intelligent automation. However, we surveyed over 7,000+ customer service professionals globally and found that 79% of them find it’s impossible to provide great service without a complete view of customer interactions.
But it’s not enough to just integrate the systems that hold customer interactions. Service agents need to work with these systems and data seamlessly to deliver connected service experiences.
This is where MuleSoft and Slack can help empower our service teams with the proper tools to connect data, automate processes, and transform around the customer needs. Think of MuleSoft as the system integration layer, easily integrating and automating any device or platform; and Slack as the human integration layer, which connects people and teams around the customer.
Let’s look at three ways service operations teams can deliver that connected service and intelligent automation on behalf of service agents to create better customer experiences, with MuleSoft and Slack.
#1 Jumpstart case resolution
In a recent webinar, Gautam described the importance of breaking down departmental silos between front-, middle-, and back-office teams to build a team around a customer. However, in reality, teams in these departments are all using their own systems and platforms for case management, resolving issues, and project management. The service ops team then is faced with the challenge of creating an internal connected service experience and enabling accelerated case resolution.
MuleSoft Composer for Salesforce allows service teams to innovate by automating integrations between these siloed systems. For example: If a service agent is working on an issue for a customer in Salesforce Service Cloud and assistance is needed from the engineering team, the agent can automatically create a ticket in Jira for the engineering team directly from Service Cloud. No need to switch between systems or screens — all thanks to MuleSoft Composer for Salesforce.
The engineering team is automatically notified via Slack of the newly created issue and can delegate it without leaving Slack, using the Jira app. Additionally, the relevant account and sales reps can also be notified via Slack of the customer’s issue to ensure full visibility of what is happening on that account.
#2 Stay updated on case progress
The example above demonstrates how an intelligent workflow and automation can jumpstart the case resolution for a customer, however, this is the start of the process. The next step is collaboration between various teams, individuals, and sometimes management to resolve the issue for the customer. This collaboration must be fast to create a positive customer experience. The service team knows that keeping relevant stakeholders updated and aligned on progress is essential to a speedy resolution.
MuleSoft Composer for Salesforce and Slack make this process as fast as possible by removing the manual need for checking or asking for updates on progress. For example: If the Engineering team is updating or closes an issue ticket in Jira, these updates are automatically shared to Service Cloud so the service agent can stay up-to-date with progress without checking different systems. Finally, when the Jira issue has been “resolved” the agent is automatically notified in Slack — no time is lost in resolving this issue for the customer.
#3 Automate customer follow up
First, we integrated all the siloed systems the various teams use. Second, we created automated and intelligent workflows to update stakeholders in real-time. The last step is to ensure the customer is notified as soon as the issue is resolved. The service ops team wants to automate this process to maximize the speed of notification and remove the manual task for the service agent.
In the previous example, the service agent is automatically notified in Slack when the Jira issue associated with the case has been resolved. The final example in this end-to-end intelligent and automated workflow is demonstrated when the customer receives an automated Slack notification that their case has been resolved in their private account channel via Slack Connect.
This Slack Connect channel allows both internal and external account stakeholders to collaborate and engage in a single place, that includes: The client, the sales team, the customer success team, customer service, etc. The service team ensures the customer is notified in the intelligent and automated workflow as quickly as possible to eliminate any unnecessary delay and create a positive experience for the customer. The Slack Connect channel also ensures all members of the account team are kept up-to-date in real-time of issues related to their client.
These three examples are just a snapshot of how the service team can be and has become more strategic as digital transformation within the customer service industry continues to accelerate.
See how these steps come to life in this demonstration:
