Despite the many hurdles that organizations have had to overcome in 2020, there has been a recent uptick in acquisitions that have shaken-up the CX space. In the first part of this series, we covered Salesforce’s recent acquisition of Slack — but they aren’t the only one making waves.
ServiceNow Acquires Element AI
ServiceNow has made some important moves over the past year. In October 2019, it announced that Bill McDermott would join as the new CEO of the company, leaving the same role at SAP. Since then, the company has refocused its platform capabilities around its workflow automation platform, which enables business users across customer-facing departments (service, commerce, sales & marketing), operations, IT, and HR to design, build, and manage workflows.
ServiceNow’s acquisition of Element AI follows the acquisition of another AI provider, Loom Systems, in January 2020.
Element AI provides AI solutions to organizations across different industries. It’s no surprise to see ServiceNow continue its investments in AI to support continuous performance and process optimization efforts as many other enterprise application providers continue building and enriching their own AI capabilities (e.g., Salesforce with Einstein, Adobe with Sensei).
AI Fueled Workflow Management Driving CX Excellence
Workflow management resonates with the evolution of CX programs. While data remains a key enabler helping firms tailor their activities when engaging their current and potential clients, the use of data is associated with workflows.
For example, when a customer calls into the contact center, the caller must be connected with the agent who has the right skills to address their needs and is also available at the time of the call. There is a workflow behind such routing activities.
Similarly, when a cable services user requests on-site support from a field technician to repair a device, the company must detect and confirm the nature of the issue, find the closest available technicians in the area, determine relevant parts needed, and schedule the technician.
Again, there are workflows associated with executing such customer requests.
Given the volume and complexity of data associated with managing workflows in an efficient manner, companies increasingly rely on artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to detect context of customer issues, provide next best action guidance to employees, and use automation to execute workflows in a timely manner.
What’s Next?
While adding and enriching digital capabilities is top-of-mind for many IT and line-of-business leaders, once these capabilities are broadly implemented, we should expect to see these leaders focus on optimizing their use. Not all workflow management platforms leveraging AI are created equal; savvy organizations that go beyond simply implementing these capabilities and truly utilize them are those that will realize significant positive results in their activities.
We’ve covered how Salesforce acquiring Slack and ServiceNow acquiring Element AI will impact the CX space. Stay tuned for more in this series over the next week to keep up to date with the many CX technology providers that are merging.
