CSM Fundamentals Flashcards
What are the three customer service concerns?
Customer Service Management manages processes across middle office teams to resolve issues
faster by connecting customer service with engineering, field service, finance, and other teams to
drive accountability for resolution. This approach allows the business to scale and:
- Reduce the case volume with self-service by encouraging customers to help themselves with a
self-service catalog, knowledge base, customer community, and portal. - Proactively monitor customers’ products and services, and take action on potential issues and
outages by automatically creating cases. - Prevent future cases—fix underlying issues to eliminate cases, drive knowledge base content
changes, preemptively notify customers, and act on trends revealed in Performance Analytics.
Name the four industry data models that extend Customer Service Management
Benefits of CSM Guided Setup
CSM Integration with other Products
CSM Integration w/ ITSM: OVerview
Plugin for integrating with Incident, Problem, and Change Management
This requires the Customer Service with Service Management plugin (com.sn_cs_sm) for integration
with with Customer Service Management.
Plugin for integrating with Request Management
This requires the Customer Service with Request Management plugin (com.sn_cs_sm_request) for
integration with Customer Service Management. Manual activation is required.
Additional Plugins for Problem Management integration
§ The following plugins are necessary to fully utilize the integration between case and problem records:
§ Problem Management Best Practice – Madrid (com.snc.best_practice.problem.madrid)
§ Problem Management Best Practice – Madrid – State Model
(com.snc.best_practice.problem.madrid.state_model)
§ If the Problem Management Best Practice – Madrid – Knowledge Integration plugin
(com.snc.best_practice.problem.madrid.knowledge) is activated on a customer instance, additional
synchronization between case and problem records will be provided, in relation to the feature(s)
available with the respective plugin.
Additional Plugins for Request Management integration
What Plugins are required for CSM Integration w/ ITSM: External Customers/Partners?
Plugins required:
* Customer Service (com.sn_customerservice)
* Customer Service with Service Management (com.sn_cs_sm)
* Customer Service with Request Management (com.sn_cs_sm_request)
CSM INtegration w/ ITSM roles
Role Description
itil Can create and update an incident, problem, change, and multiple requests for a
customer service case.
sn_incident_read View information about an incident record associated with a customer service case.
sn_incident_write * Create an incident record for a customer service case.
* Associate an existing incident record with a customer service case.
* Remove an incident record associated with a customer service case.
sn_problem_read View information about a problem record associated with a customer service case.
sn_problem_write * Create a problem record for a customer service case.
* Associate an existing problem record with a customer service case.
* Remove a problem record associated with a customer service case.
sn_change_read View information about a change record associated with a customer service case.
sn_change_write * Create a change record for a customer services case.
* Associate an existing change record with a customer service case.
* Remove a change record associated with a customer service case.
sn_request_read View information about request records associated with a customer service case in the
Requests related list.
sn_request_write Create request records for a customer service case.
What role is required to create and update an incident, problem, change, and multiple requests for a case?
itil
What is foundation data?
Foundation Data
Includes all of the data crucial to support customers as efficiently as possible. Most of the foundation data
can be imported and configured using the Customer Service Management Guided Setup. Guided Setup was
covered earlier in the course.
What is a CSM Business Model
CSM Business Models
Business models identify the products or services a business plans to sell, its identified target market, and
any anticipated expenses.
What is an Account?
An account is a supported external customer.
What is a contact
A contact is a user who is an employee of an account
What is a consumer?
Person who purchases goods and services for personal use.
What is a partner?
A partner can be a supported external customer that, in turn, sells to and supports one or more customers.
Explain Products, Product Models, & Assets
Products, Product Models, and Assets
* Products are goods or services a company sells to, and supports for, their customers.
* A product model is a specific version or configuration of a product.
* An asset is a specific product instance that is supported for a customer.
Explain Install Base Items & Sold Products
Install Base Items and Sold Products
* An install base item is any configuration item that has been made accessible to customers.
* Sold products are products and components that have been sold to an account or a consumer.
Explain Contracts & Entitilements
Contracts and Entitlements
* A contract is a binding agreement between two parties.
* An entitlement defines the types of support that a customer receives and the supported
communication channels for a customer.
Explain the types of Business Models
These may be:
* Business-to-Consumer (B2C) use cases.
* Business-to-Business (B2B) use cases.
* Business-to-Business-to-Consumer (B2B2C) use cases.
or a mixture of these.
Explain a consumer
Consumer Table
The Consumer [csm_consumer] table stores Consumer records which contain information about a
consumer, including the name, addresses, and phone numbers.
Use the application navigator and go to Customer Service > Customer > Consumers.
To create a consumer record, a user must have one of the following required roles:
* Consumer Agent [sn_customerservice.consumer_agent]
* Customer Service Manager [sn_customerservice_manager]
* System Administrator [admin]
Explain Households
§ The Household Entity: this represents a group of consumers that usually share a common
address and use services as a group.
§ Head of Household: a household can have one member designated as the head of household. A
consumer who is added as the head of household is automatically added as a member of the
household. The head of household has access to all of the cases and information for the
household and the other household members.
Where to locate consumers?
navigate to Customer Service > Customer > Consumers.
What is the consumer table?
What roles are required to create a consumer?
csm_consumer
Consumer Agent [sn_customerservice.consumer_agent]
Customer Service Manager [sn_customerservice_manager]
System Administrator [admin]
Important facts about consumers
- A consumer can have multiple addresses but only one primary address. The primary address is added to the Addresses related list and the Primary field is set to true.
- Other addresses, such as billing or shipping addresses, can be created and stored in the Addresses related list. All addresses for a consumer are stored in the Addresses related list.
- The Consumer [csm_consumer_user] stores consumer registration records that are created when consumers complete the self-registration process from the Consumer Service Portal. This table extends the Users [sys_user] table.
What is the consumer User table?
The Consumer User [csm_consumer_user] table stores consumer registration records that are
created when consumers complete the self-registration process from the Consumer Service
Portal. This table extends the Users [sys_user] table.
Components of a B2B model
Customer (Account) — a supported external customer.
Contact (Primary) — User who is the main contact for an account.
Contact — User who is an employee of an account.
What roles can create a relationship between a contact and account?
A System Administrator or Customer Service Manager (user with role
sn_customerservice_manager) can create a relationship between a contact and an account. Once the relationship is established, the contact can access information for the related account and create cases for the account. When defining a new contact relationship for an account, dropdown values of Contact field will display contacts from related accounts based on the account hierarchy (parent-child relationship) and account relationships.
How is the account hierarchy (parent/subsidiary relationship) modeled? What
Account hierarchy (parent – subsidiary relationship) is modeled using a Parent Account field on an
Account form. If this field is not filled, the account is the top-level account, otherwise, it is a
subsidiary of the parent account.
What is the Customer Administrator? What can they do?
Customer
admin (any contact with role sn_customerservice.customer_admin) will be able to view assets and users for all the subsidiaries of his or her own account, as well as create and view cases for any of the subsidiaries on the Customer Service Portal.
Explain the address data model for accounts in Tokyo
What is a partner account?
It must be stressed that, in ServiceNow’s Customer Service Management application, a partner is not the same as a third party:
- A third party is an organization that has been contracted to sell products and services they have actually purchased from another organization. The third-party then provides a solution that is
built on top of the products and/or services purchased. - A partner does not own any of the products or services provided by their partnering organization; instead, they help to sell, deliver, and support them on their behalf.
- A third party will own the relationship with their customer.
- A partner does not own the relationship with a customer. This relationship is owned by the organization they are partnering.
What are two types of account relationships? Explain the differences
Account relationships are used to define relationships between two customer accounts or between a partner account and a customer account.
For relationships between a partner account and a customer account, partner account contacts with the partner role or the partner administrator role can create and manage cases for their customer accounts.
Set Up Account Relationship
An Account Relationship is based on a defined account relationship type. Users with the Administrator role (admin) can define two types of relationships: partner-to-account and account-to-account. There is
one default account relationship type provided for partner accounts.
What is contained within an account relationship record?
- A source account, selected in the Account From field.
- A target account, selected in the Account To field.
- The account relationship type that this relationship record is based on.
- The relationship and the reverse relationship of the selected accounts.
Where do you go to manage Account Relationship Types?
Customer Service > Administration > Account Relationship Type
What is the definition of an account?
An account is a supported external customer
What is the definition of a contact?
A contact is a user who is an employee of an account.
What is the contact table? What table does it extend?
The Contact [customer_contact] table (an extension of the [sys_user] table) stores the customer’s contact information, such as name, phone number, and email.
What is a an Asset? Where are they created?
Asset records represent the specific product instances that are owned by accounts, customers, or consumers. Assets may have serial numbers and can be assigned to specific accounts, a contact within an
account, or individual consumers. Assigning asset contacts is not a manual process. It is best practice to associate contacts with maintained assets via a workflow to keep it accurate. Customer Service Management uses the same
asset tables as Asset Management. This may affect reporting.
To create an asset record for a specific instance of a product, navigate to Customer Service > Products > Assets
How are asset model classes used when creating or importing assets for CSM?
- Groups Assets together
- Define the link between Configuration items Classes and Asset Classes
- Define whether an asset is created and related to a CI or vice versa (executed in the model category record)
Service-aware Install Base consists of which entities? What role is required to manage them?
Service-aware Install Base consists of the following entities:
- Sold Products are products and services that have been sold to an account or a consumer.
- Installed Products provide info on the instances that a sold product is deployed on at an account or consumer. Sold Product can have many installed product records based on number of instances in
use. - Install Base Items are configuration items accessible to customers, refers to an application service CI for SaaS products, and used to track instances that have been provisioned for an account or consumer.
Create Sold products, install base items, and installed products can be created as individual records, imported in bulk, or directly from an Account or Consumer record.
You must be a customer service manager (sn_customerservice_manager) or system administrator (admin) to create and manage all of the above entities in the following order:
Explain how asset contacts are used.
A contact relationship is used to add a contact from a different account to either of the accounts in an established account relationship. It allows a contact with the customer role or customer administrator role to manage the account for which the contact relationship has been established.
These contacts can view information and perform actions on behalf of the accounts, such as creating or updating cases from the customer portal.
When you create a contact relationship, you select a user from the Contact field. This field displays the contacts from all accounts in the account relationships and account hierarchy. Administrators can add a primary contact to an asset by selecting a contact in the Primary Contact field on the
Asset form:
* This field references the Contact [customer_contact] table and is filtered by the asset’s account.
* When an asset primary contact is added, the same contact is added to the Asset Contact list through the Add Primary Contact to Asset Contact business rule on the Asset [alm_asset] table.
Asset Contact Related List
Administrators can create relationships from the Asset Contact related list on the Asset form. While creating an asset contact relationship, you can select the contact from:
- The account that the a set belongs to.
- The contacts from the partner account relationship.
- Any contacts added to these accounts, using contact relationships having the Asset Contact responsibility
What is a contract?
A contract is a binding agreement between two parties
What is an entitlement?
An Entitlement defines the types of support that a customer receives and the supported communication channels for a customer. When a customer service agent creates a case, the system uses a configurable method to derive the entitlement based on several fields related to the case
record. These fields include:
- Product
- Asset
- Account
- Consumer
- Contract
- Case channel
How are entitlements counted?
Entitlements are counted on a per unit basis. The Unit field on the Service Entitlement form defines the unit type, either cases or hours.
The Total Units field defines the total number of cases or hours available for this entitlement, and the Remaining Units field tracks the number of units remaining. These counters are active if the Per Unit field is enabled. The Remaining Units field is updated using business rules.
When using cases as the unit type, the Update case entitlement on Close business rule updates this field when a case for a product, asset, company, or contract that has an associated entitlement is closed.
To use hours as the unit type, customers must create a separate business rule. For example, create a rule that is applied to the amount of time an agent spends on a case. When a case is resolved, deduct the hours spent from the total service hours available in the entitlement.
What order are entitlements calculated?
- Asset entitlements:
- Product entitlements:
- Contract entitlements:
Explain internal and external roles
Internal (snc_internal) : Agents, Agent Managers using CSM applications
External (snc_external): Customers, consumers, partners using Customer or Consumer Service Portals
Users created in sys_user will automatically inherit snc_internal, while users created in customer_contact and csm_consumer_user will inherit
snc_external.
Explain Contributor Users
When identifying customer service teams, the contributor user roles should also be considered. Work with the customer to determine which roles will be needed and why
Agents can create a case from:
- The Customer Service Application
- Any associated entities (Account, Contract, Entitlement, Asset, etc)
- A Chat session
- An Interaction
Explain Omni-Channel Support
Each channel requires some setup and configuration. The Channel field on the case form records the method by which the case is opened:
- Web/Portal: Default value for cases created via the Customer Service Portal or Consumer Service Portal. The service portals are covered in more detail later in the course.
- Chat: Default value for cases created via Agent Chat. This feature is covered in more detail later in the course.
- Virtual Agent: Default value for cases created via Virtual Agent. This feature is covered in more detail later in the course.
Note: ServiceNow’s conversational messaging feature provides customers the ability to contact
Customer Service through SMS messages or third party chat solutions such as WhatsApp.
- Phone: Typically the default value for cases created in the Customer Service Application.
- Mobile: The mobile app experience is not available to customers. However, they can use their mobiles to access the customer and consumer service portals and can, of course, call customer service from their mobile phones.
- Email: Default value for cases created from an inbound email.
- Social: Default value for cases created via Social Media, such as a Twitter post or direct
message. The Social channel is typically used for B2C Customer Service. - Community: Default value for cases created from community questions and discussions. See “Community” later in the course.
- Alert: Default value for cases created via Event Management (ITOM). See Proactive Customer Service Operations later in the course.
- In Person (Walk-Up): Default value for cases created when customers visit Walk-Up service centers.
CSM Social Media Channel
Requires the Customer Service Social Integration plugin (com.sn_cs_social)
Exposes 3 tables.
1. Social Channels
2. Social Profiles
3. Social Logs
See flashcard image for more details
Case Action Status Plugin
The Case Action Status plugin provides several actionable case flows that create and resolve blocking tasks for different case-related actions. These flows are enabled by default. If you do not want to create blocking tasks for a specific action, you need to disable the associated flow.
To view these flows, navigate to Customer Service > Administration > Actionable Case Flows.
Special Handling Notes
Special handling notes can apply to any of the following entities, based on specific attributes:
- Case
- Account
- Contact
- Product Model
- Asset
Special handling notes are created in one of two ways:
1. From the Special Handling Notes module in the Special Handling Notes application: click New at the top of the list.
- From any entity that uses special handling notes (case, account, contact, etc.): click the Create Special Handling Notes related link on the entity‘s form.
A special handling note can be activated or deactivated in two ways:
1. Immediately—The business rule named Validate the date fields looks at the effective on date and the expiry date to decide the status of the special handling note:
- In the future—The scheduled job named Deactivate Special Handling Notes, which runs daily at midnight, checks the dates in the Effective on and Expires on fields for each note:
Features included w/ Self-Service Portals
- Header with links for different customer activities, such as creating a case.
- Search feature to get information from several repositories.
- Links to information sources such as the knowledge base, community, and customer support.
- Links to articles that have been the most read, featured articles, and those articles found to be most useful.
- Community information, such as recent solved discussion and community featured content.
- The ability to start a chat.
Explain Customer Portal Locale
Customer portal locale works in two ways:
1. Authenticated users and guest (unauthenticated) users can select, view, and update content in their preferred language by using the language selector widget in the portal header. The widget shows the current language selection of the user which will then be auto-detected during future portal sessions.
- Languages can be displayed according to configured region groups by mapping both language and region.
- In some use cases a customer must be redirected or forwarded to a customer service portal that is already translated from the start, instead of being presented with the landing page in English first and still having to change the language through the language selector widget.
From Tokyo, the link to the service portal can be altered so the language of the portal can be set for guests and authenticated users, by defining the language as an URL query parameter. E.g. /csm?lang=fr
Explain Engagement Messenger
Regardless of the portal or web page, EM enables ServiceNow customers to:
* Configure specific self-service actions and behavior on third party websites.
* Deliver contextual EM feature experiences based on customer engagement.
* Provide deep link to EM features on 3rd Party Website from a URL, email, icon, or button.
* Trigger specific customer actions like initiate chat, select a specific language, view knowledge, and more.
* Pass external context and launch workflows, like schedule walk-up appointment.
Explain the Customer Contact (B2B) Self-Registration process
The self-registration feature enables new customer contacts to submit registration requests from the customer portal.
* Once a self-registration request is submitted, it goes through an approval process and is either accepted or rejected.
* If accepted, a user account is created, and the contact receives an email with a user ID and a temporary password.
* When logging into the portal for the first time, the contact is asked to change the temporary password. If rejected, the contact receives an email with this information.
* If a request is submitted with a valid registration code, the contact’s account information is automatically detected and added to the contact record.
* The request is then sent to the customer administrator/partner administrator of that account for approval.
§ If an account has multiple customer administrators/partner administrators, they all receive the registration request, but only one is required to approve it.
* After a request has been approved, the state of the request changes to No Longer Required for the other administrators.
Explain Walk-Up experience
Plugins required
* Walk-Up for CSM (com.snc.walkup_for_csm).
* Configure new CSM walk-up locations.
- Check-in at a walk-up location
- Schedule appointments or join a queue from the CSM portal
- Schedule a walk-up appointment as a guest user
- Modify or cancel a walk-up appointment as a guest user
- Monitor Walk-up Experience queues
- CSM Walk-up Experience dashboard
- Walk-up Experience queue and interaction management
