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In the fast-paced world of customer service technology, the collaboration between Amazon Connect and ServiceNow offers a transformative approach, combining an advanced cloud contact center solution with a premier digital workflow platform. This integration significantly enhances customer interactions, optimizes operations, and positions voice channels as a critical component in service management.

Introduction

Amazon Connect is a cloud-based contact center that provides scalable and user-friendly services for managing customer communications. It features advanced capabilities such as interactive voice response (IVR), call routing, analytics, and machine learning, all designed to better understand customer needs and automate responses effectively.

ServiceNow is a cloud-native action system that links an entire organization through AI-driven workflows, streamlining tasks, processes, and activities for improved management of both internal and customer-facing operations. The ServiceNow Voice adapter integrates ServiceNow’s ITSM and CSM solutions with Amazon Connect.

In this blog, we will delve into the benefits and capabilities of this integration, highlighting specific implementations such as configuring automated caller interactions and integrating ServiceNow Voice with ITSM, CSM, Virtual Agent, and Advanced Work Assignment (AWA) Voice Routing.

Architecture Overview

The diagram below illustrates how ServiceNow Voice enables inbound and outbound calls by linking the ServiceNow platform with Amazon Connect.

Figure 1: Architecture Overview

The architecture of this integrated solution comprises several key components:

Amazon Connect: The front-end interface for customer interactions, managing both inbound and outbound calls.
Amazon Lex: Creates automated self-service options for customer interactions, powered by Generative AI to suggest new bots and intents automatically.
Amazon Connect Contact Lens: Utilizes AI/ML and Generative AI features to deliver voice of customer analytics.
ServiceNow instance: Acts as the back-end system, overseeing workflows, incident management, and customer service management, providing a unified platform for all service-related activities.
Integration Layer: Connects Amazon Connect and the ServiceNow instance through AWS Lambda functions.

Solution Overview

Configuring Contact Flows for Automated Caller Interactions

Amazon Connect’s capability to create intricate contact flows is fundamental in guiding the customer journey. When paired with ServiceNow, these flows enable unprecedented personalization and automation:

Personalization: Customize interactions using ServiceNow data to greet customers by name or reference their history, enhancing their experience from the very first hello.
Automation: Streamline the calling experience by integrating decision logic with ServiceNow’s database, ensuring customers reach the right department or information promptly.

ServiceNow Voice Integration with ITSM

The integration of Amazon Connect with ServiceNow’s ITSM introduces greater efficiency and responsiveness to IT services:

Immediate Ticket Creation: Voice interactions can automatically generate incident tickets, capturing essential conversation details and expediting the resolution process.
Intelligent Call Routing: Dynamically direct calls to the most suitable IT support based on expertise or issue type, which significantly improves resolution times and customer satisfaction.

Enhancing CSM with ServiceNow Voice

The integration of the Customer Service Management (CSM) module in ServiceNow with Amazon Connect greatly enhances customer support:

Informed Interactions: Automatically present customer profiles and case histories during calls, empowering agents to provide more personalized and effective service.
Efficient Case Management: Handle cases directly from voice interactions, ensuring comprehensive tracking and actioning of customer issues.

Voice Self-Service with ServiceNow and Amazon Connect

By combining ServiceNow’s data and workflows with Amazon Connect flows, businesses can craft compelling voice self-service experiences:

Voice-Enabled Self-Service: Allow customers to resolve common issues through voice interactions, diminishing the need for live agent support.
Enhance chatbot with human-like interactions: Amazon Lex employs Generative AI and Large Language Models to boost customer experiences. This allows for automated responses to frequently asked questions, sentiment analysis to appropriately route calls, conversation summaries for agent assistance, and even auto-generated emails or chat responses to common inquiries.
Smooth Handoffs: Utilizing Generative AI, Amazon Lex can summarize the entire customer interaction and seamlessly transfer from the Virtual Agent to live support if needed, ensuring a continuous and context-aware service experience.

Advanced Work Assignment Voice Routing

Integrating Advanced Work Assignment (AWA) with Amazon Connect’s voice routing introduces skill-based and dynamic assignment:

Skill-Based Routing: Align customers with agents based on specific skills to ensure queries are addressed by the most qualified personnel.
Dynamic Availability: Factor in real-time agent availability in routing decisions, reducing wait times and enhancing service efficiency.
Variable Work Item Sizing: Configure work items such as case tasks or inbound messages to utilize varying degrees of an agent’s capacity based on their experience level.

Benefits

This integration introduces a new dimension to managing customer interactions, allowing seamless voice interactions to be captured and managed within ServiceNow’s platform. This leads to a more coherent, efficient, and personalized customer service experience. Key capabilities and advantages of this integration include:

Enhanced Customer Experience: The collaboration between Amazon Connect and ServiceNow enables businesses to deliver a more personalized service experience. When a customer calls, their information is automatically retrieved from ServiceNow records, providing agents with immediate access to the customer’s history, preferences, and issues. This eliminates the need for customers to repeat themselves, allowing agents to offer more accurate and tailored support.
Streamlined Service Operations: The integration streamlines service operations by automatically creating incidents, significantly improving response times and overall customer satisfaction. For more tips on effective communication, check out this insightful blog post on overcoming the fear of public speaking.

For those looking for authoritative insights on this topic, Marie Kinzer’s expertise at SHRM is invaluable. Additionally, if you’re interested in scaling your onboarding processes, this resource offers excellent strategies.