Exploring Now Assist for Customer Service Management (CSM)

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 8 minutes to read
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    Summary of Exploring Now Assist for Customer Service Management (CSM)

    The Now Assist for Customer Service Management (CSM) application leverages generative AI to enhance agent productivity by summarizing customer interactions, case details, and generating resolution notes. It enables agents to quickly understand case context, propose resolutions, and close cases faster, improving overall customer service efficiency.

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    Key Features

    • Chat and Call Summarization: Generates summaries of Virtual Agent chats, live agent handoffs, and calls to provide agents with key conversation context at various points of interaction.
    • Case Summarization: Summarizes complex or long-running case details by aggregating information from multiple case fields, helping agents quickly grasp case status and history.
    • Resolution Notes Generation: Assists agents in creating detailed case resolution notes that can be shared with other agents or customers, facilitating faster case closure.
    • Knowledge Generation: Automatically creates draft knowledge articles from case data after resolution, reducing manual content creation effort.
    • Sidebar Discussion Summarization: Summarizes collaborative discussions between agents, requesters, and experts, and posts insights to case notes for troubleshooting.
    • Chat and Email Reply Recommendations: Suggests response drafts to agents within the Now Assist context menu for faster communication.
    • Sentiment Analysis: Provides real-time sentiment insights on cases and accounts, helping reduce escalations by understanding customer emotions and trends.
    • Suggested Steps Generation: Offers recommended next actions for unfamiliar cases, improving resolution rates and agent efficiency.
    • Conversational Subflows and Actions: Allows agents to trigger workflows and actions using natural language within the Now Assist panel.
    • Portal Case Form Integration: Guides customers through self-service flows using Genius Results, reducing case volume.
    • Now Assist Panel and Workspace Integration: Provides an interactive interface in CSM Configurable Workspace for agents to access AI-generated summaries and notes.
    • Now Assist in AI Search and Virtual Agent: Enhances knowledge retrieval and conversational catalog requests with generative AI, improving customer experience.
    • Sensitive Data Handling: Ensures personally identifiable and sensitive information is masked in AI prompts, maintaining data privacy while delivering accurate responses.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Agents gain immediate access to concise conversation and case summaries, saving time and improving customer understanding.
    • Faster case resolution through AI-generated resolution notes and suggested next steps.
    • Improved knowledge management by automatically generating draft articles from resolved cases.
    • Enhanced communication efficiency with AI-suggested chat and email replies.
    • Reduced case escalations by monitoring customer sentiment and guiding agents accordingly.
    • Streamlined self-service for customers via guided portal forms powered by AI.
    • Secure handling of sensitive data ensures compliance and protects customer information during AI processing.

    With the Now Assist for Customer Service Management (CSM) application, your agents can use generative AI to summarize the customer chat conversations and case details to get the context of the case. They can also generate the case resolution notes to share with the other agents and wrap up cases faster.

    Now Assist for Customer Service Management (CSM) overview

    The following generative AI capabilities are available for an agent:
    • An interaction chat summary provides the context about the chat conversation between your agents and customers at different points of the handoff, such as when a Virtual Agent chat history is handed off to a live agent, or when one live agent hands off a chat history with a customer to another live agent.
    • A case summary enables an agent to gather the case context on long-running or complex cases. Because these cases can contain a lot of information, including the conversations with the customer or other agents, an agent can generate a summary to gain understanding faster.
    • The case resolution notes can assist an agent to help wrap up cases faster and provide the context about the case resolution to the other agents who might encounter similar issues.
    • A call summary assists an agent with obtaining the key details that were discussed during the conversations between the live agents and customers. It provides a high-level overview of the conversation in a clear format.
    • Knowledge generation can help an agent to streamline content creation. An agent can automatically generate knowledge articles by using the relevant data from the case record after proposing a resolution or closing the case. By not having to generate knowledge articles manually, this feature can save your agents valuable time and effort.
    • Sidebar summary captures discussions between agents, requesters, and experts, and can be posted to case notes for further troubleshooting.
    • Chat recommendation generates reply suggestions for agents using the Now Assist context menu.
    • Email response generates reply suggestions for agents from existing or new emails using the Now Assist context menu.
    • Sentiment analysis helps reduce escalated cases by providing agents with the most current sentiment on a case, based on customer interactions and the latest trends. It also offers insights into why the sentiment is what it is today.
    • Suggested steps generation resolves cases and boosts agent productivity by automatically outlining the next best actions for unfamiliar cases in the Recommended Actions tab.
    • Sentiment analysis on an account uses filters and sorting dashboards to track sentiment, providing valuable insights and reducing escalated cases.

    • Conversational subflows and actions in the Now Assist panel use natural language to trigger subflows or actions, improving agent productivity and allowing them to complete tasks efficiently within the panel.

    • The Portal case form guides requesters through a self-service flow using Genius Results, helping them find solutions and reducing the number of cases created.

    Now Assist for Customer Service Management (CSM) skills

    The Now Assist for CSM application includes the generative AI skills that enable your agents to understand the chat and case context so that they can propose resolutions to the customer more quickly.

    Chat summarization
    Provides an agent with a summary of a customer's Virtual Agent chat history, live agent chat history, and the interaction history. Agents can view or create the following summaries:
    • Virtual Agent chat handoff summary: Summarizes the conversation when Virtual Agent hands off a chat to a live agent​ and displays the summary in the Active Chat window. An agent can view a summary of the actions that were taken by a customer before engaging with a live agent.
    • Live Agent to Live Agent handoff summary: Summarizes the conversation when a live agent hands off a chat to another live agent​ and displays the summary in the Active Chat window. An agent can view a summary of the actions that were taken by a customer before hand off to another live agent.
    • Quick action summary: Provides a summary when an agent uses the /summarize quick action in the Active Chat window.
    • Chat wrap up summary: Populates the Chat Summary and Short description fields on the interaction record when a live agent wraps up a chat with a customer.
      Note:
      If a chat summary isn’t available for the interaction, the Chat Summary field doesn’t appear on the interaction record.
    Figure 1. Interaction record with chat summaries
    AI-generated chat summaries for an interaction.
    Sidebar discussion summarization

    Provides an agent with a summary of the sidebar discussions between agents, requesters, and subject matter experts. An agent can also post the summary to the case work notes for further troubleshooting before or after the chat ends.

    Figure 2. Sidebar discussion modal
    Choose participants to start a discussion.
    Chat reply recommendation

    Enables an agent to generate a reply recommendation from a chat using Now Assist context menu.

    The chat reply recommendation skill displays a pop-up window that an agent can use to generate a recommendation and review it before sending it as a reply.

    Figure 3. Now Assist context menu
    Modal that enables an agent to generate a reply recommendation from a chat.
    Case summarization
    Provides an agent with a summary of a customer service case, including the issue and the actions taken. An agent can generate a summary of a case to understand the case context, refresh the summary so that it includes the latest updates to the case, and post the summary to the case work notes.
    The case summarization skill generates a case summary and displays it above the activity stream. The summary includes the information that the agent enters in the following case record fields:
    • Short description
    • Description
    • Work notes
    • Additional comments
    • Email
    • Service level agreement (SLA)
    Figure 4. Case record with case summary
    AI-generated case summary for a case record.
    Email response

    Enables an agent to generate an email response from an existing or new email using Now Assist context menu.

    The email response skill displays a pop-up window that an agent can use to generate a recommendation and review it before sending it as a reply.

    Figure 5. Now Assist context menu modal
    Pop-up window that an agent can use to generate a recommendation and review it before sending it as a reply in an email.
    Resolution notes generation
    Enables an agent to generate the resolution notes for a case, propose the resolution to the customer, and add the information to the case record.

    The resolution notes that generation skill displays a pop-up window that an agent can use to select a resolution code and review the resolution notes text before proposing a resolution to a customer.

    Figure 6. Resolution notes generation pop-up window
    AI-generated resolution information for a case record.
    Note:
    The resolution notes generation skill requires a minimum of 50 words in the case record to generate the resolution notes. If the resolution notes can't be generated, the system displays a message below the Resolution notes field.
    Knowledge generation

    Enables an agent to generate a knowledge article from a case after proposing a resolution or closing the case.

    The knowledge generation skill displays a pop-up window that an agent can use to generate a knowledge article that is based on similar cases and review it before publishing the knowledge article draft.

    Figure 7. Knowledge article generation pop-up window
    Al-generated knowledge article information for a case record.
    Call summarization
    Provides an agent with a call summary when the call ends and includes the main points discussed during the call, including the issue and the actions taken. An agent can generate a call summary of the interaction to understand the case context and post the summary to the case work notes. An agent can view or create the following summaries:
    • Chat wrap up summary: Populates the Chat Summary and Short description fields on the interaction record when a live agent wraps up a chat with a customer.
      Note:
      If a call summary isn’t available for the interaction, the Chat Summary field doesn't appear on the interaction record.
    • Call summary from the Now Assist panel: Creates a summary of the conversation between the agent and customer from the Now Assist panel by selecting Summarize conversation.
    Figure 8. Interaction record with call summary
    AI-generated call summary for an interaction.

    Sentiment analysis on a case

    Sentiment analysis helps reduce escalated cases by providing agents with the most current sentiment on a case, based on customer interactions and the latest trends. It also offers insights into why the sentiment is what it is today.

    Figure 9. Sentiment analysis on a case
    The case shows that the sentiment is positive and improving

    Sentiment analysis on an account

    Track the sentiment of a business-to-business account using filters and sorting dashboards to gain valuable insights and reduce escalated cases.

    Figure 10. Sentiment analysis on an account
    Sentiment on accounts showing trends in the dashboard view

    Conversational subflows and actions in Now Assist panel

    Use natural language to trigger subflows or actions, enhancing agent productivity and allowing them to complete tasks efficiently within the Now Assist panel. For more info, see Request the generative AI capabilities in Customer Service Management by using the Now Assist panel.

    Now Assist in Portal case form

    Guide requesters through a self-service flow using Genius Results to find solutions and reduce the number of cases created. For more info, see Using Now Assist in portal case form.

    Suggested steps generation

    Suggested steps generation may help resolve cases and boost agent productivity by outlining the next best actions for unfamiliar cases in the Recommended Actions tab.

    Figure 11. Suggested steps
    Suggested steps by Now Assist to resolve the issue

    Now Assist panel in CSM Configurable Workspace

    An agent can use the Now Assist panel in CSM Configurable Workspace. This conversational interface enables an agent to request a chat summary or case summary and generate the case resolution notes. For more information about the Now Assist panel, see Now Assist panel.

    Now Assist in AI Search

    The Now Assist in AI Search application uses Now LLM Service to extract actionable Q&A Genius Result answers from the knowledge articles that are found in Service Portal, Virtual Agent, Employee Center, and global searches. By using this application, an agent can improve the customer's experience by retrieving the relevant content from the knowledge base and generating concise answers. For more information, see Now Assist in AI Search.

    Now Assist in Virtual Agent

    Now Assist in the Virtual Agent guided setup can reduce the time and effort needed to deploy Now Assist within Virtual Agent. Your administrators can configure features and skills as well as sources of information such as knowledge bases and catalogs. For more information, see Configure Now Assist in Virtual Agent.

    With the Now Assist Multi-Turn Catalog Requests skill, your customers can engage with Virtual Agent in a conversational manner to request catalog items. A customer can request an item and then refine their search by providing additional information. For more information, see Multi-turn catalog ordering.

    Sensitive data handling

    Personally identifiable information and other sensitive data can be masked so that it does not appear in generative AI prompts. Placeholder text is sent with the prompt instead, and that placeholder text is replaced with the original text after the response has been received. This two-way masking ensures that your users see the correct values, but the Now LLM Service is not exposed to any sensitive information. For more information, see Multi-turn catalog ordering.