Omnichannel
Summarize
Summary of Omnichannel
Omnichannel consolidates customer communications from multiple channels—including email, chat, voice, messaging apps, web portals, virtual agents, and in-person interactions—into a single unified system. This enables agents to view full interaction histories and manage conversations without switching contexts, ensuring consistent and efficient customer service across all channels.
Show less
Key Features
- Chat: Available in self-service portals, third-party portals, and mobile apps through Virtual Agent and Engagement Messenger, with conversations seamlessly continuing across channels.
- Email: Supports two workflows—Email as Interaction (interaction record for agent review) and Email to Case (automatic case creation and threading). Both preserve full conversation history for efficient resolution.
- Messaging: Supports SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, LINE, and Apple Messages for Business, allowing customers to message at their convenience with conversation history maintained during transfers.
- Voice: Integrates with certified CCaaS platforms to provide call features within ServiceNow’s unified agent workspace, supporting both voice-only and embedded CTI scenarios.
- Unified Workflow: ServiceNow keeps agents fully informed throughout customer journeys. For example, a Virtual Agent can initiate self-service resolution, escalate to live agents with full context, and maintain linked records and conversation history through to case closure.
Practical Benefits for Agents and Administrators
- Agents gain access to comprehensive customer details and case histories, can manage interactions efficiently using wrap-up codes, and handle all channel communications in one workspace.
- Administrators can configure routing rules, queues, agent capacity, and channel settings (chat, email, messaging, voice) from a centralized interface, simplifying workload management and integration setup.
What to Expect
By implementing Omnichannel, ServiceNow customers can deliver seamless, consistent customer service across all communication channels. Agents benefit from full visibility into customer interactions and streamlined workflows, reducing repeat information requests and increasing resolution speed. Administrators can easily manage and scale channel configurations and integrations, leading to improved agent productivity and enhanced customer satisfaction.
Omnichannel routes customer conversations from every channel into one workspace. Agents can see the full interaction history and resolve issues without switching context.
Omnichannel overview
Omnichannel brings together customer communications from email, chat, voice, messaging apps, web and portal, virtual agents, and in-person interactions. It keeps all conversations and context unified in one system as customers switch channels. Agents manage every interaction from a unified workspace to provide consistent service across every channel.
- Chat
- Chat is available in self-service portals, third-party portals, and mobile apps through Virtual Agent and Engagement Messenger, and conversations carry across every channel.
- Track, route, and resolve all emails in ServiceNow. Two workflows are available: Email as Interaction creates an interaction record for agent review before optionally converting to a case. Email to Case automatically creates and populates a case record, with all replies threaded within it. Full conversation history is preserved in both workflows.
- Messaging
- Omnichannel messaging supports SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, LINE, and Apple Messages for Business, so customers can message at their own pace through Virtual Agent or live agents across all channels.
- Voice
- The Voice framework integrates with certified CCaaS platforms to deliver call features. ServiceNow serves as the unified agent workspace for organizations that need voice-only or embedded Computer Telephony Integration (CTI).
Omnichannel workflow
This scenario shows the omnichannel customer service journey, and how ServiceNow connects every channel to keep agents fully informed at each step.
- A customer initiates a return. The Virtual Agent responds automatically, collects order details, and tries to resolve the issue through self-service.
- The conversation escalates to a live agent with full context.
- The agent creates a case from the interaction and resolves it.
- The agent sends the resolution to the customer via email with all details. ServiceNow links the outbound email to the case and keeps the chat history for reference.
- The customer accepts the resolution, which closes the case.
Throughout the journey, customers don't repeat themselves, and every agent has all information at every touchpoint.
| Channels | Role | Benefits |
|---|---|---|
| Chat | Agent | Access full customer details and case history during each conversation and use wrap-up codes to record outcomes when closing. |
| Admin | Configure chat queues, routing rules, Virtual Agent, and agent capacity settings to manage workload across teams. | |
| Agent | Manage inbound and outbound email with AI-generated summaries, wrap-up codes, and a full activity stream to capture context quickly without manually reviewing long email threads. | |
| Admin | Set up and manage email routing rules, inboxes, and AI summarization settings to streamline agent workflows. | |
| Messaging | Agent | Manage messaging interactions at a flexible pace and transfer them without losing conversation history. |
| Admin | Configure and manage multiple messaging channels from a single interface. | |
| Voice | Agent | Handle inbound and outbound voice interactions with full customer context and case data available before the interaction begins and use wrap-up codes to record outcomes when closing. |
| Admin | Configure CCaaS integration and routing rules within ServiceNow without switching platforms. |