ServiceNow ITSM Vs. CSM - Which one is more suited for your business needs and why?

ServiceNow ITSM Vs. CSM - Which one is more suited for your business needs and why?

IT Service Management uses variety of tools including ServiceNow platform and is a well-defined process. It is always advisable to use best or most suited ServiceNow module to support needs of a business rather than putting efforts to customize the platform. ServiceNow releases new features during its upgrades and a business may have to lose out on certain new features, if there is too much of customization done to begin with. ServiceNow platform offers 2 different modules – ITSM (IT Service Management) and CSM (Customer Service Management).

“The ServiceNow ITSM module provides scalable workflows to manage and deliver IT services to business users whereas ServiceNow CSM module helps to drive customer loyalty with connected digital workflows that join customer service with other departments using AI and workflow to assign, manage, and resolve complex issues end-to-end.”

While there are many similarities between both these two modules, like – knowledge management, service portal technology, surveys to measure customer satisfaction, integrated chatbots, use of AI and machine learning to improve service quality by reducing the workload of the service agents, automation of work flows etc. – they both were created to meet different business needs. Of course, a business can combine both ITSM and CSM to suit its needs.

How ITSM and CSM are different?

• Licensing - As per ServiceNow terminology, there are 2 types of users – Fulfillers and End Users. In ITSM, Fulfillers are employees working on a service desk, or people approving, or scheduling changes and End Users are other employees/contractor who can only request things, report incidents. Fulfillers are paid licenses whereas End Users are free of charge and hence a business can have as many it needs. In CSM, Fulfillers are employees of a business, helping the customers fix their issues and answering their questions and End Users can be business customers or consumers and internal users who come to the system seeking help and advice. In CSM, each agent is paid, and customers are free of charge.
• User Management - Users in ITSM are employees/contractors of an organization and they are connected to the ServiceNow instance through an active directory. Users of CSM contain contacts of your customers and/or consumers and all the users including customers and consumers can self-register and log into ServiceNow instance. A CSM administrator can manage all the users manually.
• Access to knowledge base - Under ITSM, only Fulfillers can see all the data supporting the ITSM processes and End Users can see only that data which is related to them – requests, incidents created by them. Under CSM, if the End-user is a partner of the customer, they can see the cases of the customer. If the end-user is within the hierarchy, they have access to cases raised by users in child customer accounts. End users can see and update other data, such as their assets.

ITSM is recommended to be used by the businesses for internal IT service desks to deliver IT services to employees. Businesses can adopt CSM to transform their customer support using case management and other related processes to track customers, their issues, products, and entitlements. Some businesses can start with ITSM and later adopt CSM or vice versa. A more detailed explanation about this topic can be found here - https://www.servicenow.com/content/dam/servicenow-assets/public/en-us/doc-type/success/playbook/itsm-customer-service-management-whitepaper.pdf

Aress is a ServiceNow Technology Partner and has rich experience in implementation of ServiceNow solutions across different sectors, we understand the exact needs and provide a tailored solution to all our clients. I am available at amol.gavai@aress.com Please feel free to get in touch with me with your questions and requirements.

About Amol Gavai

Vice President – Business Development

An experienced business development professional enriched with more than 22 years of experience of working in different industries.

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