On the steady journey to provide that perfect support experience, customers using SAP for Me can now receive automatic recommendations to best channel their support cases.
“In the past, users first selected the communication channel to raise a case before describing their issue. This was not always the most efficient way to solve their issues,” states John Bowley, product manager, SAP for Me Support Applications. “To better direct the case to the supporting organization, it makes more sense to have customers first describe their issue and then be recommended the communication channel that would help solve it quickly.”
In this interview, Bowley gives more insight into how the latest usage improvement of SAP for Me is doing just that.
Q: What has been improved within SAP for Me?
A: Our focus is to continuously find ways to minimize customer effort when contacting SAP for help and that customers can quickly get the support they need. One important milestone is to simplify and streamline the end-to-end case creation and management process. SAP users can now engage with SAP support through the new get support application in SAP for Me and its use of artificial intelligence (AI). The focus is to provide suggestions, such as how to fill in values on the screen or how to best contact SAP for help and support. AI helps predict all these values based on the system that’s been selected.
This new flow means we’ve altered the order of how we route a support issue to the most appropriate place for quick answering. AI analyzes the information received and then gives the customer suggested values for the product information and product function. This means the customer’s issue is narrowed down to which product it relates to and then within what area of the product the issue is actually occurring. AI also suggests how the connection to SAP support should best be made and to which Real-Time Support channel – whether that’s Expert Chat, Schedule an Expert, or maybe opening a question in SAP Community. This is what we call the channel recommender. The issue is then routed to the correct support engineer or team of support engineers.
What type of simplification does the get support application provide?
We’ve rearranged the accessibility to existing Real-Time Support channels. On the previous platform, SAP ONE Support Launchpad, customers were first asked to choose the support channel before describing the issue. For instance, the customer might have decided to do an Expert Chat and then started to describe the issue. What sometimes happened was the customer changed their mind, got pulled away, or any other circumstance. This caused a delay or break in the momentum of solving their issue.
The new get support application first asks customers to describe their issue. The system then recommends the best channel to take. Customers can choose to use this channel or decide that another channel may be a better fit.
In the future of get support there will be enhancements to help drive the AI to provide better and clearer support or assistance to customers. Our ongoing focus is to reduce customer effort and provide them with the information they need.
How does the get support application within SAP for Me relate to Built-In Support?
Both the get support application and Built-In Support work in harmony with each other. Customers can create a support case within Built-In Support and they will also see it listed in SAP for Me. The same for the reverse as well. The convenience of Built-In Support is to be able to post an issue from directly inside the application in use. Alternatively, there may be times where an issue may need to be raised or a question asked outside of Built-In Support; SAP for Me would be ideal then.
Customers working within SAP for Me will see the convenience of first telling us their issue and then being recommended the best channel to get it resolved. There are SAP for Me sessions offered regularly to introduce customers to the get support application on SAP for Me.
Regina Postman is part of Customer Support and Innovation Communications at SAP.