SAP SE has announced enhancements to its Next-Generation Support concept. These include developments to AI-driven features such as incident solution matching and real-time support resources like the Schedule an Expert and Expert Chat and services.
Through the integration of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), these intelligent tools help to automate the customer support experience. The tools can also deliver targeted results in a shorter amount of time.
Andreas Heckmann, global senior vice president and head of customer success services, SAP Digital Business Services, SAP said: “The mission of the Next-Generation Support approach from SAP is to minimise the effort and time required by SAP customers. This maximises their business outcomes.”
Next-generation support
Heckmann adds: “The Intelligent Enterprise requires speed and precision. The continued integration of machine learning and AI into the Next-Generation Support concept has enabled us to provide just that. These intelligent technologies enable support tools and support specialists to learn from the past. They deliver accurate solutions for inquiries in real time as well as customized, proactive recommendations before an incident shows up.”
SAP Digital Business Services plans to leverage machine learning and AI to optimise its real-time support experience for customers.
Incident solution matching
SAP customers will get customised recommendations ranked according to relevance via the addition of incident solution matching to SAP ONE Support Launchpad. This new tool leverages natural language processing to analyse an incident.
The user types information about the incident into the form. This provides relevant information from the SAP Knowledge Base Article service and the SAP Notes service. SAP Digital Business Services plans further integration of machine learning and AI. This is expected to save SAP customers time and helping them be more cost-efficient.
Built-in support
SAP continues to build support into its products. Already part of SAP S/4HANA Cloud, built-in support is now available for SAP Integrated Business Planning. The solution enables the intelligent enterprise to optimise the customer support experience. The built-in support concept moves support into the product, increases personalisation and fosters collaboration among experts.
The direction for product support is clear. Integrated into SAP CoPilot, conversational AI makes it possible for customers to converse with the system. The digital assistant uses the system context and other data to provide fast answers for customers’ technical questions. In the future, some questions won’t even have to be asked. The digital assistant in the application gives customers all the support and information they need to avoid potential problems.
Customer experience is expected to continuously improve with the live support services Expert Chat and Schedule an Expert. These tools are extended to additional solutions, enabling customers to get in touch directly with a support expert from SAP. With machine learning and AI working in the background, support specialists are equipped with the information necessary to provide targeted recommendations in live sessions.
Schedule an Expert
SAP customers can now schedule a 30-minute Skype session with an SAP expert. This live channel is already available for over 50 SAP solutions and was recently made available for customers’ open incidents. In 2018, SAP customers using Schedule an Expert reduced their interactions for incidents by up to 52 percent. This freed up time for customers and engineers to deal with other important tasks.
Expert Chat
SAP customers can open a live chat for incidents and start a conversation with the same SAP expert who works on traditional incidents. Currently, 20 percent of the incoming incident volume represents customers using Expert Chat to get answers to their technical questions.
A wide range of self-service options complements these services, giving customers a way to find answers quickly themselves.
Next-Generation Support was awarded the 2018 Technology Services Industry Association’s (TSIA) STAR award for Best Practices in Support Services. It was also named to the Association of Support Professionals’ annual list of the Top Ten Best Support Web sites. The online support section of SAP.com was awarded first place for usability in the annual review of siteIQ eBusiness Index.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean for business?
SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software. The company helps businesses of all sizes and in all industries run at their best. Seventy-seven percent of the world’s transaction revenue touches an SAP system at some point.
For many businesses, the customer experience is a priority. If a customer has a positive experience, they are more likely to become repeat customers. Analysts such as Forrester Research have hyped about proactive support and the benefits of proactive customer service.
Previously SAP had commissioned a report that suggests intelligent technologies are critical to supporting digital transformation in the enterprise. SAP may now be in the midst of making this hype into reality. Providing its customers with next-generation support which also shares ideas to proactively improve its products within SAP solutions. This is a really interesting development and definitely one to watch for the future.
