When it comes to customer support, these capabilities are game-changing not only for current applications but also for future implications. The way businesses deliver support is improving every day, thanks to the rapidly evolving framework: technological breakthroughs, business innovations, and process agility. Here are six key methods that can transform the delivery of customer support.

1. Real-time monitoring

With AI-infused features in diagnostics, an electric car can detect potential malfunctions and schedule its own service appointment automatically, preventing issues like battery depletion or tire pressure drops before they become critical.

How does real-time monitoring play out in the world of business software? 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM provides a feature-rich observability platform that can collect telemetry data, like metrics, logs, and traces, from applications and their supporting infrastructure, allowing support teams to review the health of these systems. By providing real-time analytics and a centralized dashboard, 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM helps empower IT teams to quickly respond and fix issues, so the business remains operational with minimal interruptions. Additionally, the use of OpenTelemetry standardizes observability within a modern customer landscape.

鈥淭he 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM solution has been instrumental for our IT operations. It offers real-time insights and seamless integration across all our enterprise applications, making everything run more smoothly. It鈥檚 like having a bird鈥檚-eye view of our operations, ensuring efficiency and helping us stay proactive rather than reactive.鈥�

Omprakash H, Senior Director, Blueprint Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

2. Proactive resolution

Customer feedback loops play an important role in improving products and services and refining customer relationships. Repeat requests, in customer and user feedback, help service providers identify critical needs and also prioritize features to be delivered.

For example, users within 麻豆原创 Business Network and 麻豆原创 Ariba solutions go to the help center for self-service or case assistance 10.8 times less than they did years ago. This drop in end-user support sessions is the result of features that have been built into the product, based on customer feedback.

AI-enabled outbreak detection is another significant process in proactive resolution that allows support teams to address unexpected increases in anomalies, customer complaints, or issues.

“We continuously identify the reasons for frequent customer demands and challenges from inquiries raised to 麻豆原创 support. This allows 麻豆原创 to proactively deliver the most impactful product changes before they become a challenge for more customers. This way, we improve our products while also focusing on key product capabilities used by our customers today.鈥�

Alexey Ukrainsky, Solution Support Architect, 麻豆原创 MCC

3. Predictive analytics

In the retail industry, predictive analytics is used effectively for proactive and preventative support. One prominent example is 麻豆原创’s holiday season readiness program, which helps position 麻豆原创 as a front-runner in AI-driven, predictive, and proactive support solutions. With the goal of issue prevention at its core, the program can provide a comprehensive, 360-degree customer support profile, helping to accelerate issue detection and anticipate potential problems with AI-driven features like a virtual support assistant, resource prediction,鈥痺eb traffic prediction, a鈥痳ecommendation engine, case history analysis, issue correlation, and pattern recognition.

鈥淒uring Cyber Week 2024, 麻豆原创鈥檚 holiday reason readiness program equipped our support and ops teams to achieve 100% uptime for our customers with the predictive, proactive, and bi-directional support model implemented by the program.鈥�

Tarun Luthra, Head of Support, I&CX Solutions

4. Customer journey mapping

麻豆原创 Signavio solutions can help businesses visualize the end-to-end customer journey, tracking interactions across different touchpoints. This enables companies to identify areas of improvement in their customer support processes, leading to more personalized and effective interactions.

With the help of 麻豆原创 Signavio Process Intelligence, 麻豆原创 can successfully map support processes to help implement AI improvements for optimizing our services. The result: a 100% increase reported in customer value.

For example, a business that struggles with connecting customer experience data and operational data can take advantage of the 麻豆原创 Signavio Journey-to-Process Analytics solution to help reduce time to insight and uncover anomalies and trends.

鈥淭he challenge in increasing our customer experience lies in the direct link between process and journey activities. I see 麻豆原创 Signavio solutions as the perfect tools for consolidating these two perspectives to develop operational excellence in step with customer experience.鈥�

Stefan Gammel, Business Process Consultant, Hilti Group

5. In-app support

Seamlessly integrating support features in a product, service, or system gives users easy access to directly request assistance within the interface, without needing to contact a support team or leave the platform. Built-In Support can include contextual, AI-assisted, self-service options like help application-specific documentation, troubleshooting tools, knowledge bases, and FAQs or real-time options like live chats with support engineers.

For example, WalkMe solutions and Built-In Support鈥攍ayered over multiple applications in a business workflow鈥攃an provide real-time, proactive, in-app guidance to users, helping to significantly reduce the need for live assistance or support tickets.

鈥淐ontext significantly enhances the quality of support. Built-In Support works like a pit stop at a racetrack. The repair crew is right where the action is. The interruption is brief and far less disruptive than taking your car to the workshop, ensuring a smoother return to your activities. In the context of your company, this helps you win your business race.鈥� 

Wilhelm J眉tte, Chief Product Owner, Customer Support, 麻豆原创

6. Proactive mindset

None of the tools and processes that we deploy to implement a proactive and preventative support strategy are sustainable if our teams are not tuned to a proactive mindset. I believe high-performing support teams deliver the best results with a combination of human-machine collaboration, in a culture that promotes a forward-thinking, outcome-driven, service-oriented, and data-driven mindset. 

At the end of the day, the best issue is the issue that we can prevent. Proactive and preventative support is not just about solving problems, but about creating peace of mind for end users, customers, partners, and support engineers so every customer receives custom care, even before they need help.

“Knowledge management within support is not just about enabling self-service through portals to deflect incoming tickets, but about eliminating the need to come to the support portal in the first place.”

Derek Matthews, Technical Support 鈥� Procurement Chief Innovation Officer, 麻豆原创

Stefan Steinle is executive vice president and head of Customer Support & Cloud Lifecycle Management at 麻豆原创.

The has mandated manufacturers to improve traceability, which is essential for ensuring that medicines reach patients safely. 麻豆原创 Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences is designed to help meet these demands by streamlining the tracking process. However, as the network of users has grown, support challenges have surfaced. To address these issues, 麻豆原创 introduced Built-In Support into the hub to help provide direct, seamless assistance to life sciences companies and their partners.

I had the opportunity to interview Tarun Luthra, head of Support 鈥� Industries & CX, and Andreas Krummlauf, vice president and head of Product Management Life Sciences, Health and Ecosystem, about the project鈥檚 impact. Here’s how Built-In Support is helping to enhance operational efficiency for network users in the life sciences industry.

Q: How did this project come about?

Krummlauf: , manufacturers of medicine needed to develop the ability to uniquely identify every pack of medicine they sell in those countries. This is to avoid counterfeiting in the legitimate supply chain. To support this requirement, 麻豆原创’s serialization portfolio was initiated in 2015 with the 麻豆原创 Advanced Track and Trace for Pharmaceuticals application, a corporate serialization repository.

麻豆原创 Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences started in 2016 with a focused goal: to manage traceability and serialization data exchange for our customers and a couple of hundred of their business partners. In 2021, the hub won the Hasso Plattner Founders鈥� Award.

As the network expanded to tens of thousands of partners, a key limitation emerged: we did not have a simple way for business partners, acting as network end users, to directly interact with 麻豆原创 support in case of critical issues, even without having a support contract with 麻豆原创 in place.

Q: What support challenges were network end users facing?

Luthra: The challenge arose from supporting an increasing number of network end users that were not direct 麻豆原创 customers. Without access to 麻豆原创鈥檚 support system, the network end users had to rely on their customers to resolve issues, adding unnecessary steps and risked communication gaps. This presented an opportunity to implement Built-In Support to support our customers鈥� business partners as network end users when they use 麻豆原创 Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences.

Q: How does Built-In Support make a difference for network end users?

Luthra: We are now providing network end users with a direct entry point from within 麻豆原创 Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences, enabling them to easily contact the support team. Built-In Support is seamlessly integrated into the hub. The network end user can find help by searching 麻豆原创 Knowledge Base Articles or submitting a case.

Krummlauf: This streamlined process can enhance the support experience and helps ensure users can quickly find the help they need. Network end users can now resolve issues independently or submit a case without involving customers in the resolution process. This improvement leads to faster response times. Users can efficiently search for relevant product information and potentially resolve issues on their own. This autonomy helps enhance the overall support experience and empowers users to find solutions quickly and effectively.

Built-In Support Enhances User Experience and Support Efficiency

In conclusion, marks a significant advancement in enhancing user experience and support efficiency. When network end users are empowered to directly access support resources and resolve issues independently, we not only help to streamline the support process but also reinforce 麻豆原创’s commitment to improving lives through better life sciences solutions. As regulatory demands evolve, our innovative approaches will continue to drive progress and collaboration in the life sciences sector. For more insights, stay connected with 麻豆原创’s ongoing developments.

To learn more about how these enhanced strategies impact the customer support strategy, I met with Stefan Steinle, executive vice president and head of Customer Support, 麻豆原创 SE.

Q: 麻豆原创 has an ambitious goal of being No. 1 in the enterprise applications and business AI space, and it is already clear that the support strategy must be equally ambitious. To what extent does our corporate strategy influence the support strategy?

A: To a great extent!聽Don鈥檛 forget that 麻豆原创 is also on track to be No. 1 in market share, No. 1 in customer satisfaction, No. 1 in customer lifetime value, and No. 1 in portfolio adoption. Yes, the heavy hitters required for impact are all part of our company goal.

Right from its inception, our Customer Support organization has distinguished itself as a team with an expanded business function that goes beyond bug fixes and issue resolutions. Solving tickets and resolving customer issues are the day-to-day tasks to achieve our larger goal of helping customers maximize their business value, secure their existing investments, and optimize their 麻豆原创 operations. In a nutshell, we are a business partner that proactively works with customers to achieve their business goals.

Q: What do customers want from Customer Support?

A: As guardians of customer business value, our primary focus is to understand what customers expect from us 鈥� both the expressed and the implied requirements.聽With a legacy of over 50 years, 麻豆原创 is the world鈥檚 largest provider of enterprise application software, which also makes us a trusted advisor for over 437,000 customers across 190 countries. Customers rely on our rich expertise for guidance on how to run their business transformation.

In a support engagement, nobody likes surprises. Customers want us to be proactive, especially with respect to ease of implementation and implementation quality. They also expect us to identify potential issues early, prevent them, and inform them of applicable solutions and workarounds that we have used for other customers.聽As with any customer/provider relationship, they expect us to adhere to SLAs, quick response times, and quality benchmarks.

Our customers want us to process their feedback beyond the scope of issue resolutions. They expect us to cascade this feedback back to our development teams to improve product quality, supportability, and usability.

Q: How do we address these expectations?

A: We have a four-fold approach: guide, empower, solve, enhance.

Guide 鈥� by drawing on more than 50 years of expertise
We provide guidance by offering the tools, methodologies, and processes to help customers transform their processes and IT landscape. We help them transform their solution in the cloud with the help of 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM, our application lifecycle management solution.

Empower 鈥� because customers love self-service options
I can speak for myself that when I am a consumer, I would choose a five-click self-service option any day over a five-minute phone call. I find that I am not alone here: our customers love self-help. They prefer DIY fixes to raising a ticket. We help address this by providing detailed 麻豆原创 Knowledge Base Articles, guided tutorials, and other self-service procedures.

Solve 鈥� and get the business workflow back on track
Issues that need specialist skills or technical expertise are immediately assigned to support engineers who can resolve the problem at hand while working to ensure that we help our customers with quick, reliable, and high-quality solutions.聽

Enhance 鈥� by mining customer and end user feedback
Imagine that you are the developer of a mobile app and some of your users have notified you of minor bugs that they have managed to bypass because they are techies. You know that not all users are tech-savvy, and the so-called 鈥渕inor bugs鈥� could end up being showstoppers for most users. This makes a solid business case for you to set aside resources to convert user feedback into proactive product improvements in your next release. Regular mining of customer and user feedback helps refine your products in quality, supportability, and usability 鈥� before the issues snowball into something unmanageable.

has set up a system among our Product Management, Engineering, and Cloud Operations teams to feed customer requests back into the product, helping to ensure that we can monitor and prevent issues from happening in the first place.

Q: What is it about Customer Support at 麻豆原创 that really delights the customer?

A: Four keywords: self-service, real-time, built-in, and bi-directional!

Time is at a premium and customers are vocal about it.聽In today鈥檚 fast-paced society where consumers are spoiled for choice with real-time options, such as collaboration tools, e-booking, flight tracking, QR code payments, or digital health records, it is only natural that support services are also available in real time.聽Market pressures and the nature of businesses have evolved to a stage that real-time actions are the order of the day. Real-time processing is no longer a unique offering; it is a basic expectation.

With 麻豆原创鈥檚 live channels, customers can chat in real-time using Expert Chat or Schedule an Expert with the same technical experts who would also be processing the ticket. You would be surprised that this is not such a common offering in our business segment.

Built-In Support moves support right into the product, providing one consistent support experience no matter what application or solution you are in. 麻豆原创鈥檚 support is also bi-directional, with smart AI solutions constantly monitoring application and support data, allowing us to proactively reach out to customers to help prevent issues from arising in the first place.聽This approach takes Customer Support beyond the scope of traditional reactive support. It leverages AI to predict and prevent issues, helping to reduce downtimes and customer effort and establish a collaborative relationship with operational efficiency. Note that all of these offerings are part of every cloud subscription through 麻豆原创 Enterprise Support.

Our AI-powered Real-Time Support is designed along the concept that the customer needs support anytime, every time, and all the time.

Renuka Abraham is part of Customer Support at 麻豆原创.

Stefan Steinle, executive vice president and head of Customer Support, 麻豆原创 SE, shares more about how the Customer Support organization at 麻豆原创 is harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) to help bring innovative improvements and deliver value to businesses.

Q: What are your views on the idea that businesses need to look beyond the customer to deliver outstanding customer support? 

A: Customer support is a differentiating factor in the success of any business, as it directly impacts customer satisfaction and in turn customer retention.  

While the primary role of customer support is to fix customer issues promptly and effectively, it is equally important to address the needs of support engineers. I would even go one step further and say that customer support is not just about customers. Yes, you heard that right. It may seem counterintuitive, but there鈥檚 another side to the story of retaining customers. The customer’s support experience and the engineer’s support efficiency are two sides of the same coin.

Support engineers are responsible for resolving complex issues and ensuring customer satisfaction. They are the first line of defense in protecting the company鈥檚 reputation. By investing in the well-being of support engineers, customer support can significantly elevate the customer support experience. 

Q: What constitutes a great support experience for customers? 

A: I can鈥檛 emphasize this enough: customers love self-help. They find satisfaction in testing workarounds, playing around with tips and tricks, and arriving at a solution without raising a ticket. What does this mean for us? It is our job to provide comprehensive 麻豆原创 Knowledge Base Articles, guided tutorials, and other self-service options. 

Next, we need to accept that customer preferences are diverse. Not everybody has the same choice when it comes to interacting with support teams. Some like tickets, some prefer live agents to bots, and some like talking on the phone. We address this by offering multichannel support. 

Time is always a huge factor in a customer鈥檚 support experience. Maybe the issue they are facing is a minor speedbump or a major showstopper. Our job is to get them back on track. This includes personalization and the sharing of engagement history across support channels, to help ensure the customer is not forced to repeat its complaint at every desk. 

There are many more, but if you asked me to pick one 鈥� I would think proactively addressing customers鈥� issues, even before they realize there is a problem, constitutes a great support experience.   

Q: What can improve support efficiency among support teams and engineers? 

A: Any business that takes pride in offering exceptional customer support would address three areas and ask the following questions to ensure that their support teams are fully empowered:  

• People: Are your teams well-trained? How is the culture? Are employees collaborating and sharing knowledge? Are your systems set up to spotlight engineers who handle complex tickets with high quality solutions? 
• Processes: How well do you minimize manual efforts and automate repetitive tasks? Do you have clear protocols and escalation paths?  
• Technology and infrastructure: How robust is your ITSM system in managing and tracking customer queries? What productivity improvements have you implemented?  

Q: How has 麻豆原创 elevated support experiences among customers?  

A: While we are invested in fine-tuning our Customer Support systems and processes regularly across multiple criteria, I would like to focus on our AI-powered solutions. 

When it comes to elevating support experiences among customers, our efforts are toward providing a smooth journey 鈥� right from when they encounter a problem down to its successful resolution. 

Those familiar with 麻豆原创 systems know that our products are mapped to product functions, which you select when you create a new ticket. Now with AI, the system can predict the product function related to your case, and you can have the option to narrow your selection down very quickly. The system can also automatically suggest products when you try to select a product in the case creation form in 麻豆原创 for Me. Similarly, the system can automatically route your ticket to the right queue by suggesting application components sorted by relevance for your new case. 

Another valuable AI-powered service is customer solution matching, where the system displays solutions provided to other customers that match your customer profile. With Incident Solution Matching, the system provides suggestions in the side panel of the get support app on 麻豆原创 for Me. You can also see the top content suggestions related to your issue description. Our predictors and categorization machine learning models help enhance Incident Solution Matching recommendations by providing the correct contexts for a given issue description. 

麻豆原创 for Me helps bring together important alerts, metrics, and insights about your 麻豆原创 product portfolio with a single access point. Built-In Support can embed the support experience into the product experience, offering context-aware guidance integrated into the user interface of cloud solutions from 麻豆原创. 

At the end of the day, all of these translate to a smooth and effortless experience for end users trying to log a support request. 

Q: How has 麻豆原创 improved support efficiency among support teams and engineers? 

A: When it comes to improving the efficiency of support engineers, we lean on minimizing tedious, manual efforts and automating what can be automated. 

For example, with the expert finder, engineers can view a list of relevant experts who can handle the topic best. When intelligent swarming is applicable, the system can sort relevant swarming areas and experts by relevance, considering historical data. Given a case assigned to a category, the system can propose the most granular application component to which the ticket can be assigned. 

Support engineers can view top 麻豆原创 Notes and 麻豆原创 Knowledge Base Articles matching the topic of the issues they’re handling. The system can detect outbreaks by matching a case with other cases where the same issue was reported. The system can also predict outbreaks by reviewing customers with similar profiles.

Other services include automatic translation, communication assistants, text extractors, channel recommenders, and solution recommenders. These are just a few examples of how AI is making the day-to-day of a support engineer a little bit better. And 麻豆原创 is fully on board to explore exciting options in this area. For a detailed showcase of our AI-powered solutions, check out . 

Renuka Abraham is part of Customer Support at 麻豆原创.

In this interview, Gaurav Dabur, head of Support for 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Employee Central, Analytics and Integrations, gives insight into what 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors customers and users can look forward to.

Q: What does this mean for users?

A: In the past, if customers using an 麻豆原创 solution needed to raise a case or find information, they needed to leave the application and go to either the or the for answers. With the introduction of , users can stay within the 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors solution and find the right information, which is based on enhanced search capabilities powered by artificial intelligence (AI). AI pulls the context directly from the application. This enables it to provide a tailored search experience that can recommend the specific content to best solve their issue.

Our focus is to give customers a consistent support experience and help them get their answers more quickly. Customers can get direct access to support content, tools, and channels from 麻豆原创 support 鈥� right at their fingertips and with no implementation efforts required.

What will 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors customers notice that’s different?

Let me give three key examples. First, Built-In Support can provide live recommendations and access to more personalized support content and the latest and most-used knowledge sources directly within the 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors solution.

Second, it also provides a personalized and guided support experience that can shorten the time to resolve issues. This means users can get their issues solved on their own without needing to wait on support. The feature also has comprehensive case management, which helps the user better manage their cases directly within the 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors solution.

And finally, users can really collaborate with 麻豆原创 experts in real time using our channels.

Why is Built-In Support valuable for customers?

Built-In Support helps provide customers with an industry-leading, harmonized, in-product experience that is available in many 麻豆原创 products. Customers that use multiple 麻豆原创 products can have a homogenized and harmonized experience across different applications.

Within 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors solutions, customers can now make use of the enhanced self-service options that leverage our internal, AI-based search mechanism. This helps provide more comprehensive, focused, and personalized search results. Customers can be more self-sufficient and can get their issues solved more quickly.

I encourage users to explore the new functionality of Built-In Support and to take advantage of 麻豆原创 support’s knowledge base and content repository as they explore the 麻豆原创 self-service solutions. They can also read more about the availability for 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors solutions in 鈥溾�� and this .

Regina Postman is part of Customer Support and Innovation Communications at 麻豆原创.

鈥淚n 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,鈥� states John Bowley, product manager, 麻豆原创 for Me Support Applications. 鈥淭o 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.鈥�

In this interview, Bowley gives more insight into how the latest usage improvement of 麻豆原创 for Me is doing just that.

Q: What has been improved within 麻豆原创 for Me?

A: Our focus is to continuously find ways to minimize customer effort when contacting 麻豆原创 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. 麻豆原创 users can now engage with 麻豆原创 support through the new application in 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 麻豆原创 for help and support. AI helps predict all these values based on the system that鈥檚 been selected.

This new flow means we鈥檝e 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鈥檚 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 麻豆原创 support should best be made and to which channel 鈥� whether that鈥檚 , , or maybe opening a question in . 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鈥檝e rearranged the accessibility to existing Real-Time Support channels. On the previous platform, 麻豆原创 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 麻豆原创 for Me relate to Built-In Support?

Both the get support application and work in harmony with each other. Customers can create a support case within Built-In Support and they will also see it listed in 麻豆原创 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; 麻豆原创 for Me would be ideal then.

Customers working within 麻豆原创 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 offered regularly to introduce customers to the get support application on 麻豆原创 for Me.

Regina Postman is part of Customer Support and Innovation Communications at 麻豆原创.

鈥淎t 麻豆原创 and our Real-Time Support channels, support engineers are in the driver鈥檚 seat to provide this experience,鈥� states Becky Doyle, global vice president and head of Product Support 鈥� People at 麻豆原创, the organization that supports human experience management (HXM) solutions from 麻豆原创, including 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors solutions. 鈥淧utting the 鈥榬eal鈥� in Real-Time Support is key as we continue to move into the future of how we help our customers, especially in the cloud solution world.鈥�

In this interview, Doyle explains the 鈥渞eal鈥� aspect of Real-Time Support and how it influences the possibilities behind always-on.

Q: Can you tell us a bit more about what you mean by the 鈥渞eal鈥� aspect?

A: Our approach offers an always-on support experience. This means that our customers can contact 麻豆原创 support experts for any problem they have. Sure, we use some cool technology to help make sure we have the answers in the best possible way. But at the heart, it鈥檚 a real and human interaction. Anytime a customer gets to work with a real person to solve an issue it creates a feeling of connection. This interaction could be a live voice call with the service, through a , or any other Real-Time Support channel. Embedded into the 麻豆原创 solution with , this real-time interaction can create a fantastic connection between customers and our support experts.

This connection is important and is sometimes a missed opportunity. We need to think of both our customers and support experts as people who work together to solve any problems and make sure the customer鈥檚 business runs as smoothly as possible. This feeling of connection through the live channels is valuable for both. My colleague, Mohammed Ajouz, described the criticality of in a Forbes article.

Partnering in real time gives our support experts an increased sense of purpose. It also connects them to what the customer wants to get accomplished. It鈥檚 different from having to submit a ticket to then walk through the problem and get the questions answered. The support experts can help a person, a human, with whatever they need to get done and the process can be faster as it solves the problem within a conversation. This is really powerful.

You mentioned the human side of the Real-Time Support approach. Is there data to show its benefits to the customer experience?

There鈥檚 a significant story to tell when we look at the experience our customers have with Real-Time Support. I already talked about the human aspect and the human element of it. When we look at the data, our customers typically get their cases solved faster through Real-Time Support and have a better overall experience. These also often get solved in a single interaction.

Imagine you have an issue and get your interaction solved as soon as you reach out to somebody. You get your answer in real time, when you need it. We can, of course, tie this time to money. Real-Time Support helps make sure our customers鈥� business continues to transact and flow the way they need it to. We believe the time-to-value of getting a problem solved helps reduce costs for the customer.

One key indicator we look at is the overall customer effort. As described in an , customer effort score is defined as the ease with which customers can use a product or service, resolve a support issue, or find the information they need. When we talk about Real-Time Support, we typically see the customer effort score really improve overall. Customers feel they need to put less effort into their overall support experience or work with our solutions to meet their business needs. This is a powerful human connection to the way we measure how good we are as an organization.

Real-Time Support holds particular importance for our customers in the HR world. What does this human interaction mean from a human experience management perspective?

I am excited about where things are headed for HXM customers. That 鈥淴鈥� in the abbreviation really brings out that experience 鈥� our human experience management. This is such a powerful shift in the HR space. As our HR solution suite becomes more digital and customers submit cases, more often it鈥檚 HR professionals that submit them. These are business users and not necessarily technical contacts. The experience goes beyond fixing the product from a technical perspective; it gets down to how customers use our 麻豆原创 solutions and what they need to best run their business. Real-Time Support can play a perfect part in bringing that experience home for our customers and our support experts. Being able to support them in real time helps make the overall experience simpler and more personal.

Real-Time Support helps us be more effective and helps our customers with that human and real interaction. When I talk about it from an HXM perspective, our 麻豆原创 products and solutions are interconnected to the world鈥檚 most important resources 鈥� the people using them. We help people get hired faster, trained better, and help them more effectively manage their performance. More importantly, we help provide for their families when our 麻豆原创 solutions facilitate their pay or can help them make smart decisions on their own career path. When it comes to support, there鈥檚 nothing more real than to enable our people to help our customers help their people.

Where do you see the future direction of Real-Time Support?

In the cloud space, support can鈥檛 simply be an island of helping customers when they come to us. We have the responsibility to work with product management, development, and operations teams across 麻豆原创 solutions. This close collaboration lets us influence 麻豆原创 product innovations to make our support more real and to provide that seamless support experience.

One focus of Real-Time Support is to embed artificial intelligence-driven self-service knowledge capabilities into our 麻豆原创 products as part of Built-In Support. Not only will customers have that true human interaction, they鈥檒l also be able to receive support information relevant to the 麻豆原创 solution in use.

Another future direction in our support transformation goals is to make support more personal for customers and to open a two-way channel of communication from within the 麻豆原创 product. The goal is to implement resolutions before business disruption can occur and proactively make customers aware of things before they happen. We want to directly connect them with information that鈥檚 relevant to the application in use or provide access to a real-time channel directly from within the 麻豆原创 solution. Both of these capabilities are pretty cool.

What do you feel is important to remember?

I encourage our customers to get 鈥渞eal鈥� with us through Real-Time Support. Try out Real-Time Support channels, especially when the topic could use that human touch. See how it feels to connect with us. Get real information and immediate answers to help you on your way faster.

Learn more about .

Regina Postman is part of Customer Support and Innovation Communications at 麻豆原创.

Introducing the idea of bi-directional support.

Two-Way Support Communication with Bi-Directional Support

The vision behind bi-directional support is to provide proactive, two-way support communication. This means actively informing about support-critical information and potential issues related to the 麻豆原创 solution in use and well before you recognize that a problem might arise. Bi-directional support no longer waits until you reach out to us; it changes the way we interact with you.

Consider an example of what you may experience in daily life. Think of the times when something wasn鈥檛 working right on your cell phone. You likely preferred to search the Internet to fix the problem and avoid a call center with waiting times and back-and-forth. Even better is when you were made aware of what might affect your phone鈥檚 performance 鈥� such as bad reception, low memory, or a restart required to avoid an issue. This is the aim of bi-directional support within Built-In Support.

Live Recommendations Help Avoid System Interruptions

One of the key features to make Built-In Support bi-directional will be to provide live recommendations within the application or page in use. Live recommendations are pushed into Built-In Support to provide targeted information, support knowledge documents, and even hot support alerts. They鈥檒l inform users about critical 麻豆原创 solution issues that others may be experiencing. The information will also be relevant to the user鈥檚 role, such as for the key user or end user.

Live recommendations within Built-In Support are curated, published, and updated by 麻豆原创 in real time and supported by predictive artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms. The news and alerts can be pushed out immediately to all screens and can be pulled back or exchanged at any point in time.

Continuing the real-life example, live recommendations are like the “breaking news鈥� section of a news portal app on your cell phone, only for your 麻豆原创 solution. Don鈥檛 want to miss critical information? Want it at your fingertips and, if needed, just a click away? Then you might like the new live recommendations.

The live recommendations are application-focused and only visible where needed. We鈥檙e not distracting you with news or content unrelated to what you鈥檙e working on. It keeps troubleshooting efforts to a minimum while giving you the latest and most relevant support updates. Currently, bi-directional support is being tried out for 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud. Over time, it will be expanded for all 麻豆原创 solutions that are integrated with Built-In Support.

Customer Effort Score, a Driver behind Bi-Directional Support

Happy customers are those that need little support interaction because their 麻豆原创 solutions run fine. Low interaction means low customer effort. As described in an , the customer effort score is defined as the ease with which customers can use a product or service, resolve a support issue, or find the information they need.

麻豆原创 uses the customer effort score as a customer satisfaction measurement. When answering tickets, we ask customers what their effort was behind their interaction with us to get the problem solved. Our focus is to solve any problems fast and to give customers an effortless support experience.

Additional Support Convenience with Bi-Directional Support

Bi-directional support builds on the existing Built-In Support features, such as initiating an , searching for knowledge, or creating a ticket for 麻豆原创 support. No changes need to be made to your 麻豆原创 applications and there鈥檚 nothing to install. Live recommendations are another convenient way of how 麻豆原创 support interacts with you. We continue to respond to the growing need for preventative and proactive support in the cloud to help shorten the time to solve your problems.

Built-In Support is the place to go should a problem arise in the application or on the page you鈥檙e using. It’s likely you鈥檒l find live recommendations already there to help you right away. Bi-directional support is taking another step forward in making Built-In Support more precise, accurate, and relevant about what鈥檚 affected and what you need to do. It鈥檚 convenient to get easy-to-access support information at the point of need and personalized to the application or page being used. That鈥檚 simple, that鈥檚 intuitive, that鈥檚 Built-In Support.

Learn more about .

Regina Postman is part of Customer Support and Innovation Communications at 麻豆原创.

鈥淭he support industry has been severely disrupted over the past decade, but much, much more in just the last few years since the pandemic started,鈥� stated Mohammed Ajouz, senior vice president and global head of at 麻豆原创. 鈥淲e have experienced more change in the last two years than we’ve had probably in two decades. We have watched support go from an afterthought to top of mind for CIOs, as they have seen how vulnerable their business could be with unforeseen or unpredicted crises.鈥�

The need to transform is further accelerated by the abundant availability of new technologies 鈥� such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, Big Data, in-memory computing, and hyperconnectivity, to name just a few. All these changes also have an impact on customer support. Having an outdated support model is no longer an option. In this interview, Ajouz describes why it鈥檚 key to give immediate support, why it鈥檚 important to predict potential issues before they could occur, and why an enterprise support organization needs to be more proactive in providing bidirectional support.

Q: Why is Real-Time Support valuable for customers?

A: Let me first provide some context around the disruption in the support industry. Technology is more complex and integrated. In the past, customers used to have a single mission-critical application. Today, most processes are mission critical and everything needs to be made available around the clock. What was once considered a luxury 鈥� such as offering 24×7 support 鈥� is now an expectation and customers are demanding their vendors take more responsibility for delivering business outcomes.

Customers today have much higher expectations of support, especially when it comes to real-time. Because expectations have changed so dramatically, creating a support case and waiting one or two days for a response is no longer an option. This is why 麻豆原创 created and fine-tuned with the basic objective of being available when the customer needs us most. That, in its simplest form, is the premise of what we鈥檙e doing with Real-Time Support.

Why is it important to strike the right balance between proactive and preventative versus real-time?

When a customer faces a problem, they expect 麻豆原创 to be there for them. Whether it鈥檚 through or , customers are working with the same pool of experts that typically process their cases. But we鈥檙e taking this one step further. What if we contacted customers before they even became aware of their problem? We are not only there in real time, but we are also pivoting from reactive support models to predictive and proactive support. The true value of those services lies in our ability to predict and solve customer problems before they cause any business interruption. This is the evolution of our Real-Time Support approach toward delivering better business outcomes.

We can tap into our vast repositories of information to analyze and understand the trends and patterns behind our customers鈥� system and software usage and drive differentiated customer experiences. The vast amounts of data about customer behavior and preferences previously collected but not effectively utilized is the foundation of our . The power behind the data lake, powered with AI, is our ability to incorporate this information into highly personalized customer experiences and learn from the past to predict the future. With access to this valuable knowledge, we will transform the support experience into one where support prevents an issue from becoming a business-impacting event.

Being proactive and preventative is our ultimate vision with Real-Time Support: not only to be there when you need us, but to be there before you even know you need us.

What will be the long-term impact of investing in real-time channels and in proactive, preventative support?

We expect our investments in Real-Time Support to improve our ability to better support the needs of our customers. Many market and industry studies have shown a direct correlation between customer loyalty and customer effort. As we reduce the amount of effort a customer experiences, the more loyal that customer is going to be. This relates to the as described by Gartner. This balance between effort and value becomes more critical with cloud customers. The reason? Cloud customers, unlike traditional IT departments, are business users and end users. We have simplified the interaction and made it easier and simpler for them to interact with support.

In the days of on-premise software, we communicated with IT power users who understood the technology and complications behind it. Those power users knew that a support case could take a few days to resolve. Our cloud customers鈥� expectations are significantly different and, as a result, our services have evolved to cater for these needs in the cloud. This is why Real-Time Support is so critical. It increases the value of solutions by lowering cloud customer effort to obtain them.

The premise of predictive and preventative support is a reduction in customer effort. And if there isn鈥檛 a problem because we resolved it ahead of time, that is the ultimate effortless experience we strive to deliver to our customers. Value and effort are directly correlated: more effort means less value, less effort means more value.

What are some recent enhancements of Real-Time Support?

Adding to the existing portfolio of Real-Time Support channels, we recently introduced . This service is supported by certified, external peers. This is ideal for asking non-critical questions and getting insights from experts outside of 麻豆原创. We initially started with 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors solutions and recently expanded it to include some of our core enterprise resource planning (ERP) and 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform products. We are seeing a lot of momentum building among our customers.

Another enhancement is with . It has been expanded to also include medium-priority tickets for those times where customers need to speak with a manager. And finally, with our migration from our to 鈥�,鈥� the new single-entry point to 麻豆原创 support, the support case creation process can be much easier and powered by cutting-edge technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. This helps reduce the effort of our customers and ultimately provides them with an almost effortless experience.

Can you give us a sneak peek of what we can expect in the future of Real-Time Support?

Let me come back to the point that cloud customers expect a simpler, faster, and effortless experience in interacting with support. One of the key initiatives we鈥檙e working on is with . The basis of Built-In Support is to bring the entire support experience customers know from 麻豆原创 Support Portal or 麻豆原创 ONE Support Launchpad directly into the product. Rather than going to a portal to log a support case, query an existing case, initiate a chat, or search our knowledge base, we鈥檙e putting the power and full functionality of 麻豆原创 support within the product and at the customers鈥� fingertips.

Another aspect of our Real-Time Support approach is the move from the traditional unidirectional support 鈥� of customers reaching out to us when they need us 鈥� to bidirectional support. Not only can we communicate directly with customers, we can give them timely and relevant information about product issues or alerts, upcoming releases, product trainings, or any other information that enhances their experience with support at 麻豆原创. All this information would be relevant to the customer鈥檚 platform, product, or version and curated specifically to their personas. This is how we see 麻豆原创 support in the future: bidirectional, predictive, and effortless.

Follow Mohammed Ajouz on and .
Regina Postman is part of Customer Solution Support and Innovation Communications at 麻豆原创.

麻豆原创 is moving into the second year of its transformation of support. Andreas Heckmann, executive vice president and head of Customer Solution Support and Innovation at 麻豆原创, is excited about all that鈥檚 planned. 鈥淲e鈥檙e making great progress on our comprehensive vision to serve customers better along the entire lifecycle. We look forward to providing an even better experience around customer self-services,鈥� says Heckmann. 鈥淭his year is going to be a year of getting even more prescriptive and offering even more guidance to our customers. Functionality will be substantially expanded with a lot more content added for new products.鈥�

In this conversation, Heckmann gave more details on the goals and progress of this vision.

Q: 麻豆原创 Business Transformation Center will be introduced at this year鈥檚 麻豆原创 Sapphire, held in Orlando, Florida. Can you give details on what鈥檚 planned?

A: Customers will see a first version of what we call 麻豆原创 Business Transformation Center. This is part of the business transformation suite. The focus is to support customers in the planning stage of their 麻豆原创 S/4HANA software transformation. With this, customers can simulate their transformation and plan and anticipate what the transformation could look like when complete. Let me give an example. If a customer says, 鈥淲hat will it look like if we exclude certain company codes or business data?鈥� they will see in real time what this means to the amount of data and information needing to be transformed. The ultimate result is up-front insights that help customers shape and drive their transformation planning.

Can you share what鈥檚 planned around 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM?

We鈥檒l deeply embed business process modeling capabilities of the 麻豆原创 Signavio portfolio in 鈥� our strategic cloud-based platform for customers to manage their entire application lifecycle. Customers can get access to a world-leading business process management solution to discover and adapt 麻豆原创 best practices for accelerated solution delivery. Our focus is to give customers the best possible experience for their business users.

We鈥檙e also extending access to the to our 麻豆原创 Enterprise Support on-premise and cloud edition customers at no extra cost. Our customers can use the solution to help automate testing during their 麻豆原创 projects and validate their business processes when new 麻豆原创 releases are applied to the 麻豆原创 solution landscape. We expect to seamlessly integrate the Tricentis testing capabilities with a fully automated setup within 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM. These cloud-based test automation capabilities will help ease the testing of the 麻豆原创 solutions and help facilitate the adoption of 麻豆原创 cloud product releases.

In a world where we want to innovate and deliver value to end users and customers at an always higher speed, 麻豆原创 and Tricentis are significantly lowering the barrier to test automation. I鈥檓 very satisfied with the great partnership with Tricentis. This unique solution now brings test automation capabilities fully integrated in our business transformation suite for 麻豆原创 Enterprise Support customers.

You mentioned plans for new support functionality. Can you give some examples?

We are reshaping our content and knowledge management strategy to give customers a more robust search experience that leverages artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning optimizations, and analytics functionalities. This search index scans knowledge from many different data sources during a single search. “” will be the main entry point to 麻豆原创 support and for searches. Additional features help us understand and optimize the search and knowledge relevancy at every step of the support journey.

Within , we expect to see progress on the bidirectional dialogue in and 麻豆原创 for Me. This proactive, two-way communication will help keep customers informed about news related to the solutions they are using, alert them to potential issues to watch out for, and deliver support-critical information they need to know.

Furthermore, our focus for Built-In Support is to provide predictive and preventative support. Our biggest wins are when we resolve potential problems without customers even knowing a problem might exist or could have occurred. Our AI services help us continuously improve the quality of real-time recommendations for when customers search for a solution to an issue or create a case for support.

This year, Built-In Support will expand into more 麻豆原创 solutions and will grow the functionality and adoption across our cloud solutions.

There鈥檚 also a lot going on in 麻豆原创 internally as part of the transformation of support that indirectly benefits customers. Can you describe a few of these indirect benefits?

An important internal change is that we鈥檙e increasing our capability of cross-expert interaction. More and more cases require close collaboration of various experts with different knowledge, experience, perspectives, and so on. We鈥檝e introduced an internal framework and technology that lets experts dynamically assemble and quickly collaborate on the same problem. This reduces redundancy, eliminates handover delays, and collapses the time it takes to get experts aligned. That obviously accelerates the resolution substantially for our customers.

We鈥檝e greatly improved the predictive capabilities of our cloud solutions. These predictive capabilities will give us early indications when something isn鈥檛 right. This, in turn, prompts us to start analyzing the situation and take steps to mitigate and resolve issues before the customer even recognizes or experiences problems or service degradation on their end.

These capabilities have been successfully tested and applied to a set of our solutions. This year we鈥檒l extend the reach of these technologies and onboard increasingly more solutions. Plus, we鈥檒l also integrate this more closely into our processes so our experts can respond swiftly to evolving situations.

What suggestions do you have for customers in 2023?

While our focus is to be more prescriptive and provide more guidance to our customers, it鈥檚 important that they also make an effort to stay up to speed on the things we鈥檙e doing. Follow closely on what we鈥檙e doing, embrace the new ideas and improvements, and start consuming them. It鈥檚 my motto to 鈥渄elight customers always,鈥� and we鈥檝e had the customer in mind with all the improvements that we provide and whatever we do.

Customers should talk within their organizations about how they can use all of these improvements. If you have questions, reach out to us. Let鈥檚 explore together how you can make best use of them. At the end of the day, we can invent the best features and options, but if customers stick to their old ways and don鈥檛 embrace new approaches, they鈥檙e missing out on the many benefits that can make their work lives easier. That would be a shame.

Follow Andreas Heckmann on and .
Regina Postman is part of Customer Solution Support and Innovation Communications at 麻豆原创.

When we started to talk, Andreas Heckmann, executive vice president and head of Customer Solution Support & Innovation at 麻豆原创, stated, 鈥淎lthough it was one of the most challenging years in my professional history, it was still a year filled with opportunities. We are seeing traction in the transformation of customer support I described 11 months ago, and we delivered a great amount of product innovations to our customers.鈥�

In this interview, Heckmann gives insight into how the transformation is continuing.

Q: How has 2022 been going for you in the transformation?

A: I鈥檓 proud of the notable, award-winning product releases that are directly relevant to supporting economic needs and helping with sustainability. Take, for example, the solution. We鈥檙e enabling agribusinesses to tap into their vast source of farming data by leveraging data science and machine learning. This farming intelligence helps them leverage processes and services to better forecast and increase farming yields and quality. It will also help them use the right balance of water resources and help keep fertilizer and crop protection to a minimum. This will help agribusinesses play their part in becoming more sustainable and efficient.

Let me also point out the Hasso Plattner Founders鈥� Award-winning . It鈥檚 helping prevent pharmaceutical drug counterfeiting by enabling traceability and verification of products. With an estimated 50% or more of drugs in Africa being counterfeit, this product is definitely helping businesses to protect their intellectual property and, more importantly, people鈥檚 health and lives.

Another exciting sustainability-focused app release this year is the . In this project, we developed a solution extension to help neutralize carbon emissions. Our customers can access data collected from business travel and consider ways to watch their carbon footprint.

All of these solutions make me proud of our Customer Solution Support & Innovation organization and underscores the many ways we have our customers鈥� goals and priorities front of mind.

With 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM being available for a while now, how do you see it being taken up?

is the strategic platform to help customers manage their entire application lifecycle, both on premise and in the cloud. We will close out this year seeing quite an amazing uptake and increasingly more customers using the solution to help implement and operate their cloud and hybrid environments. There鈥檚 a big uptake on 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM, with functions being used more intensely for managing project teams and business processes. And it鈥檚 also getting third-party products integrated to give customers even more access to content such as guidance, tools, and checklists for their implementation projects and operations.

What progress are you making around Real-Time Support during this transformation?

We鈥檙e seeing momentum in continuously transforming the support experience for customers towards a more personalized and preventative experience. This could be when they search for a support answer in or , or when they report an issue. At the beginning of this year, we received a for the innovative way we鈥檙e capturing our customer problems in a structured and guided fashion. It鈥檚 what we call support assistant. This assistant guides customers through the process of logging an incident. Machine learning functionality suggests answers from our knowledge repositories along the way. Often the answer is found in the first bunch of suggestions and no incident needs to be created.

If no answer can be provided instantaneously, the incident information collected is packaged for a support engineer to process further during a or a scheduled appointment. We found that real-time interactions get completed on average within 30 minutes and two of every three issues are solved in the first chat. And these interactions support nine different languages, allowing for multi-language dialogues in real time. For either way the customer decides to go, the support assistant and help customers get their issues resolved much more quickly and efficiently.

Now imagine, we鈥檙e already working on the next generation of the entire support experience for customers to look forward to. With Built-In Support, we鈥檙e making significant progress as the tool for continuous two-way dialogue with customers. It鈥檚 our goal to proactively notify customers about critical issues or relevant new features and to take care of any potential problem before a customer becomes aware of it. We鈥檙e also eagerly awaiting the go-live of our new customer facing portal, 麻豆原创 for Me, with its completely redesigned user experience.

麻豆原创 is getting into customer-centric observability. What does this mean?

Customers trust us with their critical business processes. Service availability is the foundation of that trust and naturally a prime topic for us. We see it as a prerequisite for customer success. A focus of our transformation is to become more predictive and proactive. It鈥檚 what we鈥檙e calling customer-centric observability. This is a methodology that focuses on observing real user experience and outcomes to get advanced warnings ahead of customer-reported incidents and to quickly react upon them. By monitoring 1.5 billion system actions daily, we鈥檙e proactively watching for potential issues and preventing them from happening.

What can we expect for 2023?

Personally, I’m excited to see the launch of the bi-directional dialogue in Built-In Support and 麻豆原创 for Me. This means customers can look forward to getting an even better support experience in 2023. In addition, they should expect to get significantly improved results and optimized recommendations when searching for solutions or creating incident tickets for support. Plus, there will be more times when potential problems are resolved without customers even knowing any problems existed. While we will certainly not be done next year, given all we鈥檝e planned for our customers, I鈥檓 confident that we鈥檒l already begin reaping the harvest.

Follow Andreas Heckmann on and .
Regina Postman is part of Customer Solution Support & Innovation Communications at 麻豆原创.

Let me describe three big examples of innovation developed to make your lives easier: continuous updates that are no longer disruptive to the business; artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning that produce more precise search results; and real-time support at your fingertips that is built into your application.

Continuous Updates That Are No Longer Disruptive

System updates are important as they provide new or improved functionality, enhance stability and security, and enrich the user experience. However, what鈥檚 been a challenge in the past for on-premise software is the downtime, test efforts, and spike in system issues that often followed a bigger release cycle. For cloud solutions, you should 鈥� and already can 鈥� expect ready-to-use, manageable updates with minimum disruption.

With the , our application lifecycle management platform developed on 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform (麻豆原创 BTP), we solved that issue by introducing 鈥渄eploy with confidence鈥� as a new way of how we develop this solution. Deploy with confidence works to increase developer productivity and helps ensure high quality while delivering daily system updates. From a technical side, it incorporates many development tools to help automate the daily deliveries of multi-microservice software-as-a-service applications like 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM.

All this allows us to provide regular feature updates to 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM with daily deployment and enables a robust lifecycle without disruption or downtime. Additionally, as our teams are in continuous exchange with customers using 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM, we can quickly bring their feedback into the solution to further improve our software quality. Introducing deploy with confidence as the development method for 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM is a great example where we as a team leveraged innovation to increase productivity and quality while at the same time lifting customer experience to a whole new level.

AI and Machine Learning: More Precise Search Results

Continuous updates are one thing. What about using technology to get answers faster? With companies working in a faster-paced digital world, making decisions and finding answers also need to move faster. This is also the case when business processes aren鈥檛 running as expected.

Think about yourself and if you are someone who prefers to find answers on your own and not wait on support to respond. You鈥檒l be happy to know we have various ways to help you find the right answer. When you search in or 鈥�,鈥� you can get an increasingly personalized search experience that considers the topics most relevant for you. As this applies machine learning to improve search relevance and we are continually optimizing our knowledge base for better discoverability, you鈥檙e more likely to get the needed answer instantaneously 鈥� listed as a proposed solution within the first bunch of search results.

When you actually contact 麻豆原创 support directly, your request and all of its context, such as system and product information, text input, and soon even attachment data, are evaluated in real time by a highly optimized, AI-powered algorithm to provide you with precise solution recommendations. This Incident Solution Matching algorithm helps to make sure you are shown the best available solutions even before you send a ticket to 麻豆原创 or start an Expert Chat session. This helps reduce your effort to solve the problem.

Real-Time Support and Answers at Your Fingertips

It鈥檚 definitely an advantage to tap into modern technology for finding the answers you need. How about the convenience behind it and having answers at your fingertips? One of the things we鈥檝e learned from research and talking with customers is how annoying it can be when you must drop everything you were doing and leave your IT workspace to raise a ticket in a central support portal. This meant you would need to rethink what you were doing when the issue came up and where it happened. Plus, you needed to enter all the contextual information the portal doesn鈥檛 have, such as the system where it happened or the application you were using when running into problems.

We鈥檝e made this obsolete and convenient: is available in many of our cloud solutions and can be used right away, if needed. It鈥檚 a click of a button to ask a question, search for solutions, get tailored recommendations for your problem, or to just report an issue. Built-In Support knows where you were working when the issue came up and what you were doing when you got the error message. Through the usage of AI and machine learning technologies, the tool either already finds possible answers while you are typing in your issue, or it pulls together the necessary information for the support engineer. This is a more personalized support experience tailored to your specific situation. How convenient to not need to post a ticket elsewhere or explain your situation.

And even better, this click can get you connected in a or a scheduled appointment with a support expert. You can more quickly describe and resolve your question or problem 鈥� avoiding the ping-pong back-and-forth happening through a traditional ticket resolution. Talk about a way to free up time and resources to focus on the business.

On top of this, Built-In Support will evolve towards bi-directional communication: if there鈥檚 a brand-new solution to a critical issue in the application you are currently working with, why not get it shared with you right away? And if there is supporting information around a new or changed feature in the app you might have questions about, why not see it published proactively before you run into problems? This is exactly the future-looking direction of Built-In Support. Tailored to every screen of your application, it can proactively provide you answers and solutions and not wait until you run in to a problem and need to report it. Built-In Support is ending the one-way communication. If we know a customer has a problem but isn鈥檛 yet aware of it, we鈥檒l proactively take care of it.

In Summary

All this sounds smart, right? Let me summarize my key messages to you. You鈥檝e learned that 麻豆原创 system updates are important as they bring you new functionality, but they don鈥檛 need to be disruptive. Finding answers to your support problems is just as quick as what you know from a regular Web search. And finally, you鈥檒l experience the convenience of having support at your fingertips and getting your support questions and issues quickly worked out without needing to leave the application you are working in.

I hope I got you excited about some of the existing support innovations that will further improve your support experience. And we鈥檙e not stopping there. We鈥檙e already working on more great things.

Andreas Heckmann is executive vice president of Product Engineering and head of Customer Solution Support and Innovation at 麻豆原创. Follow him on and .