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How to Effectively Collect and Act on Employee Feedback to Improve the Employee Experience for Retail
In the retail industry, customer experience depends on customer interactions with employees.
Consequently, employee experience is a paramount concern for management. So, how can we enrich your employee experience?
The answer lies in effectively collecting and leveraging employee feedback.
This article will feature the practical and technical aspects of this feedback collection. You’ll learn about the necessary tools and research methodologies.
By using the feedback strategies laid out here, you will be well on your way to creating an enhanced retail environment where employees are motivated, customers are satisfied, and your business thrives.
1. Foster a Feedback Culture
Before you can collect employee feedback, you must create an environment where people feel like their voices matter.
Building an environment where feedback is encouraged means it has to be more than just a one-off survey.
Feedback must be normal and seamlessly integrated into your company's culture and daily operations.
Encourage your employees to freely share their thoughts, ideas, and areas of concern. This can be achieved by establishing open communication channels, such as weekly team meetings, suggestion boxes, or an online feedback platform.
It's crucial that employees feel safe and comfortable giving feedback. This means ensuring there is no fear of retribution or negative consequences for speaking the truth.
Encourage honesty and transparency by ensuring anonymity or confidentiality if requested.
Building a positive feedback culture is not an overnight task. It requires time, patience, and continuous effort from management and employees. However, management must take the lead. Invest in training focusing on communication, empathy, and constructive feedback to foster a more open and supportive environment.
By creating a culture that not only welcomes but also acts on feedback, you're setting the stage for an enhanced retail environment. Always remember, your employees are your first customers. If they're satisfied, your customers will be too.
2. Define Goals and Metrics
Collecting employee feedback should always be guided by clearly defined goals and metrics.
First, identify what the feedback will be used for—is it to inform changes in company policy, direct HR initiatives, or employee training programs, or perhaps to address different areas?
Once your objectives are clear, set up specific, measurable goals. Create metrics to track the progress and effectiveness of your feedback-collecting efforts.
Consider these potential metrics:
Employee Happiness Index: This metric attempts to measure employee satisfaction within your workplace. It can be obtained through regular surveys, asking employees to rate their happiness on a scale. Ask questions covering diverse areas like work-life balance, relationships with peers and managers, and personal growth opportunities.
Retention Rate: A high retention rate is a strong indication of a positive work environment. Tracking this metric over time can help you understand the impact of your initiatives on employee satisfaction and loyalty.
Productivity Metrics: Increased productivity is often a positive outcome of an improved employee experience. There are various ways to measure productivity, such as tracking hours worked versus tasks completed or looking at sales figures or customer satisfaction ratings.
Once your goals and metrics are finalized, it's crucial to decide on your research methodologies. Will you use surveys, interviews, focus groups, or perhaps a combination of these? Your methodology should align with your goals and the type of data you need to collect, and consider the integration of data integration tools where appropriate.
Always remember the ultimate goal of collecting and acting on feedback is to enhance the employee experience. This, in turn, positively impacts customers, leading to a thriving retail business.
3. Choose a Methodology
Now that we've firmly established the importance of setting clear goals and selecting appropriate metrics, it's time to dive into the next critical step: choosing a methodology for feedback collection.
Different methods cater to different needs, and understanding their strengths and weaknesses is key to picking the most effective approach for your retail business. Let’s dive in.
Survey Method
Surveys are a popular method for collecting employee feedback due to their efficiency and ease of use.
They enable you to collect quantitative data from a large group of employees at once. This may include metrics like job satisfaction, work-life balance, or perspective on company policies.
Using online survey tools allows you to distribute surveys easily and anonymize responses. As a result, you’ll encourage honesty among respondents. However, surveys may not capture the depth of an employee's feelings or experiences due to their limiting responses to numbers and scores.
Focus Groups
Focus groups offer a more interactive way to collect feedback. They allow for open-ended discussions that may reveal deeper insights into employee concerns, attitudes, and perceptions.
Participants can react to each other's comments, stimulating ideas that may not have surfaced in an individual context.
However, they can be time-consuming and not feasible for larger organizations. It's also crucial to address potential groupthink and ensure a safe space for open dialogue.
One-On-One Interviews
One-on-one interviews provide an opportunity for personal, in-depth conversations. This method allows for a deeper understanding of individual employee experiences and can help uncover nuanced insights.
Interviews can be conducted face-to-face, over the phone, or via video conferencing. They are especially valuable for addressing sensitive topics that employees may not feel comfortable sharing in a group setting.
However, they are resource-intensive and may not represent the general workforce.
Suggestion Boxes
A classic feedback collection method, suggestion boxes allow employees to anonymously submit their ideas, grievances, or concerns.
This method can encourage candidness as it ensures anonymity. However, feedback is often limited to what the employee chooses to share and lacks the opportunity for immediate follow-up or clarification.
Remember, the choice of methodology should be dictated by your specific goals, the nature of the feedback you're seeking, and the resources available.
You can also combine several methods to get a comprehensive understanding of the employee experience.
4. Tools for Collecting Feedback
Choosing the right tool for collecting feedback is as important as choosing the right feedback-collecting method. The following are some of the most effective tools to make this process seamless while providing valuable insights.
Online Survey Platforms
Online survey platforms have become a cornerstone for collecting employee feedback.
You can use form tools, but your best option is to use a dedicated platform like Workmates by LIKE.TG.
This makes it easy to create and deploy surveys and has robust analysis and reporting features to learn how engaged your retail employees are.
Employee Engagement Software
While online survey platforms are great, you’re best served by more comprehensive tools.
By working with Workmates employee engagement solution, you can not only collect feedback and run surveys but also view results in the context of other work factors.
This tool integrates itself into the whole employee lifecycle, from recruitment to productivity to post-employment offboarding. This means that you have a substantial amount of data across the entire employee lifecycle to help you learn more about their concerns and experiences.
Suggestion Boxes and Open-Door Policies
Traditional methods are still crucial in collecting feedback. A physical or digital suggestion box allows employees to share their thoughts anonymously, encouraging candid feedback.
An open-door policy, on the other hand, sends a clear message to your workforce that their opinions are appreciated and valued, fostering a culture of transparency and mutual respect.
Remember, the key to successful feedback collection is choosing tools that align with your company's needs and culture. Whether you opt for a state-of-the-art software solution or a traditional approach, the goal is to create an environment where employees feel comfortable sharing their insights and experiences.
To learn more about the features and capabilities available in Workmates, download our ebook now.
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5. Ask the Right Questions
Asking the right questions changes everything when collecting employee feedback.
The questions should be open-ended, specific, and directly linked to your goals and metrics.
For instance, if you're trying to gauge the effectiveness of a new management style, a question like ‘How has the new management style affected your daily work?’ would be much more effective than a simple ‘Do you like the new management style?’.
Make your questions specific and relevant. Instead of a broad query such as ‘How do you feel about the company culture?’, ask something like ‘What aspects of our company culture do you believe could be improved for better team collaboration?’. This will give you actionable feedback that goes beyond a mere assessment.
Remember, your goal is to encourage honesty and transparency, so always assure employees that their feedback will remain confidential.
By doing so, you create a safe space for employees to voice their genuine thoughts and suggestions, empowering you with the insights needed to improve and grow as an organization.
6. Analyze and Act on Feedback
Analyzing and acting on the feedback you receive is a crucial step in improving your organization. Here's how to do it effectively:
Organize Your Data: Use tools like Excel or Google Sheets to structure your feedback data for analysis. Categorize feedback based on themes, departments, or specific issues for easy pattern and trend identification.
Identify Patterns and Trends: Dive deep into the organized feedback to find recurring themes or patterns, which can highlight areas for improvement or strengths to be enhanced. You can do this manually and use your intuition to see what emerges.
Engage Experts: If required, involve professionals specializing in data analysis or sentiment interpretation. They offer unbiased views and thorough analysis.
Today, you can easily carry out analysis and reporting with LIKE.TG. We also help with people analytics to show you a deeper picture of your employees' experience throughout our business.
Communicate the Results
Feedback only matters if you use it. What’s important is to communicate the outcomes of your survey, focus group, or open-door interviews to all participants.
This includes not only the employees who provided the feedback but also the management team responsible for actioning the insights.
As a part of this communication process, you should explicitly outline the changes that will be implemented due to the feedback. Whether it's a modification in workflow, introduction of new software, or a shift in company policy, each action plan should be detailed clearly. And explain how these changes will benefit employees.
Communicating your feedback collection results builds trust and shows that your retail business not only values the feedback provided by the employees but also takes concrete actions based on it.
This level of transparency enhances employee morale, encourages participation in future feedback initiatives, and grows your business.
Leverage Feedback and Boost Employee Experiences in Retail
You cannot overestimate the value of employee feedback in the retail sector.
Feedback helps understand your employees' experiences, find areas for improvement, and support strategic decisions that drive business growth.
It also fosters a culture of transparency and collaboration, which results in better employee retention and stronger team dynamics.
So, take action today and collect feedback from employees in your retail business effectively with LIKE.TG!
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How AI Will Improve the Employee Experience
In today's evolving world of work, strong employee experience is one of the key contributors to business success. Organizations that invest in employee experience build a stronger employer brand, which helps them attract and retain the best talents.
According to Qualtrics, only 64% of employees intend to stay at their current organizations, down from 70% in 2021.
This shows that organizations have a long way to go to optimize the employee experience to get more workers to stay with them. Fortunately, advanced technology is available to take the employee experience to the next level.
This article examines how to use AI for employee experience to boost engagement and create a better workplace environment.
Why Employee Experience Matters
How crucial is the employee experience to the success of an organization? Can you ignore the employee experience and still expect to thrive in this day and age?
Definitely not! Organizations that use AI for employee experience understand that the business landscape is very competitive and you need your employees to operate at their best to succeed.
Below are the key scenarios that make investing in the employee experience a wise decision for your organization.
Recruiting
Organizations with a strong employer brand find it easy to attract talent. You create a strong employer brand that increases your hiring competitiveness by prioritizing the employee experience from the onboarding phase to the exit interview.
Employee Retention
Employee turnover is very expensive. Not only are you losing talented individuals who perform critical tasks in the organization, but you’re also losing the investment you made to train and equip them with the right skills for the job.
A positive employee experience is one of the factors that influence employee retention and prioritizing it increases the chances of your best employees staying with you.
Employee Engagement
A superior employee experience is the key to ensuring your employees are engaged. An engaged workforce is motivated to accomplish their goals, thereby increasing the organization’s overall productivity.
Customer Satisfaction
Happy employees often translate into happy customers. Engaged employees provide the best services to customers, leading to greater customer experience and loyalty.
Increased Productivity
Companies that are committed to enhancing the employee experience often experience a significant boost in productivity. This is because employees who are happy at work are willing to go above and beyond, resulting in higher output, improved quality of work, and increased efficiency.
How to Use AI for Employee Experience
Artificial intelligence is a powerful technology that will help you improve your operations when implemented correctly. Below are the top ways to use AI for employee experience.
1. Provide Enhanced Customer Support
The traditional form of customer support places significant strain on your employees. This format requires customer support staff to respond promptly to all questions, issues, and concerns raised by customers.
This can be pretty overwhelming to your employees, especially during busy periods like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Black Friday. Your dedicated team may find themselves exhausted from repeatedly addressing the same inquiries from excited customers who expect instant responses.
AI tools for customer support, like chatbots, can help you lift this burden off your staff to enhance the employee experience. You can create a chatbot to handle routine customer queries and provide quick solutions through AI commenting.
This move not only lightens the load on your employees but also ensures efficient customer service, leading to enhanced customer satisfaction. You can also use an enterprise conversational AI platform to build an AI, train it, and implement AI Assistants to help resolve both customer and employee requests.
Fin by Intercom is an excellent example of an AI chatbot you can use for seamless customer support. The tool uses sophisticated language models to provide conversational answers to customer queries.
When not in a position to answer a question, it escalates the issue to a human agent to ensure customers get the support they need.
Source [Intercom]
Besides Fin, you can consider other AI chatbots for customer support. Here’s a comprehensive list of the best AI chatbots by Attrock that you can use to streamline your customer support and enhance the employee experience.
2. Assistance in Quality Content Creation
To stay relevant and showcase your expertise, you’ll have to create a lot of content. Customers conduct extensive research before making a purchase and you want your content to be a valuable resource as they shop for the products you sell. But you must get ahead of the game with your research and demand forecasting to be able to plan and execute your strategy to meet your customer needs
This demand for content places a significant strain on your employees who not only have to brainstorm relevant ideas but also create high-quality content that resonates with your target audience.
This burden can lead to employee burnout, decreased creativity, and a drop in overall productivity. Fortunately, there’s a way to use AI for employee experience in this regard.
By providing your employees with appropriate AI content marketing tools, they can create more high-quality content quickly and efficiently.
Some of the ways your employees can use AI content tools to increase productivity include:
Repurposing content: After creating a blog post, your content team can use an AI writing tool, like AI for Google Docs and AI paraphrasing to repurpose the article into concise posts for social media. An AI image generator can also be used to create custom images for blog posts and social media content
Video content generation: Rather than spending hours creating videos from scratch, your digital marketers can use AI-text video generators to create simple marketing videos in seconds.
Content optimization: AI tools can analyze your content for SEO and make suggestions to make it more discoverable for search engines.
Data analysis: social media AI tools can also help show you the best times to post for peak engagement and tweak your audience targeting.
Such AI content tools allow your employees to get more work done quickly. This increases their productivity and contributes to a better employee experience.
3. Automate Onboarding
Another effective way to use AI for employee experience is through automated onboarding software. The onboarding process sets the tone for the employee experience for new hires and plays a pivotal role in their long-term satisfaction and productivity.
During this process, the HR must work with the new hire to offer job-specific training, complete tasks, and integrate them into the company culture.
Without the right tools, the onboarding process is often slow and inefficient, leading to delayed productivity and frustrated new hires.
AI allows you to streamline this process to ensure new employees have the support they need to settle into their new roles. Automated onboarding allows you to add specific tasks to a queue and automatically trigger the next event to move the process quickly.
The tools also allow you to customize your onboarding process to individual employees to make new hires feel valued and boost their engagement.
4. Facilitate Learning and Skill Honing
You can also use AI for employee experience by leveraging AI-powered tools to analyze employee performance and offer personalized learning recommendations.
Considering that continuous skill acquisition encourages professional growth, employees want the organizations they work for to provide them with appropriate learning opportunities to help them achieve their career goals.
However, data from a Qualtrics survey shows that only 64% of employees believe their career goals can be met at their current organizations.
To build a stronger employer brand and retain top talent, use AI learning tools to recommend relevant courses that help your employees sharpen their skills in a particular area. This will make it easy for your employees to achieve their career goals, boosting the employee experience.
5. Smart Talent Management
Lastly, organizations can use AI for employee experience to optimize their workplace talent. AI tools can analyze employee data and identify employees who are best suited for a particular task based on past job performance.
This will ensure tasks are assigned to employees with the right skills and experience, thus improving workplace productivity. It also identifies employees who are ready for promotion, enabling you to execute employee recognition and reward performance the right way.
Conclusion
Artificial intelligence is a powerful technology that offers numerous opportunities to improve business processes. Leveraging AI for employee experience is a transformative approach that can foster a more productive and supportive work environment.
From streamlined customer support to optimized talent management, AI opens up many avenues for organizations to use technology to boost employee satisfaction. To use this technology effectively, assess your employee needs and find the right AI tool that solves the challenge you’re facing quickly and efficiently.
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Healthcare Employment Trends: 5 Trends Shaping the Industry
Healthcare professionals and patients are constantly changing as a result of new technologies and innovations. Employment trends within the industry are also changing as these developments result in a growing demand for skills and expertise. Here are five major trends impacting healthcare employment for job seekers and employers alike.
One such trend is the increasing demand for healthcare tech jobs. Technological advancements have created a growing need for professionals who can navigate these technologies and apply them effectively in healthcare. Job openings and skill sets required for these positions have increased, making it an exciting and dynamic sector today.
Another notable trend is the focus on addressing burnout and stress among healthcare professionals. As the industry grapples with ongoing challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic, employee burnout has become a significant concern that must be addressed. This has prompted employers to explore new strategies to attract and retain skilled employees, emphasizing better work-life balance and support structures.
Changes in Patient Care and Access
The healthcare industry has experienced various shifts in patient care and service access. Advancements in technology and changing patient preferences are contributing factors that impact healthcare employment trends.
Telehealth and Telemedicine: Telehealth and telemedicine offer patients greater convenience by allowing them to access medical consultations, diagnoses, and treatments remotely. Moreover, telehealth was proven essential during the COVID-19 pandemic in maintaining patient care while reducing the risk of transmission.
Home-Based Care: Another trend shaping healthcare is the growing popularity of at-home diagnostics and care. Patients appreciate the convenience and safety of receiving medical treatment in their homes rather than traveling to healthcare centers. Home-based care can also be more cost-effective and create a personalized treatment plan for patients with diverse healthcare needs.
Care Delivery Models: New care delivery models include:
Integrated care: Combining primary, secondary, and tertiary care with mental health and social care increases efficiency.
Patient-centered Medical Homes (PCMHs): Patients receive comprehensive and coordinated care focusing on their long-term needs and preventive measures.
Expanded Access to Healthcare: To increase accessibility more outpatient centers and clinics will be built, and services will be offered in nontraditional settings (like schools and workplaces). The healthcare sector may also begin working with other organizations and industries to address social determinants of health, such as affordable housing and food security.
Convenience and Patient Experience: As patients place a higher value on convenience, healthcare providers are working to enhance their services by offering extended hours, online appointment scheduling, and virtual consultations. The patient experience is also a significant focus, with healthcare providers striving to ensure a personalized, efficient, and positive patient experience.
These trends in patient care and access are expected to drive healthcare employment opportunities and shape the industry, ultimately benefiting patients and healthcare providers.
Emerging Technological Trends in Healthcare
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are used to enhance patient care. AI-powered robots increasingly assist surgical procedures and other tasks requiring extreme precision and accuracy. Additionally, machine learning algorithms enable faster and more efficient drug discovery.
Telemedicine and Virtual Care
Telemedicine and virtual care have become essential components of modern healthcare, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Telehealth services offer patients remote access to medical professionals, facilitating consultations and routine check-ups without needing patients and healthcare providers to be physically present. This has significantly expanded the reach of healthcare and made it more accessible to people in remote locations. Telemedicine also reduces the burden on healthcare facilities by enabling remote monitoring and management of chronic disease patients.
One prime example of the growing importance of telemedicine is seen in the increasing demand for healthcare tech jobs, showcasing the need for professionals who can bridge the gap between technology and healthcare.
Wearable Devices and Personal Monitors
Wearable devices and personal monitors in healthcare have seen impressive growth. Patients and healthcare professionals have largely embraced everything from smartwatches and fitness trackers to specialized equipment for monitoring specific health conditions, like blood pressure or glucose levels. By providing real-time data, these devices promote preventative care and personalized health management as they provide patients and healthcare workers with insights into the patient's health. Advancements in wearable technology will play a significant role in remote telehealth and virtual care services by providing crucial data for healthcare providers to monitor patients from afar.
The Impact of the Pandemic on Healthcare Employment
The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on healthcare employment. The healthcare sector witnessed a considerable drop in employment at the beginning of the pandemic but has since largely rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. By October 2023, the health sector added 58,400 jobs over the previous month. Healthcare jobs, however, haven't been distributed evenly across the industry.
The pandemic increased pressure on doctors and nurses, resulting in burnout and stress, highlighting the critical importance of staff engagement in healthcare. Additional challenges have been created for hospitals and patient care, as well as the ongoing nursing shortage. Meanwhile, employment levels remained relatively low in elderly care and skilled nursing facilities.
Wage Increases: As hospitals faced increased demand and staffing challenges during the pandemic, there was an 8.5% increase in average hourly wages for hospital employees between February 2020 and August 2021. This trend will unlikely subside anytime soon, as the demand for experienced healthcare workers remains high.
Shift in Patient Care: Along with employment trends, the pandemic also altered the nature of hospital patient care. Patient acuity increased as the length of hospital stays rose due to the severity of COVID-19 cases. This further intensified the workload and stress on the healthcare workforce, impacting their overall job satisfaction.
Adoption of Healthcare Technology: The healthcare industry saw a surge in the adoption and integration of healthcare technology during the pandemic. Healthcare tech jobs witnessed significant growth as the need for professionals with expertise in data analytics, telemedicine, remote monitoring, and other tech-based solutions increased.
Evolution of Nursing and Medicine
An aging population, technological advances, and patient-centered care require adaptation in nursing and medicine
Aging Population and Home-Based Care: Many older adults need healthcare services tailored to their needs as the global population ages. In response, home-based care has displaced hospital-based care. With their expertise in assessment, management, and care coordination, nurses are essential in providing quality care for older adults. Thus, skilled nurses with senior care experience are in greater demand in home-based care settings.
Personalized Medicine: Medical treatments customized to individual patient's needs based on genetics, lifestyle, and environmental factors. For nurses to effectively integrate these new practices into their daily routines requires additional training and resources.
Mental Health and Preventive Care: Nurses with specialized skills and training in these areas face a unique opportunity for early intervention and prevention of mental health issues, as they are often the first point of contact for patients with these concerns.
Nursing Shortage: Nursing will continue to require more skilled professionals. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests nursing employment will grow by 9% from 2020 to 2030, adding about 276,800 new positions. The growing demand for healthcare services, an aging workforce, and limited capacity in nursing education programs all contribute to this shortage.
The evolution of nursing and medicine has led to several key trends shaping the healthcare employment landscape. These trends, including home-based care, personalized medicine, mental health and preventive care, and the nursing shortage, demand increased training and resources for nurses to adapt and thrive. As healthcare evolves, nurses and other healthcare professionals will be more critical in delivering quality care to patients across various settings.
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Shaping the Future: Opportunities and Shifts in the Healthcare Workforce
Offering new opportunities and reshaping the workforce adapts to changing needs. Providers face many challenges while the workforce pursues exciting innovations and jobs.
One trend driving the industry's transformation is the increasing focus on prevention and population health. This shift has led to a demand for professionals specializing in preventive care, which influences healthcare employment trends.
More emphasis is also placed on creating a culture of care in the healthcare sector. Strategic efforts such as cultivating a culture of care, supporting staff well-being, providing fair compensation, promoting diversity, and creating patient-centric work environments are becoming essential. HR's influence in healthcare plays a vital role in these areas, fostering a healthy and efficient work environment.
Another significant trend is the rise of healthcare tech jobs. Integrating technology into the healthcare industry, such as tailored medication and virtual care, has led to the need for skilled professionals specialized in tech-driven fields like health informatics, telemedicine, and artificial intelligence.
Additionally, upskilling is becoming a sought-after employee benefit in the healthcare industry. As providers strive to stay competitive in a changing market, enhancing their workforce with new skills will be necessary.
Lastly, the growing diversity in patient populations is shaping the healthcare workforce. Emphasis on cultural competency and multilingual capabilities among providers are essential for catering to diverse patient needs.
The healthcare industry is experiencing rapid change, providing exciting opportunities and shifting workforce dynamics. Taking advantage of these trends in innovations and jobs will be vital for providers and employees to truly shape the future of healthcare.
Empowering Healthcare's Future with LIKE.TG
A crucial aspect of addressing these healthcare employment trends is the effective use of human resources tools. LIKE.TG offers tools tailored for healthcare employers that will help you align with industry trends. Leveraging these tools will help you adapt and thrive in an ever-evolving industry.
Employee Engagement: Workmates by LIKE.TG provides a platform for healthcare organizations to launch wellness and engagement programs. Through this tool, healthcare employers can create initiatives promoting work-life balance, mental health, and employee recognition, fostering a more supportive work culture.
Streamlining Recruitment for Tech-Driven Healthcare Roles: As the demand for healthcare tech jobs rises, LIKE.TG's recruitment solutions can streamline attracting, hiring, and onboarding professionals with the required tech expertise. The tools can efficiently manage the influx of applications, helping identify candidates with the specific skill sets needed for these evolving roles.
Facilitating Remote Work and Telemedicine: With the rise of telehealth, LIKE.TG's solutions can support the remote work infrastructure needed by healthcare providers. This includes managing remote teams, ensuring compliance with healthcare regulations, and facilitating seamless communication between healthcare professionals, whether they are in the field or working from home.
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Positive Workplace: Understanding the Impact on Employee Well-being
Ever considered how your employees are doing? Their mood, health, and interest in work really matter for how well they perform. Remember, work and life are connected; if your employees are dealing with health or personal issues, it affects their job.
At the same time, 35% of employees feel stressed due to work, and almost 60% show signs of depression. It's crucial for managers to tackle these challenges. Businesses do need to take proactive steps to ensure andsupport employee well-being.
This article delves into how employee well-being affects the workplace and gives practical tips for keeping your team healthy and happy.
What is employee well-being?
Well-being is basically how someone feels about their health, happiness, and overall satisfaction with life. When we talk about employee well-being, it's all about their life quality at work. This covers their physical, emotional, mental, financial, and social aspects. Why does it matter? Because how your employees feel affects how they do their jobs - how focused, productive, and responsible they are. It's especially crucial in safety-sensitive jobs. For example, overworked workers may make mistakes handling powerful equipment. Employee well-being isn't just a buzzword; it's vital to create a positive and safe environment when ensuring a healthy workplace.
And one more thing: Taking care of your employees isn't just a nice gesture - it's good for your business. When your team is happy and satisfied, they're more likely to be grateful and get more done, which ultimately makes your business more successful.
Why employee well-being matters
Understanding why employee well-being matters is critical. In today's competitive business world, employees often push themselves to the limit - working overtime, working from home, and staying connected. Ironically, this pursuit of success can lead to exhaustion. At the same time, in their rush to focus on improving productivity and efficiency, companies often lose sight of a key factor: employee well-being.
Recent research shows that around 80% of employees are more engaged when companies have effective wellness programs. Additionally, 70% of employees are burnt out or are at risk of it. A whopping 87% believe employers should be more responsive to their needs. These numbers highlight the urgency of prioritizing employee well-being initiatives. And if you need more convincing, let's dive into the specific benefits for companies that care about employee well-being.
Your employees are more engaged
Let's start with the good news according to the Gallups survey: Engaged employees can boost profitability by 23%, increase sales by 18%, and enhance productivity by 14%. Furthermore, engaged employees experience a remarkable 66% improvement in overall well-being. Not only do these individuals find joy and satisfaction at work, they also thrive in their personal lives. They're less stressed, enjoy better health, and feel fulfilled both professionally and personally. Engaged and satisfied employees are an invaluable asset to your organization.
Your employees experience a boost in productivity
Think about how good it feels when you get a good night's sleep or spend time with loved ones without using devices. That refreshed feeling isn't just a feeling - it's backed by science. Research shows that proper sleep and relaxation play a major role in health and productivity. It's not just a vague idea; there's solid evidence that explains how our brains need time to recover and perform well. Getting enough sleep, taking breaks, and minimizing distractions like messages and emails are key to improving employee performance. To keep tabs on this, using employee performance software is a smart move - it helps track and manage the process effectively.
Reduced employee turnover
Research indicates that implementing employee wellness programs can cut turnover by as much as 40%. It's not rocket science - if people feel valued in your company, they're more likely to stay. This saves you from having to deal with sudden layoffs and keeps your budget intact. On the flip side, high turnover leads to increased replacement costs, causing significant financial strain. Losing an employee typically costs around 33% of his or her base salary. Clearly, there's a strong case for businesses to focus on reducing staff turnover, and one effective way is to prioritize employee well-being.
Employees strive to learn and grow
Creating a positive workplace means giving employees the opportunity to learn and grow. A reliable way to get there is to implement a learning analytics platform that is tailored to your business. This software not only helps employees acquire knowledge but also improves the overall efficiency of the organization. By identifying strengths and knowledge gaps, you can strategically manage training programs and ensure that employee learning directly benefits your business in the long run.
Your company offers a positive work environment
A toxic workplace is a major obstacle to employee well-being. It can result from misunderstandings between employees and ineffective management styles and can extend to unpleasant jokes, discrimination, and undue pressure. Research shows that 75% of employees have encountered a toxic workplace, with 87% agreeing it negatively impacts mental health. Ensuring a positive workplace is critical for employers, and can be achieved by gradually introducing employee well-being programs and monitoring their impact. The goal is clear: make a positive difference, enhance well-being, and foster thriving workplaces. Not only does this benefit the business, but it significantly improves people's lives.
How to ensure employee well-being
Fostering employee well-being isn't a quick fix; it's about making consistent, meaningful changes. Here are some steps to reshape your workplace culture, ensuring that employee well-being becomes a top priority.
Cultivate a healthy work environment
A healthy work environment covers many factors, from ergonomic office equipment to the option of taking short naps during the day, which has proven to boost productivity more than continuous mental work. Research indicates that sleep aids in information processing and internalization, while intense mental activity can hinder such outcomes. Many forward-thinking companies prioritize spaces for rest and exercise to enable employees to switch modes, fostering better health, happiness, and increased productivity.
Offer flexible working hours
When it comes to employee preferences for flexible work schedules, studies vary:
65% prefer to work remotely all the time;
73% want flexibility in working hours;
83% prefer a hybrid model.
What's clear is that employees around the world value the ability to work remotely or to combine office-based and home-based work. In addition, 99% and 90% respectively believe that remote work options would improve their mental and physical health. By 2025, 80% of businesses are expected to move to more flexible work schedules.
Help your team grow
People enjoy their jobs more when they feel valued, recognized, and have opportunities to grow. Offering training options is key to keeping employees happy. When they can learn and grow, they're more likely to be engaged and stay. On the other hand, if there are no opportunities to grow or learn within the company, employees may choose to leave. That's why providing training, using tools like the aforementioned LAP or custom onboarding software, is critical.
To promote employee well-being, consider these steps as well:
Provide your team with the right tools.
Implement policies that prioritize employee well-being.
Tailor workloads to individual needs, health, and emotions.
Foster a culture of transparency.
Maintain a clear view of well-being indicators so that managers and leaders can intervene when needed.
Harness the power of employee well-being
Understanding the significance of employee well-being isn't just a trend; it's a must. Begin with small steps - offer flexible hours, shorter workweeks, counseling, or fitness perks. Gradually, your company culture will shift toward prioritizing employee well-being. Taking care of your employees will pay off with a healthy team atmosphere, unity, engagement, and ultimately, increased productivity and profits.
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How Off-Sites Increase Employee Satisfaction and Productivity
Amid the hustle and bustle of the modern workplace, the nostalgia for genuine work friendships and a harmonious, productive environment is palpable.
One way of rekindling these bonds and optimizing productivity is hosting off-sites, maybe once or twice a year.
Off-sites offer a unique blend of professional development and team-building, often in inspiring locations away from the daily workstations.
They provide a refreshing change of scenery and activities, away from the familiar office walls.
Curious to know how off-sites increase employee satisfaction and productivity?
Well, we've done all the work and come up with 7 ways off-sites can achieve just that.
Want to know them?
Keep reading!
7 Ways Off-Sites Increase Employee Satisfaction and Productivity
Off-site activities and programs can significantly improve employee satisfaction and productivity.
That said, here are seven relevant ways in which they can achieve this:
1. Improve Team Bonding
Off-sites are a catalyst for strengthening team bonding, as they create an environment that encourages employees to interact and collaborate in a more relaxed and informal setting.
It fosters better relationships among team members, improves employee engagement, and increases employee productivity.
So, how does team bonding improve employee satisfaction and productivity?
Enhanced trust: Interactions outside the office foster trust, laying the foundation for more effective collaboration by reducing fear and judgment.
Improved communication: Off-sites encourage open and honest communication, resulting in clearer workplace interactions and more efficient problem-solving.
Boosted morale: Strong team bonds contribute to higher employee morale, which translates to a more positive work attitude.
Increased productivity: Well-bonded teams tend to be more productive, completing tasks efficiently and reducing resource wastage.
2. Reduce Stress Levels
Stress is a major concern in today's fast-paced work environments. Imagine the peak stress your team might experience during the tax season. Long working hours and workload can stress out the best of employees.
In fact, studies have shown that in 2022, a staggering 80% of employees in Germany reported high or moderate stress levels, with a similar 66% of employees in the Netherlands facing the same challenges.
Time spent away from the typical office environment during off-site can have a profound impact on reducing employee stress levels and, in turn, lead to improved well-being.
Here's how:
Taking employees out of their everyday work setting provides a welcome break from the demands and pressures of their roles.
This respite from the usual hustle and bustle allows individuals to unwind and recharge, leading to a significant reduction in stress.
The change of scenery, coupled with engaging activities or relaxation, creates a mental shift, enabling employees to disconnect from work-related stressors.
As a result, employees experience:
Decreased burnout and a sense of revitalization.
Improved physical and mental health
Increased job satisfaction
Higher overall well-being
Ultimately this fosters a more productive and motivated workforce. Employees return to work feeling re-energized, focused, and ready to tackle challenges with a refreshed perspective.
3. Employees Develop New Skills
Some off-site activities often include structured training and workshops, enabling employees to acquire new skills and knowledge that they can apply directly to their roles. According to Attrock, providing training to improve employees’ skills helps boost productivity.
Here’s an image showcasing main areas of workplace training you can focus on during training and workshops. According to the study, leadership and management is being considered as the main aspect of workplace training.
When employees develop new skills through off-sites, several positive outcomes occur such as:
They become better equipped to handle their job responsibilities, resulting in improved task execution and efficiency.
Increase in confidence, as employees feel more capable in their roles, which, in turn, positively impacts their job satisfaction.
Fosters a culture of continuous learning within the organization.
This sends a powerful message to employees that their professional growth is valued, contributing to their overall job satisfaction and engagement.
They are more likely to feel invested in their careers and the company's success. As employees become more skilled and confident, they can tackle challenges and assignments with a higher level of expertise and efficiency. That ultimately improves employee engagement and the overall productivity of the organization.
4. Enhance Creativity
The change of scenery and break from routine inspires fresh ideas and fosters innovative thinking which ultimately leads to improved problem-solving and creativity.
Off-sites enhance creativity by offering employees a different environment that breaks them free from the constraints of their usual workspace.
This change in scenery stimulates new thought patterns and encourages individuals to think outside the box.
But that’s not all.
Collaborative activities and brainstorming sessions at off-sites often generate a mix of diverse perspectives, which can result in the creation of innovative solutions.
Enhanced creativity not only benefits employees but also the organization as a whole.
It fosters a sense of accomplishment, boosting employee morale and job satisfaction.
Leads to more efficient and effective work processes, increasing productivity.
Innovative ideas and solutions contribute to a more competitive and successful organization, enhancing employee satisfaction.
Creates a stimulating and engaging environment, improving overall job satisfaction.
What’s more?
Creative solutions can lead to improved products, processes, and services, directly impacting the organization's productivity and competitiveness.
5. Encourage Employee Feedback
Off-sites can serve as platforms for soliciting employee feedback and ideas for process improvement.
During off-sites, employees are often provided with opportunities to voice their opinions, concerns, and suggestions in a more relaxed and open setting.
This environment encourages candid discussions that may not occur within the confines of the workplace.
Employees feel heard, respected, and valued when their feedback is not only welcomed but actively sought.
Listening to employee feedback:
Enhances their sense of value and engagement, boosting job satisfaction.
Fosters a culture of open communication and collaboration, leading to higher job satisfaction.
Encourages ownership and accountability among employees, further motivating them to perform their best.
Fosters trust, which in turn positively impacts teamwork and overall productivity.
Here’s an image showcasing more benefits of employee feedback:
In addition, you can introduce a structured and user-friendly approach to gathering suggestions, concerns, and innovative ideas from your workforce.
You can do so by leveraging employee advocacy tools like Workmates by LIKE.TG. Such tools provide a platform for employees to express their thoughts, making them an integral part of the organization's decision-making process.
6. Improve Conflict Resolution
Off-sites provide a unique opportunity to focus on enhancing conflict resolution skills within the team.
Through workshops, discussions, and practical exercises, employees can learn effective methods of employee conflict resolution.
Here’s an image showcasing some of the conflict resolution strategies you can teach your employees.
So, how does improved conflict resolution increase employee satisfaction and productivity?
Reduced workplace tension: Conflict resolution training helps employees navigate disagreements with less stress and hostility. A reduction in workplace tension leads to a more comfortable and enjoyable working environment, increasing job satisfaction.
Faster issue resolution: Enhanced conflict resolution skills mean that issues and disputes are resolved more swiftly. This prevents prolonged conflicts from negatively affecting productivity.
Improved team dynamics: Teams that handle conflicts effectively tend to have stronger and more harmonious working relationships. Enhanced teamwork contributes to increased job satisfaction and collective productivity.
All of these factors collectively contribute to higher employee satisfaction and enhanced productivity.
7. Reinforce Positive Company Culture
During off-sites, employees engage in team-building activities, workshops, and shared experiences.
These events create lasting memories and shared narratives that foster a sense of togetherness and reinforce the company's values and mission.
You can use the off-site photos to showcase positive moments and camaraderie on your websites and social media. This not only highlights the organization's commitment to its employees but also projects a welcoming and inclusive culture to the public.
In addition, you can ask your employees to write glowing testimonials and reviews about their experiences on Google. You can then embed Google reviews on your website. giving potential clients, partners, and future employees insights into the positive experiences of current employees.
So, how can positive company culture improve employee satisfaction?
A positive company culture fosters a sense of belonging, increasing job satisfaction.
Positive company culture reduces turnover, preserving knowledge and boosting efficiency.
A culture of respect and trust results in a happier and more engaged workforce.
Final Thoughts
Off-sites increase employee satisfaction and productivity by providing a unique platform for skill development, improved team dynamics, enhanced communication, and the nurturing of a positive company culture.
This lasting increase in job satisfaction and productivity is a transformative force in the workplace.
Hopefully, the insights above have inspired you to recognize the potential of off-sites in your company.
Host off-sites and watch your organization and its people flourish, creating a more harmonious and productive work environment for everyone.
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5 Types of HR Tech That Deliver the Most Time Savings for Busy HR Teams
HR departments around the world are facing a series of challenges. The past few years of economic turmoil and the dynamics of the pandemic have changed workplace expectations on many fronts. This has left HR personnel struggling to adapt to a new range of unfamiliar issues while trying to keep up with the demands of core HR functions.
According to a 2023 Gartner survey, 80% of HR leaders say they are facing different challenges to those they encountered pre-COVID-19, with 55% fielding more employee requests on a wider variety of topics, and 45% agreeing that it’s gotten harder to juggle conflicting priorities.
Many of these new issues are related to employee mental health and employee relations (ER) in general. Research carried out by Wade Macdonald found that 47% of senior HR stakeholders are dealing with far more ER issues than pre-pandemic, with the rise in grievances about mental health and wellbeing, as well as those relating to hybrid or remote working, comprising the majority of the new burden.
Not surprisingly, this surge in challenges and leap in unfamiliar situations is exacting a toll on HR personnel. Gartner notes that 71% of respondents report a greater degree of burnout among their staff, and over half saw increased difficulty in retaining and recruiting HR employees.
HR leaders are seeking solutions to the crisis in the making, and their main address is HR tech. Technologies for HR teams have developed significantly in recent years, delivering time-savings and boosting efficiency for a number of vital HR tasks, helping human employees to get more done, and freeing them to dedicate more time to issues that only they can resolve.
Here, we explore HR technology to reveal five essential solutions crafted to provide significant time savings for HR professionals immersed in their daily tasks.
1. ATS Platforms
Applicant Tracking System, or ATS, platforms, assist HR teams in navigating the complex and often frustrating process of recruiting and hiring. They automate recruitment workflows to save time on repetitive tasks like posting jobs; increase efficiency in filtering candidates; and ultimately improve compliance. ATS systems assign tasks and timeframes, monitor the recruiting funnel, and point you to the best sources for quality candidates to improve your candidate pipeline.
LIKE.TG’s Recruit ATS allows HR personnel to push a single job posting to multiple job boards, create customized application portals, and send personalized emails or text messages to numerous applicants at once. The system collects and organizes applicant data, tracks interactions, and delivers easy-to-read reports, so you can see candidate information and assess suitability in a single interface.
2. Employee Onboarding Tools
Employee onboarding tools smooth the tedious process of collecting employee data and onboarding new hires into your tech stack and work processes. An automated, cloud-based platform like LIKE.TG’s Onboard allows new hires to self-onboard through a personalized portal. It guides them through the process of completing forms and understanding employee management software, freeing HR for other tasks, and empowering new hires.
Instead of repeating information on multiple paper forms, Onboard can pull data from the recruitment platform into the employee management system, reducing the risk of manual errors and saving time. With a digitized process, including approval workflows and checklists, there’s much less chance that something could be overlooked.
3. Payroll Apps
Payroll is famously time-consuming, and it’s only becoming more so with the rise of hybrid, remote, and flex working. Cloud-based payroll automation solutions take over the grind of gathering and verifying data about hours worked, time off, overtime, and more, by pulling information from integrated HR systems.
Automating payroll brings more accuracy to complex calculations about deductions, shift tallies, and bonuses. Payroll apps can automatically apply wage compliance rules, increasing trust in HR and saving HR employees from complicated, and often confusing, calculations. They also can handle payments and tax reporting, slashing the time that employees have to wait before they get their paycheck and increasing tax compliance.
4. Performance Review Platforms
Performance management is notoriously sensitive and tedious, but performance review platforms like LIKE.TG’s Perform can help. Performance management software can automate tasks like gathering data and feedback, setting and measuring progress toward goals, and producing clear reports on individual, team, and organizational levels.
With tools like Perform, it’s possible to customize evaluation templates to make them more relevant and informative, and invite employees to set and check off their own goals, increasing their sense of being heard. Once performance review is automated and streamlined, it can be conducted on an ongoing basis rather than intermittently, which delivers more support for employees and opens up better visibility into performance trends.
5. HR Financial Planning Tools
Instead of using manual data entry and multiple spreadsheets to create and manage budgets, track expenses, forecast needs, and allocate resources, HR teams can automate it with HR financial planning tools. This enhances accuracy and significantly reduces the time spent on administrative budget management.
In addition, HR financial planning software offers real-time insights into key financial metrics, making it easy to monitor labor costs, recruitment expenses, and other expenditures. This allows for informed decision-making and headcount spend optimization, enabling better alignment between HR strategies and broader organizational goals. By providing a comprehensive view of HR financial data, these tools empower teams to operate more efficiently and allocate resources more strategically.
The Right HR Tools Can Rescue HR Teams
For overstretched HR teams juggling increased employee expectations in a transformed workplace, HR tech can be a lifesaver. Automating routine tasks frees them from activities that can’t be delegated to software, and reducing the stress of overwork means they have more energy to dedicate to complex or sensitive situations. When it comes to HR, automation is quickly becoming a must-have.
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How using LIKE.TG can financially boost communication service providers
A commissioned Forrester TEI Study reveals the numbers behind good customer serviceAre you having difficulty achieving or even tracking your SLAs? Are your agents spending too much time on the phone answering routine questions? Does your organization have critical information scattered across multiple support platforms?If you’re nodding yes to any of these, you’re not alone. Many communication service providers (CSPs) and other businesses around the world are struggling to provide a cohesive experience that gives customers what they want—quickly, simply, and efficiently.Problems that can be solved with the right infrastructure and managementCustomers get frustrated when they need to repeat information, as they are handed from one agent (and probably one platform) to another. And they get irritated when their issues aren’t resolved right away. Furthermore, agents get tired of wasting time and apologizing for problems created by siloed information and systems that are no fault of their own.These are problems that can be solved with the right service infrastructure and management, and we all know that when customer service is done right, it can generate a lot of upside. However, organizations often struggle to quantify what that may mean. Fortunately, a recent Forrester Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study[1] commissioned by LIKE.TG identifies real numbers around the financial benefits of using LIKE.TG® Customer Service Management at a CSP.A peek at a provider’s ROI when they invest in great customer serviceIn an on-demand webinar, guest speaker Sean Owens, Principal Consultant of the Total Economic Impact Practice for Forrester Consulting, provided a sneak peek of the study’s findings. By viewing the webinar, you will learn how a global Tier 1 operator quantified the return on investment (ROI) they realized by using LIKE.TG Customer Service Management to transform their service infrastructure.This webinar will also provide you with a framework for evaluating the potential impact of deploying the LIKE.TG solution for your own organization. You may be surprised by all the different benefits an exceptional customer experience can deliver. Here are a few:Reducing costsThe consolidation of service platforms and knowledge repositories can enable you to:
Achieve transparency
Accelerate time to resolution
Increase agent productivity
Reduce a reliance on multiple, costly legacy systems
The webinar will show you how these improvements can be quantified from a financial perspective and what they were worth (in the millions) over a three-year span for a communication service provider. Plus, you’ll learn what you can save just by delivering on service-level agreements (SLAs) and avoiding penalties.Using customer service to develop upsell opportunitiesYou may know that the right customer service solution can save your organization millions in ongoing support costs, but it can also help you generate income. Here’s the proof: the CSP in the study realized $2.1 million over three years in additional revenue. See how the CSP capitalized on opportunities to sell enhanced services and packages that provided additional value to the customer and additional revenue per user (RPU) to their business.Remembering unquantified benefits.While the webinar covers all the financial benefits associated with LIKE.TG Customer Service Management, there are also many intangible benefits that can be attained when you are able to deliver an exceptional, unified experience from end to end.For example, the provider in the study saw a 26-point improvement in their Net Promoter Score® (NPS) [1] for the business, thanks in part to the ease of self-service, faster resolution times, and consistent contact with a single agent they were able to offer. On the flip side, agent satisfaction also went up because agents were able to quickly and easily access all the case information they needed and weren’t bogged down by routine issues.Get all the insightsWatch the webinar and you’ll learn all the details on the hard, quantifiable benefits that transforming your customer service infrastructure may bring, as well as the other, more intangible results you could realize.[1] Net Promoter, Net Promoter System, Net Promoter Score, NPS and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.
Communication service providers in the time of COVID-19
Think about it. Without the efforts of communication service providers (CSPs) who handled a massive surge in traffic patterns, it would be much more difficult to work from home, learn online, or binge Tiger King. However, while they rose to the challenge, it also exposed the need for more agility in communications operations, sparking a renewed focus on the need for service transformation.Going forward, CSPs need to find a way to be more flexible, while simultaneously reducing costs in reaction to a slowing economy. And they will have to do it in a way that delivers an improved experience for agents, operations teams, and customers.Connecting the customer, the care, and the NOCThe challenge today is to create proactive service experiences that connect the customer, the care organization, and the network operations center (NOC).Imagine you’re an enterprise CIO during a major outage. The last thing you want is to be in the dark, unsure of what’s going on and when the outage will be resolved.Now imagine that the moment an outage occurs you immediately receive a text message with information on when it will be restored and any workarounds you can put in place. If you do contact customer care, you get quick answers and an estimated time for a fix. Meanwhile, within the operator, the NOC team can manage the affected services and track the SLA burn as they resolve the outage.This is a perfect example of a proactive service experience, and it is quickly becoming the gold standard for successful telecommunications companies. It can only be done when the NOC, with its context from network monitoring and network inventory data, can provide the relevant outage information to customer care, who can then use it it to alert the customer in real time.
New products make it possibleAt LIKE.TG it is our mission to create these amazing, proactive, and connected service experiences. Which is why I’m so excited to introduce two new telecommunications products, Telecommunications Service Management and Telecommunications Network Performance Management, which will be generally available later this year.Built on the Now Platform®, the products will extend LIKE.TG’s capabilities in customer service and network operations with new telecommunications-specific apps for Proactive Customer Care and Automated Service Assurance. Product highlights include:
End-to-end telecommunications service workflows will enable service providers to manage network and customer-initiated changes and troubles across services, automate issue resolution, and keep customers informed in their channel of choice.
TMForum Open API-based OSS integrations and event correlation capabilities will help service providers quickly identify network issues and the associated service and customer impacts for faster resolution.
eBonding will enable service providers to offer a direct connection for their enterprise customers, delivering a superior experience at a significantly reduced cost.
Together, these products can help pivot the experience from reactive to proactive and connected. The result? Significantly reduced costs in terms of call avoidance, and flexibility for the future as customers migrate to SDN and 5G-based services.It’s a win for everyone—the customer, the agent, and the CSP. Welcome to the future of digital workflows for the communications industry.Use of Forward–Looking StatementsThis blog contains “forward–looking statements” regarding our expectations, future plans and performance. Forward–looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are based on potentially inaccurate assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expected or implied by the forward–looking statements. If any such risks or uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions prove incorrect, our results could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward–looking statements we make. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in any forward–looking statements include: (i) delays and unexpected difficulties and expenses in making generally available the telecommunications products, (ii) uncertainty whether sales of such products will justify these investments and (iii) changes in the regulatory landscape relevant to enterprises operating in the telecommunications industry. We undertake no obligation, and do not intend, to update these forward–looking statements
The Keys to Unlocking Growth in Telecom
The telecom industry is seeing major growth but also big shakeups. Communication Service Providers (CSPs) are transforming from only being providers of communication and data services into essential business partners, co-innovating with their customers while providing an increasing number of value-added services such as multi-cloud, the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, mission-critical applications and cybersecurity. For both mobile and fixed operators, the complexity of service delivery on their networks continues to increase and customers are demanding more than ever before.CSPs are responding by revamping and rebuilding their portfolios and offerings to enable fluid, digital experiences. Leading operators are taking this further not just to survive but thrive in this new landscape. While laying this digital foundation, they are also focusing on strategic areas to unlock competitive differentiation and growth, starting with transforming their customer experiences.Here are some of the keys to help CSPs unlock growth.Connecting the organization and channelsOne of the most significant problems in current CSP customer experiences is that disconnected departments and systems prevent the delivery of exceptional customer service. Without a complete picture of a customer’s product and service usage, operational performance, service interactions, and related information, issue resolution slows, and customer satisfaction remains low.No customer wants to be in the dark, and no operator wants to find itself in the cross-hairs of regulators with impacted services magnified by a poor response. Take, for example, a network outage that affects a coverage area. With centralized visibility and operational insights:
The Network Operations Center (NOC) and dispatched field service team can update the issue and the estimated time to resolution (TTR)
Using this information customer teams can pro-actively notify their impacted subscribers across multiple channels based on established escalation processes
Customers are able to prepare and plan appropriately
Customer service benefits from reducing inbound calls
A connected organization improves the overall issue resolution experience for customers, ensuring better preparedness and the ability to reduce the impact of operational issues.Operators are in a 24x7 business and staff must be ready around the clock to support their users. Best in class operators are connecting workflows across departments, systems, and processes allow for a unified view of customer issues and drives accountability throughout the organization. This unlocks the ability to resolve customer issues more efficiently and effectively, creating significant business value.Increase agent productivity, drive efficiencyBusiness customers often have complex solutions in place, and an increasing number of connected applications, so accurate and knowledgeable professionals need to be able to support these extensive integrations adequately. Telecom services for clients often change with contract renewals causing a ripple effect across pricing, core services, service level agreements (SLAs), capacity levels and customer support levels. During these transitions, it is critical to have solid customer insight to properly address customer issues and concerns.The linchpin in keeping customers happy and the wheels of an organization rolling smoothly is knowledge. Knowledge needs to be captured, centralized and made accessible to get the latest information into the hands of the agent that needs it.Analytics, automation, and machine learning capabilities all provide agents with superpowers that help them increase their call resolution efficiency and ultimately leads to higher agent and customer satisfaction. Many contact centers are exploring artificial intelligence technologies to differentiate their service, such as classifying content, routing cases based on agent skills, or providing smarter chat bots.Leading CSP customer organizations are using advanced technology to unlock differentiated customer experiences and build smarter operations. Negative customer experience can impact a CSP’s reputation and overall brand. Routing customers and agents to the next best action, improving self-service, or speeding case classification all help free agent time to focus on the complex issues that require human intervention and ingenuity.Create value from what you knowService providers continue to improve their ability to diagnose and resolve issues and as a result, are gathering an exponential amount of data that can further advance service assurance and performance management. This data is a gold mine of information for creating an engine that drives improved customer loyalty, reducing churn and fueling growth.The industry is becoming more data-driven, encouraging increased integration of customer service platforms with operations and business support systems (OSS/BSS). This combination supports better service solutions, improved operational agility and breaks down organizational silos by connecting network infrastructure, business applications, and customer visibility.Consolidated systems allow for the optimization of operations and customer data, giving providers a more comprehensive view of the customer. Understanding all dimensions of a customer’s product and services helps providers proactively resolve issues and better understand their overall performance metrics such as response time and churn. The data can also provide actionable insights to increase the efficiency of time to market and agile operations.Craft a culture of experienceFinally, and perhaps most importantly, every operator needs to focus on crafting a culture of customer experience. Increasingly, solutions are software-defined and increase the pressure on providers to provide immediate and high-quality customer interactions. Customer experience leaders start with their differentiating purpose in mind and then focus on improving their most essential customer journeys first.Analyzing and mapping the customer journey can also reveal where proactive and transparent support opportunities will get the customer to their purpose faster and with less effort. By engaging the entire organization, the customer’s experience can be transformed into one that achieves the customer’s mission but also engenders customer satisfaction and even delight.From your service representatives – both customer service and field service – to engineering and finance, providing full visibility into the issue can more effectively focus the organization on root cause issue resolution. Removing organizational silos enables operators to focus on achieving the customer’s purpose thereby improving both the customer experience and service delivery.The takeawayCompetition and change are a given in today’s digital world. Competitors are just a click away, and loyalty is increasingly determined by experience, not product, service or length of a business relationship. CSP leaders are adopting a customer engagement mentality to drive market differentiation. In fact of CSPs, 68% view customer experience as their number one strategic priority.Communication Service Providers play a vital role in helping their business customers accelerate growth. Businesses are demanding better experiences and operators must deliver sophisticated products, better data and analytics, and organizational experience. Industry leaders must unlock this unprecedented opportunity and rework their customer experience to establish themselves as a valued partner, helping their customers expand and capture new digital opportunities while driving business growth.
New research shows the transformative power of AI
The more I talk with LIKE.TG customers, the more excited I get about the transformative power of AI. Early adopters are reaping the benefits of AI-powered self-service, increased agent efficiency, enhanced developer productivity, and more.That’s why I’m excited to share the findings of LIKE.TG’s inaugural Enterprise AI Maturity Index study, conducted in partnership with Oxford Economics. The responses of 4,500 global business leaders confirm the revolutionary potential of AI, with 81% of the C-suite actively engaged in AI efforts.Last year, organizations allotted 15% of their technology budgets to AI. A decisive majority plan to increase AI spending next year.Those leading the charge, which we refer to as AI pacesetters, are doing so with the recognition that AI is not a point solution. They’re using it to integrate existing workflows and invent new ones to make their businesses run faster, smarter, and more efficiently.
AI in actionI get inspired when I think about how British Telecom (BT) Group, with operations in 180 countries, embraced AI to reimagine its customer service processes, which formerly ran on 56 different legacy service management systems and involved 15,000 people.We were able to help BT Group get on a path to consolidating those service management systems on the LIKE.TG platform, automating processes, and saving nearly $32 million. That’s the power of AI.Food manufacturer Mondelez International is another example. AI-powered HR Service Delivery helped the company increase its overall employee self-service rate by 76%, while the AI Search functionality in Employee Center helped improve deflection rates to between 30% and 60%, depending on the region. Those are significant improvements.AI for the winMost organizations we surveyed are early in their journey toward AI maturity. But the pacesetters are supercharging their AI efforts, scaling AI with groundbreaking cross-functional workflows, and building the right skills across their organizations.The numbers speak for themselves: 74% of AI pacesetters are already seeing a positive return on investment, and one in three is hitting returns of 15% or more.The reality is AI offers organizations an attainable way to connect people, processes, and technologies across the enterprise with cross-functional workflows. That integrated approach can create a competitive advantage. Laying the groundwork today to be an AI-connected enterprise tomorrow is imperative.Get more insights about the transformative power of AI in the complimentary Enterprise AI Maturity Index 2024.
Best practices for digital transformation in the telecom sector
As a former ‘customer side’ telecom professional, I’m in the fortunate position of having regular and open discussions with CEOs and CIOs across the industry.We talk about the issues and challenges facing the telecom industry and the exciting opportunities for change and growth.Not surprisingly, a major topic among us in recent months has been the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lessons learned from this period. While the lifting of lockdowns brings a shift in focus, it is still unchartered territory, and how the industry can best move forward remains an open questionTo gauge sector opinion on this issue, we recently held a roundtable (virtual, of course) with five major telecom players across EMEA. It was a fantastic opportunity to hear about the experiences of digital transformation and the major role it’s playing in shaping post-COVID strategies.I’ve outlined the key takeaways from the session and our conclusions about what is really needed to achieve resilient and effective digital transformation in telecom organizations.People powerWe all agreed that creating the best possible customer experiences required starting with the experiences of our own employees. A happy and fulfilled workforce is more productive, collaborative, and more likely to embrace change. Employee satisfaction remains one of the most important goals for any telecom business.We also agreed that simply introducing a technology platform is never enough to effect change. The tools themselves do not make a transformation project successful -- people do. We discussed how getting people to buy into change had to happen on two levels:1. Executive level: To ensure transformation is successful within a business, you have to get buy-in from the very top — and not just fleeting support or approval. It must be a passion project that they can throw themselves behind.Pressures and challenges will always come in the form of questions around budget, timing and ROI, but if the project is actively sponsored by a C-level exec, then the workforce is much more likely to engage.2. Senior management level: One step down from the C-level ‘sponsor’ of a digital transformation programme is the senior management decision makers. This group must establish common and achievable goals that can be filtered down to teams. Without this clarity, a project can spin out of control. Managers must have a clear vision of their desired outcome and a realistic idea of how the business will get there.Sending a clear messageAfter that project roadmap has been established, the next step, is execution – how teams are mobilised to get the job done. And this must always start with communication.A common theme in the roundtable was how challenging but vital it is to set out a clear mission to teams and employees about why the project is being done and why digital transformation is important. Everyone in the business must understand the objectives, benefits, and processes before they can be expected to engage.At this point, too, senior managers and executives will need to step in to remove any resistance to the project.Genuine concerns must be addressed, and any apprehensions should be weeded out as soon as possible so, they don’t fester within teams. Barriers should be raised publicly and discussed collaboratively, with clear messages given about how they will be tackled and overcome.Enabling acceptanceAnother unanimous agreement within the group was that it’s vital to invest time and resources into the longer-term business change process. It’s not realistic or fair to introduce new processes or platforms and expect everyone to be comfortable and confident with them right away.Training, early involvement and transparency are all key in making sure people know what’s coming, how to navigate change, and who to ask if they have a question or concern.In terms of the telecom sector specifically, we talked about the importance of engaging agents in the digital transformation process. B2B relationships in this industry are reliant on agents, so whenever a change is implemented, they must be empowered to feel like part of the transformation.You need to become the agent’s agent, giving them the support they need to navigate new processes.Restoring orderOne thing that emerged from the roundtable that was new (and fascinating) to me, was the concept of order management for B2B customers. Just as many of us during lockdown have become accustomed to ordering items and eagerly awaiting their arrival, it can be an anxious wait for business customers who have placed a large order with a telecom firm.For example, if a bank orders a batch of phones for employees, it needs to know when they are arriving, what set-up they require and what support is available. So, the concept of order management, where smart systems are used to catalogue and communicate the progress of an order to customers, is becoming increasingly welcome.A simple automated message that updates the customer on their order status is both reassuring and practical, allowing them to make the necessary arrangements to receive and process the delivery, thus giving the customer a great experience.The consumerisation of B2BIt was this last point that led us to discuss another topic that is close to my heart and becoming increasingly debated among telecom professionals. Personalisation and automation have, for a while, played a major part in consumer customer service–. They should in the B2B world, too.Taking the order management example mentioned above, as consumers we know we can expect similar order updates from retailers and delivery drivers. Food delivery services have become extremely creative in this regard; for example, offering an animated diagram depicting whether your order is being prepared or cooked or is already out for delivery. This level of personalisation and innovation brings a sense of joy and anticipation to the ordering process.It’s now time for businesses to embrace the benefits of this creativity in their B2B operations. We are, after all, people, whether we are operating in a personal or professional capacity.I strongly believe that telecom and other professional industries must take a page from the consumer book and implement personalised, digitally driven innovations to transform the customer experience.Telecom is a fast moving and highly competitive industry, and now more than ever we have to adapt and learn in order to grow and succeed.It was a privilege to host and participate in this roundtable, and I look forward to facilitating further discussion across the telecom sector so we can learn, develop, and succeed in our digital transformation efforts.
Unlocking the Telco Tangle
Simplifying the SpaghettiWhen I listen to our telecommunications customers describe their biggest frustrations, a consistent theme is the need to seamlessly connect across silos, systems, and processes. Work should be intuitive.But as work-from-home directives have transformed living rooms into makeshift offices, classrooms, and gyms, telcommunications providers – the backbone of the new normal – must transform operations and remove friction points to deliver seamless work experiences as transmission loads and reliance on networks skyrocket.As companies prepare to restart in the second half of 2020, telco executives must ensure that COVID-era digital transformation projects fit this new framework properly.Among all the changes for telcos this year, one thing has remained the same: the need to seek competitive advantage through greater agility and scale. Digitizing to become more customer-centric is non-negotiable, regardless of a company’s size or market position.Telcos require increasingly smart and flexible combinations of technology infrastructure, as they simplify the process of meeting the communication needs of consumer and enterprise customers.The customer journey, however, could hardly be more complex.Take the home broadband installation process: internet service providers must navigate numerous touchpoints in the provisioning process – including wholesale backhaul and transit providers, peering partners, physical installation, delivery and set up of routers, activation – before billing the customer.While most enterprises have four to five core platforms in their ecosystem that employees need to manage, for telcos that number is often greater.Digital transformation of the telco enterprise, therefore, two major goals: Unlocking productivity through automation and orchestration of workloads across every department, and creating great experiences for customers and employees – by focusing on what people encounter, observe, or feel when they interact with a service. Employees, for instance, shouldn’t have to spend a lot of time looking for things; to the contrary, things should come looking for them.It is this industry-wide challenge to simplify spaghetti-like internal systems and processes that led LIKE.TG to develop a solution specifically for telecommunications providers.Delivered in partnership with Accenture, our suite of workflows will change how telcos operate and support their delivery of reimagined customer experiences.We’ve created intelligent workflows that align customer care and service assurance by proactively anticipating customer-facing issues and addressing them quickly. Our solution uses machine learning to help remove back-office bottlenecks and orchestrate workflows between departments.By applying intelligence to everyday processes within the telco – prioritizing, categorizing, routing workflows, predicting anomalies – employees get more work more easily. Data can be quickly and accurately correlated to identify common errors. Remediations can be predicted, freeing up employees to personalize the customer experience.Francesco Venturini, Accenture’s senior managing director and communications media industry lead, said this new set of integrated solutions will improve automation, efficiency, and effectiveness in customer service management, service assurance, and intelligent network operations through a combination of technology, analytics, and operation solutions.Complexity demands simplicityAs organizations prepare for the next wave of challenges, investment in digital transformation will help reshape business and boost productivity. With the transition to 5G underway, and as utilities move into broadband and telcos eyeing new opportunities in the energy industry, customer experience will become the next competitive battleground.LIKE.TG’s telecommunications solution accelerates digital transformation, breathing new life into legacy platforms and putting people at the heart of every workflow. The onus is on senior executives to ensure that native digital experiences go well beyond front-of-house teams to embrace the enterprise.
Industry-focused solutions break ground at LIKE.TG
LIKE.TG customers everywhere really appreciate how our digital workflow solutions make work, work better for people. Now we’re taking an exciting step forward with new industry-focused solutions. These solutions will deliver workflows to help companies in specific industries address their unique digital transformation challenges and create value at scale. One of our first is targeted at the telecommunications industry.Our telecommunications industry-focused solution breaks new ground by aligning customer care and service assurance. Our goal is to help communications service providers (CSPs) transform the delivery of great customer experiences by proactively anticipating issues and addressing them quickly while maximizing availability and quality of service.Why an industry-specific telecom solution?If you are a CSP, you’re probably experiencing first-hand the intense digital disruption, causing companies like yours to move fast to embrace new technologies. According to Forbes, some of the biggest technologies revolutionizing telecoms today are:
5G: Supports a hundredfold increase in connected devices per unit area
AI: Used behind the scenes with virtual assistants and chatbots to improve customer service
Big Data: Telecoms need to be able to move huge amounts of data on their networks and address new security challenges
At the same time, CSPs know there’s a huge need to adapt to changing customer expectations due new competitors and the popularity of smart phones and mobile technologies. Telecom companies are also grappling with the need to rollout new products faster to grow revenues while reducing operational costs. LIKE.TG recognizes that the business sector represents the biggest opportunity for telecom providers in the coming years. But legacy systems, complex processes, and long handling times are just some of the barriers CSPs are grappling with in an effort to provide the digital-first engagements and personalized experiences companies in the business sector expect.
Pave the way for a more profitable futureLIKE.TG already works with some of the top CSPs in the industry—Vodafone, Tata Communications, and Proximus, just to name a few—to pave a path to a more profitable future.Find out more about how LIKE.TG telecom solutions can give you greater agility and scale in today’s cloud-first world.
4 ways AI-first organizations can become industry leaders
Generative AI (GenAI) can be divisive. While its potential to revolutionize industries is undeniable, ethical concerns, job displacement fears, and privacy concerns may make leaders hesitant to implement it. However, amid these debates, one thing has become increasingly clear: AI-first organizations are spearheading success in their industries.To prosper as an AI-first organization, AI needs to permeate daily work across the business. GenAI has the ability to help people work better, smarter, and faster. Let’s take a look at how industries can put AI to work for people.1. Take an AI-first approachWith the push to provide better care for more people at less cost, healthcare providers are struggling to meet expectations. GenAI can assist with and augment routine tasks such as documentation, transcription, and patient handoffs to give overworked staff more time for patient care.To gain insights into how GenAI can improve employee and patient experiences, Brian Solis, head of global innovation at LIKE.TG, led a panel discussion with leaders from Accenture, Babson College, and ServiceNow.2. Be future-readyFrom optimizing the supply chain to predicting customer needs, GenAI can help manufacturers improve operational processes. Many manufacturing companies have already begun experimenting with the technology.In Be the future-ready manufacturer, experts from Deloitte and the MIT Sloan School of Management explore the importance of a targeted and open-minded GenAI approach in gaining a competitive edge.
3. Focus on customersAs the financial sector continues to evolve, banks are increasingly turning to GenAI to enhance operations, improve customer experience, and drive innovation. Although some may believe GenAI is too unpredictable to be used in high-risk organizations, it can actually help banks increase transparency and mitigate risk.Taking a customer-centric approach to implementing GenAI can help banks improve both customer satisfaction and employee productivity. Find out how banks can deliver compliant and efficient experiences with GenAI in Customer-centric experiences in banking with AI.4. Deliver exceptional serviceAs the pioneers of the AI era, technology companies are at the forefront of using GenAI to improve their products and services. Now is the time for tech professionals to do what they do best: be innovative, experimental, and adaptable.GenAI has immense potential for technology companies. The key is to start small and build slowly. Join Adam Cheyer, co-creator of Siri, and other tech leaders as they discuss how to Deliver better experiences in the tech industry with AI.We’re on the cusp of an exciting time with GenAI. Put AI to work for your industry to unlock the exponential power of an AI-first enterprise.
LIKE.TG and Box Together Power Future of Work, Drive Digital Transformation
People today expect great digital experiences, regardless of where they’re working, and to keep pace, companies are embracing technology that makes the work experience better, faster and more productive. By finding solutions that allow seamless transitions between technology, the digital experience is improved.As LIKE.TG continues its mission to be the company that makes work easier, we’re thrilled to announce today integrations between LIKE.TG and Box, Inc. The platform integration provides customers with an enhanced content management experience for their most important business processes, making the world of work, work better for people.
No longer will employees need to toggle between both platforms to get work done but instead, they can securely access the Box files they need where they’re already working – from within the Now Platform®. This is especially important considering the ongoing war for talent. Our recent research found that investment in technology is directly connected to success in attracting and retaining top talent.Driving the Future of WorkBuilt on LIKE.TG’s IntegrationHub – with codeless workflows in an intuitive, natural language user interface that allows anyone to update – the new integration allows companies and employees to:
Boost Productivity: With the LIKE.TG and Box integration, workers can perform common Box actions – such as the ability to search for and preview files, create groups or share content – directly from the Now Platform.
Enhance and streamline onboarding: Companies can provide a new Box account to employees on day one through LIKE.TG’s Enterprise Onboarding and Transitions, allowing new employees on-demand access to the tools needed to be successful in their new role. Companies can manage employees’ accounts simply as their role changes, while maintaining the security and governance capabilities of files stored in Box.
Customize at scale: No matter the business need, companies can efficiently build workflows and customize the Box integration with LIKE.TG Flow Designer and LIKE.TG IntegrationHub.
Securely Collaborate: With Box’s enterprise-grade capabilities that stick to the highest security and compliance standards, employees can safely access, preview and share files.
Driving Digital Transformation Across the EnterpriseWorking together, we’ll continue our mission to drive digital transformation across the enterprise to deliver great employee experiences. As part of that, Box will also build a set of native integrations that provide customers with easy-to-use content management solutions, including:
Secure access to Box content directly from within LIKE.TG records
Link specific Box folders to LIKE.TG records automatically
Save files directly to Box from the Now Platform, ensuring safety of a company’s most valuable content through Box’s leading security and governance capabilities – Box Governance, Key Safe and Box Zones.
The integration is scheduled to be available on the LIKE.TG Store this year, and we can’t wait to provide our customers with a seamless, best-of-breed application that allows secure collaboration of content wherever and whenever.
Applying generative AI in telecom
Generative AI (GenAI) tools produce original text, audio, code, image, 3-D asset, or video by learning from existing data. Using large language models (LLMs) trained on enormous amounts of input, GenAI can make sense of patterns on a massive scale and create new content based on those inputs. When such patterns are identified, so are opportunities for building better processes.Applying generative AI in telecom can improve business processes, customer experiences, and network operations. GenAI is well positioned to help telecom companies move past the industry’s present challenges.Leading the way togetherMany telecom companies have been early GenAI adopters. “Telecom as an industry has a low margin and a high IT spend,” says Rohit Batra, general manager and vice president for telecom, media, and tech at ServiceNow. “GenAI can transform the telecom industry. It’s becoming a topic in pretty much every board meeting and strategy meeting.” Moving GenAI from board agenda item to solutions that a telecom company can actually use requires both an early-adopter mindset and the right combination of technology. In collaboration with NVIDIA, LIKE.TG is integrating GenAI capabilities on the Now Platform specifically for the telecom industry.“As a telecom business unit leader, I don’t need to worry about building or customizing a generative AI model that has telecom domain knowledge of order management or customer service,” explains Lilac Ilan, global head of business development and telco operations for NVIDIA. Instead, it’s done natively on the LIKE.TG platform.That means LIKE.TG platform users don’t have to become experts in GenAI learning. The pairing of the Now Platform with NVIDIA AI software and accelerated infrastructure enables telecom providers to harness the power of GenAI effectively, quickly, and safely.
Solving industry challengesSince 2019, the average revenues for the world’s top 10 telecom operators have grown by only 2.7% per year, according to Roland Berger. At the same time, rolling out 5G and fiber networks has meant massive capital spending.Amid rising competition, the need for effective solutions has never been more acute. Adopting GenAI can help telecom companies create two key opportunities for themselves, according to Batra: higher employee productivity and increased efficiency. This leaves telecom leaders asking: What industry-specific use cases will help accomplish that?Three major areas have been identified where GenAI can have the greatest impact in telecom:
Network management
Contact center
Service support
Many early-adopter LIKE.TG customers are starting with customer experience. This includes using GenAI for incident summarization, case summarization, knowledge creation, and order management use cases.Putting customers firstMeeting customer expectations quickly and efficiently is one of telecom’s biggest challenges. Customer-facing agents must constantly maintain expertise in a diverse range of services—all while managing manual processes and legacy systems to provide customers with accurate, dependable support.“We spoke to multiple telecom customers, and the problem was very similar for all [of them],” says Shubham Mittal, a telecom product engineer at LIKE.TG who specializes in GenAI. “They are spending a significant amount of time on service desk tasks and understanding customer issues, which greatly delays the overall service assurance process.”That’s why customer experience has quickly surfaced as a top priority for telecom. Mittal identifies this as an area where telecom companies can start seeing immediate benefits.“In today's digital age, we're always striving to improve the customer experience continuously,” he says. “With these rapid advancements coming up in the technology, it’s paving the way for the adoption of generative AI.”
Streamlining processesIn telecom, improving customer experience is inextricable from improving the workflow processes of both front-office and back-office teams. With GenAI, network and service operations teams can significantly enhance incident response, improve customer satisfaction, and contribute to the overall effectiveness of incident management processes.For example, GenAI can bring faster resolution and better overall customer experience to fiber cuts, an all-too-familiar occurrence in telecom.A fiber cut incident triggers a multitude of events, leaving incident management teams dealing with a range of challenges. Teams are inundated with complex, technical data generated by monitoring tools and systems, including logs, alerts, event details, and diagnostic information. This flood of data can quickly become unmanageable and make it difficult to distinguish critical information from noise.“For the first time ever, LIKE.TG has shown how generative AI can deliver incident management teams a clear, streamlined account of the event, free of technical jargon,” NVIDIA’s Ilan says. The notes accompanying an incident can provide essential context, including the exact location the fiber cut occurred.But the story doesn’t end there. As an incident evolves into a case and customers get notified as part of the case creation, LIKE.TG ensures the message is not only concise and free of technical jargon, but is also tailored to contain only relevant information for the affected customer.The road aheadThe introduction of GenAI’s problem-solving skills marks a paradigm shift in the telecom industry. “The reason we’re seeing it, and the reason telecom companies are stepping in to invest in that technology, is because they’re seeing the business impact of it,” Ilan says.She notes that telecom companies need a four-ingredient recipe to engage fully in this shift: data, accelerated computing capabilities, training tools, and skills. LIKE.TG is collaborating with NVIDIA to create a winning GenAI recipe for telecom companies.LIKE.TG brings the data and skills. NVIDIA brings the power to compute and the LLM training tools. And telecom companies bring their skilled teams.Find out more about how LIKE.TG helps bring intelligent workflow automation to life with GenAI.
Moving communications service providers beyond traditional telecom
Communications service providers (CSPs) have been at the forefront of the pandemic, helping customers and entire industries make critical transformations almost overnight. When education, healthcare delivery methods, and supply chains were interrupted, CSPs stepped up and provided digital work environments and automations that became lifelines.Now, CSPs are laying the foundation for even more. Multi-access computing (MEC), 5G, and reducing the cost and complexity of managing networks are only the beginning of what’s to come.“Our strategy for telecommunications is simple,” says Rohit Batra, head of product for telecommunications and media at ServiceNow. It’s “to be the system of action for CSPs to deliver frictionless workflows across the entire customer journey.”Simplicity is at the core of LIKE.TG: the delivery of products, the ecosystem to enable next-gen services, and the customer experience itself. Whether CSPs are launching new services or transforming an existing business, LIKE.TG helps them drive, innovate, and execute transformation strategies by connecting ordering and assurance workflows.Streamlining order managementToday’s order management approach doesn’t scale to the needs of modern CSPs. It generally requires stitching together multiple disconnected systems and labor-intensive processes.Deutsche Telekom, one of the world’s leading information and communications technology providers, worked with LIKE.TG to streamline its order management process so it could bring solutions to market faster, increase productivity, and reduce the complexity of its web of legacy systems.With LIKE.TG, the company has improved order capture and gained needed billing updates, order orchestration workflows, inventory updates in real time, and the ability to use TM Forum open APIs—all within a single platform.
Proactively addressing customer careAnother challenge for CSPs is the ongoing pressure to reduce cost to serve. For example, a tier 1 telecom provider may have tens of thousands of customer care agents who use multiple, disparate legacy systems with complex processes. This can lead to excessive handling times, rising costs to serve customers, and service-level agreement breaches for enterprise customers.BT Group, which serves B2B and B2C customers in 180 countries, worked with LIKE.TG to transform its BT Meetings division. The different groups making up BT Meetings each used their own processes and tools, many of them customized and at the end of life. Each group also had different service desks that relied on manual processes centered on email and phone.LIKE.TG Telecommunications Service Management helped with automation and self-service capabilities—particularly Virtual Agent, Service Catalog, and Predictive Intelligence. As a result, BT moved 70,000 customers and 1 million services to LIKE.TG, retired two legacy systems, and achieved a staggering 85% agent satisfaction.Automating service assuranceDelivering reliable, predictable, and transparent services makes for strong customer relationships, allowing CSPs to protect existing revenue and cross-sell new or expanded services and products.Lumen turned to the Now Platform to transform the delivery and assurance of its next-generation connectivity services, specifically integrated workflows across Day 1 and Day 2 operations.“Today’s customer is looking for the package, which means you need to orchestrate across multiple control domains to be able to deliver that capability. We see that as really being one of the strong suits of the LIKE.TG platform—to be able to take a larger role within our Lumen ecosystem,” says Shawn Draper, Lumen vice president of enterprise platform engineering.Learn more about how your communications company can transform the customer and employee experience and better manage network and technology investments. Download our Telecommunications Book of Knowledge.
3 ways telecommunications companies can improve the customer experience
The COVID-19 pandemic brought connectivity to the forefront, as companies quickly shifted to remote working. As the new world of hybrid work emerges, connectivity continues to be at the center of conversations, putting pressure on telecommunications companies to deliver.At the same time, customers are demanding a better user experience with more consistent, high-quality service, shorter wait times, and personalized interactions. For telecom companies to meet these demands and continue to thrive, they must change their ways of thinking to put customers at the center of the business while also finding ways to cut costs.LIKE.TG can help telecom companies improve the customer experience in three key ways:1. Take a people-first approachTelecom companies that don’t adapt to customer demands won't be able to compete in the marketplace. In a global market expected to reach $2.7 trillion in 2021 and $3.5 trillion in 2025, according to Research and Markets, that’s a risky move.Our on-demand webinar Putting customers at the heart of digital transformation will walk you through British telecom company BT Group’s service experience transformation. Hear from BT Principal Enterprise Architect Alex Bell how adopting a cloud-native, co-innovation plan led to the company's “digital born” portfolio strategy.Omdia analyst James Crawshaw and Chris Holmes, LIKE.TG telecommunications industry director, join Bell for this in-depth discussion.2. Embrace integrationOne thing that can help customers have a more seamless experience with telecom companies is integration and interoperability of components within their IT systems. Open APIs can facilitate that by enabling plug-in capabilities a company might not have on its own, such as click-to-call.Watch our How to lead in the open API economy webinar to learn about the more than 50 REST-based open APIs developed by members of the TM Forum. You’ll also discover how these APIs are being used, their benefits, and what they mean for customers.3. Support connectivity as a serviceIn its simplest terms, connectivity as a service is an end-to-end managed service that bundles connectivity technologies to best meet user requirements.Our TM Forum: Connectivity as a service webinar tackles this subject head-on to provide insight into the advantages of adopting a CaaS business model and enabling CaaS services. You’ll learn how much automation is required for these solutions and how they can put your organization in a better position with customers. Panelists include:
Tim McElligott, senior analyst at TM Forum
Andrew De La Torre, group VP of technology at Oracle Communications
Chris Holmes, head of telecom, media and technology at LIKE.TG EMEA
3 ways 5G can help telecommunications companies improve business
5G technology promises user benefits that include faster network speeds, better remote access to networks, more seamless videoconferencing, and more robust network security. These are all necessities for the new world of work, and many are eager to embrace them.The technology also offers advantages to telecommunications companies:
Higher system capacity
Reduced latency
Increased data throughput rates
Energy savings
Cost reduction
Despite those benefits, many telecom providers continue to struggle with legacy processes. LIKE.TG, has you covered with webinars on the benefits of 5G for telecom companies. The webinars address three main themes: Service assurance, order management and business outcomes.1. Service assuranceEnsuring services offered meet predefined service quality levels is always top of mind for telecom companies. The rise of 5G is transforming the nature of service assurance. Watch our Service assurance in the 5G era webinar to learn strategies to break down silos and legacy processes. Two analysts from TM Forum join LIKE.TG’s Rohit Batra, head of product, telecom, media, and technology, for this discussion.2. Order managementThe key ingredient for keeping customers happy is efficient order management. Communications service providers are revamping the way they address this all-important initiative to not only improve customer satisfaction, but also to optimize internal operations. In our Order management for the 5G era webinar, a panel of experts share the latest trends and tips to help you streamline order management in your organization.Optimizing order management is only half the battle. You also need to scale it to truly reap the rewards of 5G and multi-access edge computing (MEC). To do that successfully requires a new approach. In our Reimagining order management in the 5G era webinar, Jim Hodges, research director at Omdia, joins LIKE.TG’s Batra for a conversation about ways to enhance order management.3. Business outcomes approachTraditionally, telecom operators have sold network capacity. The rise of 5G and MEC have led to a need for transformation. Capacity is no longer enough. To embrace ecosystem partners, operators need to shift their focus to business outcomes. Join our Can operators sell outcomes to ecosystem partners? webinar for an interactive discussion between LIKE.TG experts, the head of GSMA intelligence, and a mobile industry journalist.
LIKE.TG EMEA Partner Summit awards 2019 and the winner is…
First we had the Golden Globes, then came the Baftas and the Oscars. Then, just to keep the glitz and glamour of award season going strong, LIKE.TG hosted its annual partner awards ceremony as part of this year’s LIKE.TG EMEA Partner Summit 2019.Staged in the Catalan capital city of Barcelona, LIKE.TG is driving forwards with a renewed effort to create a vibrant and world-class partner ecosystem that enables and accelerates our growth.LIKE.TG’s partners are a diverse and vibrant group of professional organisations who drive digital transformation agenda and valued business outcomes for their clients. From large global systems integrators and strategic outsourcers through to organisations operating in specific industry verticals or solution areas, LIKE.TG’s partners share a common thread in terms of their commitment to accelerating customer success and driving the realisation of our customers desired business outcomes.This year’s LIKE.TG EMEA Partner Summit 2019 winners included the following luminaries.EMEA IT Workflow Partner of the Year: FujitsuThis award recognises Fujitsu’s commitment to delivering extremely high standards to its customer success charter and digital transformation strategy. In 2018, the company set the benchmark for large-scale training and broad coverage of the LIKE.TG portfolio.EMEA Employee Workflow Partner of the Year: DevoteamThis award recognises the huge impact that Devoteam has made within the Employee Workflow space, creating new, people-focused solutions that enable employees across businesses to communicate, store, share, collaborate and much more.EMEA Customer Workflow Partner of the Year: AccentureLIKE.TG’s Customer Workflow offerings were the foundation of the biggest EMEA joint wins with Accenture. Accenture’s domain expertise around customer service provided the innovation as LIKE.TG customers looked to transform the way they were delivering customer service.EMEA App Development Platform Partner of the Year: WranguThis award recognises Wrangu’s significant contribution in EMEA, achieving the top Annual Contract Value in 2018.EMEA Service Provider Partner of the Year: AtosDuring 2018, Atos expanded its LIKE.TG footprint with some flagship accounts and complex, but highly rewarding wins. Its increased technical capabilities in-house and updated LIKE.TG outsourced platforms also made the company stand out. Notably, Atos also unveiled a new market offering to deliver secure hybrid cloud, machine learning, and collaboration solutions for the enterprise, all of which are underpinned by the NOW Platform™.EMEA Accelerated Growth Partner of the Year: CrossfuzeWith its innovative Smart Launch services package, Crossfuze UKampI grew its business more than six times in 2018, helping to accelerate Commercial and Named account acquisition.EMEA Digital Transformation Partner of the Year: DeloitteDeloitte has delivered notable flagship transformation programs across EMEA within IT, employee and customer workflows, with Client Transformation underpinning the company’s LIKE.TG practice growth in 2018.EMEA Industry Solutions Partner of the Year: DXCThis award recognises DXC’s outstanding industry-focused go-to-market strategy and expertise, which drove successful joint business with LIKE.TG in EMEA in 2018 across industries such as healthcare, manufacturing and energy.EMEA Partner of the Year: AccentureAs LIKE.TG’s EMEA Partner of the Year for 2018, Accenture holds the top spot in terms of influenced Annual Contract Value and LIKE.TG Practice practitioners in EMEA. Its commitment and investment in LIKE.TG are anchored on a tightly aligned, joint multi-year business plan that drives innovation and positive business outcomes for mutual clients.
Elevating telecom service delivery: A chat with industry experts
The telecommunications industry led the charge on technology adoption decades ago. Now the industry is facing a severe technology debt. As customers demand faster and better products, companies must somehow update or adapt legacy infrastructure to deliver cutting-edge services.To keep up, executives are making bold choices: investing billions in infrastructure to keep up with demands for digital services and building workflows to eliminate silos between departments. But these moves are easier said than done.I spoke with three industry experts on the Innovation Today podcast to learn how companies at the top of their game are elevating telecom service delivery.The quest for quality experiencesTelecom companies are under tremendous pressure to deliver digital services on demand. That’s not as simple as shipping new products. Most telecom companies’ customers have already experienced a digital transformation, which has elevated their expectations for their telecom service providers, according to Ben Bendre, an associate partner with the Global Center of Competency for Telecommunications, Media, and Entertainment at IBM.“The best service experience from a company like Amazon or Starbucks depends on the quality of the experience their telecom service providers can deliver,” he says. Yesterday’s services aren’t good enough for today’s businesses.To deliver premium experiences, companies must somehow blend decades of legacy infrastructure with the new hybrid world of cloud infrastructure. Telecom companies use hybrid networks, which combine legacy, terrestrial, and cloud-based IT networks. This approach increases both the cost and complexity of their operations—and hurts their agility.Old technology, new problemsThe unnecessary complexity runs deep. “All service providers have the same issue,” Bendre says. “Every time a new product came along, they built a new application to manage it.” Now, organizations have a multitude of order management stacks to handle each of these applications. But the technologies aren’t integrated. “These silos limit visibility into what you’re providing,” he adds.Fragmented application stacks make it difficult to track metrics around service provision. Companies can’t improve what they can’t track. As a result, teams are wasting a lot of time on manual work that could be automated. This negatively affects client delivery quality.A technical aptitude issue is at play here too. Reskilling a highly knowledgeable workforce given the advancement of technology is no easy task.Vicki Harris, director of business development at Thirdera, says departments such as business development, product design, finance, order management, and procurement really feel the technology lag. But companies often draw a hard line between these departments and IT, and the two don’t communicate. “A lot of my approach is making sure businesses understand new technology and what it can do for them,” she says.
New possibilities with data and analyticsImproving decades-old technologies and processes is doable but not easy. To start, executives must build a data-driven organization, says Jinu Koshy, vice president of domain consulting at Infosys. If they don’t, improvement won’t be difficult—it will be impossible.Koshy says companies are leaving a lot of rich data on the table. Every time a customer calls to request a repair, make a complaint, or change their service location, it involves data. All of that data can be leveraged to improve the business.“Start by asking, ‘Do we have a culture of data?’” Koshy recommends. “That doesn’t mean [you need to] build a 10-story apartment building and then try to fit your data in it. It means you should think about how to build data into your architecture.”When companies fail to collect data, they lack insight into what technologies they need to update and in what order to provide the best service. This leads to communication issues, Harris says, because teams can’t adequately prioritize projects and establish metrics for success.“You need to have the analytics to understand whether your customers and teams are actually using the things you’re putting in front of them,” she adds. This provides a better way to rationalize what your customers are using, with open transparency in sharing the metrics for agreed-upon success.Automation to the rescueOnce a telecom company has metrics about its services, that data must be synthesized and used. “This is a huge opportunity for industrial automation,” Bendre says. By integrating software and technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and internet of things (IoT) devices, companies can monitor customer activities and solve problems before they arise.To show why automation and integration are so important, Bendre explains two key pillars of the telecom industry that have traditionally operated independently:
Service delivery, in which the organization takes an order and delivers it
Service assurance stack, which ensures a service keeps running
“But companies have started to think about this as a single, end-to-end platform,” he says. When everything is integrated into the same platform, it’s easier to gain visibility into issues, automate manual processes, and remove roadblocks. “This opens up new revenue possibilities,” he says.That single, end-to-end, integrated platform is what LIKE.TG provides. Integrated dashboards and data insights can save companies money. Instead of always building a new product or investing in a new tool to solve a problem, companies can make the most of what they already have.“They can take advantage of existing technologies with an end-to-end workflow that allows them to realize their potential,” Harris says.Telecom companies are using “workflows of workflows,” as Bendre puts it, to take multidomain service orchestration to the next level. “Before, we bandaged solutions to make processes work together,” he says. “Now, we can orchestrate processes across multiple product lines, but also across multiple third-party partners like security vendors.”Incremental innovationAutomation and integration are fundamentals. To truly get ahead, organizations must innovate. But innovation requires democratization, Koshy says. It’s not enough to invest in advanced technologies such as AI and ML—they must be made available to everyone in the organization.Koshy stresses that what works for the IT department might not necessarily work for business or finance. If each department is empowered to use technology to solve its own problems, then everyone can make substantial progress toward their goals.“It’s not about a big-bang approach,” he says. “It’s about managing change through incremental effort.” And incremental effort is where the alchemy of innovation is brewed.Get more tips on reimagining the telecom experience in our ebook: Accelerate revenue growth in telecommunications.
Welcome to the Now Platform Madrid Release
When Fred Luddy founded LIKE.TG in 2004, he envisioned a cloud-based platform anyone could use to manage digital workflows inside an organization. The Now Platform Madrid Release builds on Fred’s vision, with new mobile experiences that take full advantage of the native capabilities on your smartphone.To date, most mobile enterprise applications have been scaled-down versions of desktop apps. When you shrink a browser form down from a 15-inch monitor to a 4-inch phone screen, however, you get an experience that is pedestrian at best, and infuriating at worst.
Help has arrived. The Now Platform Madrid Release delivers powerful mobile experiences across LIKE.TG’s IT, employee and customer workflows, including any custom application that is built on the platform. It features a native mobile user experience (UX) that allows service representatives to resolve customer issues by simply swiping and tapping, in the same way we use consumer apps to shop, hail rides and stay in touch with distant friends.
The Now Platform Madrid release includes more than 600 innovations . It ships with a number of powerful mobile apps for common workflows, including our flagship IT Service Management and Field Service Management products. It also gives customers the power to turn any digital workflow into a mobile-first experience. For example, with the new LIKE.TG Mobile Studio, anyone can build new apps quickly using a drag-and-drop interface that doesn’t require a single line of code.The Now Platform Madrid Release is our fourth release since I joined LIKE.TG in December 2016. Over the past two years we’ve steadily expanded our functionality across all of our workflow products. We’ve also rolled out new products such as IT Asset Management, Enterprise DevOps, and Enterprise Onboarding, and new platform capabilities that include agent intelligence and virtual agents.We’ve added powerful machine learning technologies that help service representatives solve problems before customers know they have them. Let’s say you work on the IT help desk at a big company. You get into work in the morning and are confronted with a blizzard of tickets, all from employees working on the third floor of your building. Ticket 1 says “I can’t connect to WiFi!” Ticket 2 says, “Bloody hell, the wireless router isn’t working.” And Ticket 3 simply says, “Internet is down.”The new Text Similarity Engine in Agent Workspace uses machine learning to scan all these incidents, figure out what they have in common and propose a solution based on similar issues that have come up in the past. Result? Problems get resolved faster, customers and employees are happier, and service representatives get to focus on more complex work that yields meaning for them and value for their companies.I’m really proud of the global engineering, product, and design teams that worked tirelessly to ship the Now Platform Madrid Release on time while delivering high-quality innovation. We’re already hard at work on the next Now Platform release, which will extend the mobile functionality of Madrid with consumer-grade experiences for customers and employees.We look forward to partnering with customers as they bring this release to life. I’m excited for what comes next.Join the live broadcast on March 13th to discover new ways to unlock productivity and deliver great work experiences.Register
The Power Of Partners; Because A Platform Alone Is Not Enough
As LIKE.TG President and CEO John Donahoe has said, if all you have is ‘just’ a software platform, then that’s not enough to bring about digital transformation in real terms.For our customers now looking to take their businesses forward and reap the benefits of digital workflows, partners play an essential role in helping to re-engineer processes and ensure any given implementation is carried out in a high-quality manner.This integral role of our partners was highlighted at this year’s LIKE.TG EMEA Partner Summit 2019 in Barcelona, which kicked off with an opening address delivered by Ankush Korla in his interim role as Area Vice President Alliances and Channel EMEA.EMEA accelerationAnkush set the scene by talking about the acceleration the EMEA region is experiencing in terms of growth—a positive trend driven directly by the work of LIKE.TG partners in this region.I had the pleasure to present my take on the LIKE.TG strategy, which is aligned to hit $1 billion worth of business in the EMEA region by financial year 2020.While this target is no small mountain to climb, forming more strategic relationships with customers and partners is a critical part of this journey. In fact, it is strategic partnerships, over and above purely technical partnerships, that are a key method for building deep, collaborative working practices—and this is central to our plan for the EMEA market.As we move forward, we want to be more than just a ‘hot’ company that is popular in Silicon Valley—we want to be a great company that invests in our people and our partners, and really drives customer success.Customer success as a philosophy and mindsetWhat that really means is, when a customer signs, that’s not the end of the business relationship, it’s really just the beginning.As our SVP for Customer Outcomes, Jimmy Fitzgerald, explained in his keynote: “Customer success is a way of life, a philosophy and a mindset that shows we understand where the ‘true north’ of every customer really is. We need to understand what each customer is really trying to achieve at the start.”Where customers are struggling to articulate the business case for their software investments, it is LIKE.TG’s responsibility to help clarify, define and deliver that business case.Customer success cannot be delivered without partner success and Jimmy highlighted the three pillars around which LIKE.TG is working to support partners:
All partners must have the confidence that LIKE.TG will continue to grow so that they themselves have a larger addressable market to target for the future.
LIKE.TG is focused on giving partners the tools to be able to become more prescriptive with customers.
LIKE.TG is working hard to make sure that all partners have the right strategic engagement model in order to be able to grasp the maximum number of market opportunities.
The four principles for ecosystem transformationDay two of the Partner Summit started with a presentation delivered by David Parsons, Senior Vice President of Global Alliances and Channel Ecosystem at ServiceNow.Looking ahead, David detailed our precise formula for partner development across a division that will now be known as ACE, standing for Alliances Channel Ecosystem. The four tenets that underpin ACE are Simplification, Predictability, Trust and Accountability.Prescriptive guidance for outcomesMargreet Brenkman, Senior Director for Customer Success EMEA at LIKE.TG, continued with the importance of partners becoming more prescriptive with customers.She guided our partners on the four aspects of success that LIKE.TG customers exhibit:
State and measure business goals – customers that can express what they want to achieve are generally more successful.
Actively lead your transformation – it’s a journey and change needs to be driven throughout the organisation.
Get your LIKE.TG technology foundations right – LIKE.TG’s best customers align to the LIKE.TG roadmap and plan upgrades regularly.
Create user excitement and drive adoption – every user needs to think about how their experience will improve.
Just as important as the keynotes and formal presentations at the annual EMEA Partner Summit are the numerous opportunities for informal discussions and relationship building.The event is really important to LIKE.TG employees to learn about what our partners need. It creates an environment where questions are openly tabled from the start and we can respond to every point of interest expressed by our partners.With LIKE.TG Knowledge 19 coming soon, many of the partners I met in Barcelona are already looking forward to following up their work inside the LIKE.TG partner ecosystem.
CreatorCon Challenge finalists ready to disrupt
They built it and showed it. Now it’s time to show it again – this time for money – on the big stage at Knowledge 2019. Buckle up finalists, it’s about to get real!We challenged entrepreneurs to unleash innovation on the Now Platform back in October – to take the platform into new workflows in white spaces where LIKE.TG isn’t, to think strategically about how to leverage the platform for what it does best – creating digital workflows that unlock productivity and delivering great experiences. In short, we’re looking for applications that will achieve product/market fit in the LIKE.TG ecosystem and enable customers to drive digital transformation in enterprise- and industry-wide processes, where LIKE.TG doesn’t with our out-of-the-box products.Let’s take a look at each finalist and why we think they’ve ticked all of the boxes above.http://bluepineapple.io/Bluepineapple’s Green Folder is a BPMS (Business Process Management Software) solution for public sector/government that solves a huge problem like the one at the California DMV – manual, paper form based, unstructured, opaque, super slow and frustrating, and error prone processing in government agency services. Green Folder combines digital workflows and document automation to transform this into a modern experience for citizens.http://hiperhipo.com/Workforce Connect is a predictive workforce modeling and forecasting solution that complements LIKE.TG HR Service Delivery and enables businesses to generate future workforce demand plans including 3-5 year forecasts using key business data elements. It utilizes advanced analytics and modeling leveraging the data in LIKE.TG to simplify the once complex task of planning for future workforce demand. With Workforce Connect, HR organizations can forecast resources down to job title and skill level based on targeted business outcomes (revenue, operational expenses, margins etc.), and create actionable plans to secure resources to achieve those outcomes.https://vividcharts.com/VividCharts is a data visualization solution that enhances LIKE.TG reporting and Performance Analytics and enables anyone in IT and any line of business or department across the enterprise to tell stories with LIKE.TG data. VividCharts provides a growing library of out of the box visualizations and a no code solution called Slate for creating presentations directly in LIKE.TG that leverage real-time LIKE.TG data. Data export to excel, spreadsheet calculations, and slide deck prep in PowerPoint with instantly out of date data for your monthly reporting cycle are a thing of the past.What’s Next?The finalists will pitch to, and answer questions from an esteemed judging panel, including LIKE.TG Founder and Chairman Fred Luddy and an A-list of VCs and entrepreneurs at the CreatorCon Challenge Final keynote at Knowledge 2019. Finalists will compete for a $250K investment from LIKE.TG Ventures, residency at the LIKE.TG ISV Accelerator in Santa Clara, and sales enablement and marketing to accelerate their market traction. Come and join the thrills and spills!
Knowledge 2019: Day 3 highlights
What’s new on the Now PlatformA year ago at Knowledge 2018, Pat Casey asked customers for their feedback on the Now Platform. Casey, LIKE.TG’s senior vice president for DevOps, got an earful. The apps weren’t as cool or fun to use as consumer apps, they said. “Make it like Uber” was a common refrain.Another request was to improve scalability. With exponentially more data pouring in to businesses every day, customers needed the ability to manage thousands or millions of data points in real time. And on the privacy front, customers wanted tighter controls over their data.LIKE.TG listened and came back with an array of new features and capabilities. At the Now Platform keynote on Day 3 of Knowledge 2019, Casey unveiled Now Platform innovations designed to help customers deliver consumer-grade mobile apps with increased scalability, security, and usability.All of the following will be available in this fall’s New York release:
Siri shortcuts. This tool will offer multiple ways to simplify and customize voice interactions with mobile apps. Users can build shortcuts for common actions, such as open an incident, show to-dos, or request a day off.
Natural Language Understanding: Building on NLU technology from the AI startup Parlo, which LIKE.TG acquired in 2018, the platform will offer a no-code tool to create mobile voice-to-text shortcuts. Starting with the Orlando release in 2020, the Natural Language Query tool will enable customers to create customized virtual agents for mobile.
Database performance optimization: This will let customers with large datasets generate reports faster than ever before. In a demo, Rani Hamdi, VP of quality engineering, showed how the current platform took 28 seconds to run a report for a million-point dataset. With the new DPO tool, he was able to run a report in a mere three seconds that analyzed 10 times the amount of data.
Instance data replication: This will allow customers to replicate data from different instances, synced in real time. Previously, companies had to build out data replication manually. Now, with a simple configuration, you can sync data between instances with no-code implementation.
Data residency and compliance. This new compliance tool helps customers keep up with rapidly changing data privacy and security regulations in countries around the world.
KYOK (Keep Your Own Key): With Instance Key Management, customers can take control of their own data, with LIKE.TG serving as a secure backstop. And while your data is safe in the cloud, it will remain encrypted so that LIKE.TG itself can’t access your data unless you request it. “We’re excited to put the keys to your data privacy in your hands,” said Mike Lents, VP of service engineering.
Josh Kahn, vice president and GM of LIKE.TG’s Platform business unit, then took the stage to show how customers can harness the new capabilities of the Now Platform.Kahn outlined two broad categories of applications that customers are creating on the Now Platform. The first is productivity apps that are purpose-built to automate specific business workflows such as vacation requests, customer feedback and loaner equipment requests from IT. “While productivity apps automate small, simple processes, their business value adds up the more you add to the platform,” said Kahn.
On the productivity app front, David Record, division chief at the U.S. Department of State, demonstrated a vacation request app that replaced an older, paper-based process. The old process had multiple approval layers and took 15 days to process each leave request. Record’s team built a LIKE.TG mobile app that drove processing time down to 10 minutes. Using the Now Platform’s no-code development tools, they got the new app up and running in just three weeks from concept to launch.The second category is transformation apps, which optimize core processes that create significant business value for the company. These core processes are often highly complex and cut across multiple departments in an organization. Examples include employee recruitment, contract management, patent tracking, employee mobility and many more.To highlight transformation apps, Kahn introduced Sandra Tartol, VP of enterprise business operations for Optum Rx, a large prescription management company with 65 million customers worldwide. OptumRx processes $91 billion in prescription spending every year. Tartol explained how the company used LIKE.TG to transform unstructured prescription management processes, saving tens of millions of dollars last year alone.Other Day 3 highlightsAt the CreatorCon Spotlight, Marcus Torres, head of product for LIKE.TG’s platform business, walked developers through new tools to manage the work of developers and builders within ServiceNow.Guided App Creator makes it easier to import data from outside sources like spreadsheets so that it can be manipulated within the Now Platform and more quickly deployed into workflows.The Now UI Builder allows non-developers to assemble reusable workflow components in a drag-and-drop interface to create working dashboards. Finally, DevX creates a workspace which pulls all these elements together, regardless of whether the user wants to work at the code level or manipulate the components as drag-and-drop objects.
