{"id":269510,"date":"2023-03-20T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-20T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/?p=269510"},"modified":"2025-02-18T12:16:58","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T20:16:58","slug":"how-microsoft-teams-helps-isvs-like-servicenow-expand-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2023\/03\/20\/how-microsoft-teams-helps-isvs-like-servicenow-expand-business\/","title":{"rendered":"How Microsoft Teams helps ISVs like ServiceNow expand business"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
This blog series highlights independent software vendors (ISVs) that have achieved business growth and added new value for their customers by building and deploying apps on Microsoft Teams. We love sharing partner success stories. If you have a story, please <\/em>contact us<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Digital collaboration has become the norm, and more promising apps and tools are available daily. The benefits speak for themselves: increased productivity, convenience, innovation\u2014the list goes on. But there are still challenges to address. As app usage grows, workers must toggle across them all day, and that context switching can reduce efficiency. Nearly two-thirds of employees who took a Microsoft survey reported that a lack of integration between tools and processes actually hampers collaboration across teams.1<\/sup> And 72 percent wish their collaboration tools were compatible with one another rather than fragmented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So how can enterprises make the most of disparate tools and information, and how can app developers gain traction in an increasingly competitive landscape?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Microsoft Teams<\/a><\/strong> provides a solution for both the workplace and the marketplace. It is a single platform that combines a company\u2019s workflows, data, tools, and people. Your key apps\u2014made by Microsoft and third-party providers around the globe\u2014are right at your fingertips. For more than 280 million people and 500,000 organizations, Teams has become the modern workspace where you can find virtually everything you need to collaborate and be productive.<\/p>\n\n\n Connect and collaborate in the one app that\u2019s built for teamwork.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t For ISVs, it\u2019s also a trusted marketplace full of opportunities <\/strong>to connect with customers. The AppSource store<\/a> has over 1,800 apps to help users collaborate and innovate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To start this series, I\u2019ll share an example of how ISVs are better serving customers and growing their businesses on Teams through the story of ServiceNow<\/a>, which strives to make organizations smarter and faster by digitizing and automating processes that result in delightful employee and customer experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like so many other technology companies, the pandemic was an inflection point for ServiceNow. As the work environment changed, ServiceNow\u2019s customers increasingly requested that the company\u2019s apps integrate with Microsoft Teams, which had become the center of their daily work.<\/p>\n\n\n \n\t\t\tServiceNow Virtual Agent\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\n\t\t\tDownload the app<\/span> <\/span>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n “Integrating with Teams helps us meet employees in their natural workspaces,\u201d says Jeffrey Gore, Vice President of Product and Solutions Marketing for Employee Workflows and Operations, ServiceNow. \u201cNatively from Teams, employees can access the enterprise services and information they need without having to disrupt their flow of productivity<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the end of March 2020, ServiceNow and Microsoft launched a user experience research project to assess use cases and gauge customer interest in different types of functionality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe had integrated with other platform providers in the past, but deploying with Teams offered a uniquely flexible platform <\/strong>and new options for integrations with tabs and meeting extensions,\u201d says Devesh Satyavolu, Senior Director, Microsoft Alliance at ServiceNow. \u201cWe were excited to explore the possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As customers shared what they wanted, Microsoft and ServiceNow partnered to identify the key challenges and opportunities to bring that functionality to life in Teams, demonstrating a truly customer-driven development cycle. By September 2020, ServiceNow for Microsoft Teams<\/a> was up and running, delivering a valuable solution for mutual customers in a short timeframe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given customers\u2019 integral role in the development, it\u2019s no surprise that ServiceNow\u2019s apps and integrations with Teams have resonated in the marketplace. Customers have been especially excited about the ease of use, which keeps employees in the flow of work and improves productivity. For example, ServiceNow\u2019s Employee Center<\/a> is located in the tabs section, providing quick access to the customer organization\u2019s knowledge base and service delivery content, such as IT help, HR questions, workplace requests, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ServiceNow Virtual Agent<\/strong><\/a> improves productivity<\/strong> from multiple perspectives. For employees, the conversational AI chatbot<\/a> within their Teams workspace offers self-service troubleshooting for common requests, which frees up help desk agents to focus on more complex or urgent issues. The ServiceNow Virtual Agent for Microsoft Teams helps resolve 50 percent of cases without requiring human agent attention<\/strong>, resulting in lower operating costs for our shared customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If agent intervention is required, the platform-to-platform integration\u2014built using the Notify connector for Teams\u2014allows collaboration directly between the ServiceNow interface, where agents work, and Teams, where employees work. That means it\u2019s easy to kick off calls and speed up case resolution, according to Sancho Pinto, Vice President, Product Management, Unified Employee Experiences at ServiceNow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These apps and integrations provide real-world benefits, as shown by Wipro, a global technology services and consulting company with over 250,000 employees. Wipro wanted to improve its employee experience by building a unified support system for employees seeking help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By integrating ServiceNow Virtual Agent for Microsoft Teams, employees were quickly able to find answers to questions, perform password resets, or request new laptops in less time than it previously took a human agent.2<\/sup> This resulted in a 40 percent reduction in service requests and a 25 percent decrease in support calls. With ServiceNow Virtual Agent and Employee Center, the average time for help desk agents to find relevant information in Wipro\u2019s knowledge base was reduced from 28 minutes to just 6 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Microsoft Teams also helps our partners grow their businesses. ServiceNow Virtual Agent is part of a paid ServiceNow Pro SKU so the integration with Teams provides upsell opportunities for current customers. They also deploy ServiceNow Virtual Agent two times faster when using the integrated version<\/strong>\u2014thanks to a seamless user experience. ServiceNow encourages all customers to use the Teams integrations because it increases their usage of the company\u2019s products, ensuring they receive maximum value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When it comes to customer acquisition, ServiceNow has found that offering apps in Teams isn\u2019t just a benefit but a gating item for sales conversations\u2014an absolute must-have for enterprises. “There\u2019s an undeniable link between digital workspaces and great employee experiences,\u201d Jeffrey Gore says. \u201cAs employees continue to collaborate in Teams, they unlock greater productivity and efficiency<\/strong> by natively integrating ServiceNow to digitally connect people to the services and workflows they need from anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Embedding new apps within employees\u2019 daily workspace increases usage, or makes them more \u201csticky,\u201d and ServiceNow has seen plenty of evidence to support that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another benefit of deploying apps on Teams is the ability to utilize the advanced security and governance safeguards of the Microsoft 365 platform, from fully encrypted data to an <\/strong>ISV app certification program<\/strong><\/a> that unlocks the broadest access to customers.<\/p>\n\n\n \n\t\t\tMicrosoft 365\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\n\t\t\tLearn more<\/span> <\/span>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n For ServiceNow, Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) has enabled robust authentication to verify that the employee using their app is the same person using Teams, and vice versa. From an application programming interface (API) perspective, Microsoft has provided guidance on what level of permissions users are willing to accept so ServiceNow can build apps accordingly and achieve better adoption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Above all, ServiceNow and Microsoft continue to seek customer feedback to determine how users can benefit most from the integration with Teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Get started with Microsoft Teams<\/a> today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Discover ServiceNow\u2019s apps available for Microsoft Teams<\/a> and learn more about the partnership between ServiceNow and Microsoft<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t
Microsoft Teams<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t
Collaborating to meet employees where they work<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Improving the customer experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Increasing revenue through customer acquisition and retention<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Leveraging security and analytics to continue the customer journey<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Learn more about ServiceNow and Microsoft Teams<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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