Total Experience How Digital Workflows Empower Customers and Employees

SUMMER 2021

Total Experience How digital workflows empower customers and employees

The race to master High calling for The power of human- digital experience low code centered design PAGE 2 PAGE 10 PAGE 14 In this issue Letter from the editor Richard McGill Murphy 2 The race is on to master digital experience Welcome to the Total Experience Issue POST-PANDEMIC, COMPANIES EXPECT TO MAKE BIG LEAPS IN BOTH REALMS OF DIGITAL EXPERIENCE BY EVAN RAMZIPOOR Historically, most companies have treated em- Our research showed that U.S. companies ployee and customer experience as separate are furthest ahead in terms of digital experience challenges, managed in different departments maturity. About 26% of them ranked as digi- across the organization. Customer experience tal experience leaders, versus 19% of European (cx) has generally gotten more attention than firms and 17% of companies in Asia. 4 employee experience (ex) because customers Financial services companies produced the The rise of unified provide the revenue that keeps companies in highest proportion of digital experience leaders experience business. (31%), compared to 21% of public sector orga- management 14 Yet it seems obvious that happier, more pro- nizations and 17% of both manufacturing firms Using empathy to design ductive employees will in turn deliver better and telecoms. Healthcare produced the lowest THE BENEFITS OF SUPERIOR CX great experiences AND EX ARE FORCING COMPANIES experiences for customers, benefitting the number of leaders (15%). TO MANAGE BOTH AS A UNIFIED HUMAN-CENTERED DESIGN HELPS bottom line. Empirical research supports this Larger firms with bigger it budgets tended DISCIPLINE BY LAURA RICH ORGANIZATIONS DELIVER HIGH-QUALITY hypothesis. For example, a to be more digitally mature than smaller com- EXPERIENCES FASTER THAN EVER 2017 MIT study found companies. Thirty-three percent of firms with BEFORE BY GREGG ALDANA panies in the top quartile for revenues of at least $5 billion were leaders,

Contents EX delivered twice the inno- compared with 10% of firms with revenues vation, double the customer below $1 billion, the smallest category. satisfaction, and 25% great- covid-19 clearly affected how our respon- 10 er profitability compared to dents thought about the value of using digital companies in the bottom platforms to provide holistic ex and cx solu- 20 quartile. tions. According to one survey respondent: Can GPT-3 reinvent What can organizations “Businesses cannot continue to operate in silos, customer experience? achieve when customer and especially after the pandemic. Organizations GPT-3, A POWERFUL NEW MACHINE employee experiences are con- were forced to work remotely, become more LEARNING TOOL, MAKES IT POSSIBLE TO nected with seamless, con- mobile and virtual, and hence needed to think DELIVER MORE DETAILED, REALISTIC sumer-grade tech that breaks about moving towards total experience to en- CONTENT FOR CUSTOMER-FACING down departmental silos, al- hance their digital strategies.” APPLICATIONS BY CHRISTOPHER NULL lowing work to flow smoothly Another respondent said: “Companies need from across the organization? to move to total experience to establish trust We know the covid-19 pan- and open communication with their clients, demic was a forcing function users, and employees. It is important to stay on for digital transformation in general, because top of all the touch points for delivering better thousands of companies suddenly had to rely experiences and staying in business.” 24 on digital platforms and business models to Digital platforms are a prerequisite for driv- High calling for low code: Getting started stay in business. How did this impact ex and ing total experience, because they enable smart Designing great work experiences with employee experience cx in the enterprise? digital workflows that connect front, middle, LOW-CODE TOOLS EMPOWER design We set out to answer these questions in the and back-office functions. More than half of EMPLOYEES TO CREATE BETTER HIGH-QUALITY DIGITAL EXPERIENCES Total Experience Issue of Workflow Quarterly. companies and four of the five industries in our EXPERIENCES FOR CUSTOMERS AND AREN’T JUST FOR CUSTOMERS. Earlier this year, ServiceNow and ESI survey said their top priority was moderniz- THEMSELVES BY CHRIS BEDI COMPANIES NEED TO MAKE SURE ThoughtLab surveyed 900 senior business ing digital platforms. Over the next year or two, EMPLOYEES ALSO HAVE WELL-DESIGNED leaders in five industries across 13 countries. executives also plan to drive total experience ALSO: AND ENGAGING DIGITAL TOOLS We sought to understand how companies are by hiring more talent, providing them with the BY DANIEL TERDIMAN using digital technologies and solutions to im- right digital tools, integrating ex and cx fur- 1 EDITOR’S PAGE RICHARD MCGILL MURPHY prove their cx and ex, the benefits they are ther, and including employees in total experi- seeing, and the challenges they face. Our goal ence design. 28 ROUNDTABLE: 3 STRATEGIES was to help organizations develop a roadmap I hope you enjoy the Total Experience Issue, FOR BUILDING DIGITAL EXPERIENCE to excellence in using digital solutions to opti- and that it helps you create better digital experi- EXPERTISE mize customer and employee experience and ences for your own employees and customers. 29 CONTRIBUTORS boost overall performance. TheThe racerace isis onon toto mastermaster digital experience...experience… ...… asas companies companies seek seek bigbig payospayoffs CompaniesCompanies expect expect to to accelerate accelerate progress progress over over the the next next two two years years in indigital digital cx CXand and ex EX Experience leaders areare seeingseeing aa varietyvariety of of strategic strategic beneﬁts benefits in in both both camps camps By Evan Ramzipoor

Top CX beneﬁts for leaders In two years Overall CX Overall EX 66% 60%

50% 58% +37% 40% 49% (67%) +40% 42% 38% 38% 34% (64%) 30% Uniﬁed Risk/ service ops compliance 30% 20% 24% controls +26% 10% Higher Attract Customer New Lower Deeper Higher revenue customers loyalty/ business capital costs customer shareholder Ai-powered (41%) +25% (37%) Fast retention models insights value experiences 0% response 15% +25% 12% Today +25% (45%) (42%) Top EX beneﬁts for leaders 20% 17% Organizing Single for key platform +23% +24% moments (31%) 8% Digital Digital 9% (33%) 58% customer employee 12% Organizational +22% experience experience 22% 53% +24% Data 49% visibility (34%) (46%) 41% access 36% 32% 29%

24% +22% 9% 38% (46%) Service 0% +23% 23% 11% 8% +22% (61%) automation 15% Improved Attract Lower New Digital Increased Improved (31%) Safe diversity talent capital business transformation innovation reputation +22% 10% workplace costs models capacity (45%) +21% 21% (32%) 20% +21% +22% Collaborative Improving (29%) (37%) workﬂows digital payments 30% Post-sale +21% Cut (42%) Higher experience Improve repetitive Better 40% processes revenue THE DATA PAGES DATA THE engagement decision- making Shopping Financial 40% Organizational experience 50% 45% Increased 30% 36% 60% market Improved share 20% health/ safety 33% Top benets Lower 10% 27% Better capital costs products/ 0% services of total 28% 23% Faster issue Sectors gaining the fastest Greater resolution experience eciencies 27% 22%

Digital CX Digital EX Digital Deeper New 24% 21% market In two years Today business insights Merging CX and EX models TX 67% +41% 26% Public sector 26% +46% 72% eorts helps companies maximize returns 5% 6% 5% 67% +39% 28% Telecoms 22% +47% 69% 5% 22% Employee loyalty/ Attract Attract retention 59% 21% Manufacturing 24% 56% customers talent +38% +32% Customer loyalty/ retention Fewer 84% 49% Financial services 28% 70% customer +35% +42% complaints

55% +30% 25% Healthcare 19% +32% 51% SOURCE: ESI THOUGHTLAB/SERVICENOW ESI SOURCE: Customer/employee

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WORKFLOW QUARTERLY SUMMER 2021 INFOGRAPHIC BY ARNAUD GHELFI SUMMER 2021 WWORKLFOWORKLFOW QUARTERLY Rise 4 The WORKFLOW QUARTERLY

SUMMER 2021 management experience of CX andEXasaunifieddiscipline Why itmakes sense to manage PHOTOGRAPH BY MAY TRUONG By Laura Rich

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W ORKLFOW QUARTERLY Communications Randy Clapp Advantage 5

6 growth, andprofit. do poorly—andcanhelpboost revenue, between teams—something many companies The combinationforcesmore datasharing customer loyalty, according to recentstudies. andincrease raise employee performance ing anorganization’s canhelp cxandexefforts emerging. discipline, management, calledexperience is combine skillsandresources, anewstrategic succeed. (ex)dependononeanother toexperience ones, (cx)andemployee customerexperience convert moremanualprocessesintodigital Many companiesarefinding thatas they among Advantage’s staffrise. would improved,service moraleandjobsatisfaction for callers; ascustomers’ experiences with the center agents would lead to abetterexperience Improving the employee forcall experience recognize the two problemsassymbiotic: officer for Advantage Communications,to was clients. company’sretaining the large travel and telecom employee to was andcustomermetrics critical scores.customer satisfaction Butimproving was consistentlydismal, as was the company’s lem. The retentionrateathiscallcenterservice a vexingRandy Clappfaced management prob- WORKFLOW QUARTERLY With the help of new digital With tools,the helpofnewdigital merg- As ex andcx teams collaboratemoreand Advantage Communicationsisnotalone. The solution, saysClapp, the chiefrevenue Gains incustomer satisfaction andemployee engagement atcompanies that prioritize digital CX

SUMMER 2021

design of the productorservice.” itdirectly,ering but also those involved in the tion comesfrom the employee—the onesdeliv- analystatQualtrics.principal - “Their satisfac arehaving,”ence customers says Aimee Lucas, ment. manage- focusedonexperience consultancy fromQualtrics, according a to arecentsurvey inrevenue andemployeepetitors retention, above average” said their companiesbeatcom- were “significantly measures performance added software that would listeninandprovide your psychegetsdamaged.” calls,” Clappsays. “One badcallafteranother, better and the more they have successful calls was the agent’s level ofconfidence. difference between moreandlesssuccessful emotional content. They found that the chief processing tools to evaluate calls’ literal and the calls. place where employee andcustomermeet: in problemin the experience-management very At Advantage, Clappfound the solution to his Building agents’ confidence — “We’ve- lookedatandrecognized the experi Executives atcompanies whose cxandex To improve agents’ confidence, Advantage agentjustfeels “A reallygoodperforming First, Clapp’s team usednatural-language

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PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN DOE eally goodperforming “ gets damaged.” another, your psyche calls. Onebadcall after they have successful and better the more agent just feels better A r RANDY CLAPP SUMMER 2021

W ORKLFOW QUARTERLY

7 “Now, agents feel great about their work, and customers get what they’re calling for.”

RANDY CLAPP, CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER, ADVANTAGE COMMUNICATIONS

scripts to agents on the fly, depending on how be combined with predictive models that make them address potential problems quickly, we experience index” that integrated customer the conversation was going. Agents would also sense of the data, and then that information can can nip the problems in the bud.” and employee data and showed the impact of create “playbooks” that laid out scripts and best be presented in a usable form at the moment Galvin and her ex counterpart have dis- both, and established incentives among both practices for the calls. the employee needs it, as in the Advantage call cussed developing a shared dashboard for visi- teams to keep the index high. “Now, agents feel great about their work, center. bility into both areas. Once the dashboard is set Still, experts say a chief experience offi- and customers get what they’re calling for,” says Experience management is still in its early up, Galvin says, it might include information cer who heads up both cx and ex could more Clapp. After a three-month test of the new stages, and a clear set of best practices have about employees’ roles, tenure, region, and de- neatly align the two organizations. “Designating approach, the company went from completely yet to emerge. But the examples of a few early partment. The information could be matched a chief experience officer can serve as a pow- turning over its staff of agents to an attrition rate adopters provide some insight into how compa- with net promoter scores or erful signal to the organization of 20%. A key customer satisfaction measure nies are navigating the process. other customer metrics that rate about how important xm is,” increased 20%. Nuance Communications, a speech rec- their ease of doing business. Lucas says. Companies that made cx a top priority ognition and artificial intelligence company, Managers could also view teams’ Adobe, for example, installed from the C-suite to the front lines, according to found that data sharing between cx and ex trend lines, where they diverge an executive with specific xm McKinsey research, saw gains of up to 20% in teams was a critical strategy in merging the and where they come together. responsibilities. Donna Morris, both customer satisfaction and employee en- two practices. the company’s former executive gagement. Their customer service costs also fell Carolyn Galvin, Nuance’s director of market vp of customer and employee by as much as 20%. and competitive intelligence, focuses most of — experience, focused on aligning “The way employees experience work has her time on customer experience, measuring Building an XM team the two sides through feedback, become more important than ever before,” consumer loyalty with such metrics as net pro- metrics, and incentives among says Chris Pope, global VP of innovation for moter scores. Early in her tenure, she connect- Setting up an experience-man- Carolyn Galvin, director of both teams, with a focus on en- market intelligence, Nuance ServiceNow. “This is critical for how organiza- ed with her ex counterpart to share strategies agement practice can mean re- Communications gagement and retention, attrac- tions transform, adapt, disrupt, and stay and best practices for getting feedback in both drawing lines in the org chart, tion, and development. relevant.” camps. but it doesn’t necessarily have to. xm structures Assigning a single chief of xm can help Galvin noticed a symbiotic relationship be- can come in a variety of forms and can be run keep both teams focused on the same strategy tween the two feedback loops. Employees on by different executives. and meeting the same standards, says Isabelle — the front lines are usually the first to notice At Starwood Hotels, Jeff Cava, the com- Zdatny, xm analyst at Qualtrics, and “can influ- The emergence of XM issues that arise with customers, Galvin says, pany’s former chief human resources man- ence how employees think and act to align with while customers who interact with engaged em- ager, introduced an early form of experience the company’s xm vision.” Digital technology and supporting expertise are ployees generally have better overall experienc- management shortly after he joined the com- Adds Lucas, the Qualtrics analyst: “Start needed to make the transition from specialized es with a brand. pany in 2008 and had xm teams report to with small, doable things in places where there ex and cx teams into a uniform xm practice. For Potential problem areas “tend to be reflected him. (Cava left Starwood in 2016 and now is a are natural connections and teams are open to example, tools that can detect emotion and in- in both communities,” she says. “If we empow- senior external adviser at McKinsey.) Cava re- doing it. Get those success stories and make terpret unstructured data in speech and text can er employees with data and insights that helps cruited the support of the ceo, set up a “guest the organization accountable.”

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WORKFLOW QUARTERLY SUMMER 2021 SUMMER 2021 WORKLFOW QUARTERLY 10 experiences)}) {}great { By Chris Bedi for customers andthemselves employees to create better experiences Low-code tools empower low (( WORKFLOW QUARTERLY designing ; high.

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W ORKLFOW QUARTERLY 11 When I was starting my career in tech, software development was the preserve of skilled engineers. That paradigm is rapidly becoming obsolete, along, I initially dismissed it as a language that Gartner atric patients. views all proposals for new apps, and checks thanks to the rise of low-code development wasn’t fit for “real” developers. predicts low- The experience is fast, intuitive, and guided. their work to ensure no bad code finds its way tools that allow citizen developers, with little or Each new language reduced the complex- A visual development environment empow- into production instances. no coding experience, to create powerful apps ity of software development and made the field code tools will ers citizen developers to collaborate and build In theory, anyone can build powerful apps using prebuilt templates and intuitive, drag- accessible to more people. In every case, de- account apps without writing code. And pre-built work- using low-code tools. But that doesn’t mean and-drop interfaces. velopers started off using the new language for 65% of all flow templates let them build apps even faster everyone in your company should add “devel- The rapid advance of low-code tools is hap- to solve simple problems, and then quickly software without having to start from scratch. oper” to their resume. In my experience, good pening at a critical moment. To stay competitive moved on to tougher challenges. I expect the development citizen developer candidates are tech-savvy, in the digital economy, companies are under same trend to play out with low-code tools. by 2024. familiar with spreadsheets, and interested in pressure to create intuitive, consumer-like apps At ServiceNow, citizen developers are al- — building new tools—which describes almost ev- and experiences for their employees and cus- ready using our App Engine Studio tool to Low-code limitations eryone from the current generation entering the tomers. Doing so requires pervasive automation design better work experiences. One team workforce. throughout the enterprise, touching every pro- used it to build a deal-pricing app for our sales Low-code is not a panacea for all the ineffi- And there’s no substitute for domain exper- cess, department, and team. leads. The new app has a chatbot interface and ciencies of modern business. For example, I tise. Citizen developers need it to understand Problem is, there aren’t nearly enough pro incorporates all the pricing rules that deal desk don’t recommend using App Engine to au- which new app will move the needle for their developers in the talent marketplace to auto- employees used to keep in their heads. Sales tomate bad workflows. You can’t streamline team. mate all those processes and design those expe- teams will use the bot to answer routine pric- a broken process. I also don’t encourage the Finally, I don’t see citizen developers put- riences. That’s one reason why Gartner predicts ing questions, freeing our deal-desk experts use of low code tools to build redundant apps. ting software engineers out of business. Rather, that low-code tools will account for 65% of all to focus on more complex issues that the bot Even if an employee dislikes your company’s I see a natural division of tasks in the enterprise software development by 2024. can’t handle. travel booking system, it’s probably not a good where citizen developers concentrate on digi- IT pros often argue that low-code dev plat- Many of our customers are also building use of time for them to go off and build their tizing department needs, while pro developers forms are fine for simple tasks, but aren’t useful their own low-code apps with App Engine. At own booking app! focus on more complex, enterprise-level work. for building “real” applications. Yet throughout the start of the pandemic, the City of Los An- Basically, you don’t want your citizen de- With the right tools and guardrails in place, the history of computing, we’ve heard the same geles designed, built, and launched a covid-19 velopers turning into a shadow IT depart- citizen developers can help accelerate innova- skepticism about every new coding language: testing app in 72 hours. In Memphis, Tenn., ment. You can avoid that by putting guardrails tion and boost productivity throughout your Fortran in the 1950s, Basic and C in the 1960s, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is using around the development process. At Service- organization. In a world where software increas- Perl in the 1980s, Javascript in the 1990s. Per- low-code development to design custom work- Now, we launched a lightweight governance ingly is the business, they are the fuel your com-

sonally, I learned to code in C. When Java came flows that help deliver critical services to pedi- HERE CREDIT PHOTOGRAPH program that certifies citizen developers, re- pany needs to take off.

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WORKFLOW QUARTERLY SUMMER 2021 SUMMER 2021 WORKLFOW QUARTERLY 14 WORKFLOW QUARTERLY By Gregg Aldana ever before experiences faster than deliver high-quality helps organizations Human-centered design experiences to designgreat Using empathy

SUMMER 2021

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PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE SUMMER 2021 near DodgerStadium inLos Mobile vaccination clinic Angeles, 2021. February

W ORKLFOW QUARTERLY 15 16 ful tandem iscreatinginnovative expe- digital code software development. havewith low- alreadymadeprogress prises ThoughtLab showed that 67%oflargeenter- cording to Gartner. byESI And a globalsurvey and tools reached$10.6billion2020,gies ac- days. The marketplaceforlow-code technolo- and months or canbecompletedinhours years dress those painpoints. Projects that once took that ad- experiences ofnewdigital delivery allow for the rapiddesign, development, and areidealfor that challenge,forms because they manner. lutions directlyinaninteractive with endusers ences, andrequiresideatingco-creatingso- users. - experi great indelivering This iscritical thy to address the specificpainpointsofend human-centered designisaboutusingempa- ically focusedonsystemowners. Bycontrast, ees andcustomers. foremploy- they cancreatebetterexperiences how forms, arehelpingcompaniesreimagine workflowman-centered designanddigital plat- Low-code appdevelopment, paired with hu- ing and software developmentwaterfall cycles. are the daysoflengthy requirement gather- lead designanddevelopment. likeIDEO toconductuserresearchand firms tice requiredbig-budget assistancefromdesign Until recently, however, puttingitintoprac- for decades. been around services—has products or of creating new at the center people’s needs design—putting human-centered The concept of WORKFLOW QUARTERLY Here are three examplesofhow this power- Low-code applicationdevelopment plat- Traditional software development hashistor- Today, the tables have beenflipped. Gone

SUMMER 2021

scale. proving andat the userexperience—quickly need to achieve newbusiness outcomes byim- on the fly.riences All were motivated by the employees emailac- who lackedcorporate onany device.enter ideasorconcerns Retail portal, through which allemployees could would resonate with employees. door” that experiences promise usingdigital figure outhow todeliver on “open theoriginal rate andretailemployees. The challenge was to - with corpo ofdesign-thinkingsprints a series high. turnover was levels engagement andsatisfaction were low; wentand concerns unaddressed. Employee in the CEO’s inbox eachmonth. Many ideas cently, 18,000employee emails would pileup technology.rely heavilyondigital Untilre- more than 2millionemployees worldwide who decades, but it’s becomeuntenable today with concern. proach seniormanagers withaproblemor for worker feedback. Any employee couldap- in the 1950s, itcreatedan “open door” policy When onemajorglobalretailergotitsstart a new ‘open door’ Giving retailemployees —

The sprints yielded The sprints the ideaofanewonline To address these problems, the retailerran That forseveralwas amanageablepolicy

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W ORKLFOW QUARTERLY 17 raditional software development has “ specific painpoints of endusers.” is aboutusing empathy to address the By contrast, human-centered design historically focused onsystem owners. T 18 results.and view coulduse to bothscheduleexams personnel development, the team built amobileapp that workflows.a newsetofdigital Using low-code the entire,zation reimagined clunky processas and personnel,with seniorofficers theorgani- of results. sonnel mademorecalls to checkon the status it to spreadsheetsat transferred their desks. Per- recorded the databyhandand Examiners phone callsandsentemails to scheduleexams. to bedeployed to combat theaters. who hadsixmonthsinorder to be tested every personnel for fitnessevaluations ofallservice to itsmanual,fast paper-and-clipboardprocess For years, onebranchof the U.S. held military redesign a digital fitnessexamsget Military — creased and turnover declined. were employee andengagementin- satisfaction opment andlaunch within three weeks. Results were guaranteedaresponse within 36hours. manager,to the appropriate andemployees ed digital workflows, routedrequests theportal draw out their ideas. Usinglow-code, automat- couldeven use counts andcomputers tablets to WORKFLOW QUARTERLY The project yielded multiplepayoffs: Exam- a two-dayDuring design thinking exercise It was aninefficientprocess. made Personnel The new service went fromideation The newservice to devel-

SUMMER 2021

experiences to stayin experiences the game. increasingly deliver intuitive, consumer-grade before. That’s goodnews forCIOs, who must than ever faster high-quality experiences velopment arehelping organizationsdeliver centered design thinking andlow-code de- was available to millionsofLAresidents. build a test-scheduling app. Within 36hours, it development to team usedalow-code platform pleted ahuman-centereddesignsprint, anda citizens. aspossiblefor to beaspainlessandfriendly ity atspecificlocations. Theprocessneeded andschedulingcapac- groups at-risk oritize out within days. - The solutionneeded to pri berolledmandated that the newplatform mayor tests. The covidto scheduledrive-up tool of adigital that cityresidentscoulduse crisis, Los Angeles officials wereindireneed In March2020, at the onsetof the covid-19 rapid testing Rapid solutionfor — three weeks.in deliveredapp was needs forexamsatdifferentlocations. Thenew gotaclearer view intoresourcing commanders health andreadinessofpersonnel; military benefitedfromdatainsightsaboutthe officers usediPadiners apps to recordlive test results; Each exampleillustrateshow human- Over ofa the course weekend, officialscom- the country. the largest in Stadium, oneof site atDodger vaccination Here, the mass response. its COVID-19 code tools for design andlow- human-centered officials used Los Angeles

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W ORKLFOW QUARTERLY 19 Can GPT-3 reinvent customer experience?

A powerful new machine learning tool makes it possible to deliver more detailed, realistic content for customer-facing applications By Christopher Null

WORKFLOW QUARTERLY SUMMER 2021 22 guage. the power to simpleappsusingplain lan- write site-search results, andgive “citizen developers” voice-response systems, deliver moredetailed chatbots and more realisticcustomer-service customer andemployee create experiences—to will comefromhow it helpscompaniesrethink across perhapsitsbiggestimpact the enterprise, of tasks guage acceleratesautomationofallsorts in documents to producingmarketingmaterials. business operations, fromanalyzing the content Transformer 3) could enhancea wide rangeof (the name stands for Generative Pre-trained simple websites. predict that GPT-3 Experts apps or create for legal briefs to help gather material duce more than 300 applications, including tools Still, developers have used the model’s api public, andcommercialapplicationsarelimited. than any previous AI-based languageprogram. and candoso with morehuman-likerealism lines of code based on afew simple commands, a statement, respond to questions, orgenerate Known asgpt natural languageprocessingsoftware to date. nonprofit, released the world’s most powerful for improving customerexperience. text promises to give companies apowerful tool intelligencemodelforcreating A newartificial WORKFLOW QUARTERLY “I think As The technology isn’tThe technology available tothe wider Last June, OpenAI, a San Francisco–based gpt -3’s advanced lan - use of everyday gpt -3, itcanautomaticallycomplete -3 will have a significantandlast-

SUMMER 2021 300 Developers have used the model’s APIto produce more than 300business applications to pro to - for video games or voice-response systems in gpt Resemble.ai, aproducerofsynthetic voices, of somethingmorehelpful. will respond with bland, answers instead generic a customer phrases a question imperfectly, and It isalsounable to readbetween the lines when practitioners. ries, according to customer-service itself, challenges.cea for complex customer-service By To be sure, no one is hailing Early days — a by which were written of out this blog post,the italicized paragraphs previous relevant andrealistic-sounding than those from dialogue. more written Itsresponses canbefar with bespokeanswers insteadofcanned, pre- agents and providing human customer-service 3’s abilities, miningacompany’s knowledge base for thistechnology.” cial-news digests. “But we’re stillinearlydays cto standing] technologies,” Healey, saysBryan ing impact onnlu to the previousparagraphs, bypeople. written The technology isn’t just for chatbots. At Chatbots areanaturalplace to showcase gpt -3 isbeingused to create vocal interactions of Aiera, acompany that produces finan- gpt nlu -3 isn’t ready to handlereal-lifeque- technologies. For example, check

[naturallanguageunder- gpt -3 bot in response gpt -3 as a pana-

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CTO, AIERA BRYAN HEALEY experience. that humans will need to be on hand to make sure times incoherentornonsensical. For some time, standing orreasoning, andits outputissome- routine tasks,writing it’s incapable of under- much.” from While itmightfreecontentcreators “ that year last on Twitter plain-language prompts instead of formal pro- plain-language promptsinsteadofformal canuse to createbusiness applicationsusing ers development software, which citizendevelop- skills.for deepprogramming who createsoftware programs without the need view inlateJune, isaimedatcitizendevelopers product,platform. Itsfirst tobeavailable forpre through the company’s Azure cloud-computing soft, which plans to makeitsfeaturesavailable more abstract with their searching,” Healeysays. ucts. about the company’swritten story of every prod premature. Sam Altman, OpenAI’s for the technology maybeoverblown, oratleast query. out needing to know for the the specializedlogic newestdate at thetop”with the delivery with- by with Ready-Mixin the productnamesorted a cementcompany could type “show allinvoices languages.gramming For instance, ananalystfor NLU Microsoft is integrating gpt Microsoft isintegrating Micro licensed thetechnologyto has OpenAI “This could, in theory, allowto be ourusers It’s noting that worth the earlyenthusiasm gpt GPT technologies.” -3 improves, not damages, the customer

-3 will have a SUMMER 2021 gpt

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ORKLFOW QUARTERLY ceo

, wrote 23 - - - High-quality digital experiences aren’t just for customers By Daniel Terdiman

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WORKFLOW QUARTERLY SUMMER 2021 SUMMER 2021 WORKLFOW QUARTERLY Innovation output and customer satisfaction at companies that offer superior employee experience.

During a project to improve employee experi- filing expense reports, conducting performance proves corporate performance. Companies that also custom-design tools that adapt the best fea- ence, a technology services company with more reviews, or collaborating across work teams— offer a superior employee experience double tures of consumer apps to workplace tasks. Cisco than 350,000 employees discovered that many have famously been far less user-friendly than their innovation output (measured by the share Systems has held hackathons to mine ideas for were struggling with an outdated online perfor- the systems available to customers. In contrast, of revenues from new products) and customer improving its HR systems; one such event gen- mance-management system. Human resources consumer apps, thanks to years of improve- satisfaction, according to a study by MIT Sloan erated more than 100 improvements, including a managers asked workers for ideas on how to fix it. ments, are easy to learn and use and do the job School of Management. They also show 25% concierge system to help new employees navigate Suggestions poured in. hr used them to they’re supposed to do. greater profitability than bottom-ranked firms. their first days on the job, Zdatny says. design a beta version of a new system, which the Employees now expect the same experience The pandemic added a renewed sense of ur- 3 Lean into low code. Other organizations chief human resources execu- in the workplace and want their gency as remote work made employees even are pairing design-thinking techniques and low- tive posted on the company’s work applications to be more more reliant on their digital tools. This has led code app development. Design teams at Servi- intranet. The post generated functional, elegant, and efficient companies to work even harder to master the ceNow recently helped a major retailer create an 20,000 comments in a matter of than ever. Just as user experi- discipline of experience design. online portal to replace its decades-old practice hours. ence (UX) design has shown of in-person employee feedback. Workers can The result was a new pro- success at increasing customer submit their concerns to managers through the cess that replaced periodic engagement and loyalty, apply- — portal and are guaranteed a response within 36 performance reviews with con- ing the practice to the work- A complex discipline hours. The project went from ideation to launch tinuous employee feedback, and place can mean big payoffs for within three weeks. the employees loved it. Further companies. Experience design is complex, but fortunately 3 Avoid a one-size-fits-all mindset. Differ- validation came about a year Consumers expect great in- companies have several options for providing ent functional groups can have different experi- later, when employee-engage- tuitive digital experiences and well-designed apps and tools for employees: ence-design needs, Zdatny says, and those needs ment scores jumped by 20%, spend more with companies 3 Take advantage of existing digital tools. need to be well defined. New hires and 20-year says Isabelle Zdatny, an expe- Isabelle Zdatny that provide them, says Gregg One option is to turn to off-the-shelf applica- veterans will want different things from their dig- Experience management rience management researcher researcher Aldana, global senior director tions with advanced design features built in. For ital experiences. Similarly, experiences also have at Qualtrics XM Institute who Qualtrics XM Institute of Creator Workflows for Servi- example, as post-pandemic work goes hybrid, to be designed to meet different priorities. studied the project. ceNow. “We’re seeing this same digital tools are acutely needed that address If the goal is employee retention, for example, The project is an example of experience behavior impacting recruiting and employee re- remote work’s asynchronous nature—such as experiences need to differentiate your company design—developing digital tools and processes to tention,” he says. “Especially among the young- the delay between emailing and getting a re- from the competition. One guaranteed strategy improve engagement with customers, employees est and most talented in the workforce. They are sponse. One such tool, Twist, helps keep mul- for improving employee experiences is to keep and other groups. The practice, which originally leaving or turning down offers with companies tiple online-discussion threads organized and open a feedback loop. Online surveys about focused on consumers, has proved especially valu- with sub-par experiences for companies that pro- easy to navigate. workers’ concerns, for instance, can keep compa- able in upgrading applications used by employees. vide best-in-class digital employee self-service.” 3 Get employees involved in creating nies apprised of what’s important to their people, Digital tools—for bringing on new employees, Improving employee experience also im- consumer-like work apps. Companies can who are, after all, their most important assets.

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WORKFLOW QUARTERLY SUMMER 2021 SUMMER 2021 WORKLFOW QUARTERLY Roundtable: 3 strategies for building Contributors digital EX expertise

Creating great digital experiences for employees requires multiple strategies and capabilities, including tight collaboration between hr and it, efficient feedback channels for employees, and investments in workflow automation, to name a few. We asked several enterprise technology leaders what organizations should focus on to build their expertise in this critical new discipline. Laura Rich A longtime business journalist, Rich’s work has appeared in the New York Times, Fast Company, Wired, Quartz, Fortune, and WFQ many other publications. She writes about SUMMER 2021 tech, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

Start small, and with Get good at Target processes EDITOR IN CHIEF Richard McGill an Agile mindset.” experience design.” that cause the Murphy

I see two common obstacles when it comes Too often, companies forget the key part most friction and MANAGING EDITOR to digitizing and improving employee expe- of digitizing employee experiences: great frustration.” Paul von Zielbauer Chris Bedi rience. The first is the tendency to try to be design. Typically, they’ll apply process and FEATURES EDITOR As CIO at ServiceNow, Bedi leads a global perfect the first time, which can send or- technology skills to develop self-service To create great employee experiences, it’s Jeff Davis IT organization that is leading digital trans- ganizations down a path of never-ending applications and workflows. They will look important for user experience teams to take formation to create tangible business value development cycles without really solving great on flow charts, and the apps may gain a close look at the processes and systems at ART DIRECTION for an enterprise cloud company that makes anything. initial adoption by pushing employees to use work that create the most friction, frustra- Patrick Mitchell the world of work, work better for people. The second is not thinking comprehen- them, but it doesn’t always end well. tion, and tedium for employees. Frequently Michelle Jacobs sively or strategically enough. Companies When applications are poorly designed, these are processes and workflows created need to adopt an agile and iterative mind- employees either stop using them or end up DATA VISUALIZATION by siloed teams and systems that create un- set when redesigning employee experienc- so confused they do not use them appro- Arnaud Ghelfi necessary complexity and a lack of trans- es. Get the first version of your experience priately. When digitizing employee experi- parency for the employee trying to complete solution out as quickly as possible. Test it. ences, companies need to apply the same CONTRIBUTING WRITERS a task. Improve it based on feedback. Then repeat design rigor they would with any important Evan Ramzipoor To create great experiences for em- the cycle, as necessary. customer interaction. Employees don’t need Laura Rich Gregg Aldana ployees, these journeys must be connected Also, recognize that attempting to solve to love every experience, but every expe- Chris Bedi across systems, offering employees a single Aldana is the senior global director of the employee experience issues in one fell rience should be easy to navigate, easy to Gregg Aldana destination to resolve issues or get informa- Creator Workflows (App Engine) Solution swoop isn’t realistic. You’ll be much better understand, and clearly configured to help Christopher Null tion, with heightened efficiencies powered Consulting organization at ServiceNow. off starting with the most critical pain points employees achieve their goals. Daniel Terdiman by automation and AI, to reduce tedium and and then addressing other projects over frustration, and enable employees to focus time as part of a strategic plan. Bruce Temkin the majority of their time on their creative, PUBLISHER collaborative and intellectual work. HEAD OF QUALTRICS Jason Stolarczyk XM INSTITUTE Josh Bersin HEAD OF AUDIENCE INDUSTRY ANALYST AND DEAN DEVELOPMENT JOSH BERSIN ACADEMY Amy Lokey GLOBAL HEAD OF DESIGN Sheila Dowd SERVICENOW HEAD OF ANALYTICS Christopher Null Emilie Doolittle A longtime technology and business journalist, Null contributes regularly to TechHive, PCWorld, Wired, and other publications.

Daniel Terdiman Terdiman has been a staff writer at CNET, VentureBeat, and Fast Company, and written for Wired, The New York Times, Time, and many other publications. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with two crazy cats.

Workflow Quarterly is published 4x/year.

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