ServiceNow Inc and Adobe Inc said on Tuesday they will make their software systems work together in an effort to improve apps used by customer service representatives.
ServiceNow has long made software that large businesses use to field internal requests from employees to their information technology departments, but in recent years has branched into selling similar software for use by customer service departments to handle requests from external customers.
Adobe, once known for its Photoshop digital imaging software, has shifted to become a major seller of cloud-based software that large businesses use to carry out digital marketing campaigns, giving it data on what consumers like and dislike about a given brand.
Under the new partnership, when a customer contacts a brand using the ServiceNow and Adobe systems, the customer service agent will be able to see a profile of the customer, including what they've purchased or tried to find help with on a website in the past, pulled together by Adobe. The goal is to better prepare the agent to handle the customer's request.
The deal aims to "address the consumer expectation that wherever I hit that brand, whether it's through a customer service app, a website or a store, I want them to know me and show me the right experience," Amit Ahuja, vice president of ecosystem development at Adobe, said in an interview.
Michael Ramsey, vice president of product for customer workflows at ServiceNow, said customer service departments can use the additional data to resolve customer requests more quickly.
"Consumers want what they want, and they want it now," he said.
Paul Greenberg, managing principal of analyst firm The 56 Group, said the partnership will help both companies. While Adobe has a major partnership with Microsoft Corp to blend its marketing data into Microsoft's software for sales people, the ServiceNow deal is Adobe's first big foray into the world of customer service software. And while ServiceNow has experience helping companies route internal requests to the right place, it is relatively new to helping its customer base field questions from external consumers.
"They both gain and are both going to be very valuable to each other," Greenberg said in an interview.
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Leslie Adler)
