Maximizing ServiceNow ROI: 6 Strategies to Unlock Full Platform Value

There’s no single benchmark for ROI on a ServiceNow platform investment.

But several case studies demonstrate the range of outcomes organizations might expect from successful platform implementation:

• Worldpay, a global payment processing company, achieved a 111% ROI with a 1.8-year payback period after implementing ServiceNow for IT service management (ITSM), according to a Forrester Total Economic Impact study.
• The National Basketball Association (NBA) implemented ServiceNow Workplace Service Delivery (WSD), achieving a 51% ROI and full investment payback within two years.
• A supply chain software provider using ServiceNow Customer Service Management (CSM) saw a 167% annual ROI, recouping its investment in six months.
• A Forrester Total Economic Impact study of ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management found a composite ROI of 365% over 3 years.

These benchmarks demonstrate the huge potential upside for ServiceNow implementations.

But they also reveal something important: Returns vary dramatically based on implementation quality, user adoption, and how organizations leverage the platform's capabilities.

ServiceNow ROI Challenges: Key Barriers Keeping You From Realizing Full Enterprise Value

Despite ServiceNow's proven ROI potential, many organizations struggle to fully realize it. 

It’s not entirely surprising, given that a WalkMe study recently found that enterprises wasted $104 million in 2024 on underused technology.

This value realization gap stems from several common challenges:

• Poor user adoption remains the primary barrier. When employees find ServiceNow difficult to use or prefer familiar legacy tools, utilization rates stagnate. Organizations with 40% platform utilization essentially waste 60% of their licensing spend, turning a potential 5X ROI into barely breaking even.
• Shadow IT proliferation compounds the problem. By 2027, Gartner predicts that 75% of employees will use, modify, or create technology outside of IT’s oversight. Each shadow tool represents potentially duplicated functionality, security risk, and lost ServiceNow investment value.
• Data quality issues hinder AI capabilities and adoption. ServiceNow's powerful AI features like Predictive Intelligence, Now Assist, and Virtual Agent all require comprehensive, structured data to function effectively. When incident records contain sparse documentation and resolution notes only say, "Done," AI systems can't learn, predict, or automate intelligently.
• Inadequate integration makes ServiceNow an island. When the platform doesn't connect to monitoring tools, collaboration systems, and support applications, users must constantly context-switch, enter data manually, and use workflow automation that can't span systems.

Why the Gap Exists: It's Not a Platform Problem

The value realization gap often exists because organizations focus on implementation (going live on time and budget) rather than adoption and optimization (ensuring people actually use the platform effectively and leverage its full capabilities).

Organizations that shift focus from implementation metrics to value realization metrics close the gap, transforming ServiceNow from an expensive ITSM tool into a strategic platform that drives operational excellence, cost reduction, and competitive advantage.

The Path to Maximum ROI: Three Strategic Pillars

Maximizing ServiceNow ROI is a function of value divided by cost. 

Since the cost of the platform is relatively static, we need to look at how we can either directly increase the value the platform provides or use its capabilities to reduce costs in other ways, improving net ROI for the organization.

We can break this down into three overarching goals:

1. Reduce operational costs: Eliminate redundant spending, automate manual work, and deflect support volume through self-service capabilities.
2. Increase efficiency and productivity: Accelerate resolution times, improve resource utilization, and handle more volume without adding headcount.
3. Increase strategic value: Expand platform reach across the enterprise, unlock AI capabilities, and create cross-functional automation impossible with disconnected systems.

The following six strategies address the root causes of the value realization gap, providing actionable approaches to increase ServiceNow ROI from baseline to exceptional. Each strategy includes specific implementation tactics, real-world results, and quantified ROI impact.

Reduce Operational Costs

Strategy 1: Go All-in On Self-service Support

Organizations that successfully shift support volume from agent-handled incidents to self-service channels can deflect upwards of 50% of IT Help Desk requests.

This shift could reduce total IT support spend by as much as 30%, representing an enormous potential improvement in ROI on ServiceNow investment.

The ServiceNow Virtual Agent is the lever for increasing self-service IT requests.

But many companies struggle to achieve high deflection via the Virtual Agent because they’re missing the underlying data that the agent relies upon to be effective.

Virtual Agent draws from the knowledge base content. So if this content contains major gaps, you’ll struggle to get end users to adopt self-service support options.

Again, ServiceNow provides a clear solution here. Now Assist can automatically generate KB articles with a single click, directly from any resolved incident record.

But, for those KB articles to be helpful, the incidents must contain robust details about the problem, context, troubleshooting, and resolution.

In other words, a note saying, “Done,” won’t cut it.

So, increasing self-service support and reducing IT support costs ultimately comes down to two key action items:

• Improve the detail and structure of resolution notes: Adopt a tool like ScreenMeet AI Summarization for Remote Support, which automatically summarizes remote support sessions to generate detailed, structured resolution notes that you can use to create KB content and train AI.
• Use Now Assist to expand knowledge base: With detailed resolution notes in place, your team should aim for a 300–500% increase in KB article creation using Now Assist’s one-click KB generation feature. 

With a 5X uptick in KB content, Virtual Agent will quickly become much more accurate and helpful. End users can more easily solve their issues, which can reduce overall IT support incidents and associated costs.

Strategy 2: Consolidate Tools and Eliminate Shadow IT

Organizations spend approximately $4,000 per employee annually on SaaS tools, with 30–38% of that investment wasted through unused licenses and duplicated applications, according to Zylo's SaaS management research.

Every redundant tool in your IT ecosystem represents wasted spend and reduced ServiceNow ROI. 

When employees bypass ServiceNow to use unauthorized applications for collaboration, remote support, asset tracking, or request management, they create shadow IT that duplicates functionality you've already purchased, fragments data, and undermines platform ROI.

Action items:

• Audit your current tool landscape: Identify applications that duplicate ServiceNow capabilities. Common culprits include standalone ticketing systems, separate remote support tools, disconnected asset management databases, and departmental request tracking spreadsheets. 
• Migrate to platform-native solutions: Rather than maintaining separate tools that require manual data transfer and context-switching, adopt solutions that operate natively within ServiceNow. The friction and context-switching created by other tools can drive shadow IT. Platform-native tools like ScreenMeet for ServiceNow eliminate friction, keep data unified, and improve both agent and user experience.
• Integrate remaining complementary tools properly: Some specialized tools warrant continued use, but they should integrate natively with ServiceNow rather than operating as islands. Monitoring tools, collaboration platforms, and security systems should feed data into ServiceNow workflows and receive updates back, creating unified operational visibility.

Tool consolidation can also improve ServiceNow utilization rates. When employees can accomplish all tasks within ServiceNow rather than switching to alternative tools, platform adoption increases, multiplying the value extracted from your existing licensing investment.

Increase Efficiency and Productivity

Strategy 3: Automate Documentation and Knowledge Creation

For a 50-person support team spending 30 minutes per day on manual documentation, automation saves 750 agent hours monthly. That’s equivalent to 4.5 FTE positions, representing upwards of $324,000 annually. 

Additionally, the improved knowledge base drives deflection savings calculated in Strategy 1, creating a compound ROI that extends far beyond documentation efficiency alone.

Organizations recognize that comprehensive, searchable knowledge bases drive Virtual Agent deflection, enable self-service success, and reduce support volume.

But they struggle to maintain current, high-quality content because documentation competes with support delivery for agent time.

Action items:

• Stop mandating manual resolution notes and KB content creation: Because performance metrics reward ticket closure velocity (not documentation quality), the predictable outcome of these mandates is that agents spend the minimum time required and provide minimal detail and minimal value. Mandating these steps actually drive worst-case outcomes for organizational efficiency. There’s a loss of agent productivity to documentation, plus resolution notes that say "Fixed" or "Reinstalled application" provide little organizational value and generally can’t be used to improve future performance. It’s a pure productivity killer. 
• Automate knowledge capture from support sessions: The solution is to capture knowledge automatically during support delivery rather than relying on manual documentation afterward. ScreenMeet AI Summarization transforms support session data into structured knowledge base content without requiring additional agent effort. This eliminates the documentation burden while ensuring consistent, detailed knowledge creation. Organizations using ScreenMeet achieve a 300–500% increase in knowledge base article creation compared to manual approaches. 

Strategy 4: Augment Human Agents with AI to Accelerate Resolution Times

For organizations handling 10,000 monthly incidents with a 45-minute average handle time, reducing handle time and MTTR by 38% saves 2,850 agent hours monthly or $1.23M annually in fully loaded expenses. 

Additionally, improved first-call resolution (FCR) rates reduce repeat incidents and escalations, compounding the efficiency gains.

ServiceNow's AI capabilities, particularly Now Assist, and platform-integrated AI solutions like ScreenMeet’s Agent Assist provide the firepower your agents need to resolve issues faster and more fully.

Best of all, these two capabilities work together to improve agent efficiency and also power future self-service adoption.

• Implement ServiceNow Now Assist for intelligent case handling: Now Assist provides AI-powered case summarization, resolution recommendations, and knowledge article generation. It also includes Agent Assist search functionality that automatically surfaces relevant knowledge articles and similar past cases when agents open incidents. However, Now Assist's effectiveness depends entirely on training data quality. Organizations with ScreenMeet report Now Assist accuracy jumping from 20–30% to 75–85% as the AI trains on comprehensive session data rather than sparse manual notes.
• Deploy ScreenMeet Agent Assist for real-time session guidance: While ServiceNow's Agent Assist searches existing knowledge, ScreenMeet's Agent Assist provides real-time AI coaching during active support sessions. It analyzes the live troubleshooting process and offers contextual recommendations, proven resolution approaches, and diagnostic guidance based on similar historical sessions. This real-time assistance helps agents resolve complex issues faster by leveraging organizational knowledge in the moment it's needed.
• Capture comprehensive session intelligence to feed both AI systems: ScreenMeet automatically transforms every support session into structured training data that improves both ServiceNow Now Assist and ScreenMeet Agent Assist over time. Detailed session summaries documenting diagnostics, troubleshooting steps, and resolution procedures ensure AI models continuously improve rather than stagnating with incomplete data. 

Organizations implementing AI-enhanced support with quality training data achieve 25–35% improvement in FCR and 30%+ reduction in mean time to resolution (MTTR).

Increase Strategic Value

Strategy 5: Expand ServiceNow Beyond IT

Organizations that limit ServiceNow to IT service management miss significant ROI opportunities. 

Expanding ServiceNow to HR Service Delivery alone can generate 259% ROI with under six-month payback and, for organizations with 5,000 employees, shows an average benefit of $15.61 million over three years, according to a Forrest Total Economic Impact study.

Additional departmental expansions compound these returns through shared infrastructure and cross-functional automation that creates value impossible with disconnected systems.

ServiceNow's platform architecture enables enterprise-wide service delivery across HR, customer service, facilities, legal, finance, and other departments, creating economies of scale that multiply platform value while reducing per-department costs.

Expanding ServiceNow beyond IT transforms it from a departmental tool into a strategic enterprise platform, dramatically improving ROI through shared infrastructure, unified workflows, and cross-functional automation.

Action items:

• Identify high-impact expansion opportunities: Evaluate which departments handle significant service request volume, struggle with disconnected tools, or lack self-service capabilities. HR, facilities management, and legal services often represent immediate expansion opportunities with clear ROI potential.
• Leverage existing ServiceNow capabilities across departments: Virtual Agent, knowledge base, workflow automation, and Now Assist capabilities built for IT can extend to other departments without duplicating development effort. An HR chatbot uses the same Virtual Agent technology as IT support, multiplying the value of AI investments.
• Build cross-functional workflows: True platform value emerges when workflows span departments. Employee onboarding workflows that automatically provision IT accounts, assign workspace, grant building access, and enroll in benefits demonstrate automation impossible with departmental silos.
• Share services and integrations: Platform-native tools like ScreenMeet that integrate with ServiceNow for IT support can extend to HR, customer service, or other departments using remote assistance, eliminating the need for separate tools and creating additional consolidation value.

Strategy 6: Implement Continuous Optimization and Performance Analytics

ServiceNow ROI is an ongoing result of continuous measurement, analysis, and refinement. 

Organizations that treat ServiceNow as "done" after implementation watch ROI degrade over time as workflows become outdated, adoption stagnates, and new capabilities go unused. 

Those that implement systematic optimization see compound improvements that accelerate ROI year over year.

ServiceNow evolves rapidly with quarterly releases introducing new AI capabilities, workflow features, and integration options. User needs change as business priorities shift. Workflows that performed well at launch may no longer match current processes. Without continuous optimization, platform value erodes even as licensing costs remain constant.

ServiceNow Performance Analytics provides real-time visibility into platform performance, workflow efficiency, and business outcomes. 

Configure dashboards that track metrics directly tied to ROI:

• Adoption metrics: Active user rates, feature utilization, login frequency by department
• Efficiency metrics: Average handle time, first-call resolution rate, ticket volume trends, escalation frequency
• Workflow performance: Automation completion rates, exception handling frequency, SLA compliance
• Business outcomes: Cost per ticket, deflection rates, user satisfaction scores, agent productivity

Make these dashboards visible to stakeholders so ROI becomes measurable and demonstrable rather than assumed.

Action items:

• Conduct quarterly platform audits: Review workflow performance, identify underutilized features, assess adoption rates across departments, and evaluate new ServiceNow capabilities for potential implementation. Regular audits prevent optimization opportunities from going unnoticed.
• Track and act on user feedback: Implement systematic feedback collection from both end users and agents. Low satisfaction scores or feature avoidance signal friction points that undermine adoption and ROI. Address root causes rather than symptoms—if users bypass ServiceNow for shadow IT, understand why and fix the underlying workflow or usability issue.
• Optimize based on data, not assumptions: Performance Analytics reveals where actual bottlenecks exist versus where you assume they are. A workflow you thought was efficient might show high exception rates. A feature you assumed users loved might have 15% adoption. Data-driven optimization focuses effort where it generates real ROI improvement.
• Use AI insights for continuous improvement: Organizations using ScreenMeet benefit from ongoing AI training data that reveals resolution patterns, identifies knowledge gaps, and highlights opportunities for workflow automation. As AI analyzes thousands of support sessions, it surfaces insights humans might miss—common issues that warrant proactive fixes, documentation gaps that reduce self-service success, or training needs that impact resolution efficiency.
• Establish a Center of Excellence (CoE): Designate a team responsible for ServiceNow optimization, governance, and best practice sharing. CoEs prevent platform drift, ensure consistent implementation standards, and accelerate adoption of new capabilities across the organization.

Putting It All Together: The Data-Driven ROI Multiplier

While each strategy delivers independent value, the most significant ROI improvements come from recognizing how they interconnect—and what enables them all to work.

The common thread: Data quality powers everything. 

Self-service deflection requires comprehensive knowledge bases. 

Knowledge automation needs structured session intelligence. 

AI-powered resolution depends on rich training data.

Continuous optimization relies on accurate analytics.

Tool consolidation succeeds when integrated systems share quality data.

Organizations that solve the data quality challenge unlock exponential rather than incremental ROI improvements. When comprehensive support session intelligence flows automatically into ServiceNow, it creates a cascading effect:

• Automated documentation (Strategy 3) generates knowledge base content
• Knowledge base content powers Virtual Agent deflection (Strategy 1)
• Comprehensive training data improves Now Assist accuracy from 20–30% to 75–85% (Strategy 4)
• Better AI accelerates resolution times and improves FCR rates (Strategy 4)
• Faster resolutions generate additional quality training data for continuous improvement (Strategy 6)

This is a virtuous cycle. Better data enables better AI, which produces better outcomes, generating even better data. And that fundamental unlock is the difference between organizations achieving baseline ServiceNow ROI and those capturing 5X or 10X returns.

AI capabilities are generally at the center of outsized platform ROI for a ServiceNow implementation. But those returns are all on the other side of—you guessed it—better data.

This is why organizations use ScreenMeet to summarize remote support sessions and turn that data into fuel for expanded capabilities and massive outcomes.

Customers report combined improvements that compound across strategies:

• 60% reduction in documentation time
• 300–500% increase in KB article creation
• Virtual Agent deflection jumping from <15% to 45–60%
• Now Assist accuracy reaching 75–85%
• 25–35% FCR improvement
• 30% MTTR reduction
• 38% faster handle time (TTEC)

These are interconnected outcomes of solving the data quality challenge that enable every other strategy to perform optimally.

The AI Acceleration Loop: A Strategic Framework

Understanding how data quality, AI capabilities, and workflow automation create compound improvements requires looking beyond individual tactics to the strategic framework connecting them.

The AI Acceleration Loop describes how organizations build self-reinforcing cycles of continuous improvement:

1. Capture comprehensive support session data automatically during every interaction
2. Feed ServiceNow AI with structured training data that improves accuracy
3. Deploy AI-enhanced workflows that resolve issues faster and deflect more incidents
4. Generate better outcomes that create additional quality training data
5. Accelerate improvement as each cycle makes AI smarter and workflows more effective

This framework explains why some organizations achieve 5X+ ServiceNow ROI while others struggle to justify platform costs. The difference isn't platform capabilities—it's whether organizations build the data foundation that allows AI and automation to deliver compound improvements over time.

Early advantage in this cycle compounds rapidly.

Organizations that capture quality data today train better AI tomorrow, which produces better outcomes next quarter, generating even better training data next year. The gap between AI-powered organizations and those relying on manual processes widens continuously.

Ready to explore how to build your AI Acceleration Loop?

Our comprehensive guide breaks down the strategic framework, implementation roadmap, and proven practices for creating self-reinforcing improvement cycles that maximize ServiceNow ROI through AI and automation.

Discover how leading organizations unlock 75–85% AI accuracy, 45–60% Virtual Agent deflection, and compound ROI improvements through strategic data capture and AI enablement.

Download: The ServiceNow AI Acceleration Loop™