SAP Cloud for Service – Overview and Detailed Documentation

Customer Service Overview

The goal of customer service is to help customers get the maximum value from the product or service they have purchased. Sophisticated customer service organizations don’t operate to only answer questions from customers but to be proactive and anticipate the needs of their customers. The simple goal is to exceed customer expectations and to drive the best customer service in their respective industry.

Conceptual System Overview

One way customers are working to achieve the goal of exceeding customer expectations is through the rapid deployment of Cloud for Service or Cloud for Social Engagement within a short window of time, including solution configuration and data migration from any existing previous systems. Below is a high level logical overview of the solution.

Contact Center Processes Overview

Here very briefly primarily is an introduction to the high-level contact center processes that Cloud for Service supports.

1. Incoming Communications – The process usually begins with an incoming customer communication, customer service organizations need to provide choice in the way they offer support to customers, which means the ability to support different communication channels of contact.
2. Processing – after the customer contact, certain steps are applied either automatically by the system or manually by some roles in the customer service organization to make sense of the customer communication and create the relevant context. Whether that means text analysis for sentiment and keyword detection in the case of social media, or real-time lookup of matching customer information for a phone call.  The end result is a ticket that describes the customer issue, identifies the customer facing the issue and the specific product the issue is about. Further the ticket may classify the problem, and what caused it. It may also lay out how quickly the problem needs to be solved and any keywords that describe the problem, among other attributes.
3. Resolve Issue – A critical step in the overall process of course is actually resolving the item that caused the customer to contact the organization in the first place. That many take a variety of courses, if it is a simple inquiry, the agent may only need to provide an answer. In more complex cases, the agent may need to work in other systems to initiate or execute a business process based on the customer request or order. A critical quality in the system for this state is the ease of use by the agents. When the agents find a system easy to use it typically translates into positive interactions with their customers. The system needs to allow the agents to provide the right solution to the right customer at the right time. And if needed, provide different levels of support experience to different categories of customers.
4. Response – after the agent has completed the steps needed to resolve or attempt to resolve the customer issue, they agent needs to communicate back or respond to the customer to let them know if the agent has completed their work or they require further information or follow-up steps from the customer. Here again, the flexibility of the stem to respond either in the original communication channel or easily switch to a new more appropriate communication method is helpful.
5. Close – At the end of the service process, the ticket marked as completed by the agent, and in some cases my allow the customer to confirm that the issue really has been resolved. As with most other processes, this is typically the point where individuals, managers or teams can reflect on whether the process can be improved. The system supports this process through analytics that instrument the entire process to provide feedback to the organization on how they are executing to their own performance goals or benchmarks.

Mapping Contact Center Processes to Cloud System

Before beginning the process of configuring or using the system, it may be helpful to review this conceptual system diagram and how it relates to the high-level contact center process outlined above.

Service and Repair Processes Overview

Service and repair processes are oriented around processes involving technicians maintaining or repairing products or equipment for customers. It may be work requested by a customer when a product or equipment owned by the customer has a problem, or it may be regular maintenance or service delivered by the manufacturer or a dealer. With a focus on high customer satisfaction while maximizing efficiency to continually drive down the costs of delivery and even grow service business profitability.

1. Identify Need – The need to perform service work can originate in two ways. The first is as part of a planned or preventative maintenance process, which could be stipulated in a maintenance contract or other method. The second is a reactive or corrective maintenance or repair process initiated either by a customer request directly through a contact center, a technician already onsite or even through sensors in intelligent equipment.
2. Prepare – The preparation process is where the system and a person validate the need for work; define exactly what needs to be performed and what will be required to do the work. That is the assignment of a person and any necessary tools and spare parts and the scheduling of when and where the work will be done based on availability.
3. Logistics – The logistics process is the point at which either, the item to be repaired is sent back to a repair facility, or a field technician is scheduled and sent to the site where the work needs to be done.
4. Perform Work – Of course, the primary reason for the overall process it to support the need to repair or service something while minimizing the costs of the work. The work could be performed at the customer’s site or at a repair depot.
5. Wrap-up and financial – This refers to the steps required to confirm to the service organization and ultimately the customer that the repair work was performed, whether is resolved the original issue, and if necessary, starts the financial accounting processes for the costs of the hours and parts expended on the service work, and if relevant, billing the customer or third-party.

Mapping Service & Repair Processes to Cloud System

Before beginning the process of configuring or using the system, it may be helpful to review this conceptual system diagram and how it relates to the high-level service and repair process outlined above.

1. Overview
   1. Solution Overview
   2. Configuration Approach
2. Incoming Communications
   1. Incoming Communications – Email
   2. Incoming Communications – Phone
   3. Incoming Communications – Chat
   4. Incoming Communications – Social
   5. Incoming Communications – Portal
   6. Incoming Communications – SMS
3. Processing
   1. Processing – Text Analysis and Prioritization
   2. Processing – Org Setup
   3. Processing – Work Distribution
   4. Processing – Workflow
   5. Processing – Service Levels
   6. Processing – Service Categories
   7. Processing – Warranty Management
   8. Processing – Registered Product
   9. Processing – Installed Base
   10. Processing – Activity Planner & Surveys
4. Resolve Issue
   1. Resolve – Desktop UI
   2. Resolve – Mobile UI
   3. Resolve – Knowledge Base
   4. Resolve – Collaboration – SAP Jam
5. Respond
   1. Respond – Response Templates
   2. Respond – Outlook Integration
   3. Respond – Generate PDF Summary for Tickets
6. Close
   1. Close – Analytics

Field Service

• Field Service – Work Ticket Management
• Work Ticket Management – Visit Scheduling