As soon as the incident is reported by end user , it is reviewed by the Key User and the Key User makes a call to decide whether it can be closed at his end or it needs SAP Support Teams Intervention for the resolution. This is where the Role of the SAP Support Team begins in Handling the Incidents.
Incidents Reaching SAP are Handled by potential Support Engineers who deal with the Issue based on the following factors
- Priority
- Support Contract
- Service Level Agreements
- Work Priority
Priority : This is that key factor which defines how critical your issue is to you and this factors also equivalently drives the process at our end ,depending on the impact of that issue on your Business. SAP Reserves the Right to negotiate with the customer on the priority and take subsequent action.
Reference : https://www.sme.sap.com/irj/sme/community/collaboration/wiki?path=/display/AMI/Customer+Support
Support Contract : This is the information which denotes the type of contract are you holding with SAP for the Support you require and this can vary from a generic contract to an individualized customer success package which provides ongoing implementation and “steady state” support, guidance, and learning to drive value realization, user adoption and operational excellence for our customers.
For further information regarding the same you can contact your sales contact (Account Manager/Customer Advocate/Solution Advisor).
Service Level Agreements : This is One major factor that is driven dependent on the Priority, based on which the Customer Response Levels are based on.
Reference : http://www.sap.com/corporate-en/about/our-company/policies/cloud/cloud-customer-support.html
Work Priority : This is a Number that is calculated based on the Priority ,Support Contract and the Time When the incident is created . The higher the Number the more the Work Priority i.e., Work Priority ∝ Priority + Support Contract + Time
Once the Governing factors are considered on the Incidents at the initial level Support ,further the Incidents reported are moved to relevant teams based on
- Topic Specialization
- Time Zone of Customer
Topic Specialization : Depending on the issue reported , the incident is handled by the Person who is Specialised in that topic as this helps us in reaching the customer at the earliest with a Quality driven resolution
Time Zone of Customer : As it a well known fact that the SAP Support Team runs 24/7 , In order to ensure an interactive solution where more knowledge transfer can happen between Support Engineer and the Customer , We follow the Time Zone there by achieving a better Customer Satisfaction
While a Support Engineer Investigates an Issue , there are certain cases where in we require more information / permissions , where we expect a Proactive Response from Customers
- Sending the Issue Back to Customer
- Requesting Special Permissions
Sending Issue Back to Customer : Support Engineers will send an Incident back to Customer in the following cases
- More information on the incident is required
- if the support engineer fails to reach the customer via Call or there is no response from Customer for a Longer time , Support engineer will send the incident requesting for necessary actions that are required.
Hence In order to ensure a better communication and swift response from the Support engineer , it is always encouraged to Customer to provide more information as below
Detailed steps to reproduce the issue:
- Who has the problem?
- Does the problem occur with one user only or are others affected as well?
- What path did the user take in the system to get to the area where the problem occurs?
- What document document(s) number(s) are related to this ?
Issue Description :
- Is there an error message when the problem / issue occurs?
- In your point of view what went wrong or what did not work as expected?
- Include Illustrative screenshots
- Creating Incidents From the Same screen where it is Occurring
- Providing relevant Contact Information like E-Mail, Telephone Number etc
Following the above mentioned measures the delay in processing of the information can be avoided to a greater extent
Requesting Special Permissions : Support Engineers at times require permission from Customer to perform Critical Business transactional Operations to check / resolve the issue and as we want to ensure that there is transparency in the data maintenance we request you to provide your written permission such that SAP can take the requested actions ( like Save, Creation of Data etc)
There are ideal Situations where in incidents are created for special requests , unexpected system behaviors , performance issues etc where in the fist level of support might require to do further observations and in this case these issues are discussed with Product Development Expertise to finalise the behavior in relevance to the Products Design.
Hosting and Provisioning is another team that plays equivalently important role in maintaining the systems where they are the expertise who deal with requests like Tenant Creation, Deletion , Performance monitoring, Restore Points etc
Once the Incident is analysed and a concrete solution / work around is found it will be communicated to the Customer as a Solution Which will further be reflected back in the Incidents View.
