SAP Cloud for Service

Most organisations using SAP Cloud for Customer focus on its sales capabilities. A whole other area of useful functionality is a blind spot for most of the current customers. With this I’m referring to Cloud for Service, which covers a broad spectrum of service related processes. A couple of weeks ago, the service topic was already partly touched in the blog about Customer Service for Utilities, yet, the solution covers more than just Utilities. As good customer service is a valuable tool to lower customer attrition rates, Cloud for Service is a tool to help companies with this. Especially customers using SAP ECC as their ERP system will benefit from the capabilities of this tool with the available integrated scenarios. 

Customer Service functionality

Service Agents using SAP Cloud for Service, are assigned the Customer Service functionality in the system. This is mostly found under the Customer Service workcenter in the system. From there, the agents can access the queue, tickets, templates and unassociated e-mails depending on their authorisation and organisation assignments.

Incoming communication is collected in the queue as tickets. The queue only display the tickets with status open or in process. To review closed tickets, the agents can access the Tickets view. A ticket could be a simple query, which can immediately be answered, a complex complaint or anything in between. Tickets can be created manually by the agent triggered by a phone call, or automatically from an e-mail or social media message. By default, all tickets are visible for all agents with the correct access rights. Distribution rules allows administrators to make sure agents only have access to the tickets that are relevant for them, as the tickets are routed to the relevant people or group. Groups are set up in the service organisation in the Cloud for Customer system. The queue will then display the list tickets the agent can work on. The system also allows setting up SLAs and escalation rules for tickets.

On the ticket view, the agent immediately has access to relevant information around the ticket. If the configuration has been made, the system for example immediately looks up relevant knowledge articles, which are also integrated in the solution. The agent has the option to offer a live chat to the customer (if configured). E-mails can be sent to the customer using the integrated mail client, or with a native mail client like Microsoft Outlook.

Agents can also create complaints based on orders in SAP ECC. They can then also process the resolution immediately from the C4C system and, for example, trigger the creation of a return order in the SAP ECC system. Referencing an invoice or delivery is currently not available in standard and this is unfortunate for many customers.

Field Service Functionality

If an organisation has service engineers working in the field to maintain equipment stationed at customers, the field service functionality in cloud for customer is able to support this process. The work tickets can be allocated to the engineers in the field using the resource sheduler. In case it is needed, multiple engineers can be scheduled against the same work ticket. The engineers report the used parts or delivered service in these tickets.

Standard integration with SAP ECC allows booking these parts or service into an internal order in ECC, so customers can be billed accordingly. To allow easy access in the field, SAP offers several apps for different platforms.

Integrated Analytics

Users of SAP Cloud for Sales are probably not surprised to learn that Cloud for Service also comes with integrated real time analytics. Out of the box, the system provides a set of (basic) real-time performance dashboards. These reports include reporting on tickets backlogs and volume, the completion rate and top employees in terms of tickets completed. Of course more company specific reports can easilly be created using the data in the system.