9 Tools of Salesforce Service Cloud That Improve Customer Service

More and more we are hearing of customers’ high expectations when it comes to customer service. They expect a more personalized experience when they call into a customer service line; they don’t want to be transferred ten times or be forced to provide their information to each representative they speak with. They want representatives to know why they are calling before their conversations begin. And many customers prefer self-service methods that allow them to get the answers they seek quickly.

As a result, many companies have adopted a “Customer Obsession” policy not only in an attempt to better service their customers, but also to provide a complete story around the customer life cycle. A key challenge those companies are now facing is how to tell that story. How can they connect information from their Sales and Service organizations to see a holistic view of the customer?

Enter Salesforce Service Cloud!

9 Tools of Salesforce Service Cloud that Improve Customer Service

How many times do we hear that Customer Service Representatives are tired of having to copy-and-paste emails back and forth from Outlook and/or Gmail into their ticketing system? It is a tremendous time waster. Salesforce’s Email-to-Case functionality allows companies to set up email forwarding rules from your email service provider to automatically generate a new Case in Salesforce or attach an inbound email to an existing Case. These rules allow you to assign those emails to the appropriate groups to address the customer’s concerns while limiting manual data entry.

Email-to-Case also allows Customer Service Representatives the ability to respond to the customer directly from inside the Salesforce user interface, eliminating the need to swivel back and forth between their email client and Service Cloud. Agents can also select from email templates to provide consistent language to customers.

2. Web-to-Case

While Email-to-Case is a great tool with regards to limiting manual or double data entry, Web-to-Case takes Service Cloud one step further by limiting the need to parse an inbound email in order to fill out the required fields for a Case. A simple HTML web form can be generated quickly from within Salesforce, allowing your company to map fields on the form to Case fields within Salesforce. This web form can then be fully branded by your organization’s web team or Marketing Department and be placed directly on your corporate website.

3. Computer Telephony Integration (CTI)

There are several ways in which Customer Service Representatives can save time utilizing Computer Telephony Integration. CTI allows inbound and outbound phone calls to be automatically logged within Service Cloud. Details such as call duration and the customer name/phone number are automatically populated and attached to the phone interaction. CTI also works hand in hand with your company’s Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system to route incoming calls to the appropriate agent.

Once an agent accepts the call, the tool will search for an existing customer record based on the phone number of the caller. If a match is found, the agent will be navigated to the customer’s detail page where they can see any open issues as well as the full interaction history with that customer. This feature of CTI allows the agent to get a head start on resolving the customer’s issue while providing a more personalized experience. For example, “Good afternoon Mr. Smith, are you calling about your existing open issue?”

4. Live Agent

Not all customers like to talk on the phone, and some feel interacting via email takes too long for a response. For customers like these, Live Chat may be their preferred method of communication. They can quickly get in touch with a real person while going about their day. One of the things that sets Salesforce Live Agent apart from other Live Chat tools is that it is embedded directly in the Service Cloud user interface, not requiring agents to leave the tool. Agents can manage multiple chats at a time and utilize Quick Text to provide timely, consistent responses to customers. Chat transcripts are automatically logged against the customer’s record and provide many metrics, such as chat duration, time to answer, and customer wait time, that allow Customer Service Managers to make informed decisions on how to improve customer service.

5. Omni-Channel Routing

When a customer service organization has implemented several service channels such as email, phone, chat, and social, it can be difficult to ensure that Cases are being routed to an agent with the right skill set. Omni-Channel Routing allows a support organization to assign varying skill competencies and workload capacities by channel to agents and automatically assigns inbound Cases appropriately. Omni-Channel Routing ensures that an inbound Case is only assigned to an agent who is available, has the appropriate skills, and has not reached their individual workload capacity.

6. Milestones and Entitlements

Many companies struggle with handling customer issues in a timely fashion. They either do not have clearly defined Service Level Agreements (SLAs), or have not identified an easy way to enforce them. Service Cloud provides a tool to systematically assign Cases one or more Milestones based on the criteria your organization has defined. These can include “Time to First Response” or “Time to Resolution”. The Customer Service Representative is provided with a visual indicator of the milestone countdown and can be automatically notified if they are about to violate or have violated an SLA.

7. Macros

Throughout the day, Customer Service Representatives often perform repetitive tasks that can be time-consuming or prone to error. Service Cloud offers the ability to quickly and consistently complete these tasks by creating Macros. Macros give agents the ability to update multiple fields to specified values, create follow-up tasks, automatically send emails to customers, and/or post a comment to a Case with consistent language. A list of Macros can be easily accessed while viewing a Case detail record and run within seconds.

8. Knowledge Base

Many companies have made attempts to collect information about their processes, policies, points of contact, and products in a centralized location, but don’t have an easy way to search that content or ensure that it is up to date.

Salesforce Knowledge provides a framework for how to clearly define and organize different types of articles. These articles should ideally go through a publishing process and will be maintained by a group of subject matter experts within your organization. Once articles are published, they can be rated and reported on to identify, update, or remove unhelpful content.

Articles can be automatically suggested to Customer Service Representatives based on fields populated on a Case record. Articles can also be shared with customers via email or exposed through a customer-facing Knowledge Base or from a Customer Community.

9. Customer Communities

Customer Communities bring all the exciting features of Service Cloud together and allow companies to better collaborate with their customers. A customer can log in to access their open and closed Cases or submit new Cases from within the community, find answers on their own by accessing your organization’s Knowledge Base, or securely view any other data from within Salesforce that you decide to make accessible for them.

Customer 360 with Service Cloud

By utilizing the Salesforce Service Cloud tools mentioned above, Customer Service Representatives are now able to track all email, phone, and chat interactions with the customer in a centralized tool, which can then be shared throughout the organization. Once a Case has been closed, customer satisfaction surveys can be sent directly from the Case to get real-time feedback from the customer. Sales Representatives can then view a holistic list of customer issues, communication history, and CSAT scores which provide valuable insight into the health of the customer relationship and better prepares them for future interactions.

Related posts:

If you stick to these tips, you’ll be able to successfully battle jetlag, select the best stress free seats, breeze through airports, be productive on your trips and actually enjoy travel a hell of a…

What better way to start the New Year than to meet our first, dear supporters who have been with us since the very beginning when we started in London! All our old and new friends in London will have…

EARN DOING SING UPS FEW ARE MORE ITS MY COLLECTION OF LEGITIMATE VERIFIED SITES TILL I AM POSTING (INCLUDED DATE) IF KNOW MORE ABOUT THE PROCEDURE IF YOU CONFUSED DURING WORK IT INCLUDES OR ANY QUERY…