Happy Wednesday fellow Trailblazers!
We hope you learned a lot from last weeks post and got some good insights into how your Service Cloud instance reacts to a case being submitted via email. Some key aspects you may have noticed straight away (if they have been previously configured) are how your emails are formatted when sent outbound from the Service Console, how your Email Notifications work, as well as your Auto-Responses to your customer and how these are formatted and configured.
Whether you wish to make changes to the current setup of your email templates, Email Notifications or Auto-Responses, or simply wish to start from scratch with these case management tools, this week we will cover what these features achieve, why we should (or shouldn’t) use them and how they can add further depth to your customer experience model.
If you missed last weeks post, be sure to have the Email-to-Case feature setup before continuing below. You can find last weeks post and instructions here: https://success.salesforce.com/0D53A00004mryE3
Email Templates
Why?
Email templates allow you to achieve a number of things when responding out to our customers from the Service Console. They firstly allow you to create predefined messaging for common case issues in order to allow you agents to quickly respond to common queries.However, we encourage the use of Macros for this purpose but for your particular business need, Email Templates may fit the bill much better.
Secondly, they allow you to better format your agent responses out of Service Cloud to match both your company branding and writing style.
And, lastly, email templates are the foundation used for sending out Notifications and Auto-responses (explained below). When we set up these workflows, we are required to chose an Email Template that will be sent out as the Notification to your agents or the Auto-response to your customers.
How?
You can either create Email Templates directly from a case or through the Setup area.
Open a record, such as a Case
Navigate to the Activity Tab
Click Email Action (your action may have a different name depending on your org)
Fill our the content of your email
Click the Templates icon and choose the option to Save as new template
You can find more information on Email Templates here: https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=email_create_a_template.htm&type=5
Email Notifications
Why?
Email Notifications can be useful for a number of reasons. They can help keep an agent informed of new work, give a supervisor information on an escalation or help loop in the right people to help with a case. On the other side, notifications can be burdensome at times so it’s important to find the balance that works for you in terms of what to trigger notifications for, and what does not warrant a notification.
How?
When it comes to notifications, there are a number or ways to configure these. You can choose what notifications get sent out for or don’t by going back to Support Settings. Here, you’ll find a host of different options for sending email notifications based on different triggers.
It’s also possible to use Workflow and Assignment Rules to trigger notifications. These notifications can be configured by going to Setup and entering Classic Email Templates in the Quick Find box. You can create a new template here to use for notifications or edit existing ones.
Auto-responses
Why?
Auto-reponses are a great way to manage customer expectations, particularly during times of high volume. By setting up an Auto-response rule, you can let your customers know, the second they submit a case to you, that it has been received by your team and they are working on your issue. And, by using Email Templates, you can add field information from their case directly into the Auto-response, ensuring the customer can see we have the right information for them and their case. This creates a better experience for your customers as they are assured straight away that their case has made it into your support queue.
How?
From Setup, enter Case Auto-Response Rules in the Quick Find box.
Click New.
Enter the Rule Name and check the Active checkbox.
Click Save.
You can now create your Rule Entries (These are the triggers you’ll use to determine when a rule is fired and a notification sent).
You can find more information on Case Auto-Response Rules here: https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=creating_auto-response_rules.htm&type=5
