Learn About Service Console Productivity Tools
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Learn how to identify the productivity tools that your agents and users need.
- Describe the key benefits of each productivity tool.
Why Use Service Console Productivity Tools?
Solar panels sales are heating up thanks to some recent news coverage. Multiple articles were published that championed the long-term cost savings and environmental benefits of solar energy. Ursa Major Solar, a supplier of solar components, has seen a huge spike in their sales. In the past month, sales have doubled! However, so have their cases. The agents responding to cases are swamped and overwhelmed. Maria, their Salesforce admin, has been receiving complaints from agents about case overload. In addition, a packaging oversight resulted in a bunch of broken solar panels. Customers have been posting pictures of the broken panels on social media and logging cases left and right.
Maria has a meeting with Sita and Roberto, the CEO and COO of Ursa Major Solar, about the surge in cases. Maria knows that she has to do something fast. She talks to some of her all-star agents and comes up with a list of top pain points the agents face.
So many clicks |
Agents are getting click fatigue. Agents click records, fields, and buttons—the clicks seem never-ending. |
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Less copy/paste |
Agents are copying and pasting internal notes, email signatures, and other phrases that they use often. After pasting, agents still have to replace items, like the customer’s name and case number. |
Agents perform the same tasks on multiple cases |
With all the cases about broken solar panels, agents are repeating the same actions on many cases. After the agent has verified the damage from a customer photo, they email the customer to apologize for the inconvenience, add internal case comments to note that the damage has been verified, then they send the case to a queue that’s authorized to send the replacement. |
Returning to records is difficult |
Sometimes agents need to return to a specific record, but with the volume of records they work on, it’s too hard to remember a contact’s name or a specific case number. And switching between Recently Viewed list views for each object takes so many clicks. |
Status changes are tedious |
The agents need an easier way to escalate cases that come in for broken solar panels. |
With a clear list of problems to solve, Maria turns to her notes about case management. Turns out there’s a whole set of agent productivity tools that can help solve all these problems.
How Console Productivity Tools Save Time
Productivity tools help users save time and work with records faster and more efficiently. The tools save clicks and valuable time, so folks can focus on the things that require more attention and analysis.
Maria identifies a list of agent productivity tools to help solve the agents’ pain points. She also finds other tools that can optimize her agents’ experience. The best news is, each one of these tools saves the agents valuable clicks!
Clicks are powerful—they make things happen in Salesforce. But Maria finds out that saving clicks can be even more powerful.
Let’s say that two clicks equal 1 second. If Maria can save 10 clicks in a case resolution process, and each agent handles 60 cases a day, that means she can save each agent 300 seconds. That's 5 minutes saved a day. But what if she has 100 agents? That’s a saving of 8+ hours per day. And how much can she save for those same 100 agents in a month? 250 hours! That’s over 30 days of agent time.
Tool |
Description |
Great For... |
|---|---|---|
Quick text |
Quick text is a predefined message, like a greeting, note, phrase, or answer to a common question. Users can insert quick text in their emails, chats, and more. To insert quick text, users click a button or press a keyboard shortcut. |
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Macros |
A macro is a set of instructions that tells the system how to complete a task. Users can run macros to complete repetitive tasks—selecting an email template, sending an email to a customer, updating the case status—all in a single click. When a user runs a macro, the system performs each instruction on the open record. Users run macros from the app’s utility bar. |
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History |
The History utility lets users see their recently visited records. Users can see their subtabs in context of the workspace tabs they’ve visited and copy links without opening the record. Users access the history from the app’s utility bar. |
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Mass quick actions |
Mass quick actions let users edit up to 100 records from any list view, except for recently viewed lists. Users can only create and update records with mass quick actions. |
Updating multiple records at the same time |
Split view |
Split view lets users open list views while still viewing record details. Split view displays in a collapsible column, so users can go back to viewing just the record in one click. Users can open or close split view from the vertical bar on the left-hand side of the console. |
Context switching |
Keyboard shortcuts |
Keyboard shortcuts let users work and navigate faster, without a mouse. Users can use shortcuts to open and close utilities (like Macros and History), edit and save records, and more. Users can view the available shortcuts with the following commands.
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Email templates |
An email template is a predefined email. Depending on how you use it, users can customize the email before sending it, or it can be sent automatically as-is. You can automate information on emails with merge fields. Templates are automatically available to anyone in the org. You can insert email templates in:
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Send email notifications |
Various settings on the Support Settings page in Setup let you customize email notifications for users. You can set it up for agents to receive an email when the case owner changes and when case comments are added. Even contacts can receive email notifications when the case is created, updated, or comments are added. |
Keeping agents and customers notified of updates |
Predefined field values for Quick Actions |
Predefined field values let you prepopulate a quick action with default field values. For example, in the Email action, you can automatically include Cc and Bcc recipients, add an email template, or ensure that emails are associated with Salesforce records. Predefined field values can be real click-savers. You can create a custom action called Close Case that has the Status field preset to Closed but also includes the Internal Comment field. That way agents can leave a comment at the same time. |
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Show Console Productivity Tools to Your Team
Maria decides to set up quick text, macros, the history utility, and mass quick actions for her agents. If she has time, she’ll look into enhancing their email experience too. She wants to make sure her agents will use the tools she takes the time to set up, so she plans to demo the tools to her team. That way they’ll get excited about what the tools are capable of doing. Maria also plans to remind agents about the tools in Chatter and upcoming trainings.
Note: To increase user productivity in the console, Maria also considers installing In-App Guidance: Boost Service User Productivity in Lightning Experience. To learn more about this AppExchange package from Salesforce Labs, visit the User Engagement module on Trailhead.
After sharing her plan with Sita and Roberto, Maria feels confident that she can help her agents during this crunch time.
Resources
- Salesforce Help: Set Up and Use Quick Text
- Salesforce Help: Set Up and Use Macros
- Salesforce Help: History Utility for Lightning Console Apps
- Salesforce Help: Set Up Mass Quick Actions
- Salesforce Help: Keyboard Shortcuts for Lightning Console Apps
- Salesforce Help: Customize Support Settings
- Salesforce Help: Understand How Default Values for Case Emails Work