Plan for Digital Engagement

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Do your agents have a complete view of the customer?

Yes, during our case management implementation, we customized a Service Console to show account, contact, and other records for 360-degree views of customers. The console is ready to support multiple channels.

Are you able to effectively route cases or messaging sessions to the right agents?

Yes, during our case management implementation, we set up some queues, assignment rules, and escalation rules, but we need to look into Omni-Channel.

Omni-Channel routing sounds more robust and can automatically push and prioritize a variety of work to agents, without them picking items from a queue or determining priorities. We definitely need Omni-Channel for better automation and to scale the growth of our service team.

Are you using automation to save time and speed case resolution?

We’re using some of the basic assignment and escalation rules.

However, we’re not using anything like automated conversations with chatbots to answer routine questions online. We’re also not using any kind of AI or machine learning to make automatic field predictions to speed up case resolution. Someone needs to look into self-service, Einstein Bots, and Einstein Case Classification.

Do your agents spend a significant amount of time switching between applications to get customer information or answers?

The console has made it easier for agents to see complete views of customers, but we need to do something about knowledge.

We implemented Salesforce Knowledge, but we need to add the Knowledge component to the console so that automation suggests correct answers to agents while they’re working on cases.

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Where can customers find answers to questions about your products or services? Can they access answers and information on a website or a mobile app?

Currently, we have a Web-to-Case form on our website where customers can submit cases. But that’s it. We’ve been wanting to update our website for a while, but we haven’t made the time.

After reading about Experience Cloud sites, we need something like that online where customers, agents, and experts can collaborate and share ideas. We also need a source of truth for some documents about our solar panels. And adding a chatbot on an Experience Cloud site to answer common questions would help unload some of the most tedious work from our agents.

Information for customers on a mobile app sounds great, but we need a site first, which everyone can access on mobile devices.

Is there a business process—like registering a solar panel—that requires your customers to call an agent? Is there data that can only be accessed over the phone? How can you make this easier to access?

Unfortunately, to register solar panels, customers have to call an agent. Clearly, we need a web presence like an Experience Cloud site where customers can register any of our products online and do so at their own convenience.

Also, since we implemented Salesforce Knowledge, we need to share some of our articles online so that customers can troubleshoot routine issues themselves, 24/7, without having to phone an agent during business hours.

If you already have a knowledge base for your customers, are you using marketing automation to increase engagement and adoption of the portal?

Once we have a self-service site, and set up some social media channels, we will definitely look into message automation to drive traffic and awareness to it. Thank goodness we already have Salesforce Knowledge with some incredibly helpful articles that are ready to share online!

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Where does most of your customer traffic come from? Is it from mobile or desktop?

We don’t know. We think that most of the people we interact with have mobile phones and use text messaging. Once we have some of our digital channels up and running, we should post a survey to our customers and try to determine how many of them prefer communicating with us from mobile devices or desktops.

Do you know your percentage of customers using iPhones versus Android?

No, this is another area for a customer survey once we have digital channels set up. The answer will help us learn on which devices to build mobile service apps in the future.

Are your customers using international messaging apps like WhatsApp?

Currently, we don’t have any international customers. In the future, however, we hope to expand globally, so this question is important for us as we plan for growth.

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Do your agents spend time on data entry or repeating steps on every case that they work?

Our agents do type a lot of the same things in the console, but we’re already looking into the console’s Macros and Quick Text features to reduce repetitive tasks.

Macros will help agents select email templates, send emails, and change case statuses all with one click, whereas Quick Text will help agents send a variety of predefined messages to customers so they save time typing the same responses, no matter which channel.

Do you have a list of the top common questions, such as order status or password reset that you get from customers on a regular basis?

Yes, our agents spend a lot of time answering similar questions, especially on order statuses. If we had a self-service site or a text messaging channel where Einstein Bots could answer those questions, our agents could focus on solving more complex issues that require creativity and teamwork.

Do you have any picklist or checkbox fields on cases that machine learning could prefill for agents; any recommendations for knowledge articles or next actions for agents?

Yes, some useful fields to predict are Case Reason, Escalated, and Priority—having those automatically predicted would save agents time and clicks. And, anytime a useful article from our knowledge base could surface to an agent without searching for it is a productivity boost. Also, any kind of AI that suggests next-best actions for agents while they work would be a dream come true. Offloading some decisions during customer interactions could only help agents focus on building better relationships.