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Scenario for Profiles in Siebel Communications

This scenario shows a sequence of procedures performed by a customer service representative (end user). Your company may follow a different sequence according to its business requirements.

This scenario continues the Scenario for Accounts in Siebel Communications. For a new customer, the customer service representative (CSR) has already created an account hierarchy, added a contact for the account, and entered an address for the account.

Now, for each service account in the hierarchy, the CSR wants to validate its address against the MSAG (master street address guide) database or a similar external database. This guarantees that the proper address format is sent to the Emergency 911 database when the service is provisioned.

After submitting each new address for validation, the CSR chooses the correct match from the list the database sends back. She checks to see that the validated field has been automatically updated to indicate the procedure was completed.

Next the CSR creates unique profiles associated with individual accounts. Each profile stores information necessary to perform a business function.

Starting with the top-level parent account, the CSR creates a financial profile and a statement profile:

• The CSR creates a financial profile for the top-level parent account because the customer's company will have financial responsibility for all its accounts. The financial profile includes all necessary information to perform a credit check on the company.
• The CSR also creates a statement profile for the top-level account because the customer wants to receive a statement at the corporate level that summarizes all charges for products and services.

  The statement profile contains information, such as the address, number of copies of the statement required, statement media type, frequency of statement, contact person, and so on. Each statement profile is given a unique identifier within the CSR's company's billing system. All the profile information is required by the billing system so that the statement can be processed.

The CSR then moves on to the billing subaccounts in the hierarchy and creates separate billing profiles for those subaccounts. Each billing profile stores information, such as the mailing address, contact, billing frequency, and debit or credit card data for that account.

She then creates statement profiles for several subaccounts so that those offices can receive informational statements for the amount of service used.

Next she creates an exemptions profile wherever subsidy and tax exemption information applies. For example, a charitable organization will have a tax exemption status. Exemption profiles can be created for any level of the account hierarchy and are usually part of the initial account setup. They contain information that can also be passed to the billing system.

Then she creates a site profile for each service account, which specifies how many floors the site has, where equipment is located within the site, and so on.

Figure 4 shows the accounts and profiles needed for the customer's account hierarchy discussed in the business scenario.

NOTE:  Siebel Communications does not restrict how end users build hierarchies. If you want to enforce certain rules, you must set the rules up within Siebel Business Applications. This diagram shows one recommended use of profiles for specific account classes.

Figure 4. Business Scenario for Account Hierarchy and Profiles

Figure 5 summarizes the interrelationship among accounts, profiles, and back-office systems.

NOTE:  For simple residential customer accounts (those not separated into billing and service accounts), all profiles are directly associated with the customer account and not with subaccounts as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Interrelationships Among Accounts, Profiles, and Back-Office Systems