Siebel Partner Relationship Management Administration Guide > Managing Service Requests with Siebel PRM > Examples for Partner-Led Customer Service >

Partner Receives Service Requests and Logs Them for Tracking Purposes

Partners may receive customer service requests directly and log them in the Siebel PRM Portal for tracking purposes. Then, partners can use the Siebel PRM Portal to manage service requests within their own organization, and at the same time, give you visibility to these service requests so you can track how well your partners are serving customers.

In this example, the partner acts as service provider on behalf of the brand owner, with no intervention from the brand owner. When customers have a problem with the product, they contact the partner with which they have a relationship.

For example, if a partner is a dealer or a value-added reseller, customers who have made purchases from the partner would call the partner directly with service requests.

Using the Siebel PRM Portal, the partner company can enter customer service requests, assign these service requests to the appropriate service agents, and track the service requests as the service agents work on them. Using the Siebel PRM Manager, the channel manager at your company can also track the progress of the service requests at partner companies.

Partners have access to a subset of the service management functionality that you have in the Siebel PRM Manager. Partners can log service requests, add activities and attachments to service requests, and associate solutions from the knowledge base with service requests.

Partners can get help in researching service requests by using the Siebel PRM Portal Solutions screen to display frequently asked questions (FAQs) and their solutions and to display troubleshooting instructions, as discussed later in this chapter.

For more information about working with service requests, see the section on service requests in Siebel Applications Administration Guide.

This example consists of the following tasks:

• Logging Service Requests (Partner)
• Assigning Service Requests (Partner)
• Fulfilling Service Requests (Partner)
• Tracking Service Requests (Partner)
• Tracking Service Requests (Brand Owner)

Logging Service Requests (Partner)

In this example, your partners enter service requests using the Siebel PRM Portal. The partner might get these service requests through its call center or through other customer contacts.

To enter a new service request through the Siebel PRM Portal

1. In the Siebel PRM Portal, the partner navigates to the Service screen > Service Request List > My Customer's Service Requests view.
2. In the Service Requests list, the partner selects New Record from the menu to add a new record to that list.
3. The partner enters information about the service request in the new record.
4. Optionally, the partner entering the service request can assign it immediately by selecting a service agent in the Owner field, so the service request appears in the owner's My Service Requests view.

   If the service request is not assigned immediately, it will be visible only in the All Service Requests view. The employee responsible for managing the service request queue would have to assign it later, as described in the following section.

Assigning Service Requests (Partner)

If service requests are not assigned by the employee logging the service request, a partner employee would have the responsibility of managing the service request queue. This employee would regularly look at new service requests in the Siebel PRM Portal's All Customer Service Requests view, and would use the Owner field to assign each service request to the partner employee who is qualified to respond to it. The appropriate employee could be a service agent who contacts the customer by telephone or a field service agent who goes to the customer site.

The employee who manages the service request queue should have a responsibility that includes visibility to the All Service Requests view. For more information about using responsibilities to control visibility to views and about the responsibilities available in the seed data, see the section about defining partner responsibilities in Setting Up Siebel PRM.

To assign a service request to a partner service agent

1. In the Siebel PRM Portal, the partner navigates to the Service screen > Service Request List > All Customer's Service Requests view.
2. In the Service Requests list, the partner drills down on the name of the service request to be assigned.
3. In the More Info view tab, the partner clicks the select button of the Owner field.

   The Pick Service Request Owner dialog box appears.

4. In the Pick Service Request Owner dialog box, the partner selects a partner employee to be added as the owner of the service request and clicks OK.

Fulfilling Service Requests (Partner)

Partner service agents and field technicians who fulfill service requests would regularly navigate to the Siebel PRM Portal's Service screen > My Customers' Service Requests view. They would research and respond to new customer service requests.

Alternatively, they could be notified automatically by email whenever a new service request is assigned to them. The brand owner would set up Siebel Business Process Designer to send this email. For more information about Siebel Business Process Designer, see Siebel Business Process Framework: Workflow Guide.

When they finish working on a service request, they change the status to closed.

Tracking Service Requests (Partner)

Managers at the partner company can use the Siebel PRM Portal to view the service requests that their direct reports own and track progress on them.

To view your report's service requests

• In the Siebel PRM Portal, the partner navigates to the Service screen > Service Request List > My Team's Customer's Service Requests view.

  The service requests owned by this partner company manager's reports appear.

Tracking Service Requests (Brand Owner)

Although your company does not develop or work on service requests in this example, your channel managers can view the service requests for the partner companies that they manage. This lets them track each partner company's progress in fulfilling service requests.

Optionally, you can also produce the Partner Operations report, which lists the service requests a partner is working on, as well as that partner's opportunities, accounts, and so on.

To view the service requests of a partner company

1. In the Siebel PRM Manager, navigate to the Partner Operations screen.
2. In the Partners list, drill down on the name of the partner company whose service requests you want to see.
3. Click the Service Requests view tab.

   The partner's service requests appear.