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

Brand Owner Receives Service Requests and Assigns Them to the Partner

In this example, service requests are received and entered by the brand owner company and assigned to specific partners.

This example would be appropriate, for example, if the brand owner runs a call center where customers call to report problems with products they purchased directly from the brand owner or through a reseller. The call center agents log the service requests, which then are assigned either automatically or manually to a partner with the appropriate skills to solve the customer's problem. The partner to whom the service request was assigned retrieves the service request through the Siebel PRM Portal. This partner then assigns it either to a partner employee who is a service agent responsible for telephoning the customer, or to a partner employee who is a field service technician responsible for visiting the customer's house. After solving the problem, the service agent changes the service request's status to closed using the Siebel PRM Portal. A service manager at the brand owner company can track the status of service requests to monitor customer satisfaction.

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:

• Entering Service Requests (Brand Owner)
• Assigning Service Requests to Partners (Brand Owner)
• Working on Service Requests (Partner)
• Tracking Service Requests (Brand Owner)

Entering Service Requests (Brand Owner)

Your call center agents, field service representatives, or other employees who work with your customers receive service requests and enter the service requests in the Siebel application that they use, which may be Siebel PRM Manager, Siebel Call Center, Siebel Service, or Siebel Field Service. Because Siebel applications use the same database, these service requests will be visible to you in Siebel PRM Manager even if they are entered in Siebel Call Center, Siebel Service, or Siebel Field Service.

To enter a new service request

1. Navigate to the Service screen.
2. In the Service Requests list, add a new record.
3. Enter information about the service request in the new record.
4. Assign the service request to a partner service agent, as described in the next step.

Assigning Service Requests to Partners (Brand Owner)

Next, service requests are assigned to the appropriate partner. You can do this manually, but it is generally better to use Siebel Assignment Manager to assign the service request by creating rules based on geography, partners' skills, expertise in a specific product, language ability, territory, workload and availability, or other criteria.

For example, you might assign service requests from Spanish-speaking customers for one of your product lines to a partner company that has expertise in that product line and employees who speak Spanish.

You can set up Assignment Manager either to assign service requests to partner companies or to assign service requests to individuals who may be service agents at the partner company or at your own company, depending on which agent is most qualified to deal with each service request.

You can assign service requests to partners in two ways:

• Assign service requests to the partner company. To assign a service request to a partner company, you enter that company's organization in the Organization field of the Service Request record. The service request will be visible in the All Service Requests view for that organization, but it will not be visible in the My Service Requests view for any employee of the organization. The partner will have to designate an employee to find new service requests in the All Service Requests view and assign them to the appropriate employee by entering the employee's name in the Owner field of the service request, which is visible after you click the More/Less button of the More Info form.
• Assign service requests to partner employees. To assign a service request to a partner employee, you enter the employee's name in the Owner field of the Service Request record. The service request will be visible in the My Service Requests view for that employee.

It is usually difficult for you to keep track of the special skills of individual employees in partner companies, so it is more common to assign the service request to the partner company and have an employee there assign it to the service agent.

For more information about Siebel Assignment Manager, see Siebel Assignment Manager Administration Guide.

Working on Service Requests (Partner)

After the service request is assigned, the partner employees work on it using the Siebel PRM Portal, as follows:

• If the service request is assigned to a partner employee, that person will be the owner of the service request and can see it in the My Service Requests view.
• If the service request is assigned to a partner organization, employees in that organization can see that service request in the All Service Requests view, but the service request will not appear in any employee's My Service Requests view until a partner employee is added in the Owner field.

When service agents resolve a service request, they change its status to Closed.

To view a service request and change its status to Closed

1. In the Siebel PRM Portal, the partner navigates to the Service screen.
2. In the Service Requests list, the partner selects the service request.
3. When the service request has been resolved, the partner selects Closed in the Status field.

Tracking Service Requests (Brand Owner)

You can track your partner's progress on its service requests by displaying the service requests and viewing the status fields to see which service requests have been closed.

To track a partner's service requests

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.

4. If you want to see more details about a service request, click its number in the Service Request list.