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Specifying Terms and Conditions of Product Promotions

Some promotions require customers to accept certain terms and conditions. In some industries, these are called commitments. If your promotion includes terms and conditions, you must specify them. This task is a step in Process of Creating Product Promotions.

For example, if a customer accepts a promotion offering a free cell phone to sign up for a certain wireless plan, the customer may have to keep that wireless service for at least a year. If the customer cancels the service before the year has ended, there may be a penalty.

When a customer disconnects an asset, the Siebel application checks to see if the customer is breaking the terms and conditions of a promotion; if so, it displays a warning message telling the customer how much the penalty is. You can set up the product recommendation engine to recommend changes that will avoid the penalty, as described in the section on recommendations in Siebel Order Management Guide. If there is a penalty, the application calculates the amount; the Siebel application is integrated with the billing system, so the penalty is automatically applied.

You may want to prorate the penalty. For example, if customers get a free satellite dish when they sign up for twelve months of service, they may have to pay the full penalty if they cancel before one month has elapsed, but pay only one-half of the penalty if they cancel after six months.

A commitment may include recurring credit and cancellation charges. The cancellation charge and credits may need to be prorated for partial periods.

The penalty may be a nonrecurring charge paid once, or it may be a recurring charge paid periodically during a specified time period.

You can use the Commitments view to give customers ongoing benefits that they receive with a promotion, in addition to using it for penalties. For example, if the promotion gives the customer a credit every month for a year, which reduces the customer's monthly bill, the Commitments view can record this credit.

Entering the Customer's Commitment

In the Charge Plan view of the Commitment applet, enter the charges for customers' ongoing commitment. Enter negative amounts if it is a credit. To do this, you must first create schedules and plans for any recurring, nonrecurring, and usage charges that the customer must pay. For more information, see the section about contracts and agreements in Siebel Field Service Guide.

After you have created the necessary recurring and nonrecurring charge plans, you can enter the amounts that customers are committed to pay.

To enter the customer's commitment

1. In the Product Promotions > Commitment view, click Charge Plan in the link bar.
2. In the Charge Plan form, complete the necessary fields.

   Some fields are described in the following table.

   Field	Comments
   NRC Schedule	Select a schedule for the nonrecurring charge. For example, a schedule may specify that the customer pays the recurring charge by the fifteenth of each month.
   Nonrecurring	Enter the total amount of the nonrecurring charge.
   NRC Plan	Select a nonrecurring charge plan. For example, the plan may allow the customer to pay off the nonrecurring charge in three monthly payments.
   NRC Quantity	If the user does not select a value in the NRC Plan field, the user can enter a specific number of payments. The charge calculation engine then divides the charge into equal payments of the quantity specified. If the user does select a value in the NRC Plan field, this field displays the number of payments in the plan and is read-only.
   RC Schedule	Select a schedule for the recurring charge. For example, a schedule may specify that the customer pays the recurring charge by the fifteenth of each month.
   Recurring	Enter the amount of the recurring charges.
   RC Adjust	Specify an adjustment for a recurring charge if the usage period is less than the entire billing period. For example, if the customer starts cable TV service on June 16, the customer is charged for only 15 days in the month of June. In this case, enter the per day charge in the RC Adjust field, and select Per Day in the RC Adjust U/M field. The application calculates the adjustment for the 15 days in June.
   RC Adjust U/M	Enter the time period to which the RC adjustment applies. Options are Per Day and Per Week.
   Adjust Charge	Enter a special adjustment to the amount the customer is charged. For example, if a customer calls to complain that cell phone service has not been working well for the last few days, the company can agree to give the customer a one-time adjustment. The company enters the adjustment in this field.
   Adjust Reason	Enter the reason for the special adjustment.
   Commit	Select this check box when you are done making changes to the record.
   Charge Basis	Specify when the charge for a period is generated. Options are: Schedule. Charges are generated after the usage period. For example, June charges are generated on July 1. Advance. Charges are generated in advance of the usage period. For example, June charges are generated on June 1.
   Use Plan	Select the usage payment plan for this promotion. For example, there may be different usage payment plans for regular, gold, and platinum customers.
   Usage Schedule	Select a schedule for the usage charge. For example, a schedule may specify that the customer pays the usage charge by the fifteenth of each month.

Entering Penalties for Canceling the Commitment

In the Charges and Credits view of the Commitment applet, enter the penalties that the customer must pay for canceling this commitment. You can also use this view to enter credits that the customer receives.

Before you enter penalties, you may have to create a plan used to prorate the penalty charge, if the penalty depends on the amount of time that the customer used the service before canceling. Create the prorate plan as a nonrecurring charge plan, described in the section about contracts and agreements in Siebel Field Service Guide.

To enter the penalty that customers pay for canceling the commitment

1. In the Product Promotions > Commitment view, click Charges and Credits in the link bar.
2. In the Charges/Credits list, add a record for each penalty that the customer must pay, and complete the necessary fields.

   Some fields are described in the following table.

   Field	Comments
   Type	Select the penalty.
   Amount	Enter the amount of the penalty. If you enter a negative amount, the customer will receive a credit instead of paying a penalty.
   Plan	Select the nonrecurring charge plan used to prorate the penalty.

Entering Terms Displayed to the Customer

In the Terms view of the Commitment applet, enter the list of terms that will be displayed and included in the contract that the customer accepts.

The user can select a term template instead of entering terms manually, if you first define term templates using the Administration - Contract screen > Term Templates view. For more information about defining term templates, see Siebel Life Sciences Guide.

To enter terms displayed to the customer

1. In the Product Promotions > Commitment view, click Terms in the link bar.
2. For each term that will be displayed to the customer, do the following:
   • To select a term template, click Pick from Template.
   • To enter terms manually, add a record to the Terms list and complete the necessary fields.

     Some fields are described in the following table.

     Field	Comments
     Number	Enter a number to control what order this text will be displayed in within the list of terms.
     Type	Select the Type of the Term. Options are Standard, Non-Standard, and Special. When you design screens and reports, you may decide to display only terms of certain types.
     Section	Enter the text that will be displayed to the customer.