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A service request describes all the necessary information about the customer problem to determine the best plan of action to resolve the issue effectively. The installed base contains information about the customer, customer site, and the installed customer product. With direct linkages to the installed base, you are able to verify customer and product information. You can verify the current service coverage for a customer product or system. If the customer is unknown to the installed base, all the information can be collected in a non-verify mode and then verified later.
While logging service requests, you can assign an urgency and severity status for each request. An urgency reflects the service request from the caller's view of the event, while the severity reflects the service person's interpretation of the event. Setting these attributes allows a timely resolution for each service request.
In the Service Request setup forms, you can fully define your service requests by Type, Status, Urgency, Severity, Problem, and Resolution codes. You can also define Call and Follow-up codes to qualify the calls you receive. Each code serves to refine the definition of the service request and aids in problem trend analysis and resolution.
If your customer service center handles a large volume of calls, you can automate your call center by leveraging Oracle Service's integration with computer telephony software. Based on call characteristics, you can direct the call to an appropriate agent, who can access information entered by the customer before picking up the phone.
More than eighty percent of the calls coming into a customer service center involve problems that have already been resolved. Oracle Service therefore creates a knowledge base of previously reported problems and their resolutions. As new service requests are logged, service personnel may search this knowledge base to identify solutions that have worked in the past. They can then provide a solution to the customer while logging the new service request.
Once they are logged, you can route these service requests to individuals in your organization and move them through a workflow-based resolution process tailored to your own unique business requirements. Using Oracle Workflow, you can implement procedures that not only select and notify service personnel, but also transfer and escalate service requests automatically.
You can define business rules to identify service requests that violate your service standards or response guidelines, and then automatically take corrective actions or escalate those requests to the appropriate person. Based on parameters such as call type, a service request can follow a resolution process optimized for that situation. You can analyze the exact routing of each service request to identify and eliminate the bottlenecks in your service request resolution process.
Service requests can have an unlimited number of actions to represent what has been done to resolve the service request. For each action you can specify an assignee, a status, a user-defined action type, start and end dates and times, and free-form text describing the problem and resolution. Addtionally, you can route each action through a separate workflow-based resolution process analogous to the workflow process used for service requests.
You can link related service requests. For example, if two or more problems are reported in the same customer call, you can create a service request for each and link them together.
You can also set up collection plans in Oracle Quality that capture relevant data as service requests are logged by customer service personnel. Collection plans may capture data related to a customer, product, product line, etc. You can then analyze this data in Oracle Quality to answer queries such as the most common problems faced by users, or products that cause the most problems. You can also export the captured data to other tools to perform detailed statistical analyses.
You can record all customer interaction for each service request by logging all incoming and outgoing calls as well as associated details. Oracle Service logs a call automatically whenever you create a new service request and whenever a customer enters or updates a request via Oracle Self-ServiceWeb Applications. Later, you can log additional calls as the customer makes them.
As you change information about service requests and actions, Oracle Service maintains an audit history of the changes. For example, if you change the status of a service request from Open: Unassigned to Open: Assigned, Oracle Service records the old and new status values, as well as the user who made the change and the date.
The Service Request module is integrated with the return material authorization (RMA) module in Oracle Order Entry/Shipping. You can indicate that a particular service request involves a return, then access the Returns window directly from the Service Requests window. The RMA that you create will be linked to the service request.
While resolving a service request, you can log all labor, material, and expenses incurred in processing the service request. Once the request has been resolved, you can discount charges to the customer by the amount covered by an appropriate support service, then bill the customer for charges not covered by a support program.
The Service Request module helps you manage customer requests for service in the following ways:
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