- Which groups in your organization have the largest email volume?
Groups with the largest email volume benefit most from using Siebel Email Response. Analyze all groups in your organization to determine which groups can benefit from using Siebel Email Response. Email server administrators in your organization can help you to identify the email addresses that are most heavily used.
- What email addresses will you use for Siebel Email Response?
Develop a list of current and new email addresses that you want to use for all groups using Siebel Email Response. Specify the email addresses that you must create to receive incoming email. Your email server administrator can tell you the email addresses that your company currently uses.
Designate each email address to receive unstructured (free-form) or structured (keyword-based or Web-form) email.
- Does your organization use structured (Web-form) or unstructured (free-form) email messages?
If your company uses many structured email messages, then you might want to use Siebel eService. This product can automate many of the processes that Web forms solve. For example, use Siebel eService to automate service request submissions or status updates.
- Web forms. An example of a Web form is an order status form. Compile a list of Web forms that you might use. If you currently use Web forms, then gather examples with your standard responses.
A Web form saves time because no human interaction is necessary to respond to the initial email. However, you need special skills and time to set up and maintain Web forms with associated responses. You cannot use Web forms in every situation, but they are useful to handle high-volume communications that require standard responses.
- Free-form messages. Examples of free-form messages are a free-form email for a customer's order status and a free-form email for help with a product that the customer purchased.
Agents must respond to each free-form email.
When you set up your workflow processes, decide which workflow you want to use to process incoming messages, eMail Response - Process Message or eMail Response - Process Service Request.
- What are the most frequently asked questions that you receive at each corporate email address?
Gather examples of the most common questions (and associated responses) and estimate how many of these questions you receive. You can modify templates, so concentrate on determining the most frequently asked questions you receive at present.
One of the most valuable features of any email response product is the ability to store templates that agents can use to respond to common questions.
You can identify questions that templates can answer by asking customer service agents for a list of the most commonly asked questions and the appropriate response for each question. Another source of templates is FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) documents that you develop for your customers.
- What solution documents do you currently use?
A solution document can be any document you prepare for customers that provides a fix or a recommended approach to an issue. For information about when to use solution documents (called FAQs in Siebel eService), when to use reply templates, and how solutions and templates compare to free-form replies, see Solutions and Templates Decision Table.
Gather copies or make a list of these electronic documents and the network location of them. Specify new documents that you need and existing documents that you can convert to electronic documents.
- What categories do you want to associate with templates and solutions?
Sort the templates and solutions into types of email questions (categories) and assign a category to each solution and template. During Siebel Email Response setup, you associate solutions and templates with categories so that agents can insert solutions and templates into the body of Siebel Email Response replies.
NOTE: Associate with a category only the templates that you intend use as body templates.
- Who will be responsible for template maintenance and developing maintenance procedures?
Develop a process and specify a responsible person. Develop procedures for maintaining templates, for notifying agents that new or changed templates are available, and for using templates.
You must review templates for needed changes if your business changes. For example, when you launch a new product or discontinue a product, you might want to review your templates for needed updates. Also, for example, you can add the URL of a new Web site to the signature line of an email template.
- Do you want to automatically acknowledge receipt of incoming email?
An auto-acknowledgment message sets reasonable customer expectations for a response and reduces the chance that customers send follow-up email or communicate through other channels.
Obtain a copy of any existing auto-acknowledgment message. An auto-acknowledgment message thanks the customer for the inquiry and tells the customer the time needed to respond.
- How do groups currently route email messages? Why do you use the current routing approach?
Determine how each of your target email response groups (such as, Sales and Call Center) currently routes an incoming email message to the agent best suited to handle the message. In most organizations, agents select email messages from a list of messages that are sent to an address. How do you manage incoming email queues and why?
- Which routing and queueing method meets your needs for email response?
When using Siebel Email Response, you can choose from several methods to route email messages to the correct agent. For information about different routing and queueing methods, see Comparison of Routing and Queueing Methods.
The method that you use is based on the way that your business needs to route incoming email. For example, if you must notify agents immediately after routing a message, then you need a custom routing and queueing solution.
If CTI software is set up for your contact center, then you can use third-party routing and queueing technologies to make multiple media channels available to your agents. In this scenario, customer service representatives might handle telephone calls, but when they are not busy with telephone calls, they are assigned email messages.
- What are your language support needs?
Determine the languages in which you customers send email, the languages in which you reply to email, and if you have templates in multiple languages. For more information about supported languages, see Siebel System Requirements and Supported Platforms on Oracle Technology Network.
- Do you need to set up multiple organizations for your company?
