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Siebel Communications Guide > Accounts in Siebel Communications > About Accounts in Siebel CommunicationsAdministrators, such as call center administrators, sales administrators, and sales managers, benefit from reading this chapter. It describes how customer service representatives (end users) enter information into the accounts screens, which form the hub of customer information. After becoming familiar with the end-user procedures, you can customize the software to fit the needs of your company. An account is any external organization with which your company does business. It negotiates agreements, receives service and bills, and raises trouble tickets. An account is usually the central entity of a Siebel CRM implementation. After adding accounts in Siebel Communications, end users at your company contribute information for tracking customer service, processing requests, viewing agreements, and so on. Account HierarchyA single account for each customer probably meets your company's needs to track the accounts of residential customers. However, for large commercial clients, end users can build an account hierarchy. An account hierarchy is a multilevel structure reflecting parent-child relationships within the organization. Within a complex account hierarchy, an account usually represents one of the following entities:
Hierarchies can accommodate subsidiaries and complex organizations that have, for example, a world headquarters, multiple regional headquarters, and many branch locations, each with its own service and billing requirements. This multiple-level structure supports a hierarchical view of the customer. Separate child accounts can be used to designate which information pertains to one subsidiary or another within the organization. A hierarchy has the following further advantages:
To fully support mergers, demergers and corporate restructuring, Siebel Communications automatically updates the master account or parent account of an account record and its children when the changes are made to the account hierarchy. In particular, it is possible to change the parent of a child account if that subsidiary is sold to another holding company, or to change the parent of a whole organization if it is purchased by another entity. These changes take effect by changing the parent account of the account record. Account ClassesAn account class is a method for classifying an account according to its position and role in an account hierarchy. When setting up the hierarchy, end users define parent-child relationships among the accounts. Then they designate which account class applies to each new account, according to your customer's requirements and organizational structure. For example, with communications companies, it is common for the service to be delivered to one subsidiary while bills get sent to another subsidiary. Separate accounts are created for each subsidiary, one with the account class service and the other with the account class billing to reflect their different functions. An account given the account class service generally stores service item information and allows end users to analyze the customer's usage or orders. An account given the account class billing generally stores information for the financial transaction or invoice. Siebel Communications does not restrict parent-child associations by using the account class. Any class can be a child of any other class. For example, a customer account can be placed anywhere in the hierarchy, and a billing account can be the parent or the child of a service account. To enforce hierarchy rules by using the account class, you must set them up through state models. For more information about state models, see Siebel Business Process Framework: Workflow Guide. By default, Siebel Communications provides the following classes for accounts:
Siebel Communications displays the following information that is based on the account class:
NOTE: You can set up additional account classes or rename the default classes. However, when renaming, be careful to also rename the explorers because they filter accounts on class names. For information about modifying account classes, see Siebel Applications Administration Guide. Figure 2 shows an example of an account hierarchy in which parent-child relationships are established along service and billing account classes. Account Roles and ResponsibilitiesSales administrators and sales managers usually oversee the creation and maintenance of accounts by their teams. All team members (end users) can create an account and update account information. Table 4 lists the roles and responsibilities related to account procedures. |
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