31Households

Households

This chapter describes how call center agents can use the Households screen to record information about groups of individual consumers who interact with the agents’ company. It includes the following topics:

• Household Contact Tracking

• Scenario for Managing Households

• Process of Managing Households

• Adding a Household Record

• Adding Contacts to a Household

• Adding Activities to Household Records

• Storing and Viewing Information About Households

• Synchronizing Household Information with External Applications

Household Contact Tracking

A household is a collection of individual consumers who are economically affiliated and who share common purchasing or service interests. Individuals might be related to each other and might belong to other households. Typically, a household shares the same residential address. Siebel Call Center allows an organization to address the complexity of dynamic households by tracking all household information through the appropriate household contact. If contacts leave a household to join another household, then their associated information moves with them.

The Households screen displays information about customer households. You can use the Households screen and its related views to work with the following kinds of information:

• Contacts (household members)

• Activities

• Attachments

• Service Requests

• Notes

• Assets

• Opportunities

• Agreements

The Household views summarize information that relates to all the individual contacts who are members of the household. For example, you might want to view a list of all the service requests from a particular household, regardless of which household member made the request.

The Household More Info view and the Household Contacts view allow editing, but other Household views are read-only.

If you want to add activities, service requests, notes, attachments, assets, opportunities, and agreements, then you must navigate to the Household Contact list and drill down on the appropriate field to reach a view where you can enter the necessary information.

Household information is closely related to information about contacts, and is similar to information about accounts. Other chapters in this guide provide more detailed information about how to use the Contacts and Accounts screens.

Scenario for Managing Households

This topic gives one example of how household management might be used. You might use household management differently, depending on your business model.

Call center agents commonly use the Households screen in a business-to-consumer setting. Viewing household information allows for cross-selling, upselling, and sell-through opportunities. Combined with Oracle’s Siebel Marketing and Oracle Business Intelligence, the Households screen provides the basis for consumer segmentation and analysis.

The Households screen displays market segment information about the household as a whole and a summary of information about the individual contacts who are household members. Call center agents use the Households screen to identify and capture demographic information about a household, and also to review assets, products, activities, and contact information associated with the household. This information helps the agent assess the customer’s data and history to better meet the customer’s needs.

Process of Managing Households

To manage households, perform the following tasks:

• Adding a Household Record

• Adding Contacts to a Household

• Adding Activities to Household Records

• Storing and Viewing Information About Households

• Synchronizing Household Information with External Applications

Adding a Household Record

Use the following procedure to add a household record.

This task is a step in Process of Managing Households.

To add a household

1. Navigate to the Households screen, then the List view.

2. In the list and the form following it, create a new record, and complete the necessary fields.

   Some fields are described in the following table.

   Fields	Comments
   Household #	Displays a unique identifier for the household.
   Name	Type a name that identifies the household. Typically this name is the last name of one or more contacts who are members of the household.
   Type	Select the type of people that make up the household. Typical values include Family - Children, Family - No children, Family - Senior Citizen, and Single.
   Category	Select the value of the household to your organization. Available values are Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Standard.
   Segment	Select the general economic class of the household, or home-ownership status. Typical values are White Collar, Blue Collar, Rural, Own Residence, and Renter.
   Status	Select the current stage in the customer interaction life cycle. Defaults to Active for a new household record.
   Team	Select the employees assigned to work with this household. If a call center user is not a member of the household team, then that user does not receive information about this household during Mobile Web Client synchronization.
   Organization	Select the organization that interacts with the household.
   Income	Type the total income from all members of the household.
   Head of Household	Select the name of the main decision-maker for the household. Available values are all the contacts for the household.
   Revenue	Type the amount of revenue your organization obtains from this household.
   Wealth	Select the estimated total wealth of the household.
   Size	Type the total number of people in the household.
   Address	Displays the address of the primary household contact.
   City	Displays the name of the city where the primary household contact resides.
   State	Displays the name of the state where the primary household contact resides.
   Zip Code	Displays the zip code of the primary household contact.

Adding Contacts to a Household

Contacts are individuals associated with a household. Agents can specify one person in the household as the head of household and then identify the others as spouse, child, or dependent parent.

This task is a step in Process of Managing Households.

To add contacts to a household

1. Navigate to the Households screen, then the List view.

2. Drill down on the Name field of the household record to which to add the contacts.

3. Navigate to the Contacts view.

4. In the Contacts list, perform one of the following steps to specify the contact to add:

   • Add an existing contact to the household, select the contact from the Add Contacts dialog box, and click OK.

   • Create a new record in the Contacts list.

5. Complete the necessary fields for the record.

   Some of the fields are described in the following table.

   Field	Comments
   Primary	Select the check box to designate the current contact as the main decision-maker for the household.
   Income	Type the contact’s income. This value is not used to calculate the household’s total income.
   Relationship	Select the role of the contact within the household.
   Households	Select one or more households in which the contact is a member.
   Alias	Type the contact’s nickname if you create a new contact for the household.
   Employee Flag	Displays a check box that indicates the contact is an employee of your company.

Specifying Addresses for Household Contacts

Complete the following procedure to specify an address for the household contact.

To specify an address for the household contact

1. Navigate to the Households screen, then the List view.

2. Drill down on the Name field of a household record.

3. Navigate to the Contacts view, select the contact in the Contacts list, and drill down on the Last Name field.

4. Navigate to the Addresses List view, create a new record in the Address list, and complete the necessary fields.

5. Click the thread bar to return to the Contacts view of the Households screen, and then scroll down to display the Contact form.

6. In the Contact form, complete the following steps:

   1. Click the select button in the Address field to display the Contact Addresses dialog box.

   2. In the Contact Addresses dialog box, select the Primary check box for the contact’s main address, and click OK.

   3. In the Contact form, complete additional fields.

      Some of the fields are described in the following table.

      Field	Comments
      Account	Select the business or organization associated with the contact.
      Site	Displays the site of the account associated with the contact.
      Address	Select the contact’s address or addresses. The procedure for entering the addresses to appear in this field is described in Step 4.
      Email	Type the contact’s email address.

Note: In the Households screen, a contact’s address is the residential or personal address. In the Contacts screen, the address in the Contact form is the address of the account associated with the contact. In the Addresses List view of the Contacts screen, you can specify a contact’s other addresses. You can select household addresses only from these individual contact addresses.

Adding Activities to Household Records

Add activity records to household records to track appointments, meetings, email messages, and other tasks related to households. The following procedure describes how to add an activity from the Household screen. For more information about activities, see Activities.

This task is a step in Process of Managing Households.

To add an activity for a household

1. Navigate to the Households screen, then the List view.

2. Drill down on the Name field of the household record to which to add the activity.

3. Navigate to the Contacts view.

4. In the Contacts list, select the contact, and then drill down on the Last Name field.

   The Activities view for the Contacts screen appears.

5. In the Activities list, create a new record, and complete the necessary fields.

   The fields are described in Activities .

Storing and Viewing Information About Households

The following types of information can be indirectly related to a household by associating the information with the contact record for any member of the household:

• Attachments

• Notes

• Opportunities

• Service Requests

• Agreements

• Assets

The Household screen’s views that correspond to these types of information are read-only. The information must be stored and modified using Contact screen views.

This task is a step in Process of Managing Households.

Storing Information Related to Household Contacts

Complete the following procedure to store additional information related to a household contact.

To store additional information related to a household contact

1. Navigate to the Households screen, then the List view.

2. Drill down on the Name field of a household record.

3. Navigate to the Contacts view.

4. In the Contacts list, drill down on the Last Name field to display the Contacts screen.

5. Navigate to the following views for the type of information you want to add:

   • Attachments

   • Notes

   • Opportunities

   • Service Requests

   • Agreements

   • Assets

6. In the view list, create a new record, and complete the necessary fields.

   If the contact who is associated with Attachments, Notes, Opportunities, Service Requests, Agreements, or Assets leaves the household, then the information stays accessible through the Household screen if users register the contact’s departure by adding an exit date to the Household Contact record. If a user deletes the Household Contact record for the departing contact, then the information associated with that contact is no longer associated with the contact’s former household.

Viewing Information Related to Households

Complete the following procedure to view additional information related to a household.

To view additional information related to a household

1. Navigate to the Households screen, then the List view.

2. Drill down on the Name field of a household record.

3. Navigate to the following views for the type of information you want to view:

   • Attachments

   • Notes

   • Opportunities

   • Service Requests

   • Agreements

   • Assets

     The corresponding list appears.

Synchronizing Household Information with External Applications

The Application Services Interface (ASI) feature allows you to synchronize the household data between a Siebel application and an external application in real time. This feature enables you to maintain consistent household information across your enterprise, and to eliminate manual entry of data in multiple applications.

If your Siebel administrator has set up real-time household integration between a Siebel application and another application, then you can use the Update External System command to send new and modified household information from the Siebel application to the other application in real time. For more information about ASI, see Siebel Application Services Interface Reference and Integration Using ASIs.

This task is a step in Process of Managing Households.

To synchronize household information with an external application

1. Navigate to Households, then the Household List.

2. In the Household list, select a household record.

   To create a new household record, see Adding a Household Record.

3. In the Household list, click the cogwheel icon, and select Update External System.