Overview of Siebel SmartScript

This chapter provides an overview of Siebel SmartScripts. It includes the following topics:

About Siebel SmartScript

Siebel SmartScript allows business analysts, call center managers, and Siebel developers to create scripts to define the application workflow for interactive customer communications. The script determines the flow of the interaction, not the agent or customer.

Siebel SmartScript guides agents through each customer interaction, suggesting products and services based on the customer’s profile, environment, current requirements, and buying patterns. SmartScript helps agents overcome customer objections, address competitive issues, and, in service calls, ask the right questions to resolve problems. Escalations and fulfillments are routed automatically. Department administrators can create business process workflows and scripts and then change them in real time to improve productivity without interrupting the call center operations.

You can use Siebel SmartScript with customer applications, allowing the same troubleshooting scripts to be shared between the customers using the Siebel Self ServiceSelf Service site, and the call center agents using Siebel Call Center.

Traditional communications include inbound interactions, where a customer calls a customer service agent and receives information about loan processing, or a service issue. Outbound interactions involve agents contacting customers, such as telemarketing.

Oracle’s Siebel business customer communications include marketing applications where customers interact with Web surveys, or email questionnaires, or customers using interactive troubleshooting guides on Service Web sites, such as Siebel Self Service.

Benefits of Using Siebel SmartScript

Siebel SmartScript offers the following benefits:

Software-controlled workflow. Siebel SmartScript enforces the business processes of the enterprise by means of a script that the call center agent or customer must follow. The script guides the agent or customer through each step of the appropriate business process, typically by providing a sequence of questions. Siebel SmartScript selects the appropriate branch of questions as needed. Branching activity is based on the answers and responses that the customer or prospect selects.
Reduced training time. Siebel SmartScript guides even inexperienced users through a set process. Users are prompted with what questions to answer or ask, and what information to read.
Simple workflow design and implementation. Siebel SmartScript allows business analysts and call center managers, rather than systems analysts or programmers, to design and implement the workflow. This capability brings first-hand knowledge to process definition, allowing business experts to build SmartScripts question by question.
Intuitive graphical user interface. SmartScript Designer is a visual tool that allows a script administrator to create scripts by graphically manipulating script elements to define a workflow. Technical programming skills are not required; however, an analyst who does have programming skills can use Siebel VB or Siebel eScript to enhance and extend the capabilities of SmartScripts.
Personalized interaction. Both the questions that are asked, and the logic of the script can be adjusted based on customer information or on answers provided previously in the script. This capability allows a user session using the script to be personalized and effective.
Dynamic updating. Using branching logic, Siebel SmartScript displays only those questions in a script that are pertinent to a given transaction.
Search Center integration. Smartscripts can be searched and displayed in the Search Center results field. The user can then click the hyperlink and launch the SmartScript.
Dashboard. Information gained from a SmartScript can be dynamically updated on the customer dashboard so it can be viewed during the customer interaction.
Efficient modification and reuse of scripts. Scripts are built from modular elements: questions, pages of questions, answers, and branching instructions. You can use an element, such as a page of questions—or even an individual question— in multiple scripts or in multiple language translations for a single script.

Prerequisites for Using SmartScripts

To use Siebel SmartScript effectively, you must fulfill the following prerequisites:

You must be familiar with Siebel user interface standards.
If you want to use advanced scripting to extend the standard capabilities of Siebel SmartScript, you need proficiency in Siebel VB or Siebel eScript programming and knowledge of your company’s Siebel installation. Siebel VB (Visual Basic) and Siebel eScript (a scripting language like JavaScript) can be used with all SmartScript elements.
If you want to deploy SmartScripts within a multilingual call center, you need translations for all script elements in each language in which the script runs.
If you want to deploy graphically customized SmartScripts, such as SmartScripts that are graphically integrated with existing Web sites, you must have HTML editing and Web site design experience.

About Scripting Terminology

You must be familiar with the terms listed in the following table to understand scripting.

Table Scripting Terminology

Term	Definition
element	Any named part of a script, such as a question, an answer, a page, or a branch.
script	The object that contains all subsidiary content and procedural elements for directing the workflow for an interaction. It consists of a name and a collection of pages, and the branches needed to move between the pages.
page	The logical grouping of questions within a page that display together for the user.
question	A script element that is a question to be asked of customers, or a text message that provides information to the agent. Questions are displayed on pages.
answer	A script element that represents an answer to a question. Answers appear as data entry fields or as any of several types of UI elements, including check boxes, drop-down lists, and multi-value groups.
translation	A text string used to display script elements in languages other than the original, so that scripts can be used in multilingual call centers. The screen appearance is determined by the type of script element (page, question, and so forth) to which the translation string is assigned. The maximum length of a translated string is 2000 characters.
branch	The transfers of control inside a SmartScript that define the display and processing sequence of pages or questions.
page section	The logical grouping of questions within a page that display together to the user at one time.
Script Designer and Page Designer	Script Designer and Page Designer are visual tools that allow a script administrator to create scripts by graphically manipulating script elements while the script flow is being defined.
Script Sessions Table	Any script can have its questions and answers saved to a common answer table. This table is modeled with a parent table that displays the script name, position ID, contact ID, StartDate-Time, and campaign ID. The child table shows name-value pairs. This table is useful for later analysis of script sessions and answers.

About Siebel SmartScript Screens

Siebel SmartScript provides administrative views, which you use to define and manage SmartScripts, and run-time user views, which display SmartScripts that have been set up for employees or customers.

This section includes the following topics:

About the Employee’s Screen

The agent’s interface to SmartScript is part of the standard Siebel Web client. The screen consists of a standard explorer view that allows the user to navigate through the script, and the SmartScript Player where the SmartScripts are displayed.

If a script is not launched by an incoming phone call by way of Siebel CTI, or called by Siebel VB or Siebel eScript, the agent must click the SmartScript screen tab to invoke SmartScript. When an agent opens Siebel SmartScript, a list appears from which the agent clicks a hyperlink to select a script and a language. Only active scripts that have been translated into the selected language and are valid for the user’s organization are displayed.

After a script has been opened, users can read or answer questions, move to the next or previous set of questions, cancel or finish a script, or finish it if they want to restart it later.

About the SmartScript Explorer

After the agent opens a script, a hierarchical view of the script, called the SmartScript Explorer, is displayed.

The SmartScript Explorer allows viewing and navigating through a script in a more dynamic, flexible way. It includes the standard Windows plus sign (+) and minus sign (–) icons that signify whether additional information can be displayed. Different icons have different meanings:

Check mark icons (in Green) signify questions that you have answered satisfactorily.
Question mark icons (in yellow) signify optional questions or prompts.
Question mark icons (in Red) signify mandatory questions.

The SmartScript Player on the screen (right side) automatically generates the questions and information text automatically based on the answers provided earlier in the script. Answer fields are represented by standard Siebel controls, such as text boxes, pick applets, and drop-down list boxes.

By default, as the script is executed, the SmartScript Explorer displays a list of the questions on the current page as well as the status of those questions. As the agent records answers to questions and selects the next button, the SmartScript Explorer automatically reflects these developments.

About the Customer Dashboard

Displayed at the start of the agent’s SmartScript screen is a text box called the SmartScript Customer Dashboard, which displays persistent data acquired from the script or from an outside source, such as Siebel CTI or a database query. The Customer Dashboard can, for example, display agent statistics such as average call time and call-queue status, as well as callers’ answers to particularly important questions, such as those that elicit the customer’s name or account number. This data is displayed no matter which page of a SmartScript is current. For more information on updating the Customer Dashboard from previous releases of Siebel applications, see Modifying the Customer Dashboard. For more information about the Customer Dashboard, see Configuring Siebel Business Applications.

About SmartScript Buttons

The following buttons appear in the SmartScript user interface of employee applications:

Finish. Finishes the script session.
Cancel. Cancels the script session.
Finish Later. Allows the user to resume a SmartScript at the point where it was abandoned. Users can resume scripts from the My Saved Sessions view.

About the Customer Screen

The SmartScript Customer screen differs in appearance from an employee's SmartScript screen mainly in that the explorer applet is not displayed. The customer screen allows a user to troubleshoot a problem or obtain information.

A user typically launches a SmartScript from a hyperlink on a Siebel customer application, from a custom button set up in the user interface, or from an email sent out by the Siebel Consumer Marketing application. SmartScript questions and answers are displayed side-by-side.

Because the SmartScript user might be unfamiliar with script or scripting, the SmartScript screen does not display an explorer, a dashboard, or the Finish Later button.

About the Administration - SmartScript Screens

The Administration - SmartScript screens contains multiple views in which a call center manager, business analyst, or system administrator can construct and maintain scripts.

Siebel SmartScript uses objects that are generically called elements to create the business process flow. The Administration - SmartScript screen contains views used to create and configure all the elements contained in a script, including questions, answers and translations. For more information on working with elements, see Fundamentals of Creating SmartScripts.

About Deploying SmartScripts to Remote Users

This topic describes remote access and replication management of SmartScripts.

A remote user on a Siebel Mobile Web Client can use a SmartScript. If a SmartScript administrator changes a SmartScript, the Siebel Remote Manager synchronizes these changes for the remote user.

Note the following points if you intend to deploy SmartScripts to remote users:

You can specify a replication level for a SmartScript question.
To specify the replication level for a question, select a value in the Replication Level drop-down list of the More Info form in the Questions view of the Administration - SmartScript screen. The available values are as follows:
- All. By default, questions have a replication level of All that allows the replication of questions to all regional databases and the local databases of remote users.
- Regional. Specifies that you can replicate questions to regional databases only.
- None. Specifies that you cannot replicate questions from the server database.

By default, SmartScript elements are defined as dock objects with a visibility level of Limited for remote access management. For dock objects with Limited visibility, Siebel Remote sends the object to a Mobile Web Client only if the instance is visible to the remote user.

For more information about remote access and replication management, see the Siebel Remote and Replication Manager Administration Guide.