5Contacts in Siebel Communications
Contacts in Siebel Communications
This chapter discusses contact management and includes procedures for contact management. It includes the following topics:
About Contacts in Siebel Communications
A contact is someone about whom you or your company needs to keep business or personal information.Siebel Communications helps you manage contacts and associate contact data with accounts, opportunities, trouble tickets, or service requests.
Customer service representatives and field service representatives are examples of end users who might use contact management functions.
End users can useSiebel Communications to complete the following tasks:
Record and track business and personal contact information.
Create and track a list of activities for a contact.
View a contact profile.
View information about trouble tickets and service requests that are associated with a contact.
Scenario for Using Contacts in Siebel Communications
This topic gives one example of how contacts might be used. You might use contacts differently, depending on your business model.
A call center agent receives a call from a customer with a service problem. The agent verifies that the caller is already registered as a contact by using a query on the contact’s name. The agent adds information to the customer’s contact profile and provides the needed service by creating a trouble ticket without leaving the Contacts screen. The agent then logs the activity. During the call, the customer states an interest in purchasing a particular product, so the agent associates an opportunity with the contact. After the call, the agent sends a follow-up email to the customer to verify that the action was taken.
The following image shows the sequence of procedures that an end user might follow to manage contacts. The steps in the sequence are as follows:
Add or verify contact.
Modify contact profile.
Create trouble ticket.
Log activity.
Associate opportunity with contact.
Send email to contact.
Creating a Contact in Siebel Communications (End User)
End users must add contacts and verify that particular contacts are established customers. Their company might choose to use passwords for an additional level of verification.
End users can view all contact records that they create. If an end user adds a contact to an account or opportunity and that account or opportunity has an associated sales team, then members of the sales team can also view the contact. In a contact record, a sales team is also known as a contact access list.
Adding a Contact Record
To add a contact record in Siebel Communications, follow this procedure. For more information about adding contacts, see Siebel Applications Administration Guide.
To add a contact record
Navigate to the Contacts screen, then the Contacts List view.
Add a new record to the Contacts list, and complete the necessary fields in the record and the More Info form.
In the Account field, select one or more accounts in the dialog box.
If multiple accounts are associated with this contact, then designate one account as the primary account by selecting the Primary field for that account.
Modifying a Contact Profile in Siebel Communications (End User)
End users can modify a contact profile. Contact profiles are distinct from account profiles.
To add information to a contact profile
Navigate to the Contacts screen, then the Contacts List view.
Drill down on the name of the contact.
Click the Profile view tab.
In the Profile form, complete the necessary fields.
Creating a Contact-Related Activity in Siebel Communications (End User)
End users can add, modify, or delete activities for a contact.
To add an activity to a contact
Navigate to the Contacts screen, then the Contacts List view.
Drill down on the name of the contact.
Click the Activities view tab.
In the Activities list, add a record, and complete the necessary fields.
Associating a Contact with a Trouble Ticket in Siebel Communications (End User)
End users can associate a contact with a trouble ticket. A similar method can be used to associate a contact with a service request. For more information about trouble tickets, see Service Requests and Trouble Tickets in Siebel Communications.
To associate a contact with a trouble ticket
Navigate to the Contacts screen, then the Contacts List view.
Drill down on the name of the contact.
Click the Trouble Tickets view tab.
In the Trouble Tickets list, add a record, and complete the necessary fields.
Note: If status value of the trouble ticket is Closed, then you cannot change some field values in this view. To change these field values, drill down on the ticket ID of the trouble ticket, and in the Trouble Ticket Detail form, change the status value of the trouble ticket to Open or Pending.
Additional End-User Tasks for Contact Management in Siebel Communications
For information about other tasks related to contact management, see Siebel Applications Administration Guide.
Contacts and Opportunities
End users can use Siebel Communications to associate an opportunity with a contact. For more information, see Siebel Applications Administration Guide.
Contact Correspondence
End users can useSiebel Communications to send email to a contact. If an email application and Oracle’s Siebel Office are installed, then the message content can be automatically generated. For more information, see Siebel Applications Administration Guide.