Customer Contact - Main
Open > > > to maintain a customer contact.
Note:
The dashboard. A zone exists in the
dashboard that can be used to easily create new customer contacts.
Description of Page
Open designates that the event or issue associated to the contact has not been resolved. For example, if a customer calls with a high bill complaint and you can't resolve it immediately, you would turn on the
Open switch and enter an appropriate entry in the
Log. Refer to
Customer Contacts Can Be Used As Case Files for more information.
User ID the user who created the contact is displayed adjacent to Open.
Person ID displays the associated person’s unique, system-generated ID. If the customer contact is Person-based the Person ID cannot be changed. (Refer to
Person-Based Versus Premise-Based Customer Contacts for more information). This field is suppressed if the Customer Contact Type indicates that a person is not allowed on customer contacts of this type.
(Optional) Account ID displays the account’s unique, system-generated ID. This field is suppressed if the Customer Contact Type indicates that a account is not allowed on customer contacts of this type.
Premise ID field displays the associated premise’s unique, system-generated ID. If the customer contact is Premise-based the Premise ID cannot be changed. This field is suppressed if the Customer Contact Type indicates that a premise is not allowed on customer contacts of this type.
Note:
The customer contact type controls the relationship validation among person, account, and premise.
Preferred Contact Method indicates how the person prefers to be contacted. The following options are available:
• Not Applicable. If the person doesn't want to be contacted (or the contact method is unusual), use this option. You might want to consider describing the situation in the Contact Instructions.
• Person Contact. If this method is selected, select a person contact related to the Person link to the customer contact. The customer contact must contain a Person to use this method.
• Postal. If this method is selected, the Contact Person's address appears. Refer to Where Does The Address Come From for a description of which address the system displays.
The following methods only appear when the Legacy Person Phone and Email Option Type on the Customer Information Options Feature Configuration has been enabled:
• Email. If this method is selected, the Contact Person's email address appears adjacent.
• Phone. If this method is selected, the Contact Person's phone number appears.
• Fax. If this method is selected, the Contact Person's fax number appears (the system knows which of a person's phone numbers is a fax number by the phone type).
• SMS. If this method is selected, the Contact Person's short message service (SMS) information displays.
Note:
While on a customer contact, users can add a person contact by selecting Add Person Contact from a Person Context menu. This will open a portal-based page that allows a person contact to be added. This process will not lose context or information that has been added to the customer contact. Once added, the new person contact can be used within the customer contact or case.
Contact Date and Contact Time displays the date and time that the contact was saved into the system..
Note:
Default note. The current date and time are defaulted.
Every customer contact has a Contact Type that classifies the record for reporting purposes. Every contact type, in turn, references a Contact Class. The class categorizes customer contacts into larger groupings for reporting purposes.
Note:
Available customer contact types can be restricted by CIS Division. The restriction of customer contact type by CIS division is dynamic. It is based on the account in context, the premise in context, or the current user. The restriction of customer contact type is applied using these rules in sequence.
• If there is an account in context and that account has a CIS Division, that CIS Division is used to restrict the customer contact types that appear.
• If there is a premise in context and that premise has a CIS Division, that CIS Division is used to restrict the customer contact types that appear. Note: If there are both an account and premise in context, the account CIS Division is used.
• If there is no account or premise in context with a CIS Division and the current user is associated with CIS Division(s) that are used to restrict the customer contact types that appear. See
Users and CIS Division for more information.
When the customer contact is saved, the actual account and premise on the customer contact are validated against the customer contact type’s CIS Division.
Note:
Adding a customer contact may cause a letter to be generated. You can set up a customer contact type to generate a form letter whenever a customer contact of this type is added. In fact, this is the only way to generate a letter in the system. Refer to
Customer Contacts Are Used To Trigger Letters for more information.
Comments provide initial information about why the contact was created. For example, if the customer contact was created by a collection event, a severance event or a write-off event or is referenced by a field activity step, the Related Records contains information about the associated record
If a letter template is associated with the customer contact type / class:
• Letter Information describes the status of the letter (i.e., whether it has been printed, will be printed or will not be printed).
• If the letter has been printed and you want to reprint, please turn on the Reprint Letter switch (this will cause the letter to be reprinted the next time the letter print background process executes). This resets the letter information about when the letter was printed.
• If the letter is going to be printed in the next batch run, the Print Letter switch is on. Turning the switch off removes the letter from being printed in the next batch run. This applies to letters that have never been printed and those that have been set to reprint.
• If your implementation team has plugged-in an Online Letter Display algorithm on
Installation Options - Algorithms, the
Display Letter button appears. When clicked, the image of the letter is rendered in a PDF and displayed in an Adobe reader. Refer to
Technical Implementation Of Online Letter Production for a technical description of how letter images are produced. The system comes with configurations to display letter images using BI Publisher or a document composition application, but can work with other applications.
The grid that follows contains a diary of past (and future) events related to the customer contact. Refer to
A Customer Contact May Trigger Reminders and
Customer Contacts Can Be Used As Case Files for more information about when you would use this log.
There are two ways to add a row to the log:
• You can click the + button to add a new row.
• You can navigate to the Log tab and insert a new row into the scroll.
Regardless of the method used to add a log entry, the following information appears on a log entry:
• Create Date / Time is the date and time when the log entry was created.
• Created by identifies the user that created the log entry.
• Use Comments to describe the reason for the log entry. If you have lengthy comments, we recommend navigating to the Log tab (by clicking the adjacent Go To button) as there is a larger input field on this page.
• The remaining fields are only used if you want the system to remind you about this customer contact on a future date. If you enter these fields, the system will create a To Do entry to remind you about the customer contact.
◦ If the To Do entry should be addressed to a specific user, choose a Reminder type of Send to User and enter the user's User ID.
◦ If the To Do entry should be addressed to a group of users, choose a Reminder type of Send to Role and enter the user group's To Do Role.
◦ Use Trigger Date to define the latest date on which the To Do entry should be created. The reason we indicated this should be the latest date is because the background process that's responsible for creating these To Do entries has a parameter called "lead time". This parameter is used to define the number of days before the Trigger Date that the To Do entry should be created. Schedule the background process
TD-CCCB – To Do for Customer Contact
to create these To Do entries.
Note:
Multiple reminders. You can set up multiple reminders on a customer contact. For example, you can indicate that you want to be reminded every Monday for the next 4 weeks to check on the issue that caused a given customer contact to arise. You'd do this be entering 4 log entries where each as the desired Trigger Date.
Parent topic