Managing a Salesforce Case

Salesforce Cases allow you to easily manage incoming customer communications and enquiries. They provide easy access to all the information you need to solve the Case as well as a platform from which to communicate with the customer. 

Cases may be created from a few sources - 

  1. Any email sent to [email protected] will create a Case in Salesforce to be followed up
  2. Any completed 'Contact Us' forms on the St John website will create a case in Salesforce
  3. Salesforce will create automated Cases in a few circumstances, to help with the administration of students. For instance, if a student completes a course but does not have an email address or they require a USI number before a certificate can be issued

The following guide demonstrates how to manage incoming Salesforce Cases.

1. The Customer Service Console

Salesforce provides an interface specifically designed for customer service users - the Customer Service Console. It has been built to make the management of incoming customer enquiries as streamlined as possible. 

Cases can be accessed and actioned from both the standard Salesforce layout and the Customer Service Console layout. The Console layout is simply designed to make it more efficient. You can access both views at the same time, just in different browser tabs. This makes it very easy to switch between the two. 

How to switch to the Salesforce Service Console

To switch to the Salesforce Service Console, first select the 'App Selector' from the top left of the screen.

Next, select the 'Customer Service' app. 

This will launch the Customer Service Console in a new tab. Note, if you are doing this for the first time, your browser may block the action (because it thinks it is a popup). Don't worry, you can fix this simply and you will only have to do this once. Here is a little guide on how to do this - https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95472?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en

How to switch from the Salesforce Console back to Salesforce

The process is similar. Use the app selector to switch back to a standard salesforce app. 

When selecting an app you will only see 'Call Center', select this one to switch over to Lightning Experience.

2. New Case Received

All new Cases (with the exception of refunds and cancellations, which will be covered in another guide) will be routed to the 'Enquiries' queue. This is a holding place for all new enquiries. From here, the Customer Service team leaders can manage who each Case should be assigned to. You can see the current enquiries by  - 

first, navigating to the 'Cases' tab in Salesforce.

Next, select the 'Enquiries' option from the list drop down. This will show all new Cases in the queue.

From here, the Customer Service team leaders can assign Cases. This is done by selecting case('s) using the selection boxes on the left, and choosing the 'Change Owner' option.

After selecting 'Change Owner' search for the St John team member to assign the case for (using the little magnifying glass). Before selecting 'Save' be sure to select 'Send Notification Email'. This ensures the new assignee received an email notifying them that they have a new case to action.

3. Your Case Queue

You can easily see open Cases assigned to you. To do this, select the Case tab and then 'My Open Cases' from the lists drop down. This will show you any Cases that you have yet to resolve. It's like an inbox from which you can manage your workload.

4. Manage your Case

From the 'My Open Cases' view you can click through to look at your cases in more detail, review the details and start to resolve it!

1. Update the Case Reason

First, you should update the 'Case Reason' field. This is a pick list field outlining what kind of Case it is. This is important for reporting and tracking Case statistics. If there is not a good reason in the list, select 'Other' and make sure you fill out the 'Case Reason - Other' field. If you don't the system will not let you save the record.

2. Link your Case!

On the left hand side of the screen there are some handy boxes to help you link your case to other records in the system. You can use the magnifying glass to link your case to an Account, Contact, Course, Booking or Attendee record!

Most important is to link your Case to a Contact (this is the Student). You may find that this has been automatically done for you! If the case originated as an email, the system will check for that email address in the system and automatically link the case to that student. If the Contact is not linked, you can do so using the 'Contact' lookup on the left of the screen.

If you would like, you can link your Case to other areas of the system though they are less important. It is vital to know who has been logging Cases!

Once you have linked to a Contact, you will notice that you can see records linked to that student on the left of the screen. For example, you can see a list of courses that the Student has attended. This provides a great link to other data in Salesforce. For instance, if the Student is requesting an action related to a course they have undertaken, you can easily find it!

You will also notice, that when a Case is linked to a Student (Contact) you have quick access to that student record in a tab layout. 

Your Case details can be viewed under the yellow tab and your student details in the purple tab!

This makes it easy to switch between all the information you need need to resolve the case.

3. Communicate with the Student

Salesforce provides the ability to easily communicate with the Student that raised the case. All emails are saved within Salesforce.

To send an email from your case, first navigate to the 'Feed' view for the Case. To do this use the list and speech bubble icons in the top right hand corner of the screen.

Select 'Email' from the actions bar at the top. From here you can send an email to the Student. You can add attachments and CC's etc just as you would in other email applications. Once you are ready, select 'Send Email'.

You will notice when you are sending your email you have options to update some case details at the bottom - the Status and the Case Reason. You can update these and when 'Send Email' is selected these will be updated on the Case.

4. Change Your Case Status

It is important to keep your Case 'Status' up to date. This shows where your case is at in its life-cycle and helps you keep up to date with what is new, what is in progress and what has been actioned.

A quick way to update your Case's status is to use the 'Change Status' action from within your Cases's feed view. Once you are done, simply select 'Change Status'. 

5. Customer Responded

If a student replies to an email you have sent via Salesforce, the Case's status will be updated to 'Customer Responded'. This helps you to easily identify Case's which require additional attention. 

When looking at your 'Open Cases' queue, you can easily identify if a Case has had an email response. The 'Status' column will show 'Customer Responded' and there will also be mail symbol the signify this.

A great way to make sure you don't miss replying to a student is to use the 'My Cases - Customer Responded' list. To do this navigate to the 'Cases' tab and select it from the list drop down.

You can then review the customer response and taken any required action - 

  1. Click through to look at the Case by clicking on the Case number
  2. Make sure you are in the Case 'feed' view
  3. You will see the customers response in the feed
  4. Select 'Reply' and send an email back
  5. Don't forget to change the status back to 'In Progress' from 'Customer Responded'. You can do this at the same time as sending the email (as described in the tip above)

6. Close the Case!

Once you have resolved the students enquiry, you can close the Case. This is as simple as selecting the 'Change Status' action from the Case feed view and selecting the 'Closed' option from the 'Status' field.

If a customer responds to a closed Case it will re-open with a status of 'Customer Responded'. Just to make sure you don't miss anything!

Throughout this guide, we have been using Case lists to help us isolate Cases that need to be actioned. For example - My Open Cases or My Cases - Customer Responded. These lists are very powerful and help immensely with managing your workload. 

You can actually create these lists for yourself! When you do, they will always be saved there for you to use and they won't be visible to anyone else. Use this great Salesforce guide to learn how and become a list master ! - 

How to do it from the Service Console

5. Enquiry Forms from the Website

The Contact Us form on the St John website is integrated with Salesforce. Any completed form on the website will turn up in Salesforce as a Case record, in the enquiries queue.

You can easily tell if a Lead has originated from the website - 

  1. The 'Case Origin' field will display 'Web - Contact Form'
  2. The 'Contact Information from the web form' section will be complete
  3. The 'Web Information' section will also be complete. This section marries up with the questions asked on-line, detailing the answers in Salesforce

Ultimately, web cases can be dealt with using the same process defined in this guide. It will be important to use the side bar to link the Case to an appropriate Contact, as the Case will not be linked if it originated from the website. 

There are however, a few other considerations to take into account with Cases that have originated on the Web...

1. Is it a Lead?

The Web form has a number of questions used to capture incoming sales enquiries. For instance, the details in the screen shot above show that the contact is interested in booking some training for his/her business.

In this instance, the Sales team should be deployed to follow up the Case. The best way to do this is to convert the Case to a Lead in Salesforce. Leads are designed for the Sales team and provide them with all the functionality they need to follow up the enquiry and try to convert it into a sale. 

A simple process has been developed in Salesforce to quickly convert a Case into a Lead and route it to the Sales team to be followed up - 

  1. Make sure you are on your Case's feed view (see details earlier in this guide)
  2. On the feed view you will see a 'Convert to Lead' button on the action bar. Select this
  3. Select Update

This will create a Lead record and assign it to the Sales team. All the original Case details are mirrored to the Case. The Case is also automatically Closed with a 'Case Reason' of 'Converted to Lead'. 

If you navigate to the details area for the Case record and then to the 'Convert to a Lead' section you will even see a link to view the newly created Lead Record!

2. Is the Enquiry Meant for the Volunteering or Events Team?

Enquiries may come in via the website which are intended for either the volunteering or the events team. 

Currently, these areas of the business are not active Salesforce users. As time moves forward, they will be added to the Salesforce environment and the Cases can be routed to them. In the meantime however, these teams use group email inboxes to handle their enquiries. 

Salesforce has been configured to make it easy to handle any incoming enquiry meant for these teams. Using the Macros pop-out in the bottom right hand corner, you can forward the Case as an email with just a few clicks.

Once the email has been forwarded, the Case will also be closed with a 'Case Reason' of 'Forwarded to Social Services Team'.