Version Control
| Version | Date | Description | Author |
|---|---|---|---|
| v.1 | 30.03.2017 | Creation | Jeremie Seabra |
Reference Documents
| GBU | Business Rules and Queue Members |
|---|---|
| Aroma Performance | |
| Coatis | |
| Fibras | |
| Novecare | |
| PolyTechnyl | |
| Peroxides | |
| Silica | |
| Soda Ash & Derivatives | |
| Special Chem |
1. Functional Process
Process Overview
The Customer Requests module allows to capture, log, approve, process, and resolve Customer Requests. This module also enables communication with the customer on progress and resolution. Additionally, in case of similar requests, a Customer Request can be cloned. The values can be edited before saving the cloned Customer Request or can be canceled.
Definition & use cases
Definition
There are 2 types of customer requests:
- Standard customer requests
- A customer request represents one or more demand(s) from a customer related to one or several areas (e.g. logistics, packaging, documentation, training, technical support, regulatory compliance)
- Special customer requests
- Special Customer Requests process deals with managing requests coming from the customer that deviate from Solvay GBU standard offering (e.g. product specifications, way of handling quality system, shipping)
- Scope:
- In Scope : Standard Customer Request
- Not in Scope: Special Customer Request
- In Scope but not handled through Customer Request: Sample requests
Customer Request Management has 5 main steps which are as follows:
Customer Request Registration | Prompt logging of a Customer Request after the reception with the upload of pictures and attachments. Submitting the Customer Request for approval |
| Approval Process | Rules for the Approval process have been implemented by each GBU where a Customer Request can be automatically approved, be assigned to a User to approve or rejected or be assigned to a group of Users. |
| Processing the Customer Request | After the Customer Request is approved, it is assigned to a User or a group of Users to be processed. An answer/solution will be provided on the Customer Request |
| Customer Communication | When the answer/solution to the Request is provided, the Communication to the client can be sent. |
| Customer Request Closure | When the Request has been solved and communicated to the Customer, the Customer Request can be closed. |
The Customer Request Management process is divided into 5 different Phases and 6 different Statuses.
| Phase | Status | Definition | Record Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open | Open | As soon as the Customer Request is created | Customer Request |
| Approval Pending | Pending Approval | When the Customer Request is submitted for approval | |
| Approved | Approved | Once the Approver has approved the Customer Request | |
| Completed | Completed | Once the Customer Request has been processed | |
| Closed | Closed/Stopped | When the Customer Request is closed but the process was not completed (ex. Customer is no longer requesting the current demand) | |
| Closed/Answered | When the Customer Request is completed and closed |
Use Cases
The scope of this workstream is a Customer Request flow managed end-to-end in Salesforce which is used to:
- Capture and log the customer request
- Approve/Reject the customer request
- Process and resolve the customer request
- Communicate with the customer
- Close the customer request
2. Data Model & security
Main objects
- Case: Standard Salesforce Object to store and manage all general information regarding a Customer Request
- Accounts: Standard Salesforce Object to manage the information about the Customer related with the Customer Request
- Contacts: Standard Salesforce Object to manage the contact person from the Customer
- Case Team: Standard Salesforce Object to manage all the actors related to the Customer Request Process and to manage access to the Case
- Products: Standard Salesforce Object to manage the Product Level 3 that is related to the Customer Request
Customer Request Security Model
Who can create? | Due to differences within GBUs, roles and responsibilities are to be executed by different entities. |
Who can see? | Any user can see all the customer requests, except the Customer Requests flagged as “confidential” |
Who can update? | Only users in Case Team or above role hierarchy of a user in the Case Team. |
Who can delete it? | A Customer Request cannot be deleted. Only the System Administrator (SBS) can delete a Customer Request. |
3. Customer Request Custom Buttons & Features
Custom Buttons
"Send Final Communication" Button
In the Processing phase, the User responsible for the communication to the Customer must send Communication Email to the Client with the Proposed Customer Response. The user can send the email by clicking on the “Send Final Communication” button. In addition to the predefined Contact, the user can also input any valid email address as CC, select the Language of the Template, and select the Attachments the User wants to send to the Client.
"Clone Customer Request" Button
At any phase of the Customer Request Process, Users are able to Clone Customer Requests to save time on the registration phase. This will open a new Customer Request form already populated with the information from the initial Request.
Features
Customer Request Assignments
Assigning a Customer Request to a User or a Group of User is to pass the responsibility to act on the Customer Request on a particular phase of the process. On Salesforce, the Customer Request Assignment is based on the field Case Owner.
A Case Owner can be a User (Solvay employee with a Salesforce license) or a Queue (a group of Users that should be part of a team to handle Customer Requests with the same criteria).
Based on each GBU own process and rules, the Customer Request Assignment can be performed by:
- Manually changing the Owner – at any time, a User with Access to a Customer Request can click the button Change next to the current owner and select a new User/Queue to be the new Owner
- Manually choosing the actors – on the creation (from the fields Originator, Investigator* and Commercial Assignee*) or at any time (from the Case Team section) Users are able to select the future actors. The Owner will be changed then automatically based the change of the Status
- Automatically selecting the actors – the GBU has provided the rules, based on Customer Request criteria, to allow the system to automatically change the Ownership of a Customer Request to a specific User or a Queue when the Status changes
The Customer Request Actors are managed on the Case Team section on the Customer Request Layout page. The Users are added to the Case Team i) manually by a User or ii) automatically by the System when they are the new Owners of a Customer Request. When the Users are added automatically to the Case Team, they are added with the correct Role based on the current Customer Request Management Phase.
Customer Request Approval Process
After the registration phase is completed by the User and all the information related to the Customer Request is provided (General Information, Description, Accounts and Contacts, and Attachments), the Customer Request must be manually submitted by the User to be approved by clicking on the ‘Submit for Approval’ button. Based on System Rules and GBU Rules, a Customer Request can be:
- automatically approved - the Status will be automatically changed to Approved and the Customer Request will be assigned to the User or Group of Users responsible for the Processing
- assigned to be approved - the Status is changed to Pending Approved and the User or Group of Users responsible for approving the Customer Request will be notified.
During the approval process, the customer request will be frozen until it is “Approved” or “Rejected”.
If additional information is needed before the approval of the customer request, it can be recalled with a comment “Additional Information Required". Once the information has been delivered, the request can be submitted for approval again.
Customer Request Notifications
On each step of the Customer Request Management Process, a set of Solvay personalities (Salesforce or not Salesforce Users) needs to be notified that a new Customer Request has now moved to a specific Status in order to act (Customer Request Owners) or to be informed.
On each Status change, an email is sent from Salesforce to a group of users, based on System Rules and GBU Rules that should be stored and displayed in the Activity History Section of a Customer Request. There are four types of Addresses on the Customer Request Notification Email when the Status is changed:
- The new Owner – if your GBU has implemented assignment rules and the owner has changed automatically to a specific User or to a Queue, the new Owners will receive the Notification Email.
- The previous Owner (if not a Queue) – normally the previous owner is the User that changed the Status and triggered the notification. He/she will be also notified to ensure that the correct Owner has been assigned
- The Case Team – all Case Team Members, independent of their Role will receive the Notification Email
- Solvay Contacts on Notification Rules – group of contacts (not necessary Salesforce Users) that are selected to be notified when the Status is changed based on each GBU Rules.
4. Specific Rules & Automation
Customer Request Registration
In order to create a new customer request, on the Case tab, the user needs to click on the “New” button, select the customer request record type and click on “Continue”. Additionally, customer requests can be found in a related list on the Account page from which the user can see all existing customer requests for this Account as well as creating a new one. When creating a customer request from this related list on the Account page, the record type is by default “Customer Request” and the Account is automatically populated in the Account Name field.
When the user creates a Customer Request, he/she has the ability to register the following information:
Case Information
| Field | Definition | |
|---|---|---|
| Customer Request Number | Customer Request reference automatically assigned by the System | |
| Account Name | Main Customer related to the Customer Request | |
| Partner Type | Customer Partner Type automatically calculated by the System | |
| GBU Customer Classification | GBU Customer Classification automatically calculated by the System | |
| Subject | ||
| GBU | GBU related to the Customer Request | |
| BU | BU related to the Customer Request | |
| Product | Product Level 3 related to the Customer Request | |
| Type | Type of Customer Request defined by GBU | |
| Sub-Type | Sub-Type of Customer Request defined by GBU related to the Type selected | |
| Originator | Solvay Agent that initiate the Customer Request | |
| Case Owner | User or a Group of User that is responsible to act on the Customer Request on a particular phase of the process | |
| Notified | Specific User that needs to be notified on the Processing phase. | |
| Status | Indicates in which status the Customer Request currently is | |
| Final communication Sent | Flag that indicates that the Final Customer Communication has been sent. Automatically populated by the System when the email is sent by the User | |
| Received Date | Date that the Customer Request has been received | |
| Estimated Resolution Date | Date estimated that the Customer Request will be completed Note: this field may be automatically calculated for GBUs that provided the calculation rules | |
| Requested Resolution Date | Date that the Customer has requested that the Customer Request should be completed | |
| Priority | Customer Request priority defined by the Agent (High, Medium, Low) | |
| Case Origin | Original Channel of the Customer Request (Inbound email, Inbound Call, Mail shot, Teleconference, Face to Face, Website) | |
| Case Record Type | Case Record Type. | |
| Clone Customer Request | Indicates if the Customer Request has been created based on an existing Customer Request. Automatically populated by the System | |
| Confidential | Indicates if the Customer Request visibility should be confidential, meaning that only the Current Owner, the Case Team Members and the Users above on the Role Hierarchy are able to see the Record | |
| Manufacturing Plant | Plant that should be responsible for the processing of the Customer Request |
Customer Contact Information
Multiple contacts can be maintained on the Customer Request. The main Contact can be maintained under the Customer Contact Information section and additional Contacts can be maintained in the Case Customer Contacts related list.
| Field | Definition |
|---|---|
| Contact Name | Main Contact related to the Customer Request |
The main Contact on the customer request is by default recipient of the communication to the customer. The recipients can nevertheless be changed by the user.
Description
In this section, the initial description of the Customer Request is captured
| Field | Definition |
|---|---|
| End Customer | The Final Customer is known. Note: For legal reasons, sometimes this field should not be populated |
| Initial Description | Customer Description of the Customer Request |
| Amount | Estimated Cost for Processing the Customer Request |
| Opportunity | Link to the Opportunity from where the Customer Request was created. Automatically populated when the Customer Request is created from the related list of an Opportunity |
| Material Description | Material Description of the Product selected |
| Customer Request Products | List of Product Level 4 and Level 5 that were added to the Customer Request. Automatically populated when a new Product is added from the related list on the Customer Request |
The sections above are available on the Edit Mode of the Customer Request and should be populated by the Originator when registering a Customer Request. In order to register the Customer Request, the User should click on the 'Save' button. The Mandatory fields for registering a Customer Request are:
- Account Name
- Subject
- GBU
- BU
- Originator
- Status
- Received Date
- Estimated Resolution Date (if not automatically calculated by the System)
- Priority
- Contact Name
- Initial Description
On this Registration Phase, the Users are able to provide more information from the different related list available on the Customer Request page:
Case Customer Contacts
Additional Contacts are maintained in this related list.
Case Account Associations
On the Customer Request, a primary Customer is maintained on the page layout with the ability to maintain multiple Customers on the related list. This will allow a Customer Request to be processed for more than one Customer at the same time.
Customer Request Products
On the Customer Request is possible, but not mandatory, to detail one Product Family (Level 3) related to the Customer Request. On the Customer Request Products list is possible to add several Product Materials (Level 4 or 5) related to the Product Family selected.
All products/material are maintained in the products related list, where it’s also possible to select an Application End Use for the Products for information purpose (This information is mandatory if the GBU is “Aroma Performance”).
Case Team
Users can be assigned to a Case Team. This allows the appropriate users to have read/write access to the Customer Request as well as receive the appropriate notification emails. When a Customer request is flagged as confidential, only the users in the case team will have read/write access to the customer request.
Google Docs & Attachment related list
On this related list, both Google Docs and files from the computer can be attached.
Approval Process
As detailed in the Approval Process section above, users must at all times submit manually a Customer Request for approval after all the relevant information is provided regarding the Customer Request. When an approval is requested by the GBU the status is changed to Pending Approval and the User or Group of Users responsibel for the approval are notified. When the Customer Request is approved, the status is changed to Approved.
Process the Customer Request
Once the Customer Request is approved, the Users or group of Users responsible for processing it are notified to act on the Case. The Users will provide a description of what was done and processed on this Customer Request that should then be communicated to the Customer.
Customer Response
Detailing the Response that should be sent to the Customer.
| Field | Definition |
|---|---|
| Customer Response Proposal | Definition of the actions that were taken regarding the Customer Request that should be communicated to the Customer |
| Customer Response Proposal Details | More detailed information of the actions that were taken regarding the Customer Request that were taken regarding the Customer Request |
| Completed Date | Date that the Customer Request was completed |
| Time Spent | Time spent processing the Customer Request |
Customer Communication
In order to send the final communication to the customer, there is a button “Send Final Communication” that when pushed will open the template of the final communication email which can be previewed and is editable.
By default, the email of the main Contact assigned to the customer request will automatically be populated in the recipient's fields. It is possible to add any other email address to the list or in CC.
Basic information on the customer request is available in the template but it remains fully editable. Once the answer to the customer is ready, the user can send the email.
The customer request template is available in the following 16 languages (including simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese):
|
|
Furthermore, the language of the main Contact is used to determine the language in which the email template will be generated. In case no language is assigned to the main Contact, the default language of the communication is set to English. The user can always change the language by choosing another one in the dropdown list if needed. Attachments on the customer request can be attached to the final communication email to the customer.
Customer Request Closure
Any User assigned to the case team can close the customer request by clicking on the “Close” button. This redirects the User to the closure page where a “Comments” fields can be populated prior to closing the Customer Request. When closing a Customer Request, the status will be default Close/Answered, meaning that the Customer Request was completed and the Customer received a communication. If the customer request was Rejected or has not completed the process, the Status can be changed to Closed/Stopped.
Close Case
This section groups all the fields related to the Closure phase
| Field | Definition |
|---|---|
| Comments | Closure Comments |
| Status | Customer Request Status |
| Closure Date | Date of the Closure of the Customer Request |
Appendix
Estimated Resolution Date
GBU | Definition |
|---|---|
EP | GBU Customer Segmentation: Account Type = Standard Account - 15 Days |
GBU Customer Segmentation: Account Type = Key Account - 10 days | |
Account: Partner Type = Prospect - 1 month | |
Account: Partner Type ≠ Prospect AND GBU Customer Segmentation: Classification = A/B - 1 month | |
Account: Partner Type ≠ Prospect AND GBU Customer Segmentation: Classification = C - 2 months |
Type and Sub-Type
GBU | Type | Sub-Type |
|---|---|---|
Questionnaire | General Sustainable development/Environmental/Social/Ethical | |
Product specifications | ||
Regulatory request | ||
| Coatis | Audit | |
| MSDS / SDS / FDS | ||
| Reach questions | ||
| Regulatory Questions | ||
| Questionnaire | General Sustainable development/Environmental/Social/Ethical | |
| Product specifications | ||
| Certificates | ||
| Technical Request | Moldflow/MMI Others Sinterline Testing | |
| Other | ||
| Fibras | MSDS / SDS / FDS | |
| Questionnaire | General Sustainable development/Environmental/Social/Ethical | |
| Agreement | ||
| Price | ||
| Freight | ||
| Publicity | ||
| Technical Request | Moldflow/MMI Others Process Improvement Product Improvement Sinterline Testing | |
| Certificates | Domestic Homologation External Homologation | |
| Other | ||
| Novecare | Regulatory | Raw Material Questionnaire (RMQ) Regulatory Questions |
| Quality | Additional tests Analytical Methods/Technical Issues Audit Requests Certificate/Questionnaire Shelf life extension TDS | |
| PolyTechnyl | Specific Service Request | Technical Request |
| Product Regulatory certificates | Halogen declaration IMDS MSDS/SDS/FDS Others REACH RohS Tox / Ecotox | |
| Customer agreements | Commercial contract Logistic/SC agreement Others Quality agreement | |
| Product Performance data | PDS/TDS Product specifications Specific data or report | |
| Questionnaires & Questions | Env./Social/Ethical General purpose Others Regulatory Sustainable Development | |
| Solvay Energy Services | Invoice | Claim Duplicate Request Explanation Incorrect/Missing Data Others Taxes |
| Distributor Service Request | Data Transmission Grid connection Inception and Termination Intervention related to electricity meter device Others Quality of electricity | |
| Tariff optimisation | ||
| Other | ||
| Special Chem | Quality Agreement | |
| Other | ||
| Silica | Questionnaire | General Sustainable development/Environmental/Social/Ethical |
| MSDS / SDS - PDS / SRDS | ||
| Certificates | ||
| Regulatory Documents | ||
| Technical Request (Silica) | ||
| Silab | Specific Standard | |
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