Current Software Version

Application on Current Major Release: Keeping your RightNow application on the most recent major release (and preferably the most recent dot release) allows you and your staff to utilize the most current features and functionality available as well as issues that have been fixed from previous versions of software.

Business Rules

SmartAssistant Workflow Rule Restricted by Product/Category: Create a workflow rule for requests submitted through the Ask a Question page that suggests published answers to your end-user before the incident is actually submitted. This allows your site visitors to become familiar with your knowledge base and the suggested solutions may provide the answer to the issue more quickly. Restrict the suggested solutions by the same product and/or category if those fields are displayed.

Incoming Requests Assigned to Specific Staff Members or Groups: Create workflow rules to automatically assign incoming assistance requests to specific staff members or specific staff groups. The last workflow rule in the list of Ask a Question rules should be a "catch-all" rule that assigns all remaining incoming requests to a staff member or staff group, for example, IF source is Ask a Question, assign incident to Group A. In that way, all ask a question requests are routed to someone or some group for handling.

Auto Response Work Flow for Email to Promote Support via the Web: When Oracle B2C Service is initially released, some companies retain a support email address that was used prior to the implementation of Oracle B2C Service. Therefore, your end-users may not be aware of your published knowledge base. Create a workflow rule for email submittals that sends a standard response containing a link to the RightNow site. In this way you can educate your end-users to use your site as a resource and the preferred method for asking questions.

Free-Form Emails Routed via Workflow Rules: Create workflow rules to route incidents submitted to an email address through a mailbox. As with assistance requests submitted through your Web site, email requests should be routed using workflow rules to ensure that they are assigned to appropriate staff members or staff groups. The last workflow rule in the list of email workflow rules should be a "catch-all" rule that assigns all remaining email requests to a staff member or staff group, for example, IF source is Email, assign incident to Group B. In that way, all email requests are routed to someone or some group for handling.

Escalation Rules Created: If you have a standard Service Level Agreement (SLA), set up an escalation rule or rules to notify staff members when the time allotment is close or has been exceeded. For example, if your SLA is that your staff will respond within 8 hours of receipt of a question, set up an escalation rule to flag the incidents that have reached 4 (or 6) hours since the incident was created. This could be used in conjunction with a custom field for escalation so you could do multiple escalations on a single incident; assign to a manager at 6 hours, and send a standard response at 8 hours, communicating to the customer that your staff is continuing to work on their issue and they should receive a response soon.

Staff Efficiency Features

Appropriate Reports / Views and Profiles Created: Based on your staff members and staff groups, define appropriate profiles to allow staff members to access components of the application they are responsible for. Similarly, define appropriate views for the Incident, Customer, and Answer Consoles and determine which staff members can manage their own views.

Standard Responses In Use: Create standard responses for response content that is frequently sent to your customers. This allows your staff to append pre-defined content when sending responses, which saves time and reduces typographical errors. Group similar standard responses in folders to allow staff members to locate the appropriate standard response quickly.

Knowledge Base Available to Agents: Make sure that your internal staff who answer incoming calls and emails have access to the information in the knowledge base to enhance productivity and to ensure accurate and standard responses.

Incident Custom Fields Created (Where Applicable): Custom fields allow you to capture additional, specific information when an end-user submits a request through the Ask a Question page. Determine what information you need from your customers when they submit a request so that you can capture all relevant information up front when the incident is initially submitted.

Time Billed in Use: The time billed feature allows your staff to record time spent on resolving customer issues. This allows you to determine how your staff's time is spent.

Knowledge Base Management

Monitor Reports Regularly: It is critical to review the system reports within Oracle B2C Service on a regular basis to ensure that your knowledge base is up to date and working for you. Critical reports include the Service Summary, Keyword Searches, Answers Viewed, Site Effectiveness, and Session Tracking reports. Use Report Subscriptions to deliver reports to employees in your organization on a regular basis. This ensures that the knowledge base is being maintained and continues to work for your organization.

Answers Reviewed Regularly to Ensure Current Data: Define a review process to ensure the content of your knowledge base is reviewed and updated appropriately. Identify who is responsible for reviewing your knowledge base and with what frequency.

Intuitive Product/Category Classifications: Create Product and/or Category classifications that are intuitive and useful to your site visitors. Products and/or categories should be general enough to cover the entire range of content you are publishing to your site, yet should not be overly specific so as to have too many items listed in the Product and Category drop-down menus.

Minimum One Answer per Product/Category Combination: If both the Product and Category menus are used on your end-user pages, include at least one answer for each product/category combination so that your site visitors can view at least one answer when searching by these menus.

Intuitive Subject Lines Present on the Find Answers Page: The Subject line of the answer is the link that the site visitor selects to view the details of an answer. The Subject line must describe the issue addressed in the answer and compel the user to click on it. The entire Subject line should be visible to the end-user for ease of use.

Search Page View Simplified: Keep the Search/Find Answers page simple for your customers to use. Do not present extraneous information on the Search or Find Answers page that may confuse or appear too complicated for your site visitors. Frequently, the best view for the end-users is one column which displays the Subject line.

Answer Feedback Enabled: If Answer Feedback is enabled, you are able to receive suggestions from end-users regarding the content of specific answers for improvements and updates. However, you may not want customers to submit questions through this feedback feature. One way to address this issue is to create a standard response for all Answer Feedback incidents that informs end-users that their feedback has been received and that questions will not be responded to via this incident. This standard response is then delivered by a workflow rule.

Define Answer Publishing Process: Define a process within your organization for publishing new answers to your Find Answers page. This includes identifying the appropriate people write and/or edit the answer content, the use of custom answer statuses, answer custom fields and variables. For example, you may need a Subject Matter Expert (SME) to initially edit the proposed answers, then pass it on to Marketing, and then to Legal for final review and publishing.

Customer Satisfaction

Closed Incident Surveys Used: Set up a transactional survey (closed-incident survey) to allow your end-users the opportunity to provide feedback on the knowledge and service provided. Evaluate survey results at a specified frequency so that you can monitor the satisfaction of your customerbase.

Scoring for Survey Escalation Used: Create scoring for multiple choice or ranking questions within your survey(s). Then create notification rules to send an email to specific email addresses if an end-user has selected a specific response. This allows you to automatically escalate a negative response to the appropriate person within the support department to address.