Streamline opening and closing cases
Your customer service representatives have enough to do without taking extra steps when they open and close cases. If one service representative processes fifteen cases a day, an extra two minutes to enter each case and an extra minute to close the case adds up to a wasted four hours per week per service representative. In two hours, you can streamline the input form and save four hours per representative per week to use on solving real customer problems. Besides streamlining the work for your service representatives, you’ll make it possible for management to view more useful reports.
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Getting started
To make the changes suggested in this article, you must have the System Administrator or System Customizer security role.
The procedures in each section show you how to begin. For detailed instructions on each task in this article, open the Form: Case form. Then, on the Help menu, click Help on This Page.
Decide what to change
The two-hour estimate includes an hour and a half to determine what needs to change, and a half an hour to implement the changes in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0. Try these ideas for collecting information on what needs to change:
| • | Watch your best service representatives as they collect information from a few customers. Note whether they write information down before they type it in. Observe whether they collect data that doesn’t fit into fields on the form, such as putting product version number in the title. Watch the expressions on their faces: a scowl usually means a mismatch between what they hear on the phone and the fields on the form. |
| • | Give the printed forms to your service representatives, and ask them to mark them up with other data they need to collect. |
| • | Expect updating the form to take two passes. At first, the service representatives may only find major problems. After the form more closely matches their processes, they’ll find more details to change. |
| • | Review the form monthly or quarterly to make sure changes to business practices are reflected. This is one of the easiest ways to keep employees using Microsoft CRM, and to shave precious minutes from repetitive tasks. |
It’s helpful to start the update process with a printed Case form and a printed list of default values for each drop-down list on the form:
| • | To locate the Case customization area, click Settings, click Customization, click Customize Entities, and then double-click Case. Click Forms and Views, and then double-click Form. |
| • | You can print the Case form from Microsoft CRM or from the customization planning forms. To download and print the form from the customization planning forms, click the first link in the Related Links list on this page, download the forms, and then print the CaseUserInterfaceChanges.doc file. |
| • | You can print a list of default values for drop-down lists by downloading the Microsoft CRM 3.0 Implementation Guide. When the download is complete, print the file DefaultValues.xls spreadsheet from the the Planning_Tools folder. |
Display the right fields
The default Case form might have fields your organization doesn’t use and may not have fields that you need. If fields are missing, consider using a predefined field in Microsoft CRM. If you don’t see an appropriate field, it’s easy to add a new one.
To add and remove fields:
| • | To see the list of attributes that Microsoft CRM defines for the Case entity, but that are not on the form by default, on the Form: Case form, click Add Fields. These fields are also listed in the CaseUserInterfaceChanges.doc file. |
| • | To add an attribute that doesn’t already exist, close the Form: Case form, click Attributes, and then click New. Fill in the required information, and then click Save and Close. |
Order the fields to match the order in which service representatives collect information
On the Form: Case form, arrange the fields to appear in the order that your service representatives collect the information from the customer. In addition, pressing the TAB key should move between fields in the same order that service representatives collect information.
To order the fields:
| • | To change the physical order of fields, you must remove a field from the form, and then it again in the new location. |
| • | The order in which you add fields to the form determines the tab order. To change the tab order, you must remove fields from the form, and then add them again in the proper order. |
| • | To test the tab order, click Preview, click Create Form, and then tab through the fields. |
Use your organization’s terminology
Every time a service representative has to translate a label on the form to how he or she thinks about the data, a few seconds are lost, attention shifts from the customer to the tool, and stress levels go up. For example, the team might prefer to use the term Problem or Service Request rather than Title to describe a case.
To change the terminology:
| • | To change the label for a field that is already on a form, when you’re in the Form: Case form, select the field, and then click Edit Properties. |
| • | If you change a label on the form, also change it on the Attributes page. The label used on the Attributes page is the label used when the field displays in views or when the field is newly added to a form. |
| • | If you make significant terminology changes, you should also change the labels in the reports. To make changes to reports, you must have the Visual Studio .NET shell and Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services installed. |
Cover every possibility in each drop-down list
Values in drop-down lists (picklists) are unique in every organization. Because drop-down lists don’t accept text input, coming up with a comprehensive list reduces stress for the service representatives. If you don’t list all the options, they will find creative ways to put this information in the wrong place, such as in a note. Having all values available also makes it possible to search for records and run reports based on values of the drop-down list.
While you’re reviewing each list, think about which value should be the default and the best order for the values in the list. For example, if 90% of your cases come in by phone and none come in by e-mail, in the Case Origin picklist, set Phone as the default value and delete the E-mail value. Or, if you track priority levels by response time, for the Priority picklist, change High to 2-hour, Normal to 24-hour, and Low to 48-hour.
To modify the drop-down lists:
| • | On the Attributes page for the Case entity, edit each attribute that is listed with the type picklist. Delete unused values, add new values, adjust the order of the list, and set the default to the most common value. |
| • | Remember to adjust the values of the Status Reason attribute. This attribute is listed as type status. It is like a picklist, but its value depends on the value of the State attribute. For example, by default, a case with the State set to Active can have a Status Reason of In Progress, On Hold, Waiting for Details, or Researching. Review the Status Reason values for each value of the State attribute. By default, Microsoft CRM includes only one reason for resolved cases, Problem Solved. You might want to add other resolution reasons, such as Update Sent or Product Returned. You cannot change the possible values of the State attribute. |
After you revise the form to match your service representatives' needs, take a few minutes to watch a representative collect data from a phone call. You’ll be able to see the difference in efficiency.
