CRM subject maintenance overview

All customer interactions can be categorised into specific subjects, with each subject defining the nature of the interaction, the advice available to support the operator, and the activities to be undertaken - in the form of assigned tasks - in order to secure a successful outcome. There is no limit to the number of subjects that can be created on the system, matching all likely scenarios arising from the range of services provided by the housing organisation. Where repeat customer queries are received, new subjects can easily be created to accommodate them. In creating a new subject, there are one of three types available for selection:

Case Creation: This subject type will result in the creation of a new case, which itself will have CRM tasks and potentially service level agreements associated with it. Its use would be relevant in circumstances where the customer interaction cannot be resolved at the point of initial contact but would result in activities progressed outside of the call e.g. all tasks associated with raising a repair request.
Communication: This subject type caters for all customer interactions that would be classified as 'general enquiries' - circumstances where the operator will either know the answer instantly or will be able to elicit the information during the live call. All customer interactions allocated to this category would be resolved on initial contact and linked to the relevant subject at the point of completion, thus informing root cause analysis.
Advice: This subject type would be reserved for instances where the operator must refer to specific advice in order to resolve the customer interaction, but still within the duration of the call e.g. a query concerning opening times for the housing surgery.

Subjects that are configured as Communication Only or Advice Only would not be linked to follow-on tasks, SLA targets or allocated users i.e. they are resolved on initial contact and therefore no further ownership, escalation or SLA compliance monitoring is required. In contrast, for Case Creation subjects, it is the allocation of tasks that define how the case will be progressed. Any number of discrete tasks can be linked to a CRM subject although an individual task can only appear once within the same case. Where multiple tasks are required, identical in nature, separate task definitions must be created for each instance. Tasks can either be added to the subject definition library and then added manually when a related case is launched, or included within the workflow path, with automatic activation triggered when a new case is launched.

All CRM cases can be service level driven and form an integral part of a wider Service Level Agreement (SLA), controlled through their association to a subject definition. Within each CRM subject, there are three key components of SLA compliance tracking: amber warning period, follow-on escalation and target completion exceeded. SLA targets that are defined at subject level must transcend the individual SLA targets for the related tasks, with robust system validation rules ensuring that proposed target completion dates are synchronised. Once an SLA indicator is reached, the system can be configured to despatch an automatic alert to individual user accounts that are associated through the subject definition, notifying them of the situation. User accounts can be linked directly to the SLA notification process or by association through their membership of an allocated role.

At the point of raising a CRM case, its ownership is transferred automatically from the associated subject definition, whether that be to an individual user or a group of users via membership of an allocated role. Where ownership is assigned to a specific role, all members have the opportunity to pick up the case for onward progression, supported by the script to which it is linked. Access to customer interactions that are linked to case subjects marked as 'private' are tightly controlled through the allocation of one or more contact types; hence, only contacts matching that type have visibility of the case details.

When creating a new case, it may assist the end user progressing the customer interaction to see related cases raised by that contact, perhaps by virtue of their group membership. Similarly, the visibility of cases can further be extended to include all cases linked to the group, even those raised by other members. By linking group types to a CRM subject and specifying the level to which cases are displayed, this defines a thread of cases that are all accessible during the live customer interaction.

Separate help articles have been created for each key aspect of CRM subject maintenance, including: