Your call center is often the first point of contact between your customer and your business.  If you want to effectively track this interaction, you should be using service notifications.  However, in my experience, even customers using service notifications rarely use them effectively.  The notification has many useful features, but in this lesson we are going to focus on classifying the interaction.  Simply put, “Why did the Customer Call/Write/Email?  Now this may sound trivial, until you stop and think about what you could do with the information.  The information becomes especially critical for customer complaints, returns and repairs.  Here are some examples of how to use the notification information.

• Engineering can use the information to determine product improvements, new products and correct customer’s biggest concerns
• Quality can use the information to track common defects – can be used to drive process improvements
• Service Department can find trends among materials and create general tasks lists for more accurate planning.
• Shipping can see trends in product deliveries
• Billing can find trends in inaccurate billing
• You can develop a frequently asked question list to add to your website to cut down on calls or at least to provide to your call center for quick turnaround.
• You can develop a knowledge database for your field engineers to quickly solve common problems.

Ok, so now you understand what could be done if you had that data.  So the question becomes, how do I get that data?  Like everything in SAP, it comes with a price.  If you want data, someone needs to enter it.  But where do you enter the data? Excellent question…

In the notification, you have 2 major tools for collecting all this information in a method that you can use.  Most companies I’ve been at simply enter the information into long text.  This works fine for a single notification, but it’s nearly impossible to collect any sort of metrics or statistics.  That’s why I encourage you to use one of the following methods.

Catalogs – Such a simple word, but so many things you can do with them.  In the notification, there are actually multiple different catalogs that you can use inside of the notification

• Code Catalog – Available at the header level of the notification
• Problem Codes – Available at the Item level
• Cause Codes – Available on the Cause Tab (both at the header and item level)
• Task Codes – Available on the Cause Tab (both at the header and item level)
• Activity codes – Available on the Cause Tab (both at the header and item level)
• Object Type Codes – Available at the Item level

Now each of these catalogs represents a group and code.  So you can have multiple groups, and multiple codes for each group. The biggest thing to keep in mind is that not all of these catalog are available unless you use items, task and causes in your notification.  The only catalog you get without those pieces is the Code Group catalog.  This alone can be very powerful.  Especially if you structure the catalog to have your most important groups and codes.  Be aware, that catalogs are restricted to a single code.  This means you cannot assign multiple codes to any field.  We’ll cover a way to handle this later on.

If you’re interested in how to configure the catalogs, please check out our E-Book on Service Notification Configuration.

When the catalogs are configured in a way that fits your business you can move onto the next step.  The most important part of the whole exercise, you need your call center/customer service reps to enter in the data for each and every notification.  Now, without fail, you will be told they don’t have time for it, won’t remember to do it, blah blah blah…  Remember, this will only take a few extra seconds to enter in this information.  If you need a tool to make your data entry easier, you should check out Renovation by JaveLLin Solutions.  It will give you a web based interface that you can fully configure to show only the fields you care about.  You will need to drive home the fact that this information is important for the business to improve…  and then PROVE it.  Use the data.  Take a look at my blog post if you want more information on this topic.  In addition, if you are interested in getting the most of your metrics, you need to take a look at Broadsword by JaveLLin Solutions.

Now, there is one more piece that you can use for classifying your notifications.  It is the SAP classification system.  Go figure.  Classification will give you some additional functionality you can’t get with catalogs.  The first is that everything could be entered into a single location.  No need to go to multiple tabs to enter in all the catalog codes that apply.  Next, you can use multiple value characteristics so you can select as many options as you would like.  Finally, there are SAP standard transactions you can use for reporting.  (CL30N is the first one that comes to mind).

Now, I’m not going into the details of the classification system.  What you need to know is that the class must be class type 015.  Otherwise, you can structure it any way you choose.  The other drawback to using classification is that it is only available if you enter an item on the notification.  You do not need to any additional data like material, codes, just give it a description to create the item.  Once it exists, you will be able to enter in your classification information.  Now, remember in configuration you can fill in the class, you can use it default that class into every notification and can you check a box to give you an alternate way to enter in the characteristics.  Now, Broadsword by JaveLLin Solutions will also give you full reporting of all the classification you enter into notifications.

So…  now you know 2 ways that you can better utilize your notifications, and I hope you can put this information to good use.  Improve your products, streamline your processes, or just prove how great your aftermarket call center operates =)

If you have any issues, please feel free to reach out to me:

mpiehl@gojavellin.com