9 steps to get started with customer service

The nine items in this article cover the basics for getting started working with the Customer Service features in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The Resource Center also includes many articles for taking full advantage of the Customer Service features. Visit the Resource Center by clicking Resource Center on the left navigation pane. And, for yet more information, see the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Help.

Your Microsoft Dynamics CRM installation may use different terminology than what you see in Help. For example, the term "case" is often changed through customization to "incident" or "ticket".

Key steps

1. Follow a case from call to closure

   This diagram describes the life cycle of a case.

2. Understand contracts, contract lines, and cases

   A contract is a an agreement for what type of service a customer is eligible for. A contract line in a contract describes the service support to be provided. In addition, a contract line often includes pricing information and how support will be allotted; this is either by total minutes of service or number of cases opened.

   If your organization uses contracts, cases opened from the contract record can be linked to the contract line.

3. Use activities to track work in cases

   After you open a case, you can open activities, such as tasks, from the case record. When you close an activity and record the duration, it is added to the total billing time for the case. You can adjust the billing time as needed. All activities must be closed to resolve a case. When you resolve the case, the total displays.

   To create an activity for the case:

   • Under Common, click Activities. Then, click Add New Activity.
4. Understand the queue

   Queues hold cases and activities that have not been claimed or accepted by anyone. Some organizations have customer service representatives watch a queue for new cases. When you accept a case to be worked on that appears in a queue, the case moves to your In Progress queue. For more information, see Using Queues to Manage Your Activities and Cases.

   Closing an activity removes it from your queue. However, you can find the activity in the Closed Activities of the related case or record.

5. Send an e-mail message or instant message to a customer or another person in your organization
   • For information about sending an e-mail message to a customer, see Create and send an email activity in the Web application.
   • To send an e-mail to the owner of a record, under Information, click Preferences. Click the name of the Owner. In the Owner record, on the User tab, in the Collaborate group, click Send Direct E-mail.
   • If you have Office Communicator 2007 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook installed, you may see the presence jewel. You can click the jewel and send instant messages or e-mail.
6. Assign and share records

   What Microsoft Dynamics CRM customer information you can work with is determined by permissions and ownership. If more than one person needs to work with a record, it can be shared or assigned. When you share a record with another user, you give that user specific permissions for that record, but you retain the ownership. However, when you assign a record to another user, you are making that user the owner of the record.

   • More information: Share or Assign Records

   For cases, you can assign a case to a queue.

7. Find information in articles in the knowledge base

   The knowledge base is a collection of articles that can include procedures, answers to common questions, product sheets, problem solutions, or anything else your organization wants to share.

   You can search for an article by keyword, title, article, number, subject, or use a full text search. For more information, see Find an article.

8. Resolve and reactivate a case

   When a problem has been solved or addressed to the customer's satisfaction, resolve the case, record the resolution, and enter the amount of time to be billed to the customer.

   Before resolving a case, all the case's activities must be closed. If the case is linked to a contract line, the contract must be active and have sufficient allotments to resolve the case. You can only resolve one case at a time.

   To resolve a case:

   • On the Actions group, click Resolve Case.

   Resolving a case creates a closed Case Resolution activity.

   Tip

   View a list of all resolved cases. In the View list, click My Resolved Cases or Resolved Cases.

   After resolution, you can reactivate a case to work on it again. This closes the Case Resolution activity as "canceled."

   To reactivate a closed case:

   • On the Actions menu, click Reactivate.
9. Using Reports to track your work

   You can use reports to manage your work and identify trends and issues. Microsoft Dynamics CRM comes with some default reports. You can also create reports that meet you requirements.

   • In the Workplace, under My Work, click Reports.

   The two reports you may find the most useful are Neglected Cases and Case Summary Table.

Related Links

Services articles

Supporting Customer Service with Microsoft Dynamics CRM