Let’s start with an example, a quote can now be sent digitally to customers, and they can sign with an e-signature. The basic idea behind automation is to handle day-to-day processes and operations more efficiently, more accurately and more profitably, and if we get it right, it can also enhance customer service and visibility of our organization.
As the digital world advances, more and more traditional processes that have until now been implemented manually are being switched to automated mechanisms. But more than that, the automated processes themselves are becoming increasingly efficient and accurate, resulting in increased profitability for the organizations that use them. And there’s plenty of room for improvement.
Take another example of e-signature; yes the client can sign directly onto the document on the screen in front of them, without printing out the page, grabbing a pen to sign on the dotted line, finding an envelope and stamp and mailing it back to you. But does the process of incorporating that electronically-signed document into your records really happen automatically, with no further manual input once the client has sent it back to you? And, if you are sending documents to your customers via an automated system, does it all come unstuck when you need different content for different clients? And what happens if your salesperson is in the field, actually generating sales, and not at their desk where they can deal with other documents – does this hold up the sales process?
Creating an automated process allows you to pre-define the route and points through which the customer journey will pass in order to achieve your process goal – be it customer care, customer retention, sales, service, etc. – but also to adjust each scenario to ensure that it is relevant to each particular customer, keeping them on that path and leading them to the final destination you set at the beginning of the journey. As such, automation is the creation of a set of rules based on cause and effect. The trigger can be almost any customer interaction following which a response is required from you; for example, when a customer has received a quote, signed it and returned it to you, you may want them to receive a welcome email within 24 hours in response.
Posted at 9:32 AM by Rakesh Gupta, on June 21, 2016
Email-to-Case allows you to create a Case automatically when a customer emails in. It also populates some key information automatically, for example, the email subject becomes the Case Subject, and the email body mapped to the Case Description. You can configure multiple Email-to-Case channels based on your business use case.
Business Use Case
Pamela Kline is working as System administrator at Universal Containers. She has just implemented email-to-Case for Universal Container. Now she has received the following enhancements from support agent
Automatically add customer response to the case email thread, when the customer replies to the email that has been sent from a case.
Re-open a case when the customer responds to support agent email, within five days of case closure.
Business use case 1 solution
First of all, you have to understand Thread ID. Thread ID is a unique ID generated for outbound emails within the case. The thread ID will look like ref:_00D90wAtk._500901Kc5WN:re. To automatically add customer response to the case email thread, make sure that Email-to-Case has been configured correctly for customer email responses to be attached to the case.
Email Threading is an important part of Email-to-Case setup. Setting this up essentially means that, if a customer emails you more information about an existing Case, their second email will be attached to their existing Case instead of creating a new Case. If you want to auto add a unique Thread ID into your auto-responses and other outgoing emails, then navigate to Setup | Build | Customize | Cases | Email-to-Case and select the check-boxes as shown in the following screenshot
When you are replying to a customer make sure to change the address from the Owner to the Email to Case support address. If this is not changed, then the response from the customer will be sent to the owner of the case and will not be added to the Email Thread. Follow the below steps to add Email-to-Case support address to from address (Basically we are going to add Email-to-Case support address to Organization-Wide Addresses
1. Copy the Email Services Address (i.e. Long email address) from Email-to-Case as shown in the following screenshot
Email Services Address
2. The next step is to add a new Organization-Wide Email Addresses. Use Email Services Address (Long address) in place of Email Address, as shown in the following screenshot
Organization-Wide Email Addresses
For verification purpose, Salesforce will send an email notification with a confirmation link to the above-mentioned email address.
3. As we are using Email-to-Case routing address, it will automatically create a case in your org, from where you can verify the ownership of email address.
Verify your Salesforce Organization-Wide Address
Click on the link mentioned under description to verify the Organization-Wide Address. After successful verification, you can use Email-to-Case Support address to send out an email from Salesforce
Email to Case support address
Sample Output:-
Email Thread
Business use case 2 solution
There are few possible solutions for the above business scenario, but we will use theProcess Builder to solve it. Follow the below instructions to create a Process for the above business requirement
1. Click on Name | Setup | App Setup | Create | Workflows & Approvals | Process Builder and click on the Newbutton, Enter Name, API Name and then click on the Save button.
Define Process Properties
2. The next step is to add entry criteria. For this click onAdd Object, selectEmail Message object and for the entry criteria, Select Only when a record is created, as shown in thebelow screenshot, once you are done click on theSave button.
Evaluation Criteria
3. The next task is to add ProcessCriteria, To do this click on Add Criteria, enter Name, Type of action and set filter conditionsas shown in the following screenshot.
[EmailMessage].Parent.ClosedDate Greater than or equal Formula [EmailMessage].CreatedDate -5
Process Criteria
4. The next step is to addan Immediate action to Process. Click onAdd Action(Under Immediate actions), Select the type of action to create (In our case Record Updates), and then fill out the fields to define the action, as shown in the following screenshot.
Add Action – Record Updates
For Record Type choose ‘Select a record related to the Email Message‘ as shown in the following screenshot
Select a record related to the EmailMessage
5. Once you are done, click on theSave button, it will redirect you to Process canvas. Finally, theProcess will look like the following screenshot.
Update case status through email to case
Don’t forget to active the Process by clicking on the Activatebutton.
