Does your Contact Centre team use Oracle CX Service Cloud as its desktop application? Are you interacting with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to get the feedback and input needed to resolve customer requests efficiently and effectively?

Collaboration is fundamental to today’s business world, but it often takes place outside of where the work is actually happening e.g. emails, phone calls, or disconnected social networks, and typically these events aren’t tracked and recorded completely, let alone in a single location.

A reason is that SMEs may or may not work for the same organisation; they could be employees, contractors, partners, or suppliers. So they may not have access to your company's network, and usually won’t have access to the same systems your Contact Centre agents are using to manage customer enquiries and support requests.

Here we look at three collaboration options for Oracle CX Service Cloud and discuss some of the benefits and considerations for each.

1. Fusion5 Forward to Expert

The Fusion5 Forward to Expert (FTE) solution allows agents, who have logins to Oracle Service Cloud, to forward specific enquiries to internal and external subject matter experts.

It provides the agent with trackable information and feedback to assist them to resolve the enquiry.  The "expert’s" response is automatically updated in the Service Cloud incident record, and the change in status is notified to the agent assigned to the service request - so they can then continue to work on it.

Fusion5 built the FTE solution using the Oracle Service Cloud extension Add-in framework, which means it will remain compatible and upgrade-compliant with future releases.

The FTE user interface is simple, so Service Cloud agents and your organisation’s SMEs need little training, which means the solution can be deployed rapidly. The SME interface is a web form that displays in any modern browser. It contains all the information your expert needs for specific types of enquiries or issues, and a text box to enter in their feedback. Other editable fields can be added if required, such as an approval dropdown list.

Key benefits from using Fusion5 Forward to Expert:

• You can measure the responsiveness of each SME who’s been requested to help with resolving issues or enquiries.
• You can escalate requests, if required, to meet Service Level Agreement expectations.
• The system notifies the assigned Service Cloud/Call Centre agent when the SME has updated the incident, so they can review and action as necessary.
• The solution is dynamic and easily adapts to your specific business requirements, using a simple web interface that’s based on your branding and content requirements.
• You can incorporate responsive web design to provide an optimised mobile interface for SMEs if required.
• Little to no training of agents and SMEs is required.
• It offers bundled tiered based licensing depending on the total number of SMEs you use, making it a very competitive and cost effective
• SME lookup for the agent can be searched on any information you wish to record against an SME record e.g. name, email, location, position
• The solution works with both internal and external SME resources, so you can bring in knowledge from your suppliers, partners and external agents to expedite resolutions for your customers.
• SMEs are captured as contact records in Service Cloud and are assigned a specific contact type, making administration easier.
• The solution is built and supported by Fusion5.

Fusion5 Forward to Expert considerations:

• The solution is designed to gather feedback from one SME at a time, so the FTE notification can be sent to a single SME email or a shared email address where one SME from a group can pick it up. As standard, it is not designed for distribution to a large number of SMEs who can all provide input, although depending on the exact requirement it could be adapted.
• Because this solution is custom-built, any changes to the SME web form or other layout alterations need to be carried out by Fusion5 to ensure we can guarantee ongoing support of the solution.

2. Oracle Social Network

Oracle Social Network is a secure enterprise collaboration and social networking solution for business. Oracle Social Network includes integration with enterprise applications, such as Oracle Service Cloud, that drives adoption and participation for increased productivity.

Just like popular consumer social tools, Oracle Social Network enables people to have online conversations, share documents, start one-on-one chats for quick private exchanges, and build out rich user profiles and group affiliations to find the right people to connect with.

Oracle Social Network can be accessed via web browser or mobile application for users who do not have access to Oracle Service Cloud, allowing your whole business to use it not only to assist with Service Requests but also to collaborate more with each other, increasing engagement across the organisation.

Key benefits with Oracle Social Network:

• The solution is pre-integrated into Oracle Service Cloud, so users can easily gain access once it’s configured and assigned to their profile.
• Users can get access directly from the incident record they are working on, and share related information via a post to all Oracle Social Network users, or private message to a selected group or specific SME.
• Service Cloud user licensing includes bundled Social Network user licensing. So, depending on the size of your organisation and the number of Service Cloud users you have, you might have Social Network licenses available for everyone already.
• The Social Network runs natively in all modern web browsers and iOS and Android mobile applications are also available.
• Provides extensive social forum and collaboration tools and functionality when using the Social Network web interface and mobile app, such as document annotation, thread moderation, flags, favorites and marking of best answers
• The Social Network functionality can easily extend beyond SME and Customer Service agent collaboration into many areas of your business to promote greater engagement.

Oracle Social Network considerations:

• The pre-built integration limits the information that shares automatically between Service Cloud and Social Network when a post is submitted from an incident record. A small number of standard out-of-the-box fields are pushed into the social post, and the agent needs to include any specific or additional information in the post comment they submit.
• Social Network integration is not tied into the Service Cloud workflow and doesn't update the incident status when a response to a post is submitted. Agents need to review the post responses regularly so that service requests don’t go unactioned for long periods.
• Some training and support is required for Service Cloud users, SMEs and any other users provided access to Social Network.
• Will require some extra administration of Social Network users and their profile permissions etc.

3. Oracle Service Cloud Non-Contact Centre licensing

Oracle Service Cloud Non-Contact Centre licensing isn’t a collaboration solution specifically, rather, it's a newish licensing structure from Oracle for Service Cloud that’s worth investigating.

The licence for non-contact centre users covers company employees who access Oracle Service Cloud functionality sporadically to help customers, partners, or fellow staff members.  For example, employees serving as SMEs to the Contact Centre team or employees in retail/offsite locations who provide customer support.

Users covered by this license can access Oracle Service Cloud in the same way as the Contact Centre users do: using the Agent Desktop Application or the Browser User Interface (which, conveniently, doesn’t require any installation). As with other users, profiles and permissions to control access and available functionality can be put in place.

This solution gives infrequent non-contact centre staff access to the complete functionality of the system as and when required. So for situations where people outside the Contact Centre team need to manage complex support requests, this solution potentially offers the most flexibility.

Key benefits of Non-Contact Centre licensing:

• A full working Service Cloud user license provides access to review and submit feedback on an issue or support request, and also gives access to extended functionality such as reporting, contact history, standard responses, knowledge base articles and guided assistance.
• You can measure the responsiveness of each SME who’s been requested to help with resolving issues or enquiries.
• You can escalate requests, if required, to meet Service Level Agreement expectations.
• Depending on profile permissions, an SME could respond directly to the customer, or reassign the incident to an agent or group in the Contact Centre by submitting their feedback as a private note.
• This is a dynamic solution which adapts easily to your specific business requirements, using workspace business rules.
• The solution works with both internal and external SME resources, so you can bring in knowledge from your suppliers, partners and external agents to expedite resolutions for your customers.
• An SME is treated as another Service Cloud user, so the administration is the same as for your current users.
• The functionality and access provided to SMEs in Service Cloud is completely managed through configurations, so current administrators can make changes as required.

Non-Contact Centre licensing considerations:

• Training is required for the SMEs given access to Service Cloud under this licensing. The scope of the training depends on the complexity of the implementation and the amount of functionality and access provided.
• The Non-Contact Centre licensing structure is greatly reduced compared to standard Service Cloud licensing, but is still subject to the same conditions. Each SME needs their own license - whether its named, pooled, or concurrent - based on your existing licensing agreement.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are a lot of great options to extend the reach of your Service Cloud agents, and get subject matter expertise. This helps your business to resolve issues and enquiries more effectively, and significantly improves your customers’ experience.

If you’d like to discuss which option suits your business the best, or if you’d like to talk through how collaboration can increase your business success, please let us know. We’re excited to assist you on your journey.