SAP Business One is a business management solution designed to meet today‘s small and midsize enterprise (SME) needs and challenges. The solution gives you instant access to real-time information through one single system. SAP Business One is divided into several modules, each covering a different business function.

SAP Business One provides built-in service management tools that are fully integrated into the back-office operations to assist customers in dealing with post-sales services and support. This allows seamless management of all services related activities.

Stay on…We will further discuss the associated features, benefits and more to get a comprehensive understanding of SAP Business One Service Management.

 

The Fundamentals of SAP Business One Service Management

It is important to win a new net of customers while maintaining the stream of the existing ones. This must be the aim of any organization which is working on a commercial basis. Notably, customer service is an essential factor in any business model because customers are the ones who will determine the success rate of a company. Interaction with customers is crucial to meet their demands and to solve their problems at the earliest notice.

A system is needed to solve the issues of the customers easily and quickly. The system which is being used for customer service must not be over complicated. SAP Business One established an easily operable, quick and effective system to manage customer service.

Most importantly, the solution helps to record the duration of the customer service calls, the efficiency of the calls, and the volumes to which the calls have been effective. As a result, this real-time reporting allows the technicians to find solutions for consumer’s problems and improve their efficiency of service. These prevent such occurrences in the future as well as enhancing user experience.

Moreover, you can track the orders of customers effortlessly with the SAP Business One Service Management tool. The track services and the follow-up instances can also be recorded along with the customer’s complaint calls. You can view the related activities such as maintenance or repair services requests made by the customers. Not just that, you can view the expenses related to customers’ complaints and problems too. The invoice generation is also a part of the service management system introduced by SAP Business One.

 

Key features of SAP Business One Service Management

SAP Business One Service management tool manages warranty and service contracts efficiently, enter and respond to service calls quickly. The features of  SAP Business one Service Management:

1. Service Call Management

With service call management you can enter and respond to service calls quickly, and provide support for service operations, customer interaction activities, and resource management. This sub-module is utilized in logging in calls from customers (post-sale), track service and related follow up. Tracked calls can be customer complaints and technical support requests, requests for repair/maintenance and more.

 

Service call

 

Also, you can navigate each service call to its relevant consultant, department, or sales employee. So that, you can provide customized services to every group of target customer with specially allocated technicians and call managers.

In addition, you can enable restriction on service component access for certain users. Any user can be blocked if fraudulent activity is observed on his or her part. Thus, with this authorization framework, you can restrict a user from recording or changing the status of a service call. You can also disapprove services without a contract or beyond coverage time too.

Furthermore, a proper record of meetings and appointments through calls can be maintained. The solutions which are implemented to solve a particular issue notified by customers can be stored as a positive record and serve as a precedence for future issues.

 

Service call management

 

2. Service Contract and Warranty Management

With service contract management, you can efficiently manage warranty and service contracts and help ensure the timely and accurate execution of contract terms. This feature handles the written agreement between the customer and your company that enables your company to provide maintenance and repair for an item beyond the manufacturer’s warranty coverage.

Service contracts include the following:

  • Specific product details and information regarding relevant expenses such as labour, parts, and travel expenses.
  • days and hours of service you commit to providing the customer, and even the suggested resolution time.

The details pertaining to raw materials that have been used along with the labour wages associated with the development of a product are included within the service contract. Moreover, SAP Business One helps to suggest a time period or the span within which any conflict can be resolved.

A few predefined templates are available to monitor the warranty period for a particular product. The time which is already suggested for the resolution of issues can be brought into this template as well.  The service information on the customer equipment cards with the period of warranty eradicates misunderstanding with the customers.

Service contract management

Customer Equipment Cards

Customer Equipment Cards form the database that contains all serial number items that you sold to your customer and for which service can be provided. The customer Equipment cards are created automatically when A/R invoices or deliveries are created. So, you can track the history of a specific serial number from the day you sold the item and throughout its entire service period.

The dates which are related to expiration for renewal of a specific contract can also be mentioned within the boundaries of these equipment cards. A huge amount of data can be accessed with the help of the SAP Business One model. This system makes sure that every detail related to the product is at your fingertips of the users. The equipment card contains information such as:

  • Location of the item at which you provide or receive service
  • Service calls related to the item
  • Service contracts that cover the item
  • Sales information
  • Inventory transaction data

Equipment cards

Different categories can be assigned for specific groups of target customers to manage contracts as the items managed by serial numbers. The terms which are related to contracts regarding renewal and expiration for particular products can also be monitored. Apart from that, third-party interference and contractual relationships information are included in the SAP Business One Service Management system. So, when the customer calls for service, salespeople can ensure that contract terms are properly applied and customer expectations are met.

 

3. Knowledge-based Conflict Resolution

Whenever a product or service line is designed and launched into the consumer market, there will be a number of issues that will crop up with time. These issues can be informed to the respective organization and measures can be taken to solve these issues.

If the problems which are mentioned by the customers in the past are recorded well in the database of the company, there will be an easy recognition of issues. It will also be possible to retrieve the information which was used in the oats to solve a similar issue.

Knowledge is power. Once the organization has crystal clear knowledge regarding the resolution of a certain conflict, it can be done within a very short span of time. SAP Business One can help to integrate the problems into a single data case and help the organization link service calls which are similar to each other.

You can:

  • Create and update common solutions to customer’s problems and questions.
  • Display all the solutions that were ever recorded in SAP Business One.
  • Link an existing solution to a service call or record a new solution from a service call.

Solutions_Knowledge_Base

 

3. Service reports of an organization

Service reports and analysis create detailed reports related to call volumes, durations, and response times, and turn analyses into actionable information and results. Furthermore, service reports enable business owners and managers to analyze the performance of support staff, get an overview of complaints received, handling time, types of service contracts, etc.

 

Service reports

 

Moreover, you can evaluate the performance of the technician who is attending the calls. The duration of the call and the efficiency of the technician will be stored in a separate database. Besides that, comparative values can be generated in order to understand the development of a technician over time. The call volumes and durations are also noted down to tally the efficiency of technicians providing solutions. In addition, self-evaluation can be carried out by observing the rates and duration of calls.

 

 

The service monitor program can help to record the number of overdue calls.  Furthermore, whenever the call volumes or durations are exceeded, the system sends real-time alerts to the organization. Therefore, you can take necessary actions immediately and ensure a timely response to customer request.

Briefly, with service reports you can:

  • Extract important information about the efficiency and performance of your service department.
  • Obtain details about customer service contracts and equipment.
  • View your own service calls in order to assess your progress and take any necessary actions.

 

Bottom line

Thus, it can be clearly stated that the organizations which conduct commercial practices must upgrade their customer service system to cater to their customers’ requirements. SAP Business One has been designed to overcome the challenges of the organizations in meeting the demands of the customers.

The proper implementation of SAP Business One is advised to maintain a record of changes occurring within the organization after this system is introduced. Therefore, Axxis Consulting will ensure a successful implementation and you get the most out of your new system.

Empower your sales and service team with SAP Business One Service Management and keep your customers happy.

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