Are you an existing Force.com customer? If so, it will please you to know that the next big update for Salesforce is due this June. You can expect the Service Cloud Summer 2021 Update to be a large release, with a huge overhaul of its features.
The company has been pushing this update for some time. Salesforce expects the new update to bring customer services and support to the next level. This update comes packed with additional features that will not only make your job but your clients’ jobs much easier as well. Let me break it down for you.
Table of Contents
- Service Cloud
- –>Service Setup
- –>Workforce Engagement
- ———>Channel
- ———>Voice
- ———>Chat
- –>Routing
- –>Case Management
Service Cloud
This is a big update to Salesforce and offers a way of how you can get building things in your organization. This update also provides an infrastructure for your app development, build additional features, and even integrate with backend systems. It helps speed up app delivery with the flexibility to consult on the application development stack.
The Service Cloud can offer all this as well as help you with your inbound and outbound marketing, CRM integration and so much more. Here is a list of some integral updates in the Summer 2021 update:
- Service Setup: The Service Setup Assistant has fresh improvements with more tasks that make setup easier. The Assistant has grown with a lot more features than ever before. Read all about it here:
- Sample Data: Mark the Add sample service data checkbox in the Service Setup Assistant from the Setup menu. This will get you access to sample cases, macros, recommendations, quick text messages, and knowledge articles automatically. It is for your reference and you can delete it later, according to your preference.
- Case Email Notifications: With the new update, Salesforce will automatically email the case contact in case of creation, updates, assignation, and closure.
- User Access: Assign access to features when you add a new user. The Assistant will grant the user feature licences and permissions according to the company’s purchase.
- Better Help Centre: Salesforce offers pre-built knowledge articles and branding. You can publish the help centre for quick resolution of customer issues. Customers can even reach out to you using a web form that creates a case for complex issues.
- Knowledge Setup: With the fresh changes, you get a record page for knowledge articles. It includes Feed tabs, Article Tools, and a Compare Versions component. You can even create Channel Mapping to give agents article-specific information to use during emails and chats conversations.
- Workforce Engagement
You can run a better contact centre with extra tools from the Salesforce Summer ‘21 update. You can use Workforce Engagement tools for flexible scheduling, agent ownership, and empowerment tools to grow your employee’s career with this new update. Your customers are also happy as the agents have the right tools to resolve issues faster.
* Use Intelligent Forecasting to Predict Your Workload Using Historical Data
One of the major changes with Workforce Engagement is the inclusion of machine learning and intuitive report generators. This solves the problem of inaccurate algorithms, siloed data, or cumbersome spreadsheets when building forecasts.
You can easily aggregate your contact centre’s historical data in a Workload History and build an Intelligent Forecast from it. You can base the forecast on time, skill, region, or custom data.
- Channel:
You can now choose your telephony systems to connect with Service Cloud Voice for better support. Start building custom solutions for your client using Voice Toolkit API and Lightning Web Components. You can even set a time for agents to wrap up calls using the After Conversation Work feature.
With this new upgrade, you can keep the conversation going with users who restrict cookies. One can even send multimedia messages on channels using toll-free numbers. Here are the two major sections that will see drastic changes with the new update:
- Voice
With the new Summer ‘21 update, you can leverage the full power of Service Cloud Voice by integrating it with the telephony provider of your choice. You can even use Amazon connect with your Voice contact centre.
This means the Voice pages have new names in Setup to make it clearer. You can even implement After Conversation Work (ACW) (beta) to wrap up calls faster. One can even track agents’ ACW time using Omni-Channel Supervisor and reports.
There are other additional features like desk phone support (pilot), managed package support for the Voice Toolkit API, and insights into keywords spoken by customers during a call. Following are the two major features that will be part of the Salesforce Voice service:
a) Connect Partner Telephony With Service Cloud
You can now connect your existing telephony service with Service Cloud Voice. This can create a better agent experience so that they can deliver faster and more personalized services for their customers.
This way they can also resolve calls faster and reduce post-call handle time. Salesforce process automation also starts workflow and offers great recommendations for enhanced case resolution.
b) Integrate Voice With Amazon Contact Centre
You can create an Amazon Connect contact centre for the client by integrating Service Cloud Voice with Partner Telephony. This will offer your agents a chance to offer a seamless experience to the customer.
- Chat
Transfer cases efficiently to get the customers the better support that they need.
a) Pass On The Conversation
If you know that there is someone on the floor that can handle the call better, the new Salesforce update offers you a chance to pass on the call. You can search for an agent or flow and transfer your conversation with just a few clicks.
- Routing
You can now route work to the most qualified agents efficiently using Omni-Channel Flow (beta). You can even set the Status-based and tab-based capacity limits to 100. Here is the list of extra features with the new update:
- Use Omni-Channel Flow To Connect With The Right Agent
You can now manage complex routing processes from a central location to create flexible, productive, and efficient service experiences. You can use the power of Omni-Channel Flow to define your routing rules and other business processes. Easily integrate features in your solution to route work to the best agent dynamically for each customer.
- Improve Performance with Omni-Channel Capacity Limits
You can improve planning and performance flexibility with new capacity limits. You can set the new status-based capacity limit to a maximum of 100 simultaneous work items per agent. This improves long-term planning for high-volume support teams.
- Streamline After Conversation Work (Beta)
Set a time limit for an agent to wrap up their conversation with a customer using After Conversation Work (ACW). It can be useful for agents to recognize the time to complete notes, update a case, or send follow-up emails. Supervisors can use Omni-Channel Supervisor and reports to track an agent’s ACW time.
- Case Management
The new Summer ‘21 update allows you to send longer emails, use Bulk macros, and more. You can even create a custom help centre to let customers find solutions to common problems. You can also help streamline agent workflows with many pre-built enhancements. Here is a list of all the fresh features added to Salesforce Case Management:
- Use Single Macro To Send Unique Emails To Multiple People
You can now use bulk macros to create email templates using Classic and Lightning Experience. There are even some more complex macros to handle repetitive tasks automatically. The templates that you create can now have letterhead, inline images, and merge fields to craft that perfect email body and subject.
- Tracking Case Emails is More Powerful Now!
With the new update, Case Email alerts now come with email threads. The threads can be for the process you design in workflow, process builder, or with an entitlement process. You can even view customer emails in a feed together, to make case tracking easier.
- Restrict Guest User Permissions With The New Security Update
There is a lot in store for developers with this new Salesforce Summer ‘21 update. Administrators can now restrict guests from viewing email messages by adjusting Experience Cloud.
This is the new security update for guest user private sharing. They will now need to read, create, or write permissions to access or change an email record. They can create one but can’t do much else without the special permissions.
- Create Custom Help For Customers to Get Solutions Faster
Use the Service Setup Assistant to generate a custom help centre for customers that eliminates issues and helps them resolve faster. This allows customers to find relevant knowledge articles for themselves. The help centre is a customer support service that helps guests create their case and avoid creating a case altogether.
- Pre-configure Lightning Templates With Three Powerful Tools
You can now pre-configure Lightning templates as they are now compatible with Support Settings. The settings need to be auto-assigned through Service Setup Assistant to configure.
This means that agents have access to three powerful tools that are Case Support Settings, Web-to-Case, and Case Auto-Response Rules. This way you can automate Case Creation and Edit functionality.
An agent can also create and send a Customer Satisfaction Survey or Net Promoter Score to customers instantly. All this while letting Salesforce handle notification emails when a case owner changes to help boost agent productivity.
- Send Meaningful Emails with the Case Quick Action
Starting Summer ‘22 agents can send longer, more meaningful emails using the Case quick action feature The maximum email sending limit will be 384,000 characters, up from 131,000 characters. Now you can add more information in your email as the maximum character limit exceeds that of a draft email.
- Activate No-Reply Address for Case Email Notifications
There is always a hassle of dealing with No-Reply addresses. With the new update, you can configure a default No-Reply address from Setup. You start by adding the email address in the Special Purpose Organization-Wide Email Addresses section. Then, follow the steps to verify the email sent to the new default No-Reply address.
After verifying that the default No-Reply address is correct, you can start and set up Test Run with the new Release Update. Salesforce will schedule this update for auto-activation in Spring ‘22.
- Send Case Emails Now Support Right to Left Language Syntax
Now, there are more features than ever with Salesforce Service Cloud. You can now write in right-to-left language using the Case Email quick actions. One just needs to click two buttons to switch between left-to-right and right to left alignment within the email body of a text editor.
Conclusion
The Salesforce Service Cloud Summer 2021 is here to make your life easier. This is significant news, as it means there will probably be a whole range of additional features on offer when it’s released. In this blog, I have covered most of the topics of the new release. You can read all about it and get started with developing better solutions for your client.
