Should we use CSM?

[Doug C_]

My organization is an Insurance Provider.  We are working with one of our lines of business, because they have CSRs who act basically like a help desk call center for Insurance Agents.

The Agents call with issues such as Having issues updating information on a form, or Not sure what option to choose for a certain field, or The Agent no longer has access to....

The CSRs are able to fix whatever issue the Agent is having, like 95% of the time.  Other than that, they only ever work with IT to fix the other problems, and Incidents are created for those IT fulfillers.  Any other calls they get that are not theirs, meaning the call should go to a different department, they simply transfer the call.  The CSRs do not distinguish if there is an actual problem or not, they just transfer the caller to the right department.

We are being told that CSM is the way to go here.  However, I'm finding that these CSRs would really only get use out of Interactions.  There's not any need to create Cases that I see since the only other department they would need help from is IT.  

They want at least the Interactions, so they have a list of the calls they get, and can then use that list to ID any trends or ID an abundance of calls coming in for the same reason.

Any thoughts on whether CSM would be the way to go or not?  Feel free to ask more questions, I should have the answers.

Thanks. 

[Sandeep Rajput]

@Doug C_ One of the biggest utilities which CSM offers for CSRs is the ability to cross sell/upsell a product by providing a 360 degree view of customer profile along with details on the existing products used by the customer. This not only helps CSRs but also the organisations in achieving their revenue targets. Using CSM and CSP portals, end users/consumers can register themselves and resolve there issues using VirtualAgent, self help articles and the product communities. 

If you find none of these features useful for your organisation then you may chose to skip the CSM and continue with your existing implementation. However, if you see value in these features then you should definitely go for CSM.

[Community Alums]

Hey @Doug C_ 

Whenever considering a new module, consider what you may need in the next 6, 12, 18 months etc. While you may only need interactions now, would it be nice to have a data model that can help associate insurance agents to their respective agencies? Would it be nice to have a self-service portal where insurances agent could go get self-service content or requests? Would you ever need a way to escalate from one CSR to another based on skills? These are all capabilities that could lend themselves to making your overall process more efficient or optimal for your CSR's and should be considered when thinking about the overall solution.

Based on your description, I would agree that CSM is the right fit and further, you may not need to use the Interaction at all, but simply just use CSM Cases to manage all work. It may seem like overkill for now, but if any of my previous questions made you think "hmm... that actually would be great", then it is probably the right way to go.

Short of CSM, if you really do feel as though it is overkill, I would recommend using App Engine. CSM is the right fit for your use case, so instead of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole by putting this into ITSM or some other module, just build your own thing in custom tables using App Engine. It will be the safest in terms of future maintenance and also gives you the most flexibility if CSM isn't a fit for you.

Hope this helps!

~Nick