6 SAP Business One Service Module Tools to Transform Customer Service

Providing exceptional customer service is key when it comes to maintaining your customer base – if your customers are happy, they’ll stay loyal. But one poor experience is all it takes to lose them. To keep customer satisfaction levels high, you need the proper tools in place. That’s where the SAP Business One Service module comes in – let’s explore how these tools can help you turn a customer frown upside down!

We all know that it’s imperative to deal with customer issues in a timely fashion. To do that effectively, your customer service reps need quick access to customer and item information. That’s where using the Service module in your ERP system offers a big advantage, providing a full view of all information from across the business, not just service tickets. This allows your service teams to:

• Look up warranties and service contracts, batch number details and customer history in the moment.

• Assign service calls to the appropriate service technician, salesperson or someone in accounting.

• Record activities, meetings, resolution and expenses related to the service call.

• Monitor service call levels with easy-to-use reporting tools to gauge performance.

SAP Business One brings all these tools together to help your service team provide the best customer service possible. Let’s take a deeper dive into some of these key features.

1. Service Call

The SAP Business One service call is where you initiate a customer service ticket and log all relevant activities, interactions, solutions and expenses. In addition, you can assign and schedule resources so that all details of your service calls are managed in a central location. This is also your starting point to look up service contracts, customer equipment cards, and all sales and service history. And you can proactively manage performance by setting target response and resolution times. If service call volumes or resolution durations are exceeded, managers are automatically notified so they can take necessary measures immediately.

One of the key benefits of managing service activities within your ERP system is that all departments can easily look up service-related information. For example, your controller can monitor the cost of materials expensed against a service call. Similarly, your sales team has access to open service calls, so they can gauge customer temperature before they reach out for that sales call.

2. Customer Equipment Card

The customer equipment card tells the story of a serialized item that needs to be serviced. Before work begins, users can check the history on the item they’re servicing.

For example, the customer equipment card allows you to:

• Track the sales, purchase and service history of the serialized item, as well as all inventory transactional data.

• Store all warranty and service contract information pertaining to that serialized item.

• Record the address of the serialized item.

• Store attachments related to the serialized item.

This gives you a single place to go for information related to your serialized items. You can also configure your SAP Business One system to generate customer equipment cards automatically whenever serialized items are sold, eliminating the need to manually create them. This is a keen example of how SAP Business One increases efficiency and traceability when handling serialized items.

3. Service Contracts & Warranties

The SAP Business One service contract allows you to easily define, administer, and manage warranties and service contracts. You have one place to outline what’s included in your service level agreement – parts and labour, travel expenses, the days and hours of service covered, and even the suggested resolution time.

You can define multiple service contract templates and apply them automatically to customers, item groups or specific serialized items. For example, you might define service contract templates for Gold, Silver and Bronze tiers, then assign them to customers based on the service level agreement they’ve purchased. When the customer calls for service, your customer service reps can ensure the correct contract terms are properly applied, and customer expectations are met.

4. Knowledge Base

SAP Business One provides a knowledge base where you can record frequently requested information and solutions. This gives service representatives quick access to solutions, enabling them to respond faster and more effectively to customer issues. With the option to define new solutions directly within the service call, your team can easily build up your knowledge base as they’re resolving customer issues.

5. Reporting & Analytics

The service reports in SAP Business One allow you to analyze call volumes, response duration and response times by service rep. For instance, your managers can analyze efficiency and performance using the service call monitor to view open and overdue customer service calls. When service call durations are approaching their limits, SAP Business One sends an alert to the appropriate resources so they can act immediately – this is just another example of how SAP Business One helps you stay on top of your service calls and deliver exceptional service.

6. Mobile App for Service

With the SAP Business One Service mobile app, field service technicians can easily and efficiently provide on-site services using either an Android or iOS device. Supported on both HANA and SQL platforms, the SAP Business One Service app enables field service technicians to:

• View service tickets and sync appointments to their calendar

• View, edit, close, share and print service tickets

• Review service contract and warranty details

• Call customers and view customer locations on a map

• Scan barcodes or QR codes to identify items and update information

• Easily check-in and check-out of service calls with time stamp and geolocation captured automatically

• Attach photos and customer signatures to the service call

• View documents related to the service call, like a user manual

• View, edit and create sales orders linked to the service call

• View key performance indicators (HANA version only)

  • Monthly closed tickets

  • Yearly in-service rate

  • Top five fixed items

  • Top five visited customers

Closing Thoughts

In summary, SAP Business One provides robust tools to help service your customers more effectively. With all your data under one roof, your customer service reps have quick access to the information they need. And that data feeds into other areas of your business, giving everyone a full view of the customer. That’s the real benefit of managing service calls in your ERP system – total visibility across the organization.