Customer Care can be configured to support non-tendered remote sales of billing items to existing customers, and introduces configurable starting blocks (see below) to facilitate transaction entry. In addition to remote sale of billing items, when this functionality is enabled, you can use starting blocks to initiate other customer- and service- related transactions (New, Disconnect, Reconnect, etc...).
configurable starting blocks
Configurable Starting Blocks facilitate order entry. Starting block configuration and maintenance is done in the Product Catalog web module. Leveraging starting block configuration, you can initiate either a front office sale transaction (remote customer presence) or back office order transaction (no customer presence) in the Customer Care and/or Orders web modules. The type of transaction you initiate drives order or sale-oriented functionality during the transaction assembly, review (if applicable) and summary.
When you configure a starting block, you can also define parameters to streamline the order/sale process by setting default values and/or limiting options for selection during assembly. For sale transactions, you can assemble, review, and finalize a remote sale containing billing items that can be assigned to either an account or to any type of service.
Setup
There are two new settings for enabling this functionality – one in Orders and one in Customer Care. Refer to Customer Care Settings for details.
Where to Initiate Transactions
When this functionality is enabled in both Orders and Customer Care, a Start Transaction button is provided on Account page (all views) in the upper right next to the icon bar. This button is intended to display starting blocks configured in the Product Catalog web module to be available for account-level transactions in Customer Care.
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A Start Transaction button is also displayed on the Services and Features page in the right-hand Service Views panel when you select a service in the left-hand panel. This button is intended to display starting blocks configured in the Product Catalog web module to be available for service-level transactions in Customer Care.
Note:
The account-level Start Transactions button next to the icon bar is still available.
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Clicking Start Transaction from either location displays a dialog for selecting a starting block. This form lists any existing starting blocks (default and custom) configured for availability by location (Account- and/or Service-level in Customer Care) and date range. You can browse through the list using the forward (>) and backward (<) buttons or enter a string to search on (for example new order).
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Selecting a starting block, opens the Orders web module in a new tab and the order proceeds based on the selected block. Some defaults and order options are driven by the starting block configuration. For example, what actions can occur within the order (add service, add items, modify service or items).
The selected block also drives whether to start a back office order transaction (no customer presence), or a front office sale transaction (remote customer presence). This is another configurable parameter for starting blocks. Whether the block is configured to start an Order, Sale or Direct Invoice transaction will drive what dialogs are presented during the order process:
Note
On reconnect orders you can choose to reverse service fees related to disconnect for payment past due. See Reversing Service Fees on Reconnect.