Practical exampleActivities & collaboration

Practical example: Handling complaints with a notice

This example plays through a complete process: customer service states its wishes, the administrator sets up a notice “Complaint”, and an employee uses it to handle the first complaint.

The requirement

Customer service regularly handles complaints. The handling should be documented in a traceable way so that any colleague can take over. The team wants:

You see immediately when an order has an ongoing complaint.

There is an overview of all ongoing complaints.

Everyone in the team can work on any complaint at any time.

From this the administrator derives:

A notice is the right element because it is shown on the order. With the category “Warning” so that it stands out.
It needs at least one field for the status and one for assigning it to the team.
A separate navigation filter shows all complaints.

Prerequisite: The collaboration group “Customer service” with all team members exists, and the user groups are set up accordingly.

Part 1: The administrator sets up the notice

In the administration under “Basic configuration › Activities”, they create a new notice in the “Notices” tab, call it “Complaint” and select the category “Warning”.
The field “Status” is included automatically. They remove all status values that are not needed – three remain. A status must be selected.
They add the field “Responsible person”. A single person must be entered here, so they do not allow collaboration groups.
They add the field “Assigned to”, where the whole team is entered – so everyone is informed.
They add a due date, because complaints are to be handled within three days.
Under “Inheritance for the following entities” they set up inheritance from the order to contacts. This makes the notice appear on the customer of the order as well – but not on the items in it.
As default values for new complaints they set the status “Accepted” and, in the field “Responsible person”, the value “<Current user>”. Whoever creates a complaint is thus automatically responsible.
They save. The notice “Complaint” is now available to the team.

Two refinements that are worth it:

With logic filters the administrator specifies that the notice is only shown or inherited under certain conditions – depending on the status, for example.
Via the configuration of the info column they combine important details of the complaint in the activity list. This lets the team see the state of each complaint directly in the overview.

Finally, they set up a navigation filter “Complaint” with the sub-item “open” for the team.

Part 2: Customer service handles a complaint

A customer calls and is unhappy with how an order went. They do not want to send the goods back, but insist on a solution.

I search for the customer’s order and open it.
In the three-dot menu, under “Create activity”, I select the option “Complaint”.

A new workspace opens with the complaint. The order is already linked, the status is “Accepted”, the due date is three days ahead, and I am entered as the responsible person.
I give the complaint the name “Discount 2023-10000013”.
In the field “Assigned to” I select customer service. All members of the group are thus participants and can work on the complaint.
In the description I record the facts.
I want to ask my manager whether a 2 % discount is acceptable. I write a message under “Comments and discussions” and mention them in it.

The complaint now appears in our navigation filter under “Complaint › open”. My manager replies in the discussion, and everything stays documented in the complaint.

Because the complaint is a notice, every colleague sees it directly on the order – in the extended tile, for example. Through inheritance the field sales team also sees on the customer that a complaint is ongoing, and with one click what it is about.

Once everything is settled, I set the status to “Completed” – this also works directly in the list view without opening the complaint.

The notice then disappears from the order and from the customer.

What this example shows

A notice makes information visible exactly where people work – on the order and, through inheritance, on the customer.
Default values save work with every new complaint and ensure consistent details.
A collaboration group in the field “Assigned to” makes the whole team participants without entering each person individually.