By the end of this lesson, you will be able to create, configure and maintain categories that leverage machine learning for a service categorization and ensure the smooth handling of service requests.
What are Service Categories?
A service category denotes a specific service that a company wants to offer its customers. For example, wheel alignment or fixing a puncture. In SAP Service Cloud Version 2, you use categories to capture and organize the services that your company wants to offer to create a hierarchical structure called a catalog. As you can see in the illustrated example from our case company Aspen Bicycles, the hierarchical nature of the service catalog enables several, branching levels. The topmost box is labeled "Service Catalog," which branches into three main categories: "Inquiry, Complaint and Comment.
- Under "Inquiry," there is a subcategory labeled: Bicycle.
- Under "Complaint," there is a subcategory labeled: Apparel.
- Under "Comment," there is a subcategory labeled: Helmet.
Such a catalog is then the underlying, consistent structure that is used for the following:
- Determining individual and or team responsibility.
- Service level assignment.
- Service reporting and benchmarking.
SAP Service Cloud Version 2 also uses the service categories you create as attributes for Cases, meaning that the system can automatically match and direct incoming service requests (Cases) to the specific services in your catalog and supporting service teams. You make these attribute selections as an Administrator in Service Level Determination as part of Case Management.
The system allows you to freely create and maintain categories that are then reflected in the overall catalogs concerned. Using the SAP Data Workbench tool, you could also import an existing service catalog into SAP Service Cloud Version 2.
Service Catalogs Settings
The Service Catalogs can be configured in SAP Service Cloud Version 2 by administrators using the following path: Settings → Service Catalog → Catalog Definition
Maintain Categories
After entering a Name, the ID, and a Description for a service catalog, administrators can decide what the service catalog should be used with, such as with Cases, and/or with one or more of the communication channels: phone, email, and so on. Within the Service Catalog, administrators can maintain categories that are status-based, so in order for service catalogs to be active, they need the status "activated".
Note
Once the catalog has been activated, it can be deactivated, but it will not be possible to activate it again.
Working with Categories
In addition to the administrator configuring the system to automatically determine relevant categories for incoming service requests (Cases), Service Agents can also do this manually. The agents can also maintain the service category determinations of Cases currently in process. Service Agents do this from the Agent Desktop screen. In the above example, first, you select the service catalog and then you select the category. Once you do this, then the category details become available to view.
Service Categorization with Machine Learning
The service categorization to create service catalogs that you, as the administrator, undertake in SAP Service Cloud Version 2 can be supplemented using the automation capability of machine learning. Leveraging machine learning, SAP Service Cloud Version 2 can analyze the service categories of past Cases to learn the categorization rules. Once your confidence in the trained and activated model reaches an acceptable threshold, the system can start automatically populating proposals for service categories into Cases as these are created for incoming service requests.