How to Prepare For and PASS Service Cloud Exam

According to what I have heard from colleagues and deduced from internet discussions the Cloud Exam is amongst the most challenging ones. The exam seems to be a little bit tricky as it covers the material that does not overlap much with the content of the other certificates. What is more, only some users do have hands-on experience with Service Cloud. Some of you might not have any clue what the difference between Sales Cloud and the  mentioned Service Cloud is . Sales Cloud, as the name indicates, is everything that is connected with sale activities – leads, opportunities, forecasting etc. Service Cloud is basically Help Desk software. Imagine guys in call centers and support centers that have to resolve customers’ cases on a daily basis. There are a myriad of channels through which cases are created – FB, calls, emails, website cases, Twitter… Service Cloud facilitates responding to these issues, agents can have a 360- degree view of a client that needs its instant help.

For those of you who might need some strong introduction into the topic I recommend going through a Trailhead module solely dedicated to Service Cloud Basics.

 

 

Industry Knowledge

 

As I have mentioned, if you do not have any experience with tech support you should get familiar with some common terms in the industry. Read more about (all definitions from WhatIs glossary):

 

• PBX – A PBX (private branch exchange) is a telephone system within an enterprise that switches calls between enterprise users on local lines while allowing all users to share a certain number of external phone lines. The main purpose of a PBX is to save the cost of requiring a line for each user to the telephone company’s central office. -> more
• IVR – Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is an automated telephony system that interacts with callers, gathers information and routes calls to the appropriate recipient. An IVR system (IVRS) accepts a combination of voice telephone input and touch-tone keypad selection and provides appropriate responses in the form of voice, fax, callback, e-mail and perhaps other media. -> more
• first call resolution – First call resolution is properly addressing the customer’s need the first time they call, thereby eliminating the need for the customer to follow up with a second call.
• average handle time – Average handle time (AHT) is a call center metric for the average duration of one transaction, typically measured from the customer’s initiation of the call and including any hold time, talk time and related tasks that follow the transaction.
• skills based routing – Skill-based routing (SBR) is a component of automatic call distributor (ACD) systems that filters and directs incoming inquiries to call center agents with the most applicable skill sets.
• screen pop – A screen pop is a feature of a computer telephony integration (CTI) application that automatically displays all of the relevant caller and account information on a call center agent’s screen during a call.
• outbound call – An outbound call is one initiated from a call center agent to a customer on behalf of the call center or a client.
• Web self-service – Web self-service is a type of electronic support (e-support) that allows customers and employees to access information and perform routine tasks over the Internet, without requiring any interaction with a representative of an enterprise.

 

Check more terms here: http://whatis.techtarget.com/reference/Call-Center-Terms-Glossary

 

Example question:

What is the primary function of a private branch exchange (PBX)?

A. To receive multiple calls at one time
B. To use speech recognition to direct calls
C. To report the caller’s background information
D. To mate calls to different agents

 

 

Example question:

Which contact center type is most likely to implement Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) to align with industry best practices?

A. Information Technology (IT) help desk
B. Telesales center
C. Human Resources (HR) help desk
D. Telemarketing center

 

 

Example question:

A contact center manager wants to measure improvements to operations after the implementation of a new workforce management system. Which metric can be used to assess the success of the new workforce management system? Choose 2 answers.

A. Number of calls offered
B. Agent utilization
C. Schedule adherence
D. Quality monitoring score

 

Example question:

What is a benefit of a quality monitoring system? Choose 2 answers.

A. Teach new agents how to handle difficult situations
B. Capture inappropriate word usage and generate reports
C. Lower the average speed of answer (ASA)
D. Enforce a consistent standard of service for customer interaction

 

 

Example question:

What support strategy will enable an organization to improve its overall capacity for handling customer support inquiries without increasing the number of call center agents?

A. Entitlement management
B. Knowledge-centered support
C. Facebook integration
D. Computer telephony integration

 

Example question:

Universal containers want to identify potential delays in the customer support process.
Which metric should the contact center management analyze?

A. Open cases by reason.
B. Cases created by type.
C. Average case stage duration.
D. Case volume by channel.

 

Service Cloud Solution Design

 

According to the official study outline you have to be able to come up with the appropriate solution for the given scenario. You have to be acknowledged with Cases. What is more, you have to know answers to questions about Service Console and how the whole Service Cloud can integrate with third-party applications.

 

Example question:

Universal containers wants to display a list of open cases, data from an external system, and Knowledge articles in one view in Salesforce.
What should a consultant recommend to meet this requirement?

A. Create a custom Visualforce page to display case list view, external system and Knowledge articles
B. Configure the agent console and display the articles, case view, and external system custom object
C. Configure the Service Cloud console, integrate the external system, and enable Knowledge
D. Configure the Service Cloud console, add Visualforce components, and activate the Knowledge sidebar

 

Example question:

Universal Containers must provide contact center agents with access to a customer’s payment history if the call has a billing problem. The following considerations need to be taken into account:
• Billing problems account for less than 5% of calls.
• Billing data is stored in an external system containing over 20 million records.
• Agents do not want to maintain separate login sessions for Salesforce and the billing system.
What solution should a consultant recommend? (choose two)

A. Import payment data into Salesforce and add to the contact page layout as a related list.
B. Create a custom tab with type URL that displays a search page from the billing system.
C. Create a custom web service to handle invoice inserts and updates from the billing system.
D. Create a visualforce page that retrieves payment information via a web service call-out.

 

Example question:

Universal Containers wants to deploy the Service Cloud to its contact centers located across North America, Europe, and Asia. The company would like standardized contact center processes and reporting implemented in its centers worldwide. Which approach should a consultant recommend in this scenario?

A. Assign teams in each major contact center to design a solution unique to its needs and have an analyst build a combined report.
B. Recommend that the VP of Worldwide Support design a global template to provide a clear vision and standardization.
C. Assign a global team of experienced agents and leaders to create a common design template and report structure.
D. Recommend utilizing out-of-the-box functionality to reduce cost and ensure on worldwide process and reporting.

 

Example question:

Universal containers has two customer service contact centers and each focuses on a specific product line. Each contact center has a varying call volume, contributing to a high operational cost for the company. Universal containers wants to optimize the cost without compromising customer satisfaction. What can a consultant recommend to accomplish these objectives? (choose 2)

A. Prioritize customer calls based on their SLA
B. Cross-train agents on both product lines.
C. Enable agents to transfer calls to other agents.
D. Implement a customer self-service portal.

 

Example question:

Universal Containers analyzes key performance indicators (KPIs) and discovers that customer satisfaction is decreasing. The company attributes the decrease in customer satisfaction to a low first-call resolution rate. What can be done to improve the first call resolution rate? (select 2)

A. Reduce the cost per call
B. Train support agents
C. Align agent performance goals with KPIs
D. Hire additional support agents

 

 

Example question:

Customers can contact Universal Appliances to report problems with their appliances within 30 days of delivery. Support agents need quick-view-only access to an external database the stores over 100,000 known product bugs logged by the product engineers.
Which solution should a consultant design to meet this requirement? (Choose 2)

A. Display product bug data in Salesforce via a Visualforce page
B. Use Web Services API to integrate the external database with Salesforce
C. Create a custom product bug object and import data into Salesforce
D. Use Bulk API to load the product bug data into Salesforce

 

Example question:

Universal Containers has completed development and testing of its Service Cloud implementation and plans to migrate functionality from the sandbox environment to the production environment.
Which tools should be used for migration functionality?

A. Data loader, change sets, and Force.com Excel Connector
B. Visual Workflow, data loader, and Force.comIDE
C. Force.com migration tool, Force.com IDE, and change sets
D. Mass transfer records, change sets, and Force.co migration tool

 

Case Management

 

 

That’s extremely big piece of the exam (25%). Google and learn more about:

• Entitlement Management
• Case Management
• Live Agent
• Web-to-Case
• Email-to-Case
• Social Media Cases
• Email Templates
• Auto-response rules
• Case Team
• Visual Workflow
• Chatter and Case Feed

 

Example question:

What is a common deflection technique to reduce the number of interactions for a contact center? Choose 2 answers.

A. Recommend articles during a call for a support agent
B. Suggest articles for a web-to-case question
C. Suggest articles for an email-to-case question
D. Recommend articles prior to a Live Agent session

 

 

Example question:

A report shows average time spent by agents to resolve cases. Nine of twelve agents spend approximately the same time to resolve cases. However, Agent A has a much shorter average time to resolve cases and Agents B and C have a much longer average time to resolve cases. How can the supervisor use this data to drive greater consistency in average time spent by agents across the team? Choose 3 answers:

A. Document and share the practices of Agent A with the team via knowledge articles
B. Lower the target for entire team to that of Agent A
C. Review case history and activities for Agents B and C
D. Build a dashboard to display individual performance by agent versus the team goal
E. Update case assignment rules to route more cases to Agent A

 

Example question:

Univeral Containers is designing a contact center that will store 20 million cases. Of those, 5 million will need to be accessed for reporting and search.
Which approach will ensure best system performance?
Choose 3 answers:

A. Custom indexes
B. Tiered data strategy
C. Record types
D. Divisions
E. Custom search

 

Example question:

From any queue list view, users can take ownership of one or more cases if:
Choose 3 answers:

A. They are members of that Queue
B. They have a Contract Manager Profile
C. If the OWD for sharing cases is Public Read/Write/Transfer
D. They are higher in the Role Hierarchy than a Queue Member
E. All of the above

 

Example question:

A customer analyzed its historical cases and found that over 50% of cases were created by users who forgot their passwords.
Which action will reduce the amount of time that agents spend resolving these cases?

A. Create a workflow rule to increase case priority for cases involving a forgotten password.
B. Create a case assignment rule to assign all cases to a dedicated agent who resets passwords.
C. Create an Apex trigger to reset the user’s password if the case description contains the word “forgotten”.
D. Create an auto-response rule and email template with details on how users can reset their passwords.

 

Example question:

Universal Containers is launching a full line of new products and Service Cloud should support the following requirements:
• Agents need to collaborate with other teams
• The product development team needs to be alerted on high-priority cases for specific products
Which solution will meet these requirements?

A. Use escalation rules for notifications and case teams to monitor cases
B. Use workflow rules for notifications and case teams to monitor cases
C. Use escalation rules for notifications and account teams to monitor cases
D. Use workflow rules for notifications and account teams to monitor cases

 

Example question:

At universal containers, a support agent dedicated to one customer regularly handles complex integration related cases, the agent collaborates with universal containers product development team and the client’s systems.
What should the consultant recommend to expedite the handling of these cases?

A. Enable chatter case feed and add product development team members to the case team.
B. Create a private chatter group with customers and invite key individuals to join the group.
C. Build a repository of knowledge articles related to integration and share it with the customer.
D. Create a related child case and assign the child case to the product development team.

 

Knowledge Management

 

 

Key facts about Salesforce Knowledge:

• Salesforce Knowledge Content is represented by Articles
• Articles are a product of collaborative working of the subject matter experts, product managers, customer service agents, customers, partners
• There is a defined publishing cycleconsisting of  creation, drafting, approval, translation, archiving and publishing processes
• Knowledge can be accessed in various ways by internal users, partners, customers, and  public websites
• You can easily search, rate and version articles
• Articles can be included in self-service portals and act as a source of valuable solutions

To learn more about Salesforce Knowledge visit Salesforce Knowledge Implementation Guide. I also strongly recommend checking this presentation on LinkedIn.

 

Example question:

To manage the publishing lifecycle for articles in Salesforce Knowledge, the contact center director wants to provide article managers the various publishing capabilities.
What configuration should be recommended to meet this objective?

A. Assign article managers to public groups and specific article actions to each group
B. Assign article managers to publication teams and specific publication states to each team
C. Assign article managers to public groups and specific publication states to each group
D. Assign article managers to publication teams and specific article actions to each team

 

Example question:

Universal containers purchased knowledge and would like to implement it as soon possible.
What approach should a consultant recommend?

A. Create a knowledge visualforce component within the service cloud console.
B. Create a knowledge visualforce component on the case detail page.
C. Activate the knowledge sidebar within the service cloud console.
D. Activate the knowledge sidebar on the case detail page.

 

Example question:

Universal containers has implemented salesforce knowledge and the service manager wants to encourage agents to knowledge base. Which metric should the service manager monitor?

A. Number of customer ratings
B. Number of approved articles
C. Number of article votes
D. Number of archived articles

 

 

Example question:

A contact center manager needs to restrict who can create an FAQ Article Type within Knowledge.
What should a consultant recommend to accomplish this requirement? Choose 2 answers.

A. Set the organization-wide default to private and create sharing rules for the FAQ article type.
B. Enable the Manage Articles permission for the publisher profile and assign it to users.
C. Hide the Article Management tab for users who should have read-only access to articles.
D. Create a publisher profile that includes create access on the FAQ article type.

 

Example question:

Universal Containers wants to implement Knowledge to assist agents with the resolution of cases.
What should a consultant recommend to meet this requirement? (Choose 3)

A. Create an email template to send articles as PDF attachments.
B. Enable article customization for open cases.
C. Enable agents to create their own personal article.
D. Enable article submission during case close.
E. Enable suggested articles on new cases.

 

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