SugarCRM includes several customer service components, with the SugarCRM Cases module being the most widely used.

Integrating your customer service and sales teams into a single CRM system can increase the effectiveness of both teams and make it easier to keep your customers happy. The Sales team can enter service requests and easily follow-up on the status of cases when talking with a customer. Meanwhile, the service team can get a full picture of each Account and Customer they work with. Plus, using a CRM system allows you to take advantage of the reporting capabilities to analyze the effectiveness of your service team and identify common issues.

In SugarCRM, the Cases module is used for tracking and responding to any problems reported by your customers. Each problem, whether product- or services-related, should be entered as a separate Case to be resolved.

When a customer calls or emails your organization to report a problem, you will need to create a new Case record in SugarCRM. To create a new Case, hover over the word Cases on your navigation bar (look under More if necessary) and select Create Case from the drop-down menu.

If you use SugarCRM’s Case Portal feature, your customers can also create cases and submit them to your support team. The Case Portal is available with Enterprise and Ultimate subscriptions only, and allows customers to log in and access a subset of your organization’s CRM data. For example, they can review and submit cases and track the progress being made to resolve them.

Cases are assigned to a SugarCRM user who has primary responsibility for resolving the issue, and can be reassigned as they progress. Users can update Case details by simply editing the SugarCRM record and can also track activities against a Case to track their time and progress. Because Cases are linked to Contact and Account records, users can quickly access phone numbers and email addresses to keep customers updated on progress. Organizations can also take advantage of SugarCRM’s workflow capabilities to automate the support process, including sending out reminders and updates automatically.

SugarCRM includes a variety of customer support features, including Cases, Bug Tracker, Contracts, and Knowledge Base. Check out our eBook, Getting Started with SugarCRM Version 6.x, for detailed information on how to leverage these features effectively.