Let’s face it: we’re in a market with similar products that have the same features and, in most cases, almost the same pricing. In such a market, the way you provide customer support and service is your main differentiator, and the reason customers choose one product over another.
It makes sense to optimize your customer support processes. When your processes are the best they can be, your support teams will be more productive, faster at dealing with customer requests, and happier at their jobs. All of these are the ingredients of the stellar customer service recipe.
This is where Web-to-case comes in! In this post, we’ll explain Web-to-Case and show you how to start using it to optimize your customer service.
What is Web-to-Case in Salesforce?
Web-to-Case is an innovative Salesforce Service Cloud feature that lets you automatically capture support requests directly from your website and turn them into cases. It uses a simple, customizable form that includes the fields you need based on your requirements.
Once a customer submits the form on your website, Web-to-Case sends an automatic email to let them know you’ve received the support request. Like the form, you can also customize this email. At the same time, Web-to-Case also creates a case in your org so you can track the request. If possible, it will also link the case to a specific contact.
Combined, this means that, by using Web-to-Case, you’ll improve your support team’s productivity and help them respond to customers’ support queries faster.
How to Use Web-to-Case
Now that we’ve seen what Web-to-Case is, let’s look at how you can set it up and use it for your business.
Preparing to Use Web-to-Case
Before you turn on Web-to-Case and generate the web form for your website, you’ll need to do some preparation work. First, you’ll need to choose the case fields you want to include in your web form.
Even though the field you choose depends on your specific requirements, it’s advisable to include fields that can capture your customers’ details like name, company, and contact details. You should also include fields that can capture information about the issue.
Once you’ve chosen these fields, you should also create an email template that will be used when sending automated notifications to customers once they submit their queries. We recommend giving the customers a clear idea of when they can expect your response (even if it’s longer than 24 hours).
As the final part of your preparation, you should also decide to whom cases created by Web-to-Case will be assigned. You’ll create and activate an assignment rule on the Case Assignment Rules page in Setup.
On the Support Settings page, you’ll also choose a user or queue as the default Case Owner for any cases that don’t meet the criteria you’ve set in your assignment rule. If you haven’t set an assignment rule, all cases will be assigned to this user or queue.
How to Turn on Web-to-Case in Salesforce
Now that the preparation is complete, you can set up Web-to-Case. To do this, you’ll go to Setup, type web in the Quick Find box, and then select Web-to-Case in the list. On the Web-to-Case setup screen that opens, you’ll complete the following fields:
- Enable Web-to-Case. Select the checkbox to turn Web-to-Case on. (If you don’t select this checkbox, you won’t be able to generate the form for your website.)
- Require reCAPTCHA Verification. You should check this option if you require reCAPTCHA verification for customers who submit a request using your web form. When activated, requests submitted without verification won’t generate cases. Ultimately, this can prevent spam, so we recommend turning reCAPTCHA on. However, be mindful of a few things: reCAPTCHA is provided by Google and not Salesforce, so it might not be available in your geographic area. Also, ensure your generated Web-to-Case HTML includes the reCAPTCHA code before copying it to your website.
- Default Case Origin. This option provides the default origin value for all cases generated by Web-to-Case. Unless you’ve created a custom value for a customer service process unique to your business, you can select Web from the dropdown list.
- Default Response Template. Choose the response template you want to use to notify customers that you’ve received their request. You’ll use the template you created earlier. Ensure that this template is marked as “Available for Use.” It’s also possible to set custom response rules that each have their own template. For example, you may send a different response email for urgent support queries vs. upgrade queries. Web-to-Case will apply the default template when there are no response rules for a specific case.
- Hide Record Information. By selecting this option, you can hide the record information in the email sent to customers after they’ve submitted a request.
- Email Signature. You can customize the email signature in the notification email. The default will be used if you don’t provide a custom email signature.
How to Generate Your Web-to-Case Form
Once you’ve completed all the steps mentioned above, you can generate your web form. To do this, you’ll go to Setup and enter Web-to-Case HTML Generator in the Quick Find box. You’ll then select Web-to-Case HTML Generator from the list of results.
On the screen that opens, you’ll select the fields to include in your Web-to-Case form. If your business has a self-service portal, and you want the generated to display in the portal, you’ll also select Visible in Self-Service Portal. You’ll also provide a URL to which your customers will be redirected when they’ve submitted the form.
If you’ve activated the Require reCAPTCHA Verification during the setup process dealt with earlier, you now need to complete the reCAPTCHA fields:
- Include reCAPTCHA in HTML. Leave this option selected.
- Key Pair. Enter the key pair you got from Google when registering your domain on the reCAPTCHA website. Make sure that the key pair is registered on Salesforce by using the lookup feature.
- Enable Server Fallback. You should enable this option as a failsafe when there’s an issue with reCAPTCHA. For instance, if the reCAPTCHA server goes offline, this option will let all traffic through and prevent you from losing any support requests.
Once you’ve completed all the fields above, you can click on Generate to generate your form’s HTML code. As mentioned above, you should ensure that the reCAPTCHA code is included in your HTML.
If it isn’t, no verification form will be displayed, and you won’t receive any of your customers’ support requests. If it’s not included in your HTML, you should ensure that you’ve selected Require reCAPTCHA Verification during the setup process and generate the form again.
Once you generate your form, copy the code to any of your website pages. When you’re done, click Finished!
To test your form before making it live, add the following code:
With this code, you’ll be redirected to a debugging page when you submit the form so that you can see that it works. (Just remember to delete this code before your form goes live on your website.)
Web-to-Case Limitations
When your form is live, Web-to-Case, as mentioned earlier, will automatically convert website support requests into cases in Salesforce and send notification emails to customers.
Unfortunately, there are some limitations to Web-to-Case. For one, Web-to-Case doesn’t support Rich Text Area fields. If you use them on the form, the information will be saved as plain text when creating the case. Similarly, script tags will be converted to plain text.
The system also doesn’t support attachments. This could be problematic for technical support queries or queries where you’d like the customers to send you an image of the issue or a PDF. Likewise, it doesn’t support multipart/form-data encoded data. When your form includes this data, no case will be created.
Finally, there’s a limit on how many cases you can capture with Web-to-Case. Currently, the system only allows you to capture a maximum of 5,000 cases every 24 hours. When you exceed this limit, any further requests will be stored in the pending request queue for both Web-to-Case and Web-to-Lead requests.
This queue has a limit of 50,000 requests; if reached, all further requests will be rejected. You can contact Salesforce support and request a limit increase.
When your 24-hour limit refreshes, all pending Web-to-Case requests will be converted to cases and deducted from your 5000-case tally.
Provide Stellar Customer Support with Web-to-Case in Salesforce
There you go! Now that you know what Web-to-Case is all about, how to set it up, and how it can help you provide exceptional customer service, it’s time to decide if your business could use some additional Salesforce support.
While Web-to-Case is certainly helpful (and not too hard to set up), evaluate your typical support queries. If you need attachments to triage incoming requests, you may need something stronger than Web-to-Case. But if you’re happy with simple descriptions of the problem and don’t have an existing way of converting your website queries to tickets, Web-to-Case might just be what the doctor ordered!
