Ultimate Guide to Case Swarming in Salesforce Service Cloud

Have you worked as a customer service/tech support representative or been on the receiving end of customer support? If so, you’re likely familiar with the tiered model most support centers have: issues that come in are initially handled by front-line support reps, then if they get too complicated or can’t be resolved quickly, escalation happens so higher-tier support agents or specialized engineers can continue handling them towards resolution.

While this model works and has already been tried and tested, we can’t argue that it has its cons too. This is where Swarming offers a fresh approach to businesses with support centers that use the traditional tiered model.

What Is Swarming?

Swarming is an innovative approach to customer service. In contrast with the traditional approach of tiered support models, it emphasizes collaboration and teamwork instead of escalation or the image of a ‘better’ engineer or higher-up.

This design was made with customer satisfaction in mind, as issues can potentially be resolved more quickly and efficiently. Instead of moving cases up the tiers, swarming brings together a team of experts immediately to collaborate on resolving the problem. There’s no longer a need for escalation, as swarming brings the necessary expertise to the issue right away!

How Swarming Benefits the Business

• Faster Resolution Times: Since a team of experts can get involved with cases immediately, issues are resolved more quickly. Overall time spent on support gets reduced.
• Increased Efficiency: Swarming optimizes the support process because it minimizes the back-and-forth typically seen in tiered support models. I’ve experienced this first-hand as a support agent before – handling complex issues involves exhausting all initial troubleshooting steps, preparing a detailed escalation template for the receiving engineer, and informing the customer about the escalation. This is time-consuming, especially if the escalation can also be rejected for various reasons. With swarming, there’s no need for this escalation process.
• Improved Collaboration: Since swarming creates communication between different people from different teams, everyone is encouraged to work together more effectively. This breaks down walls between employees and fosters a culture of teamwork and continuous learning.
• Knowledge Sharing: When engineers engage in a swarm, everyone benefits from the shared expertise – there’s always something to learn from others! Experienced engineers can share their insights gained from handling their own complicated cases, and thus newbies can learn and grow more rapidly. This results in an enhanced overall skill level for everyone.

How Swarming Benefits the Customer

• Quicker Resolution Time: As we have emphasized that swarming does not involve a detailed and time-consuming escalation process, customers can now receive faster and more accurate resolutions to their issues since experts can already be involved from the beginning of the case. This reduces frustration on the customer’s end.
• Enhanced Support Experience: This collaborative approach ensures that customers no longer need to work with different people throughout the case life cycle. When the initial case owner is equipped with knowledge and answers from the experts they’re swarming with, there will no longer be a need for case escalation and transfer.
• Increased Trust and Loyalty: When we experience exceptional service as a customer, doesn’t that always give us a good reason to stick with the brand and continue patronizing their products? When I’m super pleased with something, I’m more likely to share it with others too. Efficient and effective issue resolution builds trust and loyalty, and this positive experience strengthens their decision to stay with the business.
• Proactive Problem Solving: Customers can also gain knowledge from swarming, which they can use in the future to address recurring issues proactively.

How Does Swarming Work in Salesforce?

Salesforce has integrated the swarming methodology into its platform to enhance the customer service experience. Here’s the usual order of how it works:

1. Identify the Issue

Cases come in regularly. While most can be resolved by the agent who initially received the case, sometimes complex issues arise. When an agent encounters such, having exhausted all troubleshooting steps or reached a dead end, swarming can be initiated by starting a Swarm Flow via a button or quick action on the case.

In this scenario, let’s say Agent Maya has exhausted all troubleshooting steps and would like some insights on what can be done next for an issue she’s handling regarding intermittent connectivity issues with their product.

2. Assemble the Team

A team of experts with the relevant skills can be invited to the swarm. This assembles a team that can help out and include members from different departments and with various expertise.

Agent Maya decides to involve a network engineer, a cloud infrastructure specialist, and a software developer, so she invites them to the swarm.

3. Collaborative Resolution

The swarm is initiated and creates a swarm record wherein the team collaborates in real time to resolve the issue. This collaboration happens via Chatter or Slack. What’s great about this is that it is all done within the platform and is automatically documented, eliminating the need to go back and forth between third-party messaging apps and Salesforce.

Agent Maya asks some questions, which are quickly answered by the experts she invited to the swarm. This unlocks the next steps for troubleshooting, immediately leading to resolution. Seamless!

Set Up Swarming in Your Org

• Turn on swarming by going into Setup > Feature Settings > Service > Swarming and toggling the switch.

• Give users access to Swarm via Permission Set. You can use an existing one or create a new one but note that the assigned users must be Service Cloud users with Flow User permissions. In this example, I created a new permission set with the following: Create, Read, and Edit permissions for the Swarm and Swarm Member objects. If you plan to use Slack for swarming, assign your users the Slack Service User permission set instead, which can also be found in Setup > Permission Sets.

• Swarming has pre-configured flows. Users can initiate a swarm through a quick action or dynamic action. In this step, let’s get the Begin Swarming Flow on the Case record page through a quick action by going into Setup > Object Manager > Case > Buttons, Links, and Actions > New Action.

• Hit “Save” and add the action to your Case record page. I added it to the Highlights Panel in Lightning App Builder.

• Begin Swarming is not the only Flow that comes with this. Check Setup > Flows and add the rest to your org’s support processes and UI according to your needs and preferences.

• Enhance your users’ swarming experience by increasing the option’s visibility. Don’t forget to add the Swarm and Swarm Member related lists to your Case page layout, and consider adding them as navigation items to your console app.

Turn on feed tracking for the Swarm object from Setup > Feed Tracking. If you plan to use Slack for swarming, this step can be skipped and instead you can go to Setup > Swarming > 7. Swarm With a Collaboration Tool: Go to Slack Setup.

And that’s it! Once swarming is set up in your org and ready to use, ensure that everyone involved understands their roles and responsibilities.

Solutions and best practices gathered from swarming can also be documented in Knowledge to expand reach and ensure that others can learn as well. Offer training sessions so that team members understand how to maximize swarming and collaborate effectively with other experts!

Summary

I believe the introduction of swarming in Salesforce represents a significant shift in how customer service can be approached nowadays. By focusing more on collaboration and teamwork, adopting this method can lead to faster issue resolution, higher customer satisfaction, and improved employee engagement.

Consider implementing it and tracking your key case metrics after – you might be surprised by the improvements! As a former support agent, I noticed significant improvements in case handling and reduced backlogs when swarming was introduced to our support process. You might find it equally beneficial – I certainly did.