The Cisco service contract quotation and ordering tools are rather complex. Like all Cisco partners, these activities have to be processed through the Cisco CSCC (Cisco Service Contract Center) tool. Once a quotation request comes up, the Engagement Manager usually provides confirmed service serial number information, which is crucial to gain a quotation through the tool.
There was a case when the item serial number was not correct and the item showed invalid. Two options I tried:
Option#1: Contacted Cisco CSCC team for validation:
- Pros:
- The earlier the better to involve a technical professional and get on top of the issue
- Technical team may be able to figure out what is the issue within 1 business day
- Cons:
- Complex cases will cause technical team up to 1 or 2 weeks to figure out what's wrong
Option#2: Advise the customer that we need additional information regarding the item serial information
- Pros:
- Customer may maintain the record
- Cons:
- Customer may know nothing about it
- It may take several days for customer to search the record
After discussed with the Engagement Manager, we decided to contact the CISCO technical team for validation. At the same time, we asked customer for further clarification. The CISCO technician was able to provide feedback after 2 business days and we also received feedback from the customer for the same. We were able to quote the service items on time and send the order to the customer for contract review.
