Service Cloud for Small Business
Cases are the unit of support work
Every service question circles around the Case object. Know the lifecycle: a case is created (from email, web form, phone, or chat), routed, worked, and closed with a status and priority. Case assignment rules route new cases automatically; escalation rules act on age or status to alert teams. Queues hold unowned work that members can pull from.
Channels and knowledge
Understand Web-to-Case, Email-to-Case, and Omni-Channel routing, which pushes work to agents based on capacity and skills rather than pulling from a queue. Knowledge articles can be attached to cases and surfaced to customers through self-service. A common trap: Email-to-Case requires configuring email settings and may create cases from auto-replies if threading is misconfigured.
Entitlements and SLAs
Entitlements define what a customer is owed; milestones on an entitlement track SLA targets like first response and resolution. Questions often test that milestones only start when the entitlement process is applied and the case matches entitlement criteria.
Worked rule of thumb
When asked 'how do we guarantee a response time?', the answer chain is: entitlement process → entitlement → milestones → escalation actions. If any link is missing, SLAs are not enforced. Remember that closed cases stop milestone tracking.