*[Epic: Analysis: License and Billing Queue](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-com/business-ops/bizops-bsa/-/epics/6)
## Responsibilities, Expectations, & Work on the L&R Queue in Zendesk
The customer portal intersects with Support, Billing, Sales, and Product primarily.
Tickets come into the L&R queue in Zendesk generally three ways, generally prioritized as low:
- by emailing renewals@gitlab.com
- by [opening a support ticket](https://support.gitlab.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=334487) and selecting `Help with my license`
- by filling out the form on the [Renewals page](https://about.gitlab.com/renewals/)
As the License and Renewals (L&R) Queue is a queue of Zendesk tickets outside of the scope of support to the GitLab product, it's handled by the Business Systems Specialist (BSS) in order to take control of a pain point that touches many departments, analyze the tickets, and identify and execute on solutions with the appropriate departments.
The BSS works closely with the Support team since they use the same tool and their work often overlaps.
- When the BSS is in off hours, Sales will often search the L&R queue and take tickets relating to IACV.
- The BSS also can reach out to Support members for help and subject matter expertise.
#### Expectations for BSS:
* Meet first SLA with an initial response to the customer.
***Passing to Sales:** Pass tickets relating to IACV to Sales via cc to Sales in reply to ticket which sends an email to both customer and account owner. If an account is associated with the ticket, there's a ticket object in SFDC.
It's then Sales's responsibility to continue the customer interaction and the BSS closes the Zendesk ticket.
***Passing to Sales:** If a ticket comes in and the BSS is unable to determine the account owner or the inquiry is related to new business, the BSS reaches out to the SFDC chatter group `ZD-newbusiness` where the SDR Regional leads for EMEA, APAC and AMER/LATAM provide an answer.
Then the BSS cc's that person on the ticket and closes in Zendesk.
* Regional Leads for SDRs:
* AMER/LATAM - Mona Elliot
* APAC - Jay Thomas-Burrows
* EMEA - Elsje Smart
***Passing to Billing:** The mechanism to pass tickets to the Billing team is to open the ticket, then change the field `form` from the value `Upgrades, Renewals & AR (refunds)` to `Accounts Receivable/Refunds`.
This puts the ticket into the Billing Team's queue which they then manage.
* If you need to draw attention to a ticket in the L&R queue, share the link in the slack channel `#support_fulfillment`
### Common Customer Inquiries
Tickets are first triaged by the BSS and then sometimes passed to Sales, .com Support, or Billing; [Complete list](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pLyG3pDG5rDuMv5gnAlMBba_nDXwNt6e4VUaQf7dY9c/edit#gid=1318259161) of ticket categories and subcategories (internal documentation)
#### Handled by Business Systems Specialist:
* User wants to trial a plan other than Gold on GitLab.com (BSS first triages as appropriate, then passes to .com Support [Internal Issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/support/dotcom/dotcom-internal/issues/new?issuable_template=plan_change_request)
* User receives an error during the purchasing process within the customers portal, initially triaged by BSS, then if needed Fulfillment
* User wants the red renewal approaching banner message in their Self-Managed system removed, customer needs to upload working license
* User doesn't know the steps to purchase a GitLab.com subscription
* User doesn't see their group during purchase process, they need to create their group or associate their GitLab.com account with their portal account. If there's an error, send to .com Support
* User doesn't understand how true-up works
* Instructions for activating the license key
* User wants to know when they will receive the license key
* User doesn't renew paid Self-Managed plan, what happens to the license and features, BSS triages with initial explanation and also cc's Sales
* A customer reports problems when registering their license key
#### These inquiries get routed to Sales:
* User reports an inability to upgrade from one paid plan to another, cc Account Owner on reply to customer + internal note asking BSS to let BSS know they got it and can close case
* User is on a trial and wants to purchase a paid plan, cc Account Owner on reply to customer + internal note asking BSS to let BSS know they got it and can close case
* Customer wants to pay by anything other than a credit card, cc Account Owner on reply to customer + internal note asking BSS to let BSS know they got it and can close case
#### These inquiries get routed to .com Support:
* User wants to trial a plan other than Gold on GitLab.com (BSS first triages as appropriate, then passes to .com Support [Internal Issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/support/dotcom/dotcom-internal/issues/new?issuable_template=plan_change_request)
* User wants to extend GitLab.com trial [Internal Issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/support/dotcom/dotcom-internal/issues/new?issuable_template=plan_change_request)
#### These inquiries get routed to Accounts Receivable:
* User wants to downgrade subscription, queue in Zendesk
* Copy of invoice
* Changes to invoice (address, company name, VAT #, etc)
* Refund requests
* Requests to make a payment/payment failed
---
## Defined Technology Approach
##### Sales
Directly Responsible Individual James Harrison
- Create a clear, consistent workflow for Sales to be trained on new business and renewals.
- Create a clear, consistent process on how to get self-service support or Sales support (previously the SMB customer advocate function played this role) and document in handbook.
- Solve: Salesforce to Zendesk synchronization problems.
##### Product
Directly Responsible Individual Michael Karampalas
- Customers and Sales need to be provided with a place to look in an easy to read format of “known bugs” that are affecting the portal, what is the workaround, how to ask for the workaround to be applied to them, and what the timeline to fix is. This should be created by Product and maintained by both Product and Support.
- Product has been working on improvements to the portal’s user interface, user experience, and backend processes of the portal. There’s identifiable work to execute as soon as possible and over the next year.
- Retention:
- .com auto renew at right amount of seats
- .com toggle a/b test
- Correctly downgrade .com that fail to renew
- True up screen context in portal
- Renewal banner updates
- .com proration
- Cloud license sync
- Security issues
- Fulfillment:
- Finish SOAP to REST
- Pajamas (although with this stretching we should discuss how we want to approach finishing)
- Charge customers properly when they add new users to a group on GitLab.com
- Provide more context and guidance on true-up screen for self-managed customers
- Transparently document GitLab's renewal and true-up process
- GitLab Cloud Activation & Sync
- Sales should know what a customer’s user counts are for the next renewal.
- Push true-up data, auto-renew status, and DPE to SalesForce
- The ability for customers to self-serve the purchase of users between renewals.
- Charge customers properly when they add new users to a group on GitLab.com
- Engineers will provide “support” by manually providing solutions for Sales such as sending licenses that weren’t sent.
- Consolidate customer portal, license, and version applications into a single application.
- Evaluate how the product could lead customers through renewals for self-managed (eg wizard).
- Evaluate in product navigation with account management tools.
- Part 1: UX Scorecard for Growth: Renew My Account
- It’s recommended that Product additionally provide regular and clear updates to the Sales and Customer Success organizations about work in progress and upcoming work that has an impact on those customer facing organizations.
##### Support
Directly Responsible Individual Amanda Reuda)
- Support, triage and work the Zendesk License and Renewal queue.
- Provide feedback to teams that intersect with the portal.
- Document known bugs and workarounds in appropriate locations as identified by Product.
- Participate in single lane channel identified by Sales to request help from Support.
- Work with Sales Ops to resolve Salesforce synchronization problems.
- Create: “Support” contacts on accounts.
##### Business Operations
Directly Responsible Individual Jamie Carey
- With Business System Specialist, provide support to Sales, Support, and Product in creating interdepartmental feedback loops, workflows, and processes.
- Continue to monitor and illuminate gaps.
- Document when EULAs are required before a license can be issued.
- Document the relationship between the customer portal and the product for Docs and Sales to provide to the customer during onboarding.
- Work with Product, Sales, and Support on a unified list of product features and functionality in prioritized order for Product.
- Update all customer facing troubleshooting and how-to documentation on new business and renewals on how to contact Sales if desired until it’s consolidated.
- Solve: multiple billing contacts
- Work with Billing on adding dunning features into Zuora (ie notices to customer on expired credit cards on file).
## High Level Setup
*[video of custom setup](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kfCEQM6XYGWYxq3Ke4TNvtmDR-46erVD)
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@@ -85,11 +79,6 @@ Tickets are first triaged by the BSS and then sometimes passed to Sales, .com Su
1. When a closed won opportunity (with EULA set to YES) is created in SFDC, a license key will be generated once a click through EULA is accepted by the customer.
*[Epic: Analysis: License and Billing Queue](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-com/business-ops/bizops-bsa/-/epics/6)
### EULAs and the Portal
1. When a closed won opportunity (with EULA set to YES) is created in SFDC, a license key will be generated once a click through EULA is accepted by the customer.
2. Flat renewals don't send a EULA.
3. In the case of an Add-on, a EULA is sent.
## Licensing and Renewals (L&R) Queue in Zendesk
The customer portal intersects with Support, Billing, Sales, and Product primarily.
Tickets come into the L&R queue in Zendesk generally three ways, generally prioritized as low:
- by emailing renewals@gitlab.com
- by [opening a support ticket](https://support.gitlab.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=334487) and selecting `Help with my license`
- by filling out the form on the [Renewals page](https://about.gitlab.com/renewals/)
The L&R Queue is a separate queue of Zendesk tickets that fall outside of the scope of customer product support; it's handled by Support by triaging the issue and rerouting the tickets to the appropriate team.
***Passing to Sales:** Pass tickets relating to IACV to Sales via cc to Sales in reply to ticket which sends an email to both customer and account owner. If an account is associated with the ticket, there's a ticket object in SFDC.
It's then Sales's responsibility to continue the customer interaction and the BSS closes the Zendesk ticket.
***Passing to Sales:** If a ticket comes in and Support is unable to determine the account owner or the inquiry is related to new business, they reach out to the SFDC chatter group `ZD-newbusiness` where the SDR Regional leads for EMEA, APAC and AMER/LATAM provide an answer.
Then Support cc's that person on the ticket and closes in Zendesk.
* Regional Leads for SDRs:
* AMER/LATAM - Mona Elliot
* APAC - Jay Thomas-Burrows
* EMEA - Elsje Smart
***Passing to Billing:** The mechanism to pass tickets to the Billing team is to open the ticket, then change the field `form` from the value `Upgrades, Renewals & AR (refunds)` to `Accounts Receivable/Refunds`.
This puts the ticket into the Billing Team's queue which they then manage.
* If you need to draw attention to a ticket in the L&R queue, share the link in the slack channel `#support_fulfillment`
