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Founder of SalesforceBen.com, Salesforce MVP & Author of Secrets to Building a Salesforce Consultancy

in Guides, Career, Certification Guides, Certifications, Consultants  

Service Cloud Consultant Certification Guide & Tips

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  • Mid-level
  • 2-5 years
  • Administrator
  • 200

Table of Contents

Certification Introduction

The Service Cloud Consultant certification is designed for consultants who have experience implementing Salesforce Service Cloud solutions in a customer-facing role. This exam zones into Salesforce’s second most popular product, diving deep into all the features that make up the Service Cloud. You should be prepared for a heavily scenario based certification.

 

 

The exam will test your knowledge on:

    • Designing end-to-end service process from inbound case to resolution – considering capabilities, limitations, and design trade-offs,
    • Case management: case assignment, case escalation, case resolution, and case disposition,
    • Relationship between cases and assets, entitlements, work orders,
    • Communities, Live Agent, and Knowledge,
    • Service entitlements and milestones,
    • Service Cloud automation: Flow, process builder, quick actions, macros, quick text,
    • Service Console features,
    • Interaction channels: communities, mobile, phone, email, web, chat, SOS/video channel, and social media,
    • Different types of contact centers and their metrics, KPIs, and business challenges,
    • Use cases for CTI, Communities, and Field Service Lightning.

Who's the Ideal Candidate?

This exam is designed for customer facing consultants that have experience implementing Salesforce Service Cloud from scratch. Having said that, it is still very much applicable to Salesforce Admins that want to prove their advanced knowledge on the platform, and are dealing with slightly more complex Salesforce Org’s.

You might want to take this certification if you’re looking for a promotion, a change in jobs, or a move over from administration to consulting.

 

Key Topics

Salesforce Exams are made up of different topics, comprised of different weightings for each. It’s important to pay attention to these, as just a few sections will most likely take up the majority of the exam, such as the key topics below (Totalling 54% which is 32/60 questions).

1. Service Cloud Solution Design 16%

As the topic name suggests, this section is all about designing solutions for the Service Cloud. Salesforce will provide you with a business scenario with requirements, and you will be expected to propose the most appropriate solutions. 

You will be expected to take feature capabilities and limitations into account, as well the performance optimisation, and design trade-offs. You will also need to understand other Service Cloud related products such as CTI (Telephony), Communities, and Field Service Lightning, and how these can be brought in to solve a requirement.

2.Case Management 15%

Case is the central object within the Service Cloud, as key as Opportunities in the Sales Cloud. All other features are built around this, so its imperative you know this object and it’s functionality inside out.

You will be expected to propose a solution based on a set of requirements, with Case features such as case assignment, case escalation, case resolution, and case disposition. In addition you need to understand the relationship between entitlements (SLA’s), and milestones.

There is also a number of other features such as Social Customer Service, Live Agent, Knowledge that you will be expected to understand. There is quite a few other features so best get stuck into the study guide!

3. Implementation Strategies 15%

A core part of any Consultants role is their ability to follow a project plan. This will involve everything from planning, gathering requirements, designing, building, testing, and documenting the project. 

You will be expected to answer questions on how to facilitate a successful consulting engagement, as well as deployment considerations and how you can measure a successful Service Cloud roll out. 

4. Service Console 15%

The Service Cloud Console is the user interface that allows agents to efficiently work through high volumes of cases. It’s a highly customisable interface that allows you to provide contextualised information from different object on one screen.

You will be expected to understand how best to implement the console based on different scenarios, as well as how to customise it to deliver business value. 

Study Strategy

The Service Cloud may be unfamiliar to some, as it’s not as popular as the Sales Cloud product. However there are still a lot of resources online to revise for this exam. 

As most Consultant exams, you will be expected to know about both the technical side of the product, the business value it offers, and the implementation. 

To pass this exam, you must obtain a broad knowledge of all the products and features included. Unlike the Sales Cloud exam, a lot of Service Cloud features are actually add-ons for an extra cost, so you may not have had exposure to the likes of Communities or Live Agent. But luckily, with the availability of Trailhead and a Dev Org, you have the opportunity to get to grips with them. 

Trailhead is a great way to get this experience, as most modules will follow a scenario, giving you exposure to the consulting skills you will need. Start off with the Service Cloud Basics module on Trailhead to get your footing. Then, take it a step further with superbadges, that go into an even deeper scenario based challenges. 

Here’s the Service Cloud Specialist Superbadge:

 

Another way to keep things interesting, is for you to invent your own business with requirements and challenges. By spinning up a new Salesforce dev org, and pretending you’re a high volume company that requires the service cloud, you can test out all these features you need to know inside out. 

Exam Strategy

When exam day finally hits, there are a bunch of tips we gathered over the years to give you the best chance of passing with flying colours.

Firstly, if there are any concepts that you are struggling to get to grips with, then print off a cheat sheet and try and memorize any of these before you take the exam so they are fresh in your memory. 

When taking the exam, pay particular attention to the question, and read it through a few times. For the scenario-based questions there will be huge clues in the answer to what the correct answer actually is. If you need to, use the pen and paper provided to draw out a data schema, role hierarchy or any other diagram that will help you visualize the answer.

When deciding on the answer, be sure to use the process of elimination to get rid of the answers that are definitely incorrect. Salesforce likes to throw in answers that are made up of features or just plain incorrect. They also like to throw in curveballs, of features that appear to be correct but aren’t best practice. You can often worm out these by focussing on standard Salesforce features that accomplish a task. For example, you could build a custom approval process with process builder, but why do this when there is a standard feature that is best practice?

You also have a great tool at your disposal, the “Mark for review” feature. On each question, you will have a checkbox that you can mark. This is great if you cannot think of an answer right at that moment, or if you are doubtful about your answer. At the end of the exam, you will have a chance to review these questions. Depending on the amount selected, this will give you a pretty good idea of how likely you are to have passed the test. Regardless of the questions marked for review, I would always recommend to go through every question if time permits. I do this on every exam, and often spot mistakes I made in the answers and change a few.

Resources

Tips

  • Download the Trailhead Exam Guide and use this as your master revision list
  • Ensure you not only revise the features and concepts, but thoroughly test them out in a Developer Org or a Trailhead Playground.
  • Once you feel confident with some of the modules, book your exam to give you a date to aim towards. This will give you the motivation to revise and pass the exam.
  • Try out our mock exams to practise for the real thing, and test for any knowledge gaps
  • Download our Top 10 Salesforce Certification Tips eBook

Final Thoughts

The Service Cloud exam is great for those that have experience working with this product, or those interested in getting further experience. Service Cloud is becoming increasingly more important. As more companies adopt Sales Cloud CRM, Service Cloud is often a follow-up project that an increasing amount of companies are doing. 

It also still sits in the more niche category in terms of skillset, so if you want to differentiate your skill set in the market, this is a great certification to get.  

 

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41 thoughts on “Service Cloud Consultant Certification Guide & Tips”

  2. Roger Borges Grilo

    Reply

    This post is superb, thank you so much Ben. Also, your interview on the Button Click Admin podcast was a lot of fun!

  3. Kaustubh Labhe

    Reply

    I passed the exam last week! Thanks for your valuable tips. I had referred to your ADM201 blog post as well. Keep up the good work.

    KL

  8. Otto vonSkidmark

    Reply

    @Siva – Thanks for the heads up. I’m just stating to study for this one. I’ll let you know if I find anything good.

    2. sangeeta

      Reply

      Hello Prateek, did you find any good content for service cloud exam, i failed too 🙁 . i took my exam in first week of August .

  16. Siva ang

    Reply

    Hi guys,

    For those of you who are planning for Service Cloud Certification, My sincere advice would be to do some 2 months of hands on with Knowledge, Omni Channel, Macros, Open CTI, Live gent, Entitlement Process with trail heads, Learn theory part in salesforce help and take some online exams in quizlet, crams and proprofs. I can tell you these exams would just help to put you in examination mode. The questions in these sites are just outdated but never the less relevant to Service cloud. There are few questions from these sites, mind you.. The new test format will test your aptitude and not your memory power :-). BTW I have passed my Service Cloud exam few weeks back. Pl dont rush and burn your 200$

  17. Siva Vang

    Reply

    Hi guys,

    For those of you who are planning for Service Cloud Certification, My sincere advice would be to do some 2 months of hands on with Knowledge, Omni Channel, Macros, Open CTI, Live gent, Entitlement Process with trail heads, Learn theory part in salesforce help and take some online exams in quizlet, crams and proprofs. I can tell you these exams would just help to put you in examination mode. The questions in these sites are just outdated but never the less relevant to Service cloud. There are few questions from these sites, mind you.. The new test format will test your aptitude and not your memory power :-). BTW I have passed my Service Cloud exam few weeks back. Pl dont rush and burn your 200$

  18. Rana

    Reply

    Please help with the following Question:

    Universal Containers wants to provide its customers with more support options.
    Which three should a Consultant recommend?
    Choose 3 answers
    A. Utilize KCS to manage Knowledge.
    B. Add Live Agent to public-facing sites.
    C. Create a Customer Community.
    D. Implement SOS for mobile experience.
    E. Configure Chatter for public access.

    Is it A,B,C?

    1. Nierrbhayy

      Reply

      I Think this should be B C D as the question says UC wants to Provide its “Customers” with more support options.
      A is for the agents to help them close the cases quickly.

      1. Kalpana

        Reply

        customer community is the first option to give by default, but the question is about “more” options. so, it must be A,B,D in my opinion.

  21. Haider

    Reply

    I just passed salesforce admin certification today..
    i am looking forward to do one more certification .
    can someone please tell me what is the best in sales-force to do after admin certification…

  24. SaiRam

    Reply

    Do we need to write Salesforce Administrator certification before service cloud certification? Is it necessary to write admin first or can we take service cloud directly?

    1. Lucy Mazalon

      Reply

      Yes, the Salesforce Administrator certification is the baseline for all Consultant exams, so you need to pass this first.

  25. Oliver Vivian

    Reply

    Dear SFB, In the Materials section there is your recommendation to do the ‘Service cloud basics’ Trailhead module. The hyperlink takes you to the module: ‘Service Cloud for Salesforce Classic’ (https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/service_basics. So I think that the link needs correcting to the basics module: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/content/learn/modules/service-cloud-platform-quick-look.

    Please confirm and let us know which module you’re recommending here? Thank you, Oly

    1. Lucy Mazalon

      Reply

      Hi Oly, we will be refreshing this guide this week. I will try to remember to respond here to let you know.
      Thanks 🙂

      1. Reed Marquand

        Reply

        This week (13JUL2020)? Arg! Of course, as I am scheduled to take it on Thursday!
        Any chance I can get a preview/draft version?
        Thanks for all that you do!

  26. Oliver Vivian

    Reply

    Another query from me please: What is the ‘Knowledge HOT’ video/s referenced in the Knowledge mgt section? The link no longer works as youtube says the video is not available. I would be very keen in a video series or similar if there were one for Lightning Knowledge. Thank you, Oly

  27. Rasi

    Reply

    hey guys, please help me with certification confusion. I have cleared my administration exam ang want to go for consultant one. Which consultant exam should i go for sales or service? bcz i have worked on both the clouds, so not getting any idea, plz help me with this.

    1. Christine Marshall

      Reply

      Hi Rasi,

      I would start with whichever Cloud you have the most experience with and feel most confident on! You might also consider Platform App Builder.

      Best, Christine

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