Auto Attendant causing call connection delay?

[cakestick]

Hello all,

We're running a Merlin Legend R7, equipped with a 6-port Merlin Mail module. While we've had the system for a few years now, we've only recently decided to activate the Auto Attendant for immediate handling of our calls. The problem we are having is that when somebody uses the auto attendant menu to access a 77x call group (customer care, tech dept., etc), some strange things are happening:

1) Caller calls into auto attendant, chooses destination.
2) Caller hears on hold music until an employee is available in the group.
3) When the employee becomes available, the caller hears the phone start to ring. The employee will not hear the phone actually ring until about the third caller ring.
4) When the employee picks up the phone, they will hear a few beeps before being able to hear the caller. Meanwhile, the caller's ringing stops when the employee answers the phone, but they do not hear the employee for 3-4 seconds (until the beeping stops on the other end).

This is not happening when someone either dials the call group directly, or is transferred by the receptionist. Does anyone have any idea what this would be? If not, are there any recommendations on who I should get in touch with in Massachusetts? We're at our wits end with this one.

 

[cakestick]

Probably should have specified.. I'm in the Cape Cod area. Thanks!

 

[merlinman]

It sounds ALMOST like the Calling group with the AGENTS in it is set for INTEGRATED VMI. (Voice Mail) and is sending mode codes.

Check the group type.

I recommend auto log out and the agents must then LOG IN and OUT.

 

[cakestick]

merlinman,

Thanks for your reply. Our calling groups are currently set up for most-idle, with auto log-out. This issue is also happening independent of which call group the caller is sent to, unless they are transferred w/o the assistance of Auto Attendant.

Could it be anything else? We usually exhaust all resources before posting a thread, but this is the screwiest problem we've ever had with the Merlin system.

FYI, we changed from loop start to ground start a few weeks back, but that doesn't make a difference because calling into auto attendant via extension still causes the same issue.

Thanks!

 

[merlinman]

Could it be anything else?"

Yes, it sounds broken.

I have never seen or heard of this UNLESS the group is an INTEGRATED VMI group.

I have one extension I use to test my Voice Mail systems and sometimes a use it as a trunk into a LAB machine to test as well. Of course, when I answer it, I hear the TONES.

So, what could this be, other than that.

I think you should try powering down and back up, if you haven't already.

I trust you have double checked the programming as well.