AUX-Word/ACW Abuse 6

[pbxman]

Hi there -
not much info from Avaya on this one, so i'll ask here:

Has anybody had ACD members abusing their AUX work buttons, and if so - what steps were taken to force compliance?

We currently have ACD members not sure of when to use AUX-work and ACW mode, and those who DO understand are abusing the privelidge. They are only supposed to use AUX for breaks (away from desk), and they're supposed to use ACW anytime they are still at their desk, but not able to take another call.

I was considering using reason codes, but..those, too will be abused. Plus, as far as their supervisors are concerned...they have no way to know who entered what code for what reason. The ACD supervisors only have BCMSvu, and their q-calls buttons to gather information on their agents.

Is it possible to force a reason code to go to a supervisor's phone for approval 1st or something? I'd be interested to hear how others are handling issues like this - if anybody has a similar situation.

Again - the idea is to make this a "foolproof" system because our agents WILL try to abuse it if they can..

Thanks!

 

[vaoldschl]

I don't have ACD going on my G3 but have worked with other products in the past and, unfortunately, I have found that no matter how sophisticated you make the system there is always going to be someone who figures out a pattern to abuse.

What I found worked most effectively was to require agents to sign completely out for breaks and to use the reporting features of the system as their time card. I found quite a number of eager workers when it affected their personal bottom line.

I've also found it effective to assign someone (besides me) to pore over weekly reports and identify potential abusers and then monitor their activity. It's pretty awful that adults need babysitting but again, I've found that no matter how intelligent I make the system there is always someone bent on getting money for nothing.

 

[BIS]

The only thing that immediately springs to mind, would be to remove the ACW button altogether. Advice agents that AUX is AUX and thats it. If it is neccessary to have an ACW time, this can be defined in the hunt group (Timed ACW interval). This will give the agents, say, 30 seconds before they are delivered back to auto in.

 

[fastbusy]

Consider performance-related-pay.

Better still, combine this with a new CMS system.

As for the forced reason codes - implement them anyway. The agents may think you can get more info out of the system than you are actually able to.

Is it an inbound or outbound call-centre ?

If inbound, remove external call rights from agent's stations. Then enable for agent login ID's if EAS.

Implement CDR (as in another thread here) - Very useful and easy to do. Tell the agents that CDR is in operation, and why.

Implement Service Oberving for supervisors and make agents aware that you are not happy with their current work.

Personally I'd implement all of these things in one swoop, then have serious words with the agents. They will see this initially as a threat, so hopefully their work-rate will increase.

Try to get funding for CMS.

 

[Jolagues]

Ide have to agree with fast busy we use CMD and CDR and have the ability to display both real time reports on projection screens in the call center.

I also use forced reason codes and have service observing set up. We do still have to allow external calling as it is an inbound/outbound call center so the call center supervisor does have to look at the cdr reports reguraly but it deffinatly helps.

José B. Olagues
Telephony Administrator
NACIO Systems

 

[pbxman]

Wow - you guy's are great! Every one of your points are consise, accurate, and useful. I will vote for all of you!

I can't thank you enough for understanding how hard it is sometimes to have to deal with under-pressure operations VP's, and the entire company saying "the lucent system stinks..we cant get $#)& from it"...

Fasbusy - CMS is simply too expensive for our operation (but not by much)..and in essence - we've lost faith in our reporting capabilities with BCMS, and CMS doen't seem to offer what we need either.

Im looking into other solutions such as Infortel's CAS software, and Telemate...

The most critical reporting feature to us is:
"can i see how long a call has been holding in ACD queue at any point during the day"...

If someone..somewhere knows an answer to this question..im gonna expense a new viper for them!

According to our sles rep - it's not possible with Avaya's solutions, but 3-rd party CDR programs might do it.

As for the tips related to this..I'm all about scare-tactics, and locking things down..i just wish my boss was a little more on MY side as opposed to the "easier" side of making peace at work. Performance-based pay would save our company millions!!!
lol

Thanks again guys..
ANY additional info on detailed CDR reporting..especially for historical hold-time reports PER split would be worth millions to our organization...

 

[vaoldschl]

For CDR systems I DO NOT suggest Telemate. I'm using a version of it now and am very underimpressed. I've been looking at Tribase system's product, Tapit. While the scaled down version isn't so hot they have a product called Tality that in demo seems pretty feature rich. Check out:

http://www.callaccounting.org/index.html?faq.htm

and

http://www.trysis.com

Besides the features they offer, the cost isn't so bad either.

 

[Definity]

Pbxman,
If you are looking at the product which can tell you the details about every call in detailed like how much time the call was in the queue, with agent, which agent, which skill, which VDN..... I would suggest the product Centrevu advocate(?) This is available only with CMS, you need to get the ECHI(external call history interface ) on CMS & this would provide you a detailed report you can think of for each & every call. It provides reports to a level that when a call hit the ACD system where did it go to, which vector which ann was played how much time the call remained in the vector queue for skill & even if you are using multiskill routing it can tell you how much time the call waited for skill 1, skill 2, or other....
I mean it is a detailed report which you can have for each & every call but again this is an expensive item & is available with CMS only... I know Avaya is working with NICE system for this interface . You can visit

http://www.nice.com

for more details on reporting...

 

[pbxman]

Thanks for the info Definity.
Unfortunately, CMS with Centrevu is WAY above our funding for the call center, but I have a more general question.

If CMS/centrevu can pull this data from the switch - why couldn't a different 3-rd party app pull that info as well?

I dont know anything about Centrevu - but does it get it's data from the switch itself, or do calls pass through another box or something?

I just cant believe we need CMS to get this data. Im under the impression that it's all currently available in the switch, we just dont have an interface to interperet the data with..

Is this a correct assumption, or does Centrevu and CMS integrate into the switch instead of BCMS just pulls data from the switch via data module?

Thanks again everyone for your insight.

 

[roche]

pbxman
Centrevu Explorer is another great product. It records time in queue, Transferred calls, Observed calls, ANI, VDNs, and alot more good info. But again you will need CMS for this to work.


Good luck to you.

 

[fastbusy]

PBXMan, Not sure if this is helpful but I thought I'd mention it anyway -

This is pretty much real time as opposed to history but is still useful (in my opinion)

Lamp buttons when CHAnging STAtion ...

q-calls (Grp: ___)
NQC Queue Calls: associated status lamp
flashes if a call warning threshold has
been reached. Grp: Group number of hunt
group.
1 per hunt
group per
station

q-time (Grp: ___)
OQT Queue Time: associated status lamp
flashes if a time warning threshold has
been reached. Grp: Group number of hunt
group.
1 per hunt
group per
station

 

[fastbusy]

Also consider the operation of your vectors.

Perhaps have an overflow agent responsible for taking calls that have waited too long.

If this agent gets too many calls he/she will complain, which is great - it highlights your problems to everyone, thus allowing management to take the appropriate action.

Consider the use of the following (a few ideas). The lines are just extracts and not part of a working vector.

01 goto step if rolling-asa for skill 1 > 300

01 goto vector 5 if rolling-asa for vdn 5000 > 300

01 goto step 28 if available-agents in skill 2 < 1

01 goto step 17 if calls-queued in skill 2 pri m > 5

 

[pbxman]

Thanks for the info, Fastbusy -

We currently use q-time buttons on the phones, and this works great for real-time statistics.

As far as the vectoring goes - our VP of Call Center operations wants any call waiting for 15+ minutes to go to voicemail. This is how we're currently setup, and we do have a goto step XX if Staffed agents in skill XX < 1, but we're using it to close the different departments during the day for meetings, early closings, etc.

Goto step xx if available agents <1 would not really help us since we have ACD, and average about 5-10 calls in queue at any given time. We average approx. 3000 ACD calls/day.

I can't seem to find anything on rolling-asa. What would that provide for us?

Thanks everyone! Please let Tek-Tips members know their posts were helpful. Thanks!

Pbxman
Systems Administrator

 

[JDE]

If you're running a centre where you need the information you describe, can you afford not to get CMS? Just getting CMS itself gives you a darn good db to control the users and slap them down when they get out of hand. The CMS box is an external db to the switch, so you're unlikely to get the information from a third party solution. Just having the db there gives you the chance to write your own reports on the data using Crystal, but CentreVu should be the way to go.
At the end of the day, if management won't give you the tools to do the job, they have no right to expect the results they seem to be demanding. And there ain't no way round that.
Cheers
JDE

 

[jpflanzer]

fastbusy,
I'm interested in getting the details on how to remove external call rights from the stations and enabling them on EAS login ID's. I apologize if this is a no brainer, but I kind of fell into this job and the only training I've got is self-taught through Avaya's site and this forum. X-)

TIA

 

[BIS]

You would give the rights in the COR of the EAS agent.

 

[phoneguy101]

pbxman,

If you what to see what is going on in real-time with your ACD hunt group use the &quot;monitor bcms split XXX&quot; command, if available. This will tell you the status in real time, with updates every 30 seconds of: staffed agents, agent states, number of acd calls taken, number of external calls made, number of non acd calls taken(number of calls made their direct extension), number of calls in que, oldest call in que, and % within service level. Hope this helps.

 

[pbxman]

Thx Phoneguy - Im aware of that info, but monitoring with BCMS in the switch will not give us the historical information we need. Those are all typical BCMSvu functions as well, and it looks like the only solution so far is CMS with CentreVu.
Pbxman
Systems Administrator

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