Does any one find this to be an issue?

[ronromano]

Let's say you put an IPO in a very busy environment where all incoming calls at answered by a person or two. For years these operators have answered the calls and screened every call to about 60 people out of a 200 station company.

The way the IPO works, there is now way to initate a voice announce call during a screened transfer that:

1 really does voice announce on transfer
2 doesn't get transfered to the speakerphone if the call is accepted when you play with the shortcodes
3 doesn't require a dial direct button or code in front of dialing the target.

The problem is that there is no way on the IPO to press transfer, voice announce the call, and hang up and transfer with ring!

This has been an issue for as long as I have worked on IPO and I feel it needs to be addressed. I am curious how others handle a scenario such as this.

http://www.nu-tel.com

 

[ronromano]

I question the level of interaction with the customer some of you guys have. Have any of you had to sit and train the opertators of a company that get 400-500 calls a day? It takes two and three people to answer. I would like to see how you guys handle them when you take away something they are used to. Please don't give me the line about its a new system and you do get that.

If you don't think this is an issue, that's fine. But don't tell me I shouldn't think its an issue.

For me it is, for some of our customers it is and that's the way it is. If this hasn't been an issue for you, you're fortunate.

http://www.nu-tel.com

 

[timanham]

I generally just read these forums, and ended up running into this same attitude when I just gave an example of a feature that I thought would be a good addition to IP Office. I find it odd, when people ask for a better way, whether via a valid workaround or a new feature request, and get a response "this isn't the previous system". Good products and solutions aren't built on that attitude. Good products are built with developers, integrators, and end users having an open ear. Some in this forum seem to be so steadfast in trying to "defend" this product, that they lose sight of what's important... yes...THE infamous END USER.

I actually really like the platform, our system has over 230 extensions, in over 8 sites with SCN performing well. We handle over 13,000 calls EVERY day. It was a good choice. Incidentally, we are a larger law firm, and I agree with the thread's author...The feature would be nice, and we've had lots of receptionists ask for it.

There are features in ALL system that we'd like, but don't have. I look at EVERY new version, patch, AND feature added to IP Office, as an example of Avaya's intent on listening...rather than telling the users who've requested a feature (that happened to be on their previous system) "this isn't the old system, just stay on the old system if you want that feature". If I had a potential manufacturer or vendor tell me that, I'd consider myself lucky there are lots of others who wouldn't.

 

[mforrence]

The lack of voice announce on transfer has been an issue for me at many installs. Reality is that most other competing systems offer this functionality - including Partner and Magix. Yes, this is not their old phone system. Their response is that the new should be able to AT LEAST do the things that their old system could do PLUS MORE. I have one customer that does an all-page for almost every call because they are not patient enough to wait for a user to answer. They feel that they took a step backward.
Mike

 

[ronromano]

Am I to understand that in Europe voice announced transfers are unheard of? There is no boss-secratary scenario? Ok you can tell me they can use bridged apps but that's not the point.

So all transfers that are screened have to ring first, wait for the target to answer, announce the call, then release? There is nowhere in all of Europe that it is not done this way?

http://www.nu-tel.com

 

[aarenot]

Soft comsole is helpful.

 

[intrigrant]

@ronromano,
Sure we have these kind of customers overhere but i said "the average" customer does not use it so there are still customers who do use the system as you described.
These customers are the easiest to work with, programming is straight forward and using the system is quite simple.

 

[IPGuru]

Anounced transfers ar the norm in the UK, but we tend not to have the phone auto answer internal calls on the speaker.

it is not deemed profesional to have a voice sudenly anouncing from your handset & then completing the transfer

we ring the destination
wait for them to pickup the phone & accept the call befor completing the transfer.

your cust is efectivly perfoming a blind transfer with a paged anouncement .

 

[ronromano]

Guru, we gone round about this before. The customer is not doing that. They are using voice announce to see if the person is in the office to accept the transfer and if he is to anoounce and see if they will accept.

This is fairly common here in the US with companies that answer with a person not AA.

http://www.nu-tel.com

 

[seanoporno]

Isnt that what "reserve last ca" is for?

 

[kholladay]

I have personally programmed 300+ IP Office systems from residential to entire cities with multiple SCN tied together using VPNM and every feature you could through at an IPO. I have personally installed and trained on a good third of those. I have had every feature you can imagine requested and have had to say no to probably 75% of those. Unlike many posts I have read here I will not, by any means, no matter how hard the customer pushes configure the IP Office to do something that I know it should not, even if I know there is a way to "trick" the system into doing so. I will not offer a feature today that I know could be broken in any future version. I feel it is a matter of integrity that I offer a system that is solid and will remain so regardless of future "improvements".

Sure I have left a few customers disappointed in the lack of a feature, or five, but I will tell them that I will put in a feature request and we will see if maybe we can get it in a future version, no promises. (You know instead of posting your gripes about the lack of a feature here you should be putting in a feature request, you'll have far better results.) Maybe I have simply been more convincing or more successful at training on the new features and as such have only twice in had a system come back at me because the customer just really needed a feature we could not deliver.

And I will say that when I hear a customer say "this system should do everything my old one did and more" it is one thing but to hear a BP say it really makes my skin crawl. Perhaps it is because I am new to this industry and have only worked with telephony for 8 years but that simply isn't reality. Technology is evolving, old features fall by the wayside and new ones replace them, sometimes for the better and others not. This isn't a Magix reworked; this is an entirely new system. Heck it wasn't even created by Avaya and if it didn't have Avaya's logo on it we wouldn't be having this discussion.

I'll do everyone a favor, including myself, and not visit this thread again. I'm sure nobody is going to look past their own experiences and see another point of view.

Kyle Holladay
ACA-I, ACA Call Center, ACS-I, ACS-M, TIA-CTP, MCP/MCTS Exchange 2007
ACE Implement: IP Office

"If it worked the way it should you wouldn't need me

 

[ronromano]

Are you kidding me? I have gotten more of what I want by posting here than feature request thru a CAM or anyone else. I think its funny that you take it personally.

http://www.nu-tel.com

 

[TomMills]

@Ronromano

"I question the level of interaction with the customer some of you guys have. "

if you have more interaction and spend more time with the client beforehand and really sus them out, then you would know that this feature is something they want, and you clearly know the IPO doesnt do it, so why install one?

 

[ronromano]

That's a great point in a perfect world. I have on SOME occasions discussed this in advance and many times the customer, no matter how many time you explain it to them still either don't get it or claim its not a big deal and move ahead. Then, come the day of the install, the receptionist has to use it and it becomes abig issue.

The receptionist don't buy the systems, and they certainly don't have the input when purchasing a $180,000 system. The IT managers think they know how things work, I ask to speak to the operator and some times they let you and somtimes they don't.

What I think is really funny about all you guys, is not that you don't agree with me. I could care less. But what is funny that it is clearly an issue in the states at least, and you guys are resistant to a feature that without question makes the system better.

To all of you, do you think it is an acceptible fix that when Internal auto answer is enabled on the target phone and the user attempts a voice annouce transfer that target still rings?

Come on. If you don't agree with me you're WRONG.

It is no defence to say it shouldn't be done that way and switch to auto attendant. Or use park and pick up.

Bring it on.

http://www.nu-tel.com

 

[aarenot]

Ron,
Realistic response to me is without knowing how it might effect other things, why not have the design/feature change. I have run into your scenario, but never into one where they want it not to ring in that scenario. I might disagree if I found need to have the VA transfer go direct to speaker. I am not aware of how it might effect other established features though.

 

[klubar]

As a end-user I really miss the transfer functionality. I have to say that avaya is over representing the functionality of IPO as it is really quite unflexible. A phone system should fit the way you want to work, rather than making customers fit the (limited) way that the phone system is designed.

It's clear as a user, that Avaya is still living in the old AT&T days, "we're the phone company and we don't care" mentality.

Although IPO has lots of good functionality, the usability and testing is not up to date.

 

[IPGuru]

I sugest you rais this as a feature request although I still find it to be a very strange way to operate
what happens when the office is empty, you end up with a phon saying helo helo , i have a call for you & geting nothing back.

At least with Hands free auto ans to off you get ringtone from the handset untill the receptionis relises there is no answer ( & if they accidently complete the transfer no harm is down as VM will answere the call.)

if the office is manned user picks up handset to answer & then gets call, I canot see what is so dificult here.

 

[aarenot]

klubar,
This thread is about making a feature request to make a very flexible, and functional system even more so.

As far as you missing a feature from your old system, and not being interested enough to ask how the proposed one works, read a single user manual, or do a little research before buying the IPO, well quite simply that is your own fault for not doing your homework. As little input as you seemed to have in the buying proccess, or the lack of knowledge you seemed to have about the product prior to the implementation, or after I doubt you had input, or at least did not take advantage of it until after the decision makers made the decisions. Your posts show a series of issues with the IPO that any receptionist who works at a BP(or wife of an IPO tech who has never seen an IPO in her life) would have known were the way things were after working there for a week answering the phones, yet you act like the system should have anticipated your every need, and designed itself based on your requirements which you were not ready to establish, or communcate until after the system was installed.
Just because you let someone install a product with no product references, and because of your own lack of due diligence in the purchasing/proposal, reference, feature/functionality check process does not make the IPO the bad guy here. I appreciate the fact that other members of the forum can learn from your haphazard way of purchasing a system how not to do it, but it does not give me so much sympathy for your situation as to just listen to you bash the IPO for your shortcomings. Seriously, read over your own posts, and see for yourself how you have a series of issues based on not knowing what you bought until you came here, and were told by professionals about it. As IS/IT-Management you would have fired one of your own guys you manage for this kind of lack of proper preparation, not blamed it on MS, CISCO, Avaya, or whatever supplier, or vendor you went with. There is no way to blame your series of requirements not being met on anything other than not communicationg them, or not listening to the responses, and that can not be blamed on Avaya. If you asked, and the vendor was not able to answer your questions up front then you knew going in you were buying blind.

 

[ronromano]

I have made a feature request. Let's see what happens. Here it has been an issue in most situation that use a live operator and have some volume. Are there bigger issues, definitely. When you are faced with very angry operators, who in turn influence the people who write the checks, it gets to be a big issue quickly.

As I have said over and over and over I think IPO is the best, but that doesn't mean it can't be better.

http://www.nu-tel.com

 

[IPofficeuser]

I am a new IPO user and small business owner. I just upgraded my Partner ACS to the IPO in the last 3 weeks.

If I had known that I could not have anounced transfers, I honestly would have gone with another system. I'm amazed that a system so powerful and scalable would not allow me to use what I consider a basic function.

I have gotten use to the IPO and love it but this is a real pain.

 

[ronromano]

IPOfficeuser describe how things function in the office now.

http://www.nu-tel.com