Installation of BCM 50

[sk391]

I have a customer who is planning to use a BCM 50 on a site and I need some info to promote the idea to him. I am no telephony expert so pls be patient.

The site currently has 4 basic BT analogy lines comes into the building and 4 agent sat on the phones. If all of the agent are taking calls and a customer phones the office - nothing happens to the call and a potential customer is lost.

I have read a little about the BCM 50 and think that it will be useable. Just wanted some advise on what phones we should be using on site. We would like to go digital.

Also how do I physically connect the standard anolgue lines, which are just boxes on the walls to the BCM 50?
Is this a job that can be done in-house, I have had quotes for upto £ 400 for the day- which I found a little on the high side! Is there any sort of lead that I connect from the RJ11 wall box to the BCM 50?

At the moment there is just one main number that a customer rings and a simple hunt group present, how will I go about configuring the BCM to still take calls from this number and then channel the call to the agent- probadly would like some sort of simple ACD Q.

What sort of reporting will the BCM give. Will it tell us how many calls are waiting to be answered i.e real time and also historical reporting,

Will the BCM 50 also report the number of calls waiting on the digital phones as well.

How good does the Auto Attendant work, Can we pre-recording a 'waiting message' that can be played to the customer during a busy period? Or are all of these feature special add-ons from a basic package.

Overall I would like to hear from someone who is running or installed a BCM 50 to hear about their experience.

Thanks in advance.

 

[countrytime]

You can use a standard 25 pair Amphenol cable to connect the BCM's one telephone connector to a 66 block or to a 110 block. The easiest way though is to purchase a wiring card from Nortel (SKU NTAT0100)which should cost you about $50 USD. This adaptor converts the Amphenol connector to RJ45 connections for all the ports on the system, so you can then use line cords to connect to your RJ11s. I find the BCM 50 to be a good reliable system with a really good AA and it packs a lot into that small box. If you need IVR, though, its not supported on the 50. You need to purchase the contact center license and use T7316 sets.

Good Luck
Countrytime

 

[sassystickchick]

For one sounds like the BCM50 would be a good fit. But make sure you get all the customers information on what they want there phones to be able to do. there are also expansion slots for this systems as well. so if the BCM50 alone is not enough you can add slots.ok. The auto attendant is GREAT, you have 4 different tables you can program 4 different greeting basically one for morning lunch eveing and closed hours they can run the same one all day long if they want you set it up on a time frame basically. its very cool i have alot of customers that just love it you dont have to use them all either you can just have one for night like " that you for calling "" our business hours are ""-"" we are open m-f and closed sat and sun" or whatever there needs are you can set the table however you want you can create holiday as well some companys like to do that or make a universal one and list all the holidays

personally i have had great feedback with the auto attendant on the bcm50's and its easy for the CUSTOMER to use as well. even the manager for the voicemail and all that the customer can easily reset passwords on voicemail and what not so its a good simple system i think it would be something they will truley like

 

[Macoles]

I had a Bcm 50 installed back in November and don't know how we coped without it. Decided to pay for the Skillset add on and it was a good investment.

I run a small holiday company on not enough staff and we have now progressed the system to 4 skillsets and 3 auto attendant menu's. We use a multiple of hunt groups too and the voicemail is great. We even found a fab use for park and page!

For me the huge advantage is I no longer get calls ringing on my desk unless I have decided I want to take certain types of calls on overflow.

The techies will wonder why we are using hunt groups when we have skillsets (you really dont need both).

I would recommend that you start splitting down line purposes to different numbers as you can instantly improve and prioritise call flow - particularly important for instance to prioritise sales over admin calls.

We set up a skillset and menu for suppliers so if no one can take the call they get a (recommended) choice to leave a message, wait in a queue and we provide a third option for mis-directed calls.

One thing I miss from our old analogue system is that calls directed to mobile (cell) phones do not have caller id, altho of course if you set up your calls list you can retrieve them from back at the office.

We use analogue phones T7316 and were advised against ip phones at this stage for sucha small operation. I love the sets they are sturdy and it feels like a proper system.

Anything u want to ask feel free. I would not hesitate to recommend the system.

We were considering the Avaya as the alternative to the Nortel but fortunately a competitor had a bad install and is still living in mickey mouse land - It moved me right away from that system on principal.

 

[naurry]

Just want to make sure of the following: If you have 4 analog lines and all 4 agents are on calls then anyone calling into the office number will not get through. (4 lines = 4 calls)

Depending on how you're going to mount the BCM50 (wallmount or rackmount) Nortel has a wiring card (for the wallmount bracket) or a breakout panel (that fits into a standard 19" rack). You can connect the RJ-11 cables into either.

You could recommend using hunt groups (which is included in the standard BCM50), this however does not give you queues and the customer would get voicemail if the call goes unanswered. If putting callers into a queue is a must sell them the Intelligent Contact Center (ICC) keycodes; ICC should meet most if not all of your customer's needs. I would also include CC Reporting (it will give you approximately 20 pre-canned reports about agent, skillset, etc. statistics). Expected Wait Time (EWT) announcements are part of ICC and can alert the caller approximately how long they will have to wait until they get to an agent, this is a standard feature of ICC.

If you have any questions you should talk to a Nortel SE or contact ask@nortel.com.