Little help with small Call Center Setup?

[Moshimoshi]

I have a small group of users that would like to act as a small call center, but they had some specific criteria for how they want their phones to work, and I wonder if its possible to do this (with any ease) because the existing setup they are using just isn't working. The criteria I have is as follows:

1. They need a complex time-routing setup...to give you an idea, its something like:
7:00P to 7:00A Go to Routing That the Call Center is Closed
7:00A to 8:00A Go to a Different Call Center Entirely (cov)
8:00A to 6:00P This Call Center is Open
6:00P to 7:00P Go to a different call center (same as above)
Weekends will have to have similar but different routing, and they want the ability to have special routing at given times of days on special holidays...

2. They don't want to have to login or logout of their phones, period.

3. There are 6-7 points at which calls enter their call center, and only 3 people in the "Call center" that take calls for all 6-7.

The way she describes that she wants the phone is this:

"We have multiple brands call in, and only three people who can take calls, what I would like is to have each different brand/phone number to light up an individual button on all of our phones. So that when "X Brand" calls in, there is an "X Brand" button on the phone I can then push and take the call for."

Hope that makes sense.

Is any of this doable? I've really had such a pickover with this that I'm starting to run into cyclic walls on how to implement a solution for them.

Currently, the time-of-day routing alone is consuming a whole 30 line vector PER NUMBER + this setup by itself is using three individual holiday tables to accomodate the random ever-changing requests for the conditions "time/days when the Call center is open" "time/days when the call center is closed, but another call center can take the calls" and "time/days where both call centers are closed".

Anyone have any thoughts?

~Sean
-----------------------
Telecom Analyst, FOI.\\\\_______________

 

[fondog2]

Just briefly looking over what your asking, they need to be set up as agents and login. What they want to do and what they need to do are two different things. You being the admin you have to tell them what they "Need to Do" or they can't have it. With doing agent logins it is going to help the calls flow much better and if you have CMS you can give them reporting on the ammount of calls as well as who is taking the most or who is slacking.

Just my thoughts, but also trying to make it less of a headache for you.

 

[SF0751]

I agree with fondog2. They need to login/logout of their phones in order to be effective. Having the calls come into agents also gives you better reporting, better agent management, and allows you to make changes faster and easier.

Let them know that the only way to accomplish their "wish list" is for the agents to login and logout from their phones.

Susan
“Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes.
Then, when you criticize them, you are a mile away ...
and you have their shoes.”

 

[mikeydidit]

I agree with the others that making the agents log in and out will make life easier on you than programming a fairly complex vector.

Also instead of go to cover you simply make a hunt group night service (for both groups that will be answering the phones) button and your done. You can have up to 3
(I believe it is) hunt group night service buttons, so place those on the phones you need. The 7am group can depress uit and get calls if they are logged in. Then the second group 8am just logs in (auto-in) and they start getting the calls.

When is the last time you helped someone, just because you were able to?

For the best response to a question, read faq690-6594

 

[telcoguy]

What I always did was put the complete login string on an autodial. They hate punching fea's and extensionnumbers,
but pushing a button when they come in, and another when they leave was usually acceptable..

 

[Moshimoshi]

telco: That's more or less what I'll end up doing, but they don't seem much like they even want to push a button, log in, or be a call center, but they want all the advantages of being a call center...if that makes any sense. Hah.

At any rate, I still don't have a solution really. They have multiple numbers calling in, logging in and out I've already convinced them they need, hands down, but what about making it so that a specific person gets a call from a specific PSTN vdn/vector first before anyone else?

IE, If someone calls Number 5555 it goes to agent 1 first, before any other, but if someone calls 5556 it goes to agent 2 first, before anyone else, etc...or would that require 1 skill per brand or something? IE "in skill 6 agent 1 is level 3 but in skill 7 agent 1 is level 1" etc...

Hope that makes sense...I can't think of any way to give particular agents priority from specific internal-ani...



actually that raises another question, I've already found out you can direct calls out of a vector by doing an ANI check, since we don't have PRI, the system will accept that if a call went to vdn 1350 before it came to the vector, the vector can check for ani digits 1350 and then forward a call through.

However, if we put in PRI trunks later, with external ANI showing up in our system, will the calls still route via the 1350 ani or will whatever the external ANI reported via PRI override it?

~Sean
-----------------------
Telecom Analyst, FOI.\\\\_______________

 

[mikej97204]

For your time requirement, you can also use the Time of Day setting in your vector. I've used it to route call flow based on time of day and day of week between two locations, but it can also be used to route to another vector or a number based on the time and day of the week.

If you set up time steps in your vector, then your users could stay logged onto their phone all the time. We have several agents that never log out of their phone... other than every few months one will accidently log out and have to ask how to log it back on.

We use skill sets for our agents and schedulers so that they get calls based on vectoring.

Here is one of my vectors with time used:


01 wait-time 0 secs hearing ringback
02 goto step 8 if time-of-day is mon 04:00 to mon 14:35
03 goto step 8 if time-of-day is tue 04:00 to tue 16:35
04 goto step 8 if time-of-day is wed 04:00 to wed 14:35
05 goto step 8 if time-of-day is thu 04:00 to thu 14:35
06 goto step 8 if time-of-day is fri 04:00 to fri 14:35
07 goto vector 82 if unconditionally
08 goto step 7 if ani = 507+
09 goto step 10 if ani <> 507+
10 goto vector 150 if unconditionally
11 stop

I hope this helps. It's not very often that I get to offer advice on here rather than just ask for it.

Mike

 

[Mitch672]

Moshimoshi,

"At any rate, I still don't have a solution really. They have multiple numbers calling in, logging in and out I've already convinced them they need, hands down, but what about making it so that a specific person gets a call from a specific PSTN vdn/vector first before anyone else?"

It's called EAS (Expert Agent Selection), you can give a different priority to certain agents in certain splits, so they will be the "prefered" choice to get the call, however, if they are on a call already, it will use the next available agent based on the priority.

You realy should get a PRI, you can do a lot more with identifiying the callers, etc, than with a standard T1 or POTS lines. A PRI is not even a question when you have a call center, you pretty much must have it.



Mitch

AVAYA Certified Expert