Phantom and Dropped Calls...

[iperez]

Hello,

I am using an Aspect Call Center on version 8.3 sp1. Currently, we are having issues with phantom and dropped calls. I am being told by other outside parties that Aspect is notorious for this problem. Are any other Aspect users experiencing the same problem?

 

[Moebius01]

The only time I've seen a major problem with phantom or dropped calls has been when there was a glitch in the T1 card, or trouble with the line itself. What type of lines are the calls coming in on? Is it isolated to a specific line, or card, or is it all over the switch?

 

[quincyil]

If it is not a trunking problem and you can not seem to tie the calls to anything specific like Network InterQueue or the Winset Applications, ask you Aspect Tech to consider replacing the Shelf Controller Cards. There was a bad lot shipped out last year that can cause intermittent problems.

 

[EJW]

On the note of bad SSC's \ SMC's - anyone had any problems recently. We have had quite a few faulty ones onver our last 3 or 4 installations.....?

 

[Moebius01]

We've only had one in the past year or so, out of 13 switches.

 

[jgaskins]

We experience phantom calls on our Network Interqueue link. Can anything be done to prevent these calls? We are on ver8.02.

 

[Moebius01]

How do your CCTs queue across NIQ? Are calls queued at multiple sites simultaneously, or simply routed from site to site if no agents are available?

I don't remember too much trouble with any of our NIQ scenarios in the past, but if the call is sent from one site to another, and abandoned before answer, the trunks may be having trouble recognizing the release. If so, (and you don't already) try adding answer supervision (ye olde 1 second of silence announcment) at the destination switch. That seems to be the catchall solution for cct glitches.

 

[jgaskins]

NIQ is only between two sites. It is pretty straight forward. We select local agents and then send calls via RAL to queue at the other site. I don't have the second of silence. Does it need to be an info ann, as a NT?

 

[Moebius01]

Basically, just 1 second of silence, doesn't need to be info announcement or anything, and it really only needs to be where the inbound trunks terminate, not the switch that receives the calls via NIQ.

Just set a Play Announcment step as the first step of the CCT, and record an announcement that is 1 second of silence (for best results, turn off the mic when doing to avoid background noise as well). Basically, that's the Aspect's way of gaining Answer Supervision from the trunk.

It's purely theory, but I would wager that the reason you're getting the phatom calls is from customers abandonding while in queue/niq. Without the answer supervision, the Aspect is really bad about recognizing the hangup and releasing the call. So, a dead trunk is what the agent gets.

 

[jgaskins]

I agree. I'm pretty confidant that these calls are abandons while network interqueuing. For kicks, I'll add the announcement to the CCTs. The phantom calls we get never route to an agent, so this really leads me to believe that the trunk is just hung. Sometimes it's in the virtual queue so we have to wait for the collapse, but usually it's in the physical. To get rid of the physical, I just deactivate the specific trunk. I would just like to stop them from happening all together.

 

[databit]

If you add the 1 sec o silence on the destination call it will take over the call and can cause it to remain queued in the remote site as a phantom call. If you are queuing in multiple sites at the same time only the originating site should have announcements in it. If you are using NIQ just to send and remotely queue the call then announcements in the remote site are fine the only problem is with the remote and orig sites queuing at the same time.

 

[jgaskins]

What is the problem with queuing at the remote and orig site at the same time?

 

[Moebius01]

There's no problem with queuing at both sites simultaneously. You just want to make sure only the site where the call originates has the 1 second of silence answer supervision. If the site that gets the call via NIQ uses answer supervision, it will confuse the queue status of the call.

 

[McGruff753]

All announcements, including music on hold, should be in the originating sites CCT only. This is the rule for ‘available agent’ as well as ‘wide open’ inter-queuing. There should be no announcements of any type in the ‘accept inter-queue’ CCT on the receiving side. Aspect has determined this to cause virtual memory, or phantom (hung) call, issues.

Mike

 

[McGruff753]

Additionally, Aspect recommends you use 'connect' followed by 'disconnect' steps on success as opposed to using 'finish' on accept inter-queue CCT's.

Mike