Prompt for digits and an announcement?

[Ariadne]

I have an s8700 with version 12, and I had an end user ask me a challenging question:

My company has 170 branches across canada. I work in the centralized office where collections and customer services issues are dealt with.

Is there a way to prompt a customer to enter a 4 digit "branch" number, and based on that number, play an announcement with the phone number of that branch?

We are trying to get customers to forward general inquiry calls to their local branch rather than tying up c.s. lines with non-customer service related issues.

 

[SF0751]

Try:

Wait 2 secs hearing silence
collect 4 digits after announcement XXXX ("Enter your branch number now")
route-to digits with coverage y
stop

And have the four digits that they enter equal the announcement number that you'll play for that branch number.

Susan
"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort."
- Herm Albright (1876 - 1944)

 

[Ariadne]

There are 170 branches and with that, 170 potential options for a customer. There is not a way to classify this to make this easier (as the calls are coming from across canada and there is more than one branch potentially in major cities).

I vaguely remember there being a table somewhere that you could add entries to, but I am trying to conserve on the potential of making 170 announcements (and using up more than half of my announcement resources to do so, resources that I do not currently have)....

 

[Ariadne]

Another suggestion that my end user made was to route the calls based on postal code.

I wonder if this is something that is just opening a HUGE can of worms of an almost unmanageable proportion....

I would love to have a solution that was easy to implement, but i wonder if this isn;t possible...

 

[lopes1211]

yes you could add lets say 10 branches to a VRT (vector routing table) then have 1 announcement for 10 branches (17 announcemnets instead of 170).

collect 4 digits after ann 1234
if digits in VRT 1 goto 22
if digits in VRT 2 goto 23


22 disconnect aft annc 1111
23 disc aft annc 1112
etc

annc 1111 would say "branch x number is 111-222-3333, branch y number is 111-222-4444,...." etc.



-CL

 

[berniebrown432]

Plan B

If you have a voicemail system with the capacity (ports, mailboxes, and storage) and the ability to map the branch number to a mailbox number (depends on your dialplan), you could build mail boxes that only announce but do not take mesages. When the caller enters the branch digits, the system routes to the voicemail to play the message. You could even customize the messages and make them more informative if you have the storage space.

I'm just glad I'm not recording 170 messages. I'd be flying on coffee trying to keep my throat working.

YMMV

Bernie