Sending Calls To Outsourced Office

[tsturg]

Hi Guys

I have been asked to come up with a cost free solution to send calls to an outsourced office. We uses Avaya MV. They use Intertel Access.

The calls will be coming into our location and then if no agents are available in our office, send the calls to the outsourced office. This is fine using the following vector:

01 wait-time 2 secs hearing ringback
02 queue-to skill 301 pri h
03 goto step 7 if available-agents in skill 301 < 1
04 wait-time 30 secs hearing music
05 goto step 2 if unconditionally
06 stop
07 route-to number 90442074892455# with cov n if unconditionally
08 stop

My problem is however, once calls go to the Route-to step, the vector processing terminates. There are only 20 agents in the outsourced office and if they are all unavailable, when you call their number you will get a busy tone. so the question is: is there a way that you can check a number to see if there is busy tone? If yes, continue to queue the call locally and if it rings, proceed to send the call through.

I look forward to your replies.

 

[dufus2506]

I was faced with a similar situation. The solution we used included both PBX and network toll free routing solutions.

Calls were sent to our call center first, if there were no agents available (or the estimated wait time was very high) we would return a busy signal to the network. (Vector command "busy".)

We used ISDN circuits, and when the network heard the busy signal it would forward the call to the second destination. THe network plan used AT&T toll free routing with ATS nodes. The second point in the node routing scheme had a maximum calls in progress setting to limit the number of calls it would sustain.

If the second node were filled, the call would proceed to a third node. In your case, this could even be defined as your original call center destination, but with different DNIS digits that would follow VDNs to a new vector that would not return a busy signal. The vector would just queue the call.

Using the AT&T product "ROUTE IT!" we were able to throttle the nodes maximum calls (incase the outside call centers staffing levels changed) or even remove the overflow altogether.

"ROUTE IT!" does have a monthly cost, but your proposed solution isn't "cost free". Unfortuantely, because you are creating a second leg for your calls by routing them through your PBX, you must sustain at least 40 circuits (two T1's) and the cost of the inbound and outbound legs to send the calls to your provider. This would be in addition to the number of calls you would want to support at your local call center.

The monthly expense of two T1s, plus the second-leg call costs, might be better put toward a good routing plan and some routing control. It also lends itself nicely to disaster recovery plans.

Carpe dialem! (Seize the line!)

 

[tsturg]

Hi Dufus

I did think about that. The problem we have however is the call flow we actually have. When a customer calls us, they are given 3 options. Sales, Online Service and Offline service. When a customer presses 1 for sales, they are again given 4 options (this is a travel company) 1 for Americas, 2 for Australasia, 3 for Arfica and 4 for Europe. Only if a customer chooses option 1 for the Americas would these calls potentially go to the outsourced company based in the US.

We have enough capacity as far as the circuits go and fortunately we have a deal with BT that means all our calls to the US are free.

I know there is the option of Look-Ahead Interflow but this again would require an ISDN connection between the sites and as they are using Intertel Access, I honestly am not even sure this would work. So if you have any more ideas I would really appreciate it.

 

[avayafreakje]

i guess this could be a restriction problem. does the vdn have the correct COR to place that call? Once you assign a vdn with a COR with too much restrictions the vector will terminate.

 

[dufus2506]

Oooo. Messy.

Sadly without call classification, the system can't really tell if the far end is busy or not.

This sounds like something that would be best done with an adjunct routing system. (Though again that's not cost free.)

You might try setting up a trunk group exclusively for routing the calls to the outsourcer. If the system tries to route the call and can't because the trunk group is limited to 20 ports, and is now full, I believe that vector processing will continue with the next step.

The next vector command could be "queue to skill 301".

Give it a try. Setup a trunk group with a single member, and a test vector that would send the call to a test destination. (Say your mobile phone.) Program your mobile phone number to have it's own routing pattern, and it's own route through the trunk group with the single port.

Call your mobile number (to busy up the port) and then call a test VDN to the test vector, to see if it skips over the port and queues to the skill group.

Good luck!

Carpe dialem! (Seize the line!)

 

[tsturg]

Thanks Dufus. Just given that a bash and it does work. Now to start carving up a few circuits and explaining the pros and conns to management.

Cheers

 

[dufus2506]

The only 'con' I see is that it really doesn't guarantee the call will be answered by the outsourcer. It creates the limit, but if they don't have the staff or circuits to answer the calls, (or they take on a new customer?) calls may end up being queued or receiving a busy anyway.

It doesn't increase the costs over what you might have had to bear with a routing situation that doesn't inclued a dedicated trunk group. You can always throw the other ports from an E1 or T1 into another trunk group so they can be used for standard call routing.

At least you control the throttle. If you reduce or increase the ports in the trunk group you can probably find a limit that works well for 99.9% of callers.

Carpe dialem! (Seize the line!)

 

[WA2DRO]

Has anyone had experience with Intertel Access. Is it good? Is it going away soon?

Any insight would be appreciated.

WA2DRO

 

[Jolagues]

I have not tried this but from what I can tell it should work.

in step 7 route to an x ported extension set up a coverage path with the first path as a remote cov path to the outsourced call center. set up cov 2 as either your vdn again or at this point you might want to goto messaging and have someone call the user back.

José

Please let me know if this was helpful