Agent Connections with an ACD System

ACD Systems at their core provide a method to connect a caller to an agent.  Lets look at the options for the agent side of this connection.  Traditionally the Off-Hook nailup was the way to accomplish this.  This works great for a dedicated agent who is taking calls from ACD queues one after the other at a high volume call center.  It’s more efficient in that case to stay Off-Hook and save on the time of hanging up and answering the next call when the system can just bridge you to a new caller once you are ready.  In my last post I looked at our in-house case where our support department handles inbound requests in a unified communications configuration.  This use case is not call after call, but they will handle a call then an email or ticket so staying Off-Hook is not desired and this where On-Hook nailups comes into play.  On-Hook allow the agent to hangup their phone device and it will then ring when a new call comes into the queue.  Which makes it better for cases where there are breaks between calls or other tasks to do.

This gives us the two primary approaches for nailups, which are On-Hook and Off-Hook.  How does an agent get linked into the system to do these?  Traditionally we would see a local extension device directly connected to the ACD System as the nailup target.  So this extension would function as described above for either On-Hook or Off-Hook.  However there are more flexible alternatives as not everyone is able to be local.

• VoIP extensions.  These would appear like any other extensions but a user would have a VoIP device (Smart Phone, Hard Phone, Soft Phone) almost anywhere they want to work.  This requires a decent internet connection and a secure way to connecting to the system.  Once connected the VoIP extension should appear and function as any of the local extension devices.
• Call Out/External. This feature allows the admins or agent to provide a phone number to call the agent.  This mode can work for both Off-Hook and On-Hook.  With On-Hook one does need to consider the delay to ring an outside phone, as sometimes this will add a second or two before the agent will hear the ringing and answer the call.
• Call In. This feature would use a DID and IVR which the agent would call into and once they entered the authentication info a valid nailup would be established.  This mode works for Off-Hook as the agent is the person to initiate the connection and needs to keep this connection up while they are working.