I upgraded my work laptop this week using the Windows 10 app from Microsoft. I haven’t used it much yet, so I cannot comment one way or the other on whether or not I consider it to be an actual upgrade from Windows 7 (I completely avoided Windows 8), but time will tell. Speaking of upgrades, here are three major reasons why you should work with your contact center ACD vendor to upgrade your software. Continue reading “Windows 10 Upgrade Completed! Three Major Reasons to Upgrade Your Contact Center”
Agent Desktop Showdown
It’s been a few weeks since Windows 10 was unleashed on the world. So far there doesn’t seem to be a clear consensus whether it’s a must-have or not. Whatever the case, it’s got people thinking Microsoft again. Since we talked about agent desktops last week, it seems like a good time to continue the discussion in regards to operating systems. Continue reading “Agent Desktop Showdown”
Dealing With High Volumes and Skilled Agents
Your call center has received an unexpected burst of calls. Volumes are up all day. Calls are waiting too long. What do you do?
When you’re using skills-based routing, the answer may be reskilling your workforce and logging in additional personnel. Continue reading “Dealing With High Volumes and Skilled Agents”
Spec Out Your Infrastructure Properly
Sometimes you see businesses overspend for one part of their infrastructure, leaving the rest to suffer. Sometimes the importance of a particular component isn’t recognized until it’s too late. We’ve seen it happen over and over again. I’m here today to tell you that your agent desktops are important. Scrimping too much there can leave your agents waiting around and inefficient. Continue reading “Spec Out Your Infrastructure Properly”
On Hook Agents: Will They Work for Your Call Center?
On hook agents. I can see arguments both for and against these types of agents, but which side of the argument will end up working for you in your contact center acd? It’s a tough question to fully answer, but let’s have a look at a few of the pros and cons.
Continue reading “On Hook Agents: Will They Work for Your Call Center?”
Getting Voicemails on the Go: Don’t Stay Chained to Your Desk!
I had a bit of a vacation last week, hence the lack of a Friday post. We went to the Toronto Zoo and that was great; not for entire week clearly, but it was the major outing that we had. Back in action this week though, so let’s have a quick look at voicemails on the go. Continue reading “Getting Voicemails on the Go: Don’t Stay Chained to Your Desk!”
Mixing Your Recordings Your Way With Asterisk
Using the Asterisk Monitor application is a great way to record your calls. Sometimes, though, you have specific requirements for how the recordings are mixed, processed, or otherwise handled. Asterisk does give you a way to do this. An example that came up recently was that the Q/A department needed to be able to distinguish the two sides of the call. By default, Monitor records both the inbound and outbound audio, then mixes the two channels together into a mono recording. If the caller and call center agent had similar voices, this was tough to do. If there were audio or voice problems, it would be hard to tell which side was having the issue. They were looking for a way to have their call center software for Asterisk do this. Continue reading “Mixing Your Recordings Your Way With Asterisk”
Building A Scalable Contact Center ACD on Asterisk
When Asterisk came along, it was exactly the sort of thing many were looking for. Telephony had been the purview of the giants like Mitel and Nortel. If you wanted a telephone system, you had to pay a lot for a fixed set of functionality. Asterisk gave similar functionality on commodity hardware and much cheaper telephony hardware developed by Digium. Continue reading “Building A Scalable Contact Center ACD on Asterisk”
Tracking Your Dialplan the Easy Way
You can have the most wonderful dialplan builder in the world. If you don’t know how many people are taking each branch, though, you don’t know your system well enough. You can guess that X number of people are choosing an option because that’s how many people hit your queue. Are you sure that you’re not losing people while they’re listening to your audio prompt? How many callers might go missing without being noticed? Continue reading “Tracking Your Dialplan the Easy Way”
Feature Highlight: A Couple of Hidden Features
In my previous feature highlight posts they have often contained screenshots, details of the options, and given a sample a use case or two to help explain what could be accomplished with the features. The two that I’ll talk about today are mostly unseen in terms of the admin screens and really only come into play as a phone rings. So they are not as obvious as the past ones seen as options on the admin screens but could be just as useful depending on your use case. Continue reading “Feature Highlight: A Couple of Hidden Features”