Folks at Indosoft remember deploying a distributed contact center platform for one of our customers at a co-lo in Chicago sometime in 2006. Their agents were working from South America and different locations within United States. They had looked us up on the web while reviewing Asterisk related technologies. Asterisk had by then made quite an impression with its flexibility and feature-sets supporting both VoIP and TDM. Back then, PRI was the preferred telecom termination and SIP with X-lite for agent telephone was a workable option, the big challenge being bandwidth. Continue reading “Cloud is in ‘vogue’ now but Cloud contact center services have been around for a long time”
Reporting Real-time and Historical Contact Center performance for Workforce Management
Larger contact center operations require statistics and reports from the floor to determine productivity, staffing and performance. Modern Contact Center ACD and Dialers are software driven and should be capable of feeding real-time and historical data and reports to the Dashboards as well as Workforce Management (WFM) Solutions. Workforce Management software applications use real-time and historical contact center report data to optimize performance and increase productivity of the call center operations. This provides control over labor cost, increase the level and consistency of customer service, optimize employee utilization and maximize revenue generation. Management can make informed decisions by looking at key performance indicators generated from different real-time reporting sources within the contact center software.
WFM integration for Asterisk based Contact Centers
Now we see wide spread deployment of Asterisk for setting up large contact centers. With ACD and Dialer Software available to scale to large contact center operations, it becomes important to manage the workforce efficiently. Workforce Management requires real-time and historical feed of reports and statistics from the call center floor to determine productivity, staffing and performance. Continue reading “WFM integration for Asterisk based Contact Centers”
Picking the right Call Center software
Call center software is the most critical component of any contact center. It influences the choice of the telephony switch and determines the overall cost of the call center technology platform. In the long run, the right selection will influence the profitability of the call center. It is important to select a technology solution which will provide competitive edge for the call center. Telephony switch is a big cost item in the overall cost of the contact center infrastructure unless it is something like Asterisk. Asterisk is a leader in IP telephony and provides a complete PBX, an essential element of within any office or contact center. A call center software using Asterisk as the telephony platform, provides an instantaneous cost advantage.
There are a number of things to look for in a call center software. Feature-sets like predictive dialing, advanced ACD with Skills based routing and Queue prioritization, real-time and statistical reporting as well as quality monitoring are a must. A distributed architecture allowing home and remote agents with VoIP capability is essential for long term. Once you transcend the basic feature-set, it is time to look under the hood determine the level of sophistication for each of the feature listed above. There are white papers which provide functional overview of the call center software ACD.
A high level evaluation of the call center software should include,
- Functionality available within the call center software
- Cost per seat
- Level of technical support
There is a lot of material available on the web about various call center software available in the market. It is a question of doing your home work and asking the right questions. You will not go wrong with the selection Asterisk as your telephony platform. Once you have picked Asterisk, evaluate the available call center solutions for Asterisk and determine the most suitable call center software for your business.
CTI Integration and Asterisk Telephony
There is a lot of excitement in the telecommunications world regarding Asterisk, the leading hybrid telephony switching platform, and many businesses and application builders are viewing Asterisk as a potential game changer. It is well known how Asterisk on standard server hardware, can deliver full PBX functionality, do Voice over IP (VoIP), and interoperate with standards-based telephony equipment. What makes Asterisk uniquely beneficial as a telephony switch, or more importantly, why Asterisk is considered by mature business applications required contact center ACD (Automatic Call Distribution) to service their clients.
Q-Suite has in-built CDR to capture cradle to grave data for calls
There is a constant demand from our contact center software customers for greater granularity in the details of the call center reports. Reports are based on data collected and retained by the system and there are numerous reporting possibilities on Agent, Queue and ACD performance. Here are some of the generic contact center reports based on Indosoft call center software, Q-Suite. Continue reading “Q-Suite has in-built CDR to capture cradle to grave data for calls”
Using Eyebeam with G729 codec on Asterisk based systems
Asterisk is modular and has so many incredible built-in applications. Modern day call centers require a lot of functionality and, Asterisk provides a contact center platform that is truly versatile, at tremendous cost savings. Live listening in Asterisk is an exciting feature for call center managers. Live listening is not new but Asterisk makes it much more accessible with its chan_spy. G729 is a popular codec (you can purchase G729 license from Digium) which reduces bandwidth consumption to around 45 Kbps per channel. When bandwidth costs are at a premium G729 can provide a 50% savings. Agent phones using G729 can minimize transcoding and reduce system load on Asterisk. Eyebeam, the licensed full featured version of X-lite, is a popular soft-phone with inbuilt G729 codec. Continue reading “Using Eyebeam with G729 codec on Asterisk based systems”
Basic network topology for Call Center setup
Efficient network setup can enhance the quality of your VoIP experience. Even if you are averse to VoIP terminations for routing long distance traffic, within your call center, you can take advantage of VoIP. Here is a simple but efficient topology for Asterisk based call center setup.
Continue reading “Basic network topology for Call Center setup”
Considerations while setting up contact centers using Asterisk
Asterisk opens up a lot of options while setting up contact centers. Last ten years have heralded a revolution in the contact center technology platform. During this period VoIP technology has dramatically altered the landscape of of telecommunications. Asterisk being an hybrid PBX with inbuilt support for VoIP and TDM, is the force behind the change in the contact center technology platform. Let us consider some of the options that are available for Asterisk based call centers. Continue reading “Considerations while setting up contact centers using Asterisk”
Cost of Setting up a 100 Seat Call Center on Asterisk Platform
I am generally tasked with the Web DEMO of Indosoft call center software Q-Suite for Asterisk. A Web DEMO is usually very interactive where the viewer has full control of my laptop and we can do almost everything (not run the predictive dialer, of course). All the Inbound IVR, Queue, Agent nail-up and an incredible amount of contact center functionality, all are with a few clicks of the button. At the end of the demo we will invariably enter the topic of cost of setting up a call center platform. Continue reading “Cost of Setting up a 100 Seat Call Center on Asterisk Platform”