Information for Asterisk based contact centers
Where, oh where, is your agent phone rung?
Do you know where your agents are? What if the agent is a supervisor or key person who may handle some calls, but may also have to move around the building? Your business may be issuing tablets or laptops so that people can work as they move. You don’t want to force them to use their cellphone all the time, or use a headset on their iPad. Continue reading “Integrating Your Contact Center”
Have you ever gotten a call from a call center, then gotten another call from the same number 5 minutes later? Maybe you were screening your calls, or you saw the caller ID come in while you were on the other line. Anyway, super annoying. Chances are that you weren’t too happy. Did their call center software break? Did they have you in their list multiple times? Or are they straight up incompetent? It doesn’t matter. They upset you. Continue reading “Are You Recycling Your Leads Correctly?”
Bethesda’s latest installment in the Fallout franchise, Fallout 4, releases in four days. I know a lot of people who are incredibly excited for this game. I’m actually not one of the them, as of now, but that could certainly change. With that in mind, let’s talk about a few of the options you have for avoiding a contact center disaster. Continue reading “Preparing for the Fallout: Ways to Avoid a Contact Center Disaster”
Every call center has issues from time to time. You could have an issue with audio quality, calls sitting in queue without being answered, or calls not even reaching the queue in the first place. You may be the greatest diagnostic genius ever, but if you don’t have better system access, the data you need may be out of your reach. Continue reading “Can You Spot Problems In Your Call Center Software?”
Some call center workflows require that a specific agent handles a particular lead. There can be many reasons why. The biggest reason is a scheduled callback: the client needs a call at another time so they can check with their wife, budget for the purchase, or any of a million other reasons. Sometimes leads are assigned from a pool, and agents are expected to work them to completion. Sometimes there’s a complicated process that kicks off from the start of the contact to completion. A mortgage application, installation of a service onsite, or similar circumstances can require a back and forth with an agent who can maintain the file until resolution. Continue reading “Managing Your Agents Managing Your Leads”
A skills-based routing call center ACD system is a magical thing. You assign your agents skills, they log in, and they’re taking calls from the right queues. What could be better than that? It works very well, keeps the calls flowing, and your agents talking to the right people. Continue reading “When To Use PBX Queues”
The history of the World Wide Web is the story of server-side versus client-side software. When things started to get going, the Web was largely a set of static files that were served up from the server. The browser displayed those files in as presentable manner as possible, but didn’t do any extra processing on its own that wasn’t part of the rendering process. Dynamic content was animated GIF files and the <blink> tag. Continue reading “Sharing the Load”
It’s been a very long time, 1993 to be specific, since folks north of the border have been this excited for MLB playoffs. The Toronto Blue Jays are once again playing ball in October, and after a fairly disastrous start culminating in 2 losses at home, they have roared back to win the ALDS 3 games to 2. Game 5 will certainly go down in playoff baseball lore as one of the weirdest and wackiest games, with a 53-minute 7th inning that would make the greatest storytellers blush with jealousy. Stars shine the brightest in the spotlight, and Jose Bautista was the North Star last night, after his mammoth 3-run blast that put the Jays ahead for good. Let’s talk about letting your contact center ACD all-stars shine. Continue reading “Big Plays From Big Jays: Contact Center ACD All-Stars”
Letting your agents know about changes, or informing specific agents of some detail or other, is an important part of running an effective call center. Some call centers will use a third-party server like Jabber and install clients on the agent desktop. Managing the logins, ensuring all agents get their messages, and verifying receipt can be a bit of a challenge. Continue reading “Getting the Message Out to Your Agents”
You depend on your phones to keep your business going, and Asterisk to keep your phones running. Who watches over Asterisk? To keep your Asterisk deployment running, you need a watchdog to monitor it, and an overseer that can switch services from one server to another when trouble strikes. Continue reading “Who Watches the Watchdog?”