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Regular agent functions in call center

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Regular agent functions in call center

Agent Account, Agent Number and Device

In astercc commercial, there are entries like team, user, user group, extension, agent, agent group, agent group administrator, agent extension, agent number and agent password.

  • Each team can be regarded as a individual system, which needs a unique identification for the team identity (e.g., the default team identity is astercc). Teams will not be able to influence each other. Each team has their only administrator, and can assign one trunk or a trunk group as their default outbound calling trunk (group).
  • User is a login unit (to login via a website, username and password are necessary) and billing unit. A user can belong to the system or a team. The system does not cap the user number.
  • User group is the set of users. A user group can assign a trunk or a trunk group, which functions when the extensions under that group place calls.
  • An extension must belong to a user; and one user can have more than one extension. Extension can be either an internet extension (soft phone, audio gateway, IP phone), or a phone number (cell phone, landline telephone).
Unlike most system, when register an internet extension, the form of username has to be team identity-extension number, e.g., astercc-5000. Please do not use the same password for registration and login.
  • An agent is the basic unit of a call center. Each agent must belong to a user.
  • An agent extension can be either a system extension or a number. Agent extensions can be divided into:
    • fixed extension: the extension number is unchangeable
    • self-adapting: before sign in, an agent can pick a number that has not been used by other extensions.
    • dynamic: the system will first check if a soft phone from a same IP has already registered, and if not, it will select the number that soft phone is corresponding.
  • Agent group: this is the working unit of agents. Each agent must belong to at least one agent group.
  • Agent group administrator: the administrator has more access. E.g., the administrator can monitor, barge-in, whisper, etc. When the group is undergoing an outbound task, the administrator can also acquire the following access by default, like to import data, export statement, record, etc. Each agent group can have 0 or more administrators.
  • Agent number: only used when sing in through a telephone or announce the agent number.
  • Agent password: only used when call functions related to that agent through API.

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Call Popup

Call popup is a frequently-used agent function in call centers, often integrated with business systems, like CRM and telesales system. In order to achieve call popup, we are in need of a configured business system for agents. Astercc commercial offers multiple types of business functions for customers, including:

And at the same time, the system supports a third party system for integrate, and customers can easily have their own systems pops up.

Outbound Popup

Outbound popup means agents directly dial their corresponding number. When using it, agents have to pay attention to the following tips,

  • The extension has to enable the agent mode
    • the agent has to be in signed in status
    • signed in through agent page
    • signed in through dialing *64 from a telephone
    • fixed agent does not need to sign in
  • the agent group that the agent signs in has to have a business module

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featurcode_check_in_enDirect Inbound Popup

Direct inbound popup means that the call is not from a queue, such as a DID binding call, or a call from a ring group

  • There are two conditions for a direct inbound popup
    • the extension has to enable the agent mode
    • A corresponding popup application can be found in the binding inbound application

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Popup from Queue Inbound Call

Popup from queue inbound call is mostly wide used in call center, like inbound calls and predial Pay attention to the following tips when using popup from queue inbound call,

  • Make sure the agents are in the signed in status
  • Make sure corresponding applications can be found in Advanced -> Bind when calls come in.

Click Dial

Click dial means to click the button on the page to place calls, which comes with the business system, and agents can also enter numbers to call in the call panel ( the agent must have outbound permission).

The working procedure of click dial– the system calls the agent extension, after getting through, the system will then call the customer number. We suggest that agents enable the auto answer function.
Only when the group that the agent signed in has a corresponding business system can the calls be placed through the page.

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Pause

Agents can use this function when they need a pause, and the total time and reason will be shown in the agent performance statement.

Only in the ACW and idle status can an agent pauses

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Working Way

There are three working ways for agents,

  • Dial-out only: agents can only practice outbound calls, and will not receive calls assigned by the group
  • Dial-in only: agents can only receive calls from the queue, and cannot place outbound calls
  • All: agents can do both
  • Self-selection: agents can switch among the previous three ways.

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ACW

ACW means when an agent finishes a call, it will automatically enter ACW status, while the group he belongs will not give him any call. The agent can deal with data during this time before he turns into idle statue.

  • Ring: regardless of whether get through, it enters ACW after ring.
  • Answered: it only enters ACW when the call is answered.
  • Disabled: it won’t enter ACW automatically.
In Campaign, the system would exits ACW when submit

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Transfer Consult and Conference

Agents can use the consult function to tranfer the call or enter a conference during a call

  • Click the consult icon, select or enter the number that is being consulted
  • When the consulted party answers the call, the agent will be talking to that party, and meanwhile the client will be listening to the MOH
  • The agent clicks transfe and enters ACW or idle status, and the clients will be talking to the consulted party
  • The agent click conference and it will become a three-party conference
  • The agent can hang up any call party or all with the call panel.
asterCC supports a 30-party call conference started by an agent

Hold

During a call, the agent can use this function to pause a call, and at the same time, the customer will be listening to the MOH. Click it again to resume the call.
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Email, SMS and Fax

These all need extra configuration

tutorial: use astercc,freepbx and asterisk to build a broadcasting system with IVR and Queue agents

By | asterCRM | No Comments

the most feature in astercc is the predictive dialer, using the dialer you could improve the work efficiency. In this tutorial, I will introduce how to setup a dialer with a pre-configed IVR:  when dialer start work, customers will hear a IVR which you configed in Freepbx, so we could also config in the IVR to accept customer input, and we can forward to an new IVR or agents in a queue.

1. config a Queue in freepbx

usually you want to config a queue to resonpse customer if they want to reach some live agent, so we config a queue first

2. config an IVR in freepbx

2.1 first we will add some voice in the IVR, you’d like to use a recording software, just notice that in asterisk, it requires to use wav format and 16bit, 8000HZ mono

2.2 add a recording

you can either upload the recording you finished in your pc, or use a ext. in system to record a new one

2.3 add IVR

now queue and recording is ready, we could add the IVR

in announcement, we select the recording we just done, and also we added two options to accept customer input, when customer hits 1, he will go queue 900, and when hits 2, he will go to ext. 5001.

4. add misc

then we need add a misc so the dialer could reach the IVR

remember this feature code 800, we will use it when configing campaign in astercc, you could use some other code as you like, just make sure it’s unique in your freepbx

now we finished the job in freepbx, you’d like to dial 800 from any extension, it supposes to bring you to the IVR.

5. config the campaign in astercc

login as admin, and go to campaign, add a campaign as following

make sure in “Inexten” you put the same code as in “misc application”, and in “Queue number” put the same queue number as your freepbx queue

6. add agent user in astercrm

you’d like to add some account for your agents if you want them get a popup form when they start answer customer calls, go to “Extension” to add astercrm account for your agents, make sure the account “extension” match the ext. in your freepbx

7. start dialer and test agent

before start dialer, you’d like to check your astercc.conf

make sure this parameter is configed as

doublecheckcampaign = yes

then restart astercc daemons

/opt/asterisk/scripts/astercc/asterccd restart

ask your agent login and as admin go to dialer page, start the dialer

as an agent, he will get a popup when customer answered the call and hit 1 for queue

8. check report

you could go to dialedlist to check the campaign status

* to get a working freepbx and asterisk easily, you could choose  astercc box, elastix, pbxinaflash or trixbox

features in astercctools for asterisk

By | asterBilling, asterCRM | No Comments

astercctools is a daemon script provided in asterCC package, it has two features for now( version 0.01-081116): 1 get sip peer status astercctools will connect to your asterisk via AMI and execute command “sip show peers” then parse the result to table `sip_show_peers` in your mysql database. 2 get queue status astercctools will also execute command “show queue” then parse the result to mysql tables, it would put the result to table `queue_stats`,`queue_name`,`queue_agent`,`queue_caller` using astercctools in your asterisk application, you can read sip and queue status from mysql instead of connecting to asterisk each client seperately, so this would increace efficiency and stability. Read More