Author: DrVoIP

Peter S. Buswell (aka DrVoIP) is a rare blend of C-level executive leadership and deep technical expertise in telecommunications and cloud infrastructure. With a career that began at AT&T in 1970, he has founded and led multiple industry-defining companies, including Dextr.Cloud—acquired by AWS Global Partner CloudHesive. Peter has held senior roles at firms like Exxon Enterprises, Intervoice/Brite, and Franklin Telecommunications, and has consistently driven innovation from traditional PBX to Amazon Connect cloud deployments. A hands-on architect with certifications from Cisco (CCNP/CCDP, UCCX/UCCE) and AWS (Solutions Architect, Developer, SysOps), he combines strategic vision with engineering precision. Known as DrVoIP, he continues to bridge the gap between enterprise goals and technical execution in today’s evolving cloud communications landscape.

The ROI of the Dextr Dashboard for Amazon Connect Call Centers!

Posted on by DrVoIP

Amazon Connect the Call Center!

Amazon Connect allows you to tap the very rich library of AWS Services including AI, Natural Language Processing, text to speech, transcriptions and translations!   Your Amazon Connect instance is scalable, resilient and fully redundant in the most widely respect cloud on the planet.  If you can “dream”  it, you can create a call center that meets your exact requirements.   Amazon Connect enables even a non-technical professional the simplicity of configuring an inbound call flow, attaching a phone number, defining agents and operating hours and in less than an hour, you are taking phone calls. Given that every call center has some kind of database integration required to pop screens, or route callers, you do need some software engineering and consulting services to get to the next level of feature sets and functionality.

That is why we think the Dextr Dashboard, at less than a penny a minute all but pays for itself.

Lets look at some feature examples:

Assume you would like to add “Holiday Schedules” and “Ad-hoc closings” to your Amazon Connect feature set.  Out of the box, Amazon Connect does not have Holiday schedules.   This is not a very complex feature set to implement if your are a software engineer.  Add Amazon DynamoDB as the database engine to store you Holiday list and Amazon Lambda to be the code that checks  to see if “Today Is a Holiday” is a TRUE value, returning that result to to your Amazon Connect Contact Flow.  If it is true that today is in fact a holiday, we want to route you to some options for handling your call while we the call center is closed!

As a Supervisor you may want to close your Customer Service Queue (CSQ) to hold a team meeting.    You will want to do this yourself without having to fill out a service request for the Admin team.   Ideally you will want to identify the meeting as “technical support team weekly update”, set the date and time of the meeting and even create a custom prompt to be played to the caller if they reach this CSQ during the time the meeting is taking place.   Again, given the library of AWS services available this is relatively straight forward for an implementation engineer.  You will use the same tools as the above Holiday schedule but you will need to add in Poly for text to speech to get that custom prompt.

AgentUser Interface or “dashboard”?

Then again there is the issue of how do you interface with Amazon Connect to implement those simple features?   You are going to have to create some user friendly graphical interface that simplifies this magic and makes it easy for the Supervisor to do this on their own without technical support from the IT or Admin team.    In fact, you will most likely want to have a user interface that can stand the test of time as you continue to enhance your Amazon Connect feature set!   This graphical user interface should also work on multiple devices in addition to your desktop computer.  Devices like smart phones and pads for mobile supervisors and remote agents!

How much does feature development cost?

So using the two features above as an example, Holiday Schedules and Ad-hoc closings, let’ look at the cost of design, deployment, training and ongoing support.    First, you would contract with a competent, experienced and Amazon certified development resource.    Let’s assume that you contracted with DrVoIP, a certified Amazon Connect Service Delivery partner.    You would expect a written statement of work (SOW) and a budget.   This might look something like this:

  1. Holiday Schedule – Enables the creation of a holiday list that indicates the date and time during which specific customer service queues may be closed.   The application should enable both full day and half day closings.   The application should allow for different schedules to be applied to different customer service queues.   The contact flows for each of the affected customer service queues will be modified to incorporate this functionality. – 40 hours
  2. Ad-hoc  closing with custom prompt- Enables an individual with Supervisor permissions to configure and close a customer service queue.  The Supervisor must be able to set the time and date. the date must also be able to be for multiple days.  Additionally, the Supervisor should be able to create a new prompt to be played to the caller during the closed period.The contact flows for each of the affected customer service queues will be modified to incorporate this functionality. 40 hours
  3. Front End GUI – Develop a simple administrative user interface to enable the configuration and management of the above  two features.  Assure that the interface has growth potential to enable the addition of new functionality as it is developed. – 40 hours
  4. User Training and “go live” support.  – 5 hours
  5. Project budget for DrVoIP Virtual Implementation model  125  hours at the already ridiculously low price of $135 an hour = $16,875

Why Dextr is “almost free”!

The Dextr Dashboard includes this basic functionality.   Dextr has a price of less than 1 penny a logged in minute (e.g. .007).   This means you could drive a Dextr Dashboard for 2,410,714.29 or 5,035 days!  Given an agent day of 480 minute, you could drive a 20 agent call center for a year!

Now Consider that full range of Dextr Dashboard features and the value proposition sky rockets!

  • Nothing to install! Instant Access via https://go.dextr.com which has video instructions for on-boarding;
  • Customizable Logo and YourCompany custom log-in URL;
  • Role based Login (supervisor, agent, administrator)
  • SAML support;
  • Agent Team Status Display;
  • Agent to Agent Chat
  • Agent Call Activity with (click to return call);
  • Directory System with Click to call;
  • Help Button – Alert Supervisor;
  • Queue Monitor – including calls in queue, max waiting time; optional red, yellow tags)
  • Personal Recording; (permission option);
  • Supervisor Permissions add: Login/Logout (change agent state) Monitor, coach and Barge in;
  • All Recording search and play (see note 1 below);
  • Real Time Metric review Report Generation
  • Ability to set Holiday Schedules and “ad hoc” closings with new close prompt (think team meeting).
  • Push Announcement String out to Agent Dashboard for alerts and other notices.
  • Omni-Channel SMS/MMS enables test and pics to the next available agent
  • Omni-Channel email routing to the next available agent
  • “no headset” audible alert options for softphone

Head over to https://Dextr.Cloud and sign up for a “free trial”.   What?  You do not have an Amazon Connect call center?  Then give us a call and we will build you a proof of concept and then migrate you to the cloud based call center of your dreams!  – DrVoIP@DrVoOIP.com

 

DrVoIP named Amazon Connect Service Delivery Partner

Posted on by DrVoIP

For Immediate Release!

DrVoIP Achieves the Amazon Connect Service Delivery Designation

May 15, 2019 DrVoIP announced today that it has achieved the AWS Service Delivery designation for Amazon Connect, recognizing that DrVoIP improves customer experience and outcomes by identifying customer pain-points and business objectives, and designing a solution based on Amazon Connect and other AWS services to help customers deliver an exceptional customer experience.

Achieving the Amazon Connect Service Delivery designation differentiates DrVoIP as an AWS Partner Network (APN) member that provides specialized demonstrated technical proficiency and proven customer success in delivering Amazon Connect. To receive the designation, APN Partners must possess deep AWS expertise and deliver solutions seamlessly on AWS.

“DrVoIP is proud to be an Amazon Connect Service Delivery Partner, said Peter Buswell, iCEO. “Our team is dedicated to helping companies achieve their technology goals by leveraging the agility, breadth of services, and pace of innovation that AWS provides.”

AWS is enabling scalable, flexible, and cost-effective solutions from startups to global enterprises. To support the seamless integration and deployment of these solutions, AWS established the AWS Service Delivery Program to help customers identify APN Partners with deep expertise in delivering specific AWS services.

What Clients Say about DrVoIP

Sean Kennedy IT Manager FMG Suites San Diego, CA – DrVoIP and team are very knowledgeable on AWS an specifically in our case the Connect product. Dr VoIP was able to build out a brand new call flow for our main business and several other phone systems that were brought in to the organization though acquisition. DrVoIP and team were able to meet with us, gain understanding of our needs and then able to implement a solution in AWS Connect that exceeded expectations. The cost savings of moving to AWS Connect has been huge and we loo forward to a continued relationship with DrVoIP and taking advantage of new features in Connect.

Brian Cox, IT Director ASMR, Fairfax VA – DrVoIP has been taken a very hand on approach to implementing our needs as we work to develop a replacement helpdesk solution. Our Helpdesk staff is very particular in their demands and DrVoIP has shown great flexibility in producing or adapting solutions to meet these. Additionally, they provide regular status updates are always available to hop on a conference call to hash out any issues. Additionally, I feel their knowledge of both the AWS product as well as our previous product (ShoreTel) has been a great asset in easing the transition, as they already know how our current solution works and what we will want from AWS in regards to mimicking certain features.

Contact DrVoIP@DrVoIP.com for further details.

Understanding Amazon Connect Call Center Pricing!

Posted on by DrVoIP

Amazon Connect Basic Pricing Model

Even the most hostile competitor will grant that Amazon has changed the pricing game in call center technology.   “No license fees” and “pay only for what you use” are compelling strategies that would stop a man on a galloping horse!   Amazon typically summarizes the cost of its Connect call center as consisting of three components; the service usage charge, the cost of a ten digit voice number and the cost per minute of using that voice number.

Pricing Examples

An end-customer calls using an Amazon Connect US toll-free number in the US East (N. Virginia) region, answered by an agent on the Amazon Connect softphone. The call lasts 7 minutes.  There are 3 separate charges that apply for this call:

1. There is an Amazon Connect service usage charge, based on end-customer call duration. At $0.018 per minute * 7 minutes = $0.126

2. There is the day charge for use of the US toll-free number. At $0.06 per day * 1 day = $0.06

3. And there is an inbound call per minute charge for US toll-free numbers. At $0.012 per minute * 7 minutes = $0.084

So the total for this call is $0.27 (plus applicable taxes, fees, and surcharges).

This cost analysis is accurate but assumes that your call center is an isolated model with no integration with any other AWS Service.   Optional services, used to enhance your Call Center functionality and improve the customers experience have additional charges that are not reflected in the basic price example above.   To get a more accurate picture of the true cost of a call center we need to make some assumptions as to how an average call center is configured, noting the various service that may be required to implement the requirements of that call center.   Then we can look at the additional service costs and improve our understanding of the true cost of an Amazon Connect Call Center.

Real World Call Center Requirements

Let’s take a look at several very basic, yet very real world call center requirements and then evaluate the cost of the additional services.

  • Custom Call Routing

    • Most if not all call centers have some kind of call routing algorithm that usually require and external computational resource in the form of a database and the code or application that evaluates the database information.   For example, assume that we want to route calls based on the callers possible location using the Area Code displayed in the incoming caller ID.   Additionally, let’s assume that we want to evaluate the callers relationship with our company be determining if they are a new customer or an existing customer.  In both cases we would be looking up the callers incoming phone number in an external database to resolve either or both of these questions.  We would route the caller to the Agents that handle New  York, or route the caller to Agents that handle new customer or existing customers.   There would be any number of technical solutions for implementing this caller lookup, but for purposes of discussion, let’s just assume we will not spin up a Windows SQL Server in an EC2 instance, but use AWS Serverless solutions that include a DynamoDB table and some Lambda functions to operate on that data!

  • Holiday and “Ad Hoc” Closings

    • Call Centers operate on dynamic schedules that very often impact the handling of inbound calls.   Are we open or closed sounds like a simple decision, but it does require some additional “belts and suspenders” to get an answer to that question.   If we close on Holidays, we will need to reference list of days we are closed (read: database).   Some call centers enable supervisors to temporarily close a customer service queue for a team meeting.  Depending on the sophistication of this feature the supervisor might also create a custom prompt to be played to the caller during the team meeting.

  • Real Time Queue Metric Displays

    • Again, call centers typically display the status information of the various customer service queues that comprise the call center.   We want to know how many folks are waiting in each queue, how long they have been waiting and highlight the caller that has been waiting the longest.  When we answer a call we update that data set and when we terminate that call we update that dataset again.    Agents often want to see the status of their supervisor and team mates.  Are they “talking”, “idle” or in some “release” state?   AWS Connect has a library of API’s to help with the analysis of this information but it will require additional services to make use of that information in a way that has a positive impact on the call center stake holders.  (Read: Kinesis streams, DynamboDB and Lambda functions).
    • Perhaps you will want to run these recordings through transcription and translation services.  AWS has some exciting NLP and AI options that will impact that call center in astonishing ways.  Imagine English Call Center Agents being able to interact with Spanish, French or Chinese speakers!  Transcribing speech in realtime and popping agent prompts or recommended responses based on sentiment or key words used by the caller are all viable options within the AWS service stack available to an AWS Connect Call Center.

  • Logging & Recordings

    • Call Centers typically record phone calls for a variety of compliance and service improvement. Those recordings need to be stored somewhere along with your real time contact record trace logs (Read: S3 bucket).
  • Voice Analytics 
    • AWS has a service LENS which provides transcriptions of voice recordings and applies sentiment analysis on that recording.  Usually a third party provider in other solutions but now included in Amazon Connect with an additional charge.

  • Single Sign-on Options for Agent Login/Out

    • Cognito, SSO with SAML or other authorization options.

  • Custom Agent Dashboard and Real Time Display

    • Most folks will find the CCP or softphone that comes standard with your AWS Connect instance to be very useful for basic answer, transfer, hold and consult operations.  Getting additional information displayed to the agents however may require additional desktop display options.   For example, how do you retrieve and playback those phone call recordings?   Do Agents need to add a “disposition code” at the end of a phone call?   How is the queue and agent team status information displayed to the agents?  Do Agents work with channels other than voice?  Do they handle Text messages?   Chat sessions?  Social Media messaging?     This options will require an Agent interface that can display this information and enable the agent to interact with these other channels.

Real World Call Center Example

Granted the above requirements are very basic, but they are representative of the type of services that a call center would expect to be available and they also have additional service charges not covered in the basic AWS Connect Pricing Example we listed above.   Let’s take a real world call center example and then apply the additional charges that would be incurred if we were to implement the above requirements.    In this example we are drawing from an actual day in the life of an actual call center that is considering migrating to AWS Connect.

Daily 70 Agent Call Center Utilization:

  • Inbound Phone Calls for the day: 4959
  • Average Call Handling Time: 7 minutes per call
  • Total Minutes of use: 34714 minutes or 578.5 Hours
  • Base AWS Cost $624 (assume telephone carrier costs the same across all competing options and are not included)
  • Base Annualized assuming 261 working days = 9M Minutes or $163,086.00 per year in AWS Connect Usage Charges

Additional Service Costs

The most costly services in this very simple example would be DynamoDB and Lambda.    DynamoDB pricing has several components; the size of the Table for data storage (.25GB), DynamoDB Streams, Read ($0.09 per RCU-month),  Write Requests ($0.47 per WCU-month).   The pricing for Lambda is far from simple: A free tier followed by $0.20 per million requests plus $0.00001667 per GB-second of ‘compute time’ used per month plus the cost of the API Gateway or streams.Each incoming phone call will result in:

  • Lambda Call to DynamoDB Table for Routing Information
  • Lambda Call to DynamoDB Table to determine Possible closing
  • Lambda Call to DynamoDB Table to add caller to Queue count and update display
  • Lambda Call to DynamoDB Table to remove Caller from Queue and display when call answered
  • s3 Storage increase of 7 Minute recording Object (.023 per GB)
  • s3 Storage increase for Logs and Contact Trace Records (.023 per GB)
  • Agent Login/Out Call to Cognito or SSO SAML provider (.15 per 10000 sync operations)
  • Summary –
    • >19K Lambda Calls per day, 5M  per year
    • >19K DynamoDB Read Requests
    • >19 DynamoDB Write Requests

Other important service considerations

Advanced functionality like Natural Language Processing, Speech Recognition, Transcription, Translation, Voice Analytics, Workforce management, Polly and LEX are some of the other services that you will undoubtedly make use of in your call center design.  These will all be billed as AWS line items outside of the Connect usage charges.    The above Basic functionality Example is probably adding an additional $25 a day or $6K a year to the cost of an Amazon Connect Call Center based on the above call center stats!

Clearly, unless you have a team of software engineers on your staff that understand these AWS service in addition to their coding skills, you are going to need design and implementation expertise.

Again, though pricing can get complex and often has many components that are not easy to identify like data transfer, encryption and acceleration it is all more than manageable and very cost effective.   In fact all of the above functionality could be included in the use of a custom dashboard from Dextr.Cloud which would give the Agents and Supervisors all the real time status information they require, enable agent to agent chat, email, text, supervisor alerts, monitoring and coaching and a growing list of new features as the product development map unfolds!  This functionality could be fixed for a modest charge of $69 a month per simultaneous agent access.   Small price to pay for that list of feature, would you agree?

 

 

SUMMARY of COST CONSIDERATIONS

We see five areas for understanding Amazon Connect:

(1) Carrier cost = DNIS/800 as published generally .03 center per day for a DID number and .06 cents per day for a toll free number/

(2) usage cost for using the carrier per published price generally .0022 for DID and .012 for toll free

(NOTE – the above charges would be required of any solution you are considering, generally AWS will be less costly however)

(3) .018 connect minute service amazon connect  you are billed from the time call comes in to your call center until it terminates.  It does not matter how many agent you have as you do not pay for agent licenses as is the case with the usual cloud call center providers.

(4) other AWS services like chat (.004),  LEX (4000 speech requests estimate .004 per request or $16 ; lambda ( 1 Million request free per month then .00000002083 per request) /dynamoDB  (https://calculator.aws/#/)  and other service they may use like S3 for storage etc. (5) dextr (.003 per logged in minute)(edited)

We have an AWS Pricing Calculator that can help you with these more advanced calculations, just give us at call at 844-4-DrVoIP and we will make it available to you.   We can provide you with seats in our demo call center if you would like to try both Dextr and AWS or we can build you a proof of concept call center in your AWS account for a modest fee, or you can take up to five seats in our demo center, with your own dedicated greeting and phone number!

 

 

What makes up a basic Amazon Connect Call Center?

Posted on by DrVoIP

Simplicity!

Clearly the self service configuration of an AWS Connect instance is easy enough for a call center supervisor to setup! The drag and drop “contact flow” steps are easy to understand and simplify the configuration of a basic inbound call center.  There are however many other services in the AWS Cloud tool kit that even a basic call center will need to draw on. These basic services include Polly text to speech, S3 storage “buckets” for phone recordings and reports at a minimum. This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is BasicConnectConfiguration.png

Service Options

Many applications will require some kind of database to hold custom routing data. This database would be accessed by Lambda functions that will require a competent software engineer to write, test, deploy and maintain. Recently we had a request to route calls in a “round robin” manner. Out of the box, AWS Connect wants to send the caller to the next available agent in the target CSQ.

DynamoDB and Lambda the power duet!

Using Dynamodb and Lambda functions we could maintain not only a list of agents in the “round robin” but note which agent received the last phone call and which agent should get the next phone call!

How about a Holiday Schedule of closings? Or better yet a facility that would enable a supervisor to close a queue for a team meeting and also create a custom prompt to be played to callers during the closed time period on an “ad hoc” basis? Again you will need some Lambda code and a dynamoDB database!

Did you want to setup TEXT notifications for emergency after hours notifications to “on call” personnel? That would also require some software engineering and the use of AWS Pinpoint and SNS to make that requirement happen.

Real Time metrics of Agent activity and status along with Queue activity, including longest waiting caller and maybe a list of callers in queue by caller ID are opportunities to test your front end GUI web development skill set.

Lose the IVR and use LEX!

LEX is a very popular speech recognition engine that understands natural language speech and get really help eliminate that so 80’s touch tone IVR call tree we have all come to loath! It is way more entertaining and useful to use LEX than push buttons on a phone set!

The good news is that as your requirements for more sophisticated applications continue to unfold across the operational time line of your call center, AWS has all the services you could possible require! From AI to Transcription services, translation service, comprehension and advanced CRM integrations like EPIC and Saleforce, AWS has it all.

You just need to tap the talents of folks that are not only call center savvy, but full stack web developers, with database expertise!

Give us a call, we would love to help you realize your call center dream!

Why would you text a picture to your Amazon Connect call center?

Posted on by DrVoIP

If you have ever worked in a help desk technical support role in a call center environment, you have always wished you could “see” what your caller was stressing about!  How many times, if you could have seen that device, you could tell them specifically which cable to move.    Insurance adjusters also have that same challenge.   It would really be helpful if you could text me a picture of that crumpled fender!

Being able to send a TEXT message to your call center could be a major time saver!   Yet how many call centers can route an incoming TEXT message like a voice call, sending it on to the next available Agent?  The Dextr Dashboard now enables incoming TEXT messages to be sent to the next available AWS Connect agent. Messages can be TEXT (SMS) or PICTURES (MMS)! Dextr also enables “sticky SMS” which assures that an “in progress” text message exchange stays with the agent that originally handled the text request. If a message is assigned to an agent who is not currently logged in to AWS Connect, the entire text conversation is moved to the next available agent!

“TEXT” becomes a “skill” or permission that is added to an Agent profile nominating them to participate on inbound text messages sent by callers.  Dextr has a variety of interfaces that support Voice, Text, Email, Chat and Social Media messaging and an inbound message will pop the correct TAB enabling an Agent to handle multiple channels if they have the correct skill or permissions.

If you are using an AWS Connect call center, head over to http://go.dextr.cloud and onboard you instance and give the Dextr dashboard a try!  If you are not using AWS Connect, but are thinking about it, we would build you a proof of concept and you can still try it!  No cost to you, so give us a call!

IT First Responder SMS Hotline!

Posted on by DrVoIP

If you work in an enterprise IT environment as a team member you know the drill for a system down emergency. Someone alerts someone that the users are unable to access the Corporate Intranet! Panic! A ticket is initiated at the corporate help desk, and a phone call is made to the IT Director who then needs to figure out if we are having a sever failure, network failure or application failure.

The CEO, now getting phone calls from the operating executives, has now called the CIO who in turn is beating up on the IT Director and stuff starts to roll downhill. Somebody sends out a group conference line, the email stream starts up and all hands on deck are scrambling to identify the root issue.

I find the email route is just to confusing and nobody knows what the current status is as people chime in on the email, adding input and more times than not, asking for updates to pass up the line. Trying to work an issue with an open conference bridge is not real helpful and some folks did not get the email that has the conference bridge line number so key content is missing anyway.

This scenario happens way to often and we determined to find a better solution!  The result is a SMS2SMS a kind of “group text” for first responders.   Basically, you publish a number and have your stakeholders text the word “JOIN” to that number.  This will subscribe that user to your list.   Future texts sent to that number will now be copied to all other list members.   Members can STOP if they no longer want to be part of the list, but generally this is an excellent solution for first responders in any emergency management situation.  

Hit us up and we will set you up with a demo!

 

 

 

 

 

Amazon Connect Configuration Best Practices – Part 3 After Hours Call Flow with SMS!

Posted on by DrVoIP

Providing options for callers to you contact center after normal business hours is always a good practice. Our standard “after hours call handler” makes use of several options:

  • Send Caller to Voice Mail or Message Center
  • Send a Text Alert to an on call team member
Download After Hours Call Handler with SMS notification Option
You must register on home page to download

The text notification step requires some additional AWS services including PinPoint, SNS and Lambda functions. For this option to work, you will need to setup an SNS topic and make use of PinPoint to get a phone number to associate with the call block.

In the above call flow block, we invoke the lambda function when the caller selects that they want a call back from the on call team member. Lambda then interacts with PinPoint and SNS to send a canned message “an after hours caller needs help” sending both the message and the contact phone number to the SNS subscribers. This is a very effective solution for integrating SMS into your contact flows and is ideally suited to “on call” notifications.

Amazon Connect Configuration Best Practices – Part 2 Customer Queue Flow

Posted on by DrVoIP

Making the caller “comfortable” while waiting in queue for the next available agent is the primary role of a “customer queue flow”. Our standard practice is to provide a range of options that can be turned on or off as desirable for a specific CSQ. The main greeting contact flow discussed in Part 1 will attempt to hand the caller off to an available agent, but if none are available, the caller is moved to the customer queue flow.

The “customer queue flow” we typically provide does some initial setup and status checking:

  • Set Loop Prompts (Music and messages and time)
  • Check Queue Status
  • Check Call Back hours of Operation
  • Play EWT prompt
  • The Offer the Caller options (Wait, Voice mail and Call Back)

In our standard queue hold we check the queue status for “time in queue” of 3 minutes. We use this “poor mans” estimated wait time to provide an option to the caller if they are in queue longer than 3 minutes. We offer three options; continue to wait for next available agent, transfer to voice mail (or operator) and “call back”.

We also create a schedule for offering the call back option. When your call center closes at 5PM you may not want to offer the call back option after 4PM, so we check the schedule and if the caller is after the specified time in the schedule, we do NOT offer the call back but move to a block that only offers wait or voice mail.

DemoCustomerQueueHoldwithCallBack call flow download link

You must register on the Home page to download script

This contact flow also has the ability to prompt the caller to leave a call back number. This step requires some SSML in the text to speech block as we want to confirm the number the caller entered and give them an opportunity to correct any errors. First we prompt the caller to enter the phone number we should call them back at.

The Set Contact Attribute block is used to assign the callers input to a variable we can call on later in the flow:

In this example we are setting a destination key of “numberinput” and stuffing that variable with the system provided attribute “stored customer input”. It is important to set the destination key as any further use of this block will over write the stored information which you will need to reference later during the playback verification step.

This block reads the callers phone number back to them as an SSML object as illustrated above. Note that we reference the numberinput from the set contact attribute block as $.Attributes.

Amazon Connect Configuration Best Practices – Part 1 Main Greeting options

Posted on by DrVoIP

Every Call Center is in fact unique, but the all share a common theme that can be encoded for recreating deployments quickly. Generally we divide Contact flows up into manageable contact flows that compartmentalize call handling. For example we generally create a MainGreeting, QueueHandling and After hours Call Handling call flow and these three basic contact flow blocks provide some very powerful options!

Generally, we attach the incoming phone number to the MainGreeting Contact flow. This flow is very important as we use it to setup all the required variables required for whatever CSQ this greeting will front end. This contact flow will usually perform the following:

  • Set the voice to use for Polly based prompts
  • Enable Logging behavior
  • Enable Call Recording behavior
  • Set Agent Hold Behavior
  • Set Customer Hold Behavior
  • Set the Queue Hold Behavior
  • Set the Customer Queue
  • Set the whisper behavior
  • Set the Working CSQ
  • Invoke Lambda function to check for special closing
  • Check Operating hours
  • Prompt and Collect Caller Input
  • Transfer to Flow or Queue as required

These are all critical parts of the overall call flow and set the stage for call handling throughout the rest of this callers experience. Not burdening the the contact flow with all the queue options while awaiting connection with an agent, makes the flow more manageable!

If the caller can not immediately be routed to the next available agent, they are passed into the contact flow that describes the experience the caller has while waiting including the presentation of any options the caller might elect to initiate while holding.

DemoMainGreeting Contact Flow down load link!
You must register on the Home page to download the script

We will cover the Queue Hold options in the next post!

Amazon Connect Forced Release Behavior Option

Posted on by DrVoIP

Sometimes it is better to give folks what they want, rather than what they need! Over the years of working with call centers you develop a sense of what is a best practice and what is something that will be nothing but a problem! You do your best to educate folks on the issues and make recommendations that you know are in their best interest. However, “if you have the peso, you have the say so” and ultimately we do what the client wants to do, right or wrong.

Such is the issue of the “forced release” status that results from an unanswered call presented to an “available” login agent. Most if not all call centers, will attempt to present a call to the next available agent based on the routing plan, generally “longest idle”, “round robin” or “top down”. The issue is what do you do if the agent does not answer the presented call?

Most all call centers will set the agent to “forced release” which does two things. First, it assures that we do not waste the callers time presenting another call to an agent that may not be present. Secondly, an agent in “forced release” alerts a supervisor to a potential staff management problem.

Recently we had a client who did not want agents put into “forced release”. Well if we do not put them in forced release what is the desired behavior? Take an CSQ with one agent for discussion purposes. If we present the call to that agent and the caller is not answered within the system Ring No Answer time, we would normally queue the caller for the next “available”agent and put this agent in “forced release”. if we do not put the agent into forced release, the call will be ping ponging back and forth between the queue and the same agent!

Ultimately it was decided that we would create a global option that would allow the administrator to set the default behavior for the call center. The default behavior is either “forced release” or, thanks to Dextr, “follow Wrap Time behavior”. In this way a call presented to an agent and not answered, would optionally be put in “wrap time” or “after work”.   The Dextr application also enables the global setting of a “name” for the wrap behavior to distinguish that mode from a normal wrap period.  This seemed like the best solution.  This would enable the agent to return to “available” status when the wrap time or after work time expires.

Comments are welcome!  DrVoIP@DrVoIP.com