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!
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.
One of the most challenging implementation tasks for an implementation engineer or application developer is getting the client stake holders to agree on customer audio prompts! Having implemented hundreds of call center solutions, having to wait for the client to get their IVR scripts together is the “black hole” of project management. So many other parts of the enterprise have their finger prints on the content of a customer voice prompt. From the call center managers to the legal department, everyone wants to comment on this implementation detail.
Voice Prompts can be a “speed bump” in your deployment timeline!
For the implementation engineer, it is without doubt the speed bump that slows down project readiness! Often the prompt is a source of data collection for “self navigation” through the “call tree” or IVR front end. “Thanks for calling, Press 1 for this and 2 for that” has some hard coding detail that can be easily effected by a simple prompt change!
Thankfully AWS has an embedded service that provides text to speech functionality. This means an implementation engineer can move ahead by popping prompts with text that can easily be changed as the rest of the enterprise catches up on prompt content, format and voicing. This service named POLLY, is a more than useful service and has been a life saver in more than one “instance”, excuse the pun!
Polly Programmatically?
Polly is not only useful for creating test prompts until the content and format can be reduced to a script that a professional voice artist can record, it can be used “programmatically”. For example, Dextr has an embedded application for automating closings, regardless if they are scheduled holidays or “ad hoc” closings for a team meeting called by a CSQ supervisor. Dextr will allow you to not only setup the calendar and time of a closing, but will enable you to enter the text content of a prompt to be played to the caller during the closing. This might be a custom greeting for a holiday (i.e. we are closed for Christmas, or Veterans Day) or an on the fly prompt for an ad hoc meeting.
Polly Prompts on demand!
Many times, it is necessary to create a prompt on the fly! Maybe you want to personalize a prompt by adding the callers name, or some customer specific attribute like an appointment time, or order number. Common applications like reading back a bank balance are also made more flexible by using Polly. Not just speaking back account balances, but making the call flow and content in an AWS Connect instance programmatically customized on the fly, and unique for each caller.
This strategy is a win/win for all stakeholders! It enables a more rapid deployment of a call center context while enabling greater flexibility in the design, deployment and management of prompts. Enabling Polly as a service inside your AWS Connect call center instance is an essential part of your implementation tool box and a software application development engineers best friend!
Historically touch tone “call trees” have over populated the IVR landscape prompting callers to “Press 1 for this and Press 2 for that”. This has been the standard since the first half of the last century! You would think that in the 21st century we would have a solution that can eliminate this kind of button pressing, sequential logic, menu after menu of options and hope the caller gets where they wanted to be!
Which would you prefer?
Think about it. What would you prefer as a caller? “Thanks for calling BoringCompany greetings, if you know the extension of the party you want to talk with, enter it now. Press 1 for Customer service, Press 2 for Technical support, Press 3 for another menu with even more options for you to select from”! Or would you prefer “Thanks for Calling, how can I direct your call”?
To achieve that simple interface takes a lot of technology, but fortunately AWS Connect makes use of an AWS service named Lex. Lex is a combination solutions that include Speech Recognition, natural language processing and artificial intelligence. Lex can prompt a caller with a friendly voice “‘how can I direct your call” and then understand the callers spoken response. NO more pushing buttons, no endless menus.
For example, Lex could even figure out what language the caller is speaking and respond according, no more “to continue in english please press 1”, which in and of itself is worth the price of admission.
What is an Utterance?
Lex is built on the concept of “utterances” which is nothing more than a spoke phrase to which you can create additional responses. For example, the caller might say “I need to check the status of an order” and Lex might respond with “is this a recent order or do you need to speak to your sales rep”?
Keep in mind that Lex has captured the Caller ID of the caller and could actually look up either the order or the sales person that took the order. Lex might even be able to greet the caller by name. “Thanks for calling Peter, how can I help you”.
What can a “ChatBot” do in a call center?
As a “ChatBot” Lex can enable callers to self navigate through solution options without ever speaking to a call center agent. Lex can book an appointment, change schedules, update status information, change passwords, update calendars, summarize the new, weather and sports and greatly enhance the speed of answer and call resolution.
If Lex replaces three call center agents, is that an increase in productivity? We think not, if it only gets the same amount of work done as before Lex was introduced to the call center. We increase productivity when we can redeploy those three agents to do other work!
As always we are happy to setup a “proof of concept” that applies Lex natural language processing and automatic speech recognition to your specific environment. Just click or call and we would be happy to help you!
Setting up options for Callers waiting in Queue for “the next available representative” often include offering a call back option. Generally, it is a best practice to not offer this option immediately but queue the caller for some time before offering this option. They have already called in and you have answered the call, so let them wait a few minutes before offering bail out options.
Common Call Flow Errors!
One of the most common errors in call center call flow planning is allowing a customer caller to queue for an Agent when no agents are logged in! The second biggest error, is leaving folks in the call back queue, at 5PM when all the agents log out and go home! So how do you do make sure this situation does not happen?
As it relates to the first issue, we always check to make sure that Agents are logged in BEFORE we queue a caller! This is a very simple step to do and it saves a lot of aggravation for callers who will never forget how long you left them rotting away in an empty queue!
Now as it relates to ‘call back’ without losing your place in queue, we have the same issue. Let’s assume that you offer callers this option. It is now 15 minutes before closing, what happens if all the agents log out before the call back is next in queue?
Call Back without losing your place?
In AWS Connect, Call Backs will follow the On-hours schedule. So if someone left a request for call back at closing time, that option will not trigger until the next day when the queue is open per On-hours. Lets see if we can improve this, but NOT offering that option late in the day!
We can setup a new schedule that only offers the call back between certain hours, so that if it is near closing, we do not offer the caller this option. This can be easily scripted in AWS Connect Contact Flows by adding a “check on-hours” step that eliminates this option when callers enter the queue and hour before closing time. This assures that Agents can log out at the appointed time and not leave anybody in queue!
AWS Connect is written around “contact flows” of different types. A “contact flow” handles inbound calls and routes them to Agents in queue. A “customer queue” contact flow deals with how to treat a caller while they are awaiting for the “next available representative”. You will learn this the hard way the first time you try to add a block to a contact flow and find that, though the block was there earlier, it is not there now! Why, the contact flow you are working on, does not support this type of block.
Free Call Back Script just for Asking
In this example we use a “Main Greeting” that is triggered by a call to the DNIS number associated with this path. We start the contact flow off by setting up all the variables like what voice to use, are we logging, what queue hold to use, which queue we are using etc. The flow goes on to check operating hours – routing ON- hours to the Queue and Off-hours to the Voice Message center.
If it is “On-hours” we send the call to the Queue flow. If an Agent is available, we connect them to the caller. If all agents are engaged with other callers, we queue the call. We play our “poor mans” Estimated wait time and then queue them with a “care message” followed by Music. 60 seconds later, we offer the option to continue to hold for an agent, or press 1 to receive a call back without losing your place in queue’.
Before we offer this option, we check another schedule that determines if we should offer the call back option. If the caller hits the center during the call back hours, the call proceeds as described above. If it is an hour before closing time, we do not offer the option.
So hit us up with a request and we will send you three “Quick Start” scripts that enable you to get this working as quickly as you can import the scripts into your AWS Connect call center instance.
Better yet – Give us a call and we will set this up for you!
Building out call centers on AWS, you learn a lot about opportunities for productivity enhancements! One of the first issues that we noted was that the standard Contact Control Panel or CCP, which is basically a WebRTC soft phone client, though very useful has many opportunities for improving the Agent experience. The list of request features is growing and as a result, we have taken on the development of a customizable AWS Connect Agent Dashboard!
Call DrVoIP for AWS Call Center migration assistance.
If your only introduction to AWS is Connect, their cloud based call center product, you have successfully created your first call center instance and you are now taking inbound phone calls! It was remarkably easy and with no real ‘geek” training, most call center professionals were able to log in, setup an instance, organize a call flows, create agents and voice prompts, obtain a phone number an in a few hours, you were taking phone calls! Wow!
AWS Demo API’s
Did you know that the Agent CCP is completely customizable? AWS provides a number of API’s and Connect Streams that a software engineer can access toward the goal of building an Agent Dashboard with a set of features and tools that are unique to your call center environment. There is even a site you can log into and test some of the available API’s. If you go to http://connectdemo.com and click on the “demo sites” you can see some examples of customized CCP, Click to Call, Screen Pops and other tasty code bits.
Agent Streams
We note that there are many “connect streams” that a developer can tap to create their own version of CCP. The supervisor side, however is not as fully formed and there are not as many streams and API’s available to support Supervisor requirements like real time queue and agent metrics. In fact we had to develop our own socket layer communication strategy to implement the features we envisioned in our dashboard.
Recently we have discovered new and not readily available API for other AWS streams. Some are only available depending on your support contract status.
Agent Dashboard Feature Set
The list of functions and features that we have added to our CCP is still growing but we set a goal of making the dashboard painless! For example there is nothing to install. Our application needs to be added by your instance administrator as an application end point in the Connect dashboard. Once that is complete, the user just points at our portal and enters their instance name (you can even upload your own logo). The traditional AWS Connect CCP shows up and you login as normal. Once your credentials are established, you are then presented with the revised Agent Dashboard as shown below.
AWS Connect Dextr Agent Dashboard feature set
Most folks have asked for a “team status” display. As an Agent I want to see the status of the other agents on my team. So the first attribute we added was just that, a team status display. Each agent has their own Activity List showing all of their calls both inbound and outbound. Next to each call is a link to hear the recording of that call. Supervisors can select all calls, but agents only see their own call recordings.
Each Agent has a personal contact list with contacts that they have entered for their own use. This augments the “quick connects” that they system administrator had created. Here is the feature list:
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)
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
We are also planning to integrate or Click2WebChat functionality as an advanced feature option. This would bring website co-browsing, video chat, SMS and keyboard chat into the call center! The Dextr screen shows the Agent interface including the Video and Chat links.
How do you set a Holiday Schedule in Amazon Connect?
Dextr enables a user with Admin privileges to open a window and create both HOLIDAYS AND AD HOC closings. The instance is initially stocked with all US Federal holidays already listed. The Admin can modify, add or delete these dates. They can also specify, via the drop down window, which queues they are closing. There is also a Text to Speech window in which the supervisor can enter the text of a prompt that will be played to a caller should they call during that time slot.
We named the dashboard Dextr! There is nothing to install. Follow the video instruction below and have your Amazon Connect Administrator add us as a trusted application, then head over to our portal, log in and put Dextr to work for your team!
If you have a requirement for the CCP we would also like to know more about your requirements, so let us know. If you do not have an AWS Connect instance, DrVoIP will build you a “proof of concept” portal for no charge! Remember, the American Business Communications landscape will be littered with the bleaching bones of those companies that do not adopt Amazon Connect as the enterprise call center that manages customer engagements!
