Skip to main content

Contact Center

Written by Elevology on . Posted in Contact Center.

Contact Center Pro/Elite in CONTROL PANEL

"

Contact Center Pro/Elite in CONTROL PANEL

 

Contact Center Pro and Contact Center Elite are available for installation through CONTROL PANEL.

Installing Contact Center Pro/Elite

To install Contact Center Pro or Elite, click on the Contact Center tile or navigate to Services > Contact Center and select an appropriate package and click Install.

 

 

 

 

When Contact Center Pro/Elite is installed:

  • a dedicated Contact Center Pro/Elite page will be displayed in the CONTROL PANEL;
  • a new account will be provisioned in the Contact Center Admin Portal;
  • Onboarding Mode will be enabled for the account configuration. Read the Knowledge article about the Onboarding Mode for more information.

Managing Contact Center

Contact Center Pro/Elite will be available for review and managing only to account contacts with the following roles in CONTROL PANEL:

  • Owner
  • Technical Administrator with service Contact Center Pro/Elite

The new Contact Center Pro/Elite role is visibly displayed as a child role to Elevate. If Elevate is disabled, the Contact Center Pro/Elite role cannot be managed and will not be shown.

 

 

Note: this new role is for managing only Contact Center Pro or Elite packages.
The Contact Center Pro /Elite role will be automatically enabled for all existing account contacts having Elevate role enabled. For new account contacts, this role needs to be enabled manually in the Create account contact page. It will not be enabled by default.

Contact Center Page overview

Contact Center Admin Portal login

To log in from CONTROL PANEL to Contact Center Admin portal via Single Sing-On, account admins can use the link in the upper part of the page. This is what the Contact Center Admin portal looks like:

 

 

General

This tab provides general information about the Contact Center service, such as your current package, reference Contact Center Account ID, recommended steps for account provisioning, etc.

 

 

Users

Here you can see the list of AD users on the account. You can enable or disable Contact Center service per user.

 

 

Once Contact Center service is enabled, a new Agent in Contact Center Admin Portal is created, and the user data is synced from CONTROL PANEL.

The user data is synced to Contact Center Admin Portal as described below:

  • CONTROL PANEL Display Name is used as the agent's First Name and also the Agent's name in the tree view at the left of the Contact Center Admin Portal.
  • CONTROL PANEL Email is used as Agent's Username and Email.
  • Profile picture from CONTROL PANEL is shown in Contact Center Admin Portal as well. If changed after installation, new profile picture will be propagated to Contact Center Admin Portal within approximately 1 hour.

 

 

Disabling Contact Center in CONTROL PANEL would delete the Agent from Contact Center Admin Portal.

FAQ

Q: How can I change selected package (e.g., from Pro to Elite)?
A: Contact the Onboarding team for package upgrade/downgrade. Package upgrade/downgrade directly from CONTROL PANEL is planned for the next phase.

Q: How do I uninstall installed Contact Center package from CONTROL PANEL?
A: To uninstall Contact Center, contact the Support team. Packages uninstallation directly from CONTROL PANEL is planned for the next phase.

Q: Can I import phone numbers from CONTROL PANEL to Contact Center Admin Portal?
A: No, phone numbers import is out of scope for the current release, contact the Onboarding team to do it. This functionality is planned for the next phase.

Q: Can I purchase additional features and/or Contact Center Concurrent Subscription Licenses from CONTROL PANEL integration?
A: This functionality is available in Onboarding mode. Read the Knowledge article about Contact Center Pro/Elite: Onboarding Mode for more information.

Q: Can I create more Contact Center agents than Elevate users existing at account? AD users?
A: The number of Contact Center agents cannot exceed the number of AD users. This can exceed the quantity of Elevate users.

Q: I don't have the possibility to install Contact Center Pro/Elite packages at my account, verbiage is still saying to contact a Sales representative. Is this a bug?
A: We are releasing the new functionality in several batches. You will have the possibility to install Contact Center Pro/Elite to your account in the nearest future. For urgent cases you can still contact a Sales representative for Contact Center account setup.

Read the Knowledge articles on Phone Numbers and Subscriptions for more information.

Is this answer helpful?

"

  • Hits: 23

Written by Elevology on . Posted in Contact Center.

Contact Center As A Service Configuration Guide

Contact Center As A Service Configuration Guide

Purpose

This document is intended as a guide to help with setting up the configuration details of a contact center the first time and can also be a reminder for some tasks that are done infrequently. This guide is intended to help get a standard contact center ready to take the first call. The document will focus on voice-only setup. There are several steps involved in standing up a new contact center and the details will be directly linked to the features and functions of the IVR design and information flow. This document assumes a standard build with the key elements to route calls to the agents trained for specific calls, and that callers have the information needed to get to those agents.

What's needed

  • List of users to be loaded
  • Identify Customer users who will be Supervisors/Managers for Contact Center
  • Desired IVR design
  • List of recognized holidays
  • Desired hours of operation for the contact center
  • Choose the time zone to control monitoring/reporting and hours
  • Decide what the team structure is, if there is more than one team
  • An IVR to be built
  • What queues or groups of queues agents should answer, and at what priority
  • Know the scripts for the different prompts to be played in the IVR, and record them
  • Decide whether to track any custom activities for the agents
  • Download the software onto the agent's desktop

IVR Build

Building a Standard Design IVR

A standard design IVR can be built easily using the Simple IVR Tool

Before building the IVR, several components need to be in place.

  1. Holiday schedule
  2. Working hours schedule
  3. Prompt scripts and prompt recordings

Once the IVR is built, it is time to complete the configuration tasks to prepare for the first call to the new contact center.

Contact Center Configuration

Creating The Holiday Schedule

Please reference this link for details on the Holiday schedule (Product Knowledgebase - Holidays)

If the customer's CC is a 24/7 operation, this step isn't necessary and can be skipped.

Holidays can either be created as a schedule that lives in the configuration settings, or when needed as a one-off event. If creating the whole holiday schedule for the year, enter each holiday with the appropriate date and a description. The customer will easily be able to load different prompts to use if a different greeting is desired for each holiday.

REMEMBER:

the dates will need to be adjusted each year manually.

Working Hours

Please reference this link for details on creating a working hours schedule (Product Knowledgebase - Working Hours)

The customer can have their working hours set for all the queues, or for each queue individually.
If the hours are standard across all queues, only one schedule is needed. If they differ per queue, simply build as many schedules as needed.
If using the Simple IVR Tool, at least one schedule must be created before starting the build.
Hours can be standard for every day, or differ per day. Creating the schedule gives the customer lots of flexibility.
Exception dates are not the same as holidays, but great for closing for a half day for the annual company picnic, or a big all-hands meeting, or other such events.

Selecting the Time Zone

If the customer has one office that manages operations, this is a straightforward decision. However, some organizations can have contact centers around the world. Select the time zone that makes the most sense for managing the overall operations

Agents & Teams

Please reference this link for details on configuring agent settings and creating teams
(Product Knowledgebase - Teams & Agents)

The agents who will be logging in to take calls, the supervisors/managers who will be managing and anyone else touching the CC will have their user logins created in Partner Portal. They can be added/removed from Partner Portal. Remember, for CC, create all the users needed - billing is based on concurrent users. People only logging in to the CC Admin Panel are not counted as licensed users.

Teams

After creating all the users in Partner Portal and assigning them to the CC, they will appear under a Default Team in the Control Panel.

Create as many teams as required. As an example: teams that contain all the agents trained for a specific queue. It's also possible to create teams that contain agents cross trained on multiple queues, taking different calls at different priorities. Skillsets can help with multi-tasked agent setup (see below).

Creating teams will enable filtering in both monitoring, and reporting. Examples: it's possible to filter live views to focus on one team, or to generate historical reports per team. If the customer has only a single team, the views will account for that as well. The views will always contain the whole CC.

It's easy to move agents to a new team. Simply click on the team name in the left-hand menu. Go to the Members tab and select the agents to add to the team. If the CC is likely to have turnover, it might be wise to create an "Inactive" or similarly named team, allowing the customer to move staff out of active teams as required.

Thresholds can be set by team (as opposed to individually). This can make configuration easier if every member of a team will have the same settings. After setting thresholds for a team, each member of that team automatically adopts them. Flexibility can be key, so even if Team thresholds are set, they can be changed for individual agents as required

Some Important Information to keep in mind...

Once an agent is created, their role can be changed from Agent (this is the default setting) to a Team Leader, Office manager, Call Center Manager or Administrator. These settings control what an individual can see when looking at monitors or running reports.

Team Leader

restricted to only their team

Office Manager

restricted to only their office

(if there are multiple)

Call Center Manager

can see all teams in all

offices

Administrator

can access everything

These roles are very useful for helping people to focus their view while managing different activities in the organization.

NOTE:

External User is helpful if the CC is doing work for 3rd party customers, and has asked for the ability to randomly listen to calls for quality. External Users can't access any configuration pages and can only see activities related to their customers.

Each role comes with a default set functions/pages they can access; the Security tab allows for modifying these permissions. Adding or removing a check in a function/page will add or remove that from their view. Remember the role hierarchy: even as permissions are changed, the range of view doesn't.

Setting thresholds will trigger color changes as warnings on the live monitor and dashboards. They can also trigger alerts to Team Leaders/Managers. If desired, agents can be forced to available (ready to take calls) when the threshold expires for Not Ready and Wrap-Up.

Not Ready is a good status for when the teams first log in at the beginning of their shift. They can be logged in, but given a few minutes to open other apps, set up their workstations, etc. before the first call arrives at their phone. Forcing to available from Not Ready limits that time spent before getting that first call. Not Ready is also automatically triggered if an agent misses answering a call delivered to their phone.

Wrap-up can also be useful to limit. If there are no lengthy tasks that need to be completed between calls, forcing to available can give the agent a few moments to catch their breath, sip of water, or any other actions needed between calls, but they don't have to remember to make themselves available again.

This process does require some thought and consideration, but setting up agents and teams effectively helps immensely in the running of any contact center.

Uploading Prompts

Please reference this link for details on Prompt Files (Product Knowledgebase - Prompt Files)

Prompt Files or IVR... which comes first? As a result of the design conversation with the customer, there should be a list of prompts to be recorded for each spot in the IVR. The next steps could be any of the following:

  • Compile the list and start creating the prompt files.
  • Prompts are usually recorded by an internal resource, but some may wish to hire professional voice talent do the recordings.

Either are acceptable, with one caution: if the person doing the recordings isn't available when new prompts are needed to update something, the result will be multiple voices in an IVR. Best practice generally recommends someone in the organization becomes the voice of the IVR.

To record the prompts, all that is needed is a basic audio file app and a clear microphone. The basic recorder that comes with the OS is fine. The microphone doesn't need to be expensive or high-end; it just needs to be clear. Using a laptop native mic can work, but it will likely pick up all background ambient noise (like the fan in the laptop). Best practice is a USB mic for prompt recording activities.

It's best to write out scripts for the prompts before recording them. While this represents some additional prep work, the recording process is generally much smoother when the person doing the reading has a clear written script to follow. It is perfectly acceptable for each customer to infuse the recordings with their organization's "personality" or brand voice.

REMEMBER:

Different files are needed for each language. The Welcome message should be in both (or all) languages as well as the language menu. After that, all prompts will need separate files in each language.

It's easy to upload new prompts, so if the first "recording session" isn't perfect it can easily be done many times.

Agent Activities

Please reference this link for details on creating and assigning Agent Activities (Product Knowledgebase - Activities)

Activities are activities that the agents can use to track different tasks. This is a powerful reporting/monitoring tool. Depending on the complexity of a CC daily routine, many or few activities may be required. Activities are tied to agent status

There are key statuses that the Agent Software uses:

Available - ready to receive calls

Not Ready - this is an unavailable status triggered automatically if an agent misses a delivered call, or if desired at the beginning of their shift

On Break - this is an unavailable status triggered when the agent sets their status to go on their coffee or lunch break

On Call - this is automatically set by the software for the duration of a call

Wrap-up - this is automatically triggered when a call ends and is active until the threshold is met or the agent sets themselves back to available

Accept Internal Calls - generally used when someone needs to be available to answer questions from co-workers, but is working on something that doesn't allow them to take calls from queue

Dialing Out - this is automatically triggered when an agent starts an outbound call from the agent software and is active for the duration of the call

It is possible use only these activities, or custom Activities can be created. Activities can apply to only specific teams, queues, or to all queues. Activities can be set to an available, unavailable, or accept internal calls status.

Using activities can be incredibly important for calculating contact center efficiencies, agent occupancy, etc. and will vary from organization to organization.

Skillsets and Queues

Please reference this link for details on configuring Queue settings (Product Knowledgebase - Queue Settings)

Please reference this link for details on creating and assigning Skillsets (Product Knowledgebase - Skillsets)

One of the first concepts to understand is the relationship between a Queue and a Skillset.

A Queue is an IVR entity where calls sit waiting to be answered. Queues are arrived at from a menu (usually) and have agents assigned to answer those calls. A Queue can be one of a channel type (voice, chat, e-mail)

A Skillset is a grouping of the types of calls that agents are trained (or skilled) to answer and can have a single queue or multiple queues at different priority levels. Skillsets are tied to people. Skillsets are generally assigned to teams, but can be assigned to individuals. Skillsets can include all channel types (voice, chat, e-mail).

Skillsets are most useful when assigned to teams with agents cross-trained to handle multiple types of calls. If a team is specifically trained for only one type of calls, it is easiest to assign the queue at the team level.

Skillsets are created and assigned to teams. However, once assigned to a team, use the Skills tab in the agent view to manage skills for an individual. This can include priority and even adding or removing queues from the agent skills.

The settings for queues include a default priority (that is overridden by a skillset) and the waiting time thresholds. If working hours are set per queue, it's possible to also manage the schedule per queue.

It is NOT mandatory to create skillsets. It IS mandatory to assign teams or agents to queues.

Downloading the Agent Software

Please reference this link for details on downloading the Contact Center Agent (CCA) software (Product Knowledgebase - Client Software)

Each agent can download the software themselves from the admin portal, or someone can push the app to all workstations using the CCA download file which is MSI instead of EXE.

If each agent will be doing the download (especially important for remote workers) they will need to log in to the Admin Portal and go to the downloads page to get the software. It's a brief download in most cases.

If agents will be working behind a firewall, IT may need to allow traffic on specific IPs for the agent software. Please go here for a link to the IPs to allow: Firewall Configuration Guide

  • Hits: 33

Written by Elevology on . Posted in Contact Center.

Onboarding Mode

Contact Center Pro/Elite: Onboarding Mode

This article describes the Onboarding Mode for new Contact Center Pro and Elite accounts. This mode is dedicated for the account setup which may take up to a couple of months, and is automatically enabled after the installation.

To install Contact Center Pro or Elite, follow the steps listed in Contact Center: Elite/Pro in CONTROL PANEL.

Onboarding Stage

While Onboarding is in process, the available functionalities will be limited, but the system will allow you to configure the major settings.

The limitations are as follows:

  • You will see a notification about the Onboarding mode in CONTROL PANEL

    onboarding

  • You will be able to purchase up to 2 concurrent user licenses as a maximum.

There are no limitations for:

  • assigning Contact Center service for Users;
  • enabling channels, addons or upgrading recording storage package under Subscription tab;
  • assigning Geographic (Local) or Toll-Free numbers to Contact Center under Phone Numbers tab.

Once onboarding has been completed and Contact Center is ready to go live, contact Onboarding team to activate Contact Center.

 

Billing During Onboarding Stage

Contact Center products, addons and channels purchased during onboarding period will not be charged and will not be included in the current month's bill. If a customer buys a Toll-Free package of minutes, their toll-free usage will be charged as usual (i.e., no charge within package, overage for anything above/no package). Those charges are not affected by the onboarding phase.

 

Account Activation

When you are ready to go live with your Contact Center Pro or Elite, contact Onboarding team to activate your account.

Once the account is activated:

  • you will no longer see the notification about the Onboarding mode in CONTROL PANEL;
  • you will be able to purchase the unlimited number of concurrent user seats;
  • Toll-Free packages will become available for upgrade (a variety of packages are available to best meet the account’s utilization needs)
  • all the charges will be calculated normally, for all purchased products, channels and addons.

 

FAQ

Q: Can I activate the account myself when I am ready to go live?
A: No. You will want to contact Onboarding team to activate your account.

Q: Is there a time limit for Onboarding mode?
A: At this time, Onboarding team is responsible for all the time limits. In the future, all the accounts will be automatically activated after 60-days.

Q: Is it possible to undo the activation?
A: No. Once the account is activated, it cannot be undone.

  • Hits: 17

Written by Elevology on . Posted in Contact Center.

Executive Dashboard

Contact Center - Executive Dashboard

Overview

By looking at the real-time dashboards and alerts captured by the Hosted Contact Center solution, you get a 360-degree view of your contact center.

The dashboard allows you to monitor your call center performance through contact center statistics, call queues, service objectives, agent performance and much more. The information provided allows you to make informative decisions based on comprehensive real-time data, help improve service quality, and respond to challenges before they become crises.

Executive Dashboard

  • Hits: 13

Written by Elevology on . Posted in Contact Center.

Metrics Dashboard

Contact Center - Metrics Dashboard

By looking at the real-time dashboards and alerts captured by the Hosted Contact Center solution, you get a 360-degree view of your contact center.

The Metrics Dashboard displays numeric metrics and alerts allowing you to see the health of the call center at a quick glance. The Metrics Dashboard is divided into two views: Inbound Voice Queue(s) and Team(s), with each view displaying both current and daily metrics.
Current metrics totals represent what is occurring in the selected queue or team at the current time (i.e. now) whereas Daily metrics totals are cumulative representations for what is occurring in the selected queue or team throughout the duration of the day. Use the Filter dropdown to select a specific queue or team, which displays cumulative metrics for only that selected queue or team OR a custom filter - displaying the cumulative metrics for all queues or teams included in the custom filter OR select All queues or teams, which will display cumulative metrics for all available queues and teams. These filters are saved on a per user basis.

The background color of each numeric infographic is a representation of the set thresholds. Thresholds and alerts can be applied to both dashboard views. The color for each numeric infographic displays Green, Amber, or Red depending on the threshold settings. White indicates the threshold is out of range of the settings in place and/or higher than the highest default setting.

 

Metrics Dashboard

 

 

Teams Dashboard

  • Hits: 15

More Articles …