Introduction to Telecommunication Equipment 201: PBX, ACD, IVR, CMS, CAS and Workforce Management or How to Select Add-On Telephone Systems to Fit Your Needs Bill Brackin Program Director, North Sound 2-1-1 And Telephone Systems Manager Volunteers of America Western Washington

Optional Special Features Telephone Systems Optional Special Features Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) Skills Based Routing Voice, Email, Fax, Chat Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Speech recognition Call Center Software Call Recording Call Accounting Voice Mail Workforce Management (WFM) Online Hiring Software Integrated Training Tools Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) Work at Home or Remote Agents Contact Management System (CMS) And more….

Telephone Systems Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) Routing incoming calls is the task of the ACD system. ACD systems are often found in call centers or offices that handle large volumes of incoming phone calls from callers who have no need to talk to a specific person but who require assistance from any of multiple persons (e.g., customer service representatives) at the earliest opportunity. The routing strategy is a rule-based set of instructions that tells the ACD how calls are handled inside the system. This capability may include e-mail, fax, and/or chat as well as voice. Many switches already include an ACD in their software.

Telephone Systems Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) Skills Based Routing Call routing can send calls to the agent best suited to handle that call. For example, Spanish speaking callers can be routed to agents who speak Spanish if they are available. A person with disabilities can be routed to an agent who specializes in services and resources for persons with diabilities. Call routing can also be based on other factors such as the caller ID of the caller, the number that was dialed by the caller, a database that establishes priority of certain callers, etc.

Telephone Systems Contact Centers collective handling of letters, faxes, live chat, and e-mails at one location is known as a contact center. This means that no matter what contact method is used, the system can identify the best agent to handle the contact. Through multi-channel, skills-based routing, agents can handle both voice and non-voice communications with your callers.

Telephone Systems Interactive Voice Response (IVR) IVR is an interactive technology that allows a computer to detect voice (speech recognition) and keypad inputs. IVR allows customers to access a company’s database via a telephone touchtone keypad or by speech recognition, after which they can service their own inquiries by following the instructions. IVR systems can respond with pre-recorded or dynamically generated audio to further direct users on how to proceed. IVR systems can be used to control almost any function where the interface can be broken down into a series of simple menu choices.

Telephone Systems Call Center Software Call Recording Many telephones systems come with ACD built in, but if you want more than just call distribution, you will need to add call center software, and possibly a server, to your telephone system. These usually provide a better agent interface through their computer screen, a customizable real-time supervisor screen, statistical reports, and more. Call Recording Call recording software or call logging software allows a party to record a telephone conversation to a digital file, usually in .wav or mp3 format.

Telephone Systems Call Accounting A Call Accounting System is a software or hardware application that captures, records, and costs telephone usage events. Call accounting systems detect outbound and inbound calls, call ring outs, call routings, abandoned calls, and other activities. Formulas can be added to cost out useage by extension, department, location, etc.

Voice Mail & Automatic Call Back - Voice Mail is a centralized system of managing telephone messages for a large group of people. Automatic call back eliminates customer hold-time; instead the ACD system calls the customer back when they move to first place in the queue.

Telephone Systems Workforce Management (WFM) Workforce management software provides a tool to manage scheduling needs for the agency. WFM collects information on the number, length and time of day of calls and calculates the number staff needed for each shift. It also provides trends from historical data plus live data with a variety of reports. Managers use Workforce software for planning meetings, time off or vacation time for staffing based on service levels. Use advanced analysis to predict service levels, abandon rates and queue times. Offer agent self-service to your employees so they can review their schedule, setup schedule preferences, request time off, and swap shifts with other call center agents.

Telephone Systems Online Call Center Hiring Software Some systems offer optional hiring management software that pre-screens candidates, introduces the applicants to your company, gives online tests, and introduces the candidates to the position that is being offered. Hiring the wrong candidates who don’t possess the skills, personality traits or cognitive abilities for the job often results in high attrition levels, increased costs, poor job performance and decreased customer satisfaction. These software systems help you prescreen and hire the right staff for your call center.

Telephone Systems Integrated Training Tools Call centers often have slow times. Integrated Training Tools can observe slow periods and feed short training modules to idle agents to make the best use of the time. These trainings can be linked to assessment tools in some systems so that the training modules are the ones that will be most helpful to that specific agent. Most companies try, but many find it difficult to translate customer opinion into meaningful data that promotes better service delivery. Delivering a customer service survey immediately following a contact allowing the customer to leave comments regarding their experience. These results are made available to the agent and managers in near real-time. The most effective way to boost call center agent performance is with immediate customer satisfaction research. 

Telephone Systems Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) CTI enriches your caller’s experience by retrieving caller-specific information and matching it with the best agent to help them. Also, the screen pop feature saves both the caller’s and the agent’s time by automatically opening the right screen directly to the agent's desktop.  Finally, CTI can let a caller utilize self-service by getting or setting his own account information over the phone without talking to a live agent. Give agents the option to check a case record, look up the status of a trouble ticket, or find the nearest agency to the dialed number’s location. Priority routing means all your customers can dial the same number, but preference can be given to those who meet your custom criteria. Screen pops save both the customer and the agent’s time by eliminating time-consuming steps of looking up customer information.

Telephone Systems Work at Home or remote Agents Functionality in your telephone system or services that allow agents to work from home, relocate to another location, or to work in a mobile environment. Check with your vendors to see what you need to do to add this functionality. The real motivation for deploying and managing the at-home agent is based on one simple principle: improved agent satisfaction leads to increased caller satisfaction. It also helps you avoid adding more square footage to your call center, and allows you to hire from a larger geographic and demographic area.

Call center analyst firm Frost & Sullivan reports the typical median age of an at-home worker is 38, while the average age of an on-premise call center agent is 23. Additionally, more than 80% of home agents have some college-level education; this is only true of 35% of agents in brick-and-mortar centers. Many companies have reported a sharp increase in retention rates — above 80% or more with their at-home agents — while traditional call center agent retention is dramatically lower, less than 25% (from BusinessWeek, Dec 2007).

Telephone Systems Contact Management System (CMS) A Contact Management System (CMS) is an integrated solution that allows organizations to record relationships and interactions with their callers. This information includes all emails, documents, jobs, faxes, calendar and more.

And more….. If you can think of it, a telephone systems manufacturer has probably already developed a system to handle it. Ask your vendors. Questions???

More Information Bill Brackin, Program Director North Sound 2-1-1 (425) 609-2213 bbrackin@voaww.org