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.

AWS Connect Contact Center – Our First Impressions & Demo!

Posted on April 2, 2017 by DrVoIP

How we first used EC2!

As a long time Contact Center custom software integration and scripting consultants, we long ago learned to use AWS if we want to get our projects completed on schedule and get paid! Most scripting work in ShoreTel or CISCO Call Centers will typically involve using an external database. During the requirements discovery we would highlight that we needed a SQL server, OBDC connector, Active Directory Credentials and database testing maintenance windows. The IT folks would then go into the vaudeville act of outlining the procurement and setup process and all the other project killing goodies that were housed across the server team, security and of the growing backlog in other projects. Given that we typically don’t get paid until the solution is up and running, we would run with a different approach. We can spin up an Amazon Machine Instance running a marketplace LAMP server and have everything we need to get busy with our Call Center Integration project in about 15 minutes! When the IT team finally catches up, we can just move our finished project to their stuff. This often cuts weeks, if not months out of our project deployments. Yea we love AWS!

Enter AWS Contact Center: Connect!

Someone sent me an email that said “we are all going to lose our jobs if Jeff gets his way” which included a link to a youtube video on AWS Connect. I watched the very short video and did what any AWS deployment freak would do, I logged in to take a look and try it out! (Most folks don’t know this but you can log into the AWS cloud with your regular book buying login)!

Once logged in to your AWS Management console, selecting Contact Center form the service menu will put you in a setup mode. It took an amazing 15 minutes to setup a completely functional call center, complete with inbound phone number, greeting, screen and routing, queue and agent setup. We actually spent more time figuring out how to get the agent connect to the cloud that it took to setup the Call Center. This because we did not immediately understand how simple this was! We were so busy thinking about how to get a VPN operational that we neglected to note, that we were one click away from bringing up a softphone in our browser! (Engineers overthink everything). The simple fact is that you can in fact bring up a fully functional call center in less time that it takes to fill in your average online credit card payment form!

When you first log in as the Call Center Administrator, which is a user you created when you went through your initial setup and is NOT your AWS Root account user, you come to the setup screen. The call center setup process is very straight forward and you are walked through each step with all the online help you need to bring up a base configuration!

Be an Agent in our Call Center – Login and Try it out!

As with all cloud based call center solutions, Agents can log in from anywhere there is an internet connection. You need a computer with a microphone, speakers or have a USB headset. Chrome and Firefox are the best browsers to use as they do not currently support Apple’s Safari. (NOTE – JAN 2017 this demo was discontinued)! We have made it so you can log in and try our initial demo system. Just click this link and log in as an Agent with a Hobbit username of Gandalf, Gollum or Trandull and a password of “CallDrVoIP”. After logging in and making yourself READY, place a test call by dialing into the call center at 703-659-4498. (We will keep the demo up and continue to advance the feature set, so watch this blog for more details).

The Agent call management window is not difficult to understand. Log in, make yourself ready and take calls! You can transfer call to another agent, or to an external location. There is the usual “make NOT ready” if your agent neglects to service an inbound call (all reportable) and there is the usual call disposition or “wrap up” options.

FEATURE SET?

The early on criticism was that this is for small unsophisticated call center applications. Not at all true. Keep in mind this is the first release of the product and we assure you it is fully formed and very capable. It has the minimum daily adult requirement for call center functionality. Inbound call management, custom prompts, queue management, agent permissions, outbound dialing and even database integration using serverless technology like AWS Lambda! You can add Amazon Lex for voice conversations! It has a full range of Real Time Monitoring and and Historical reporting tools. We are still exploring features and will continue to provide blog updates on what we have learned, but this is one impressive cloud based call center solution based on any criteria you choose!

The fact of the matter is, the “scripting” and IVR functionality is as good as anything we have worked with of late, and we think we have seen it all! There is a basic set of call flows that you can immediately make use of.

The call flows fit most every normal call center situation from simple Agent routing to Queue options including database dips! You can modify these call flows or create new ones! The IVR is both intuitive and at first glance we don’t find anything missing!

We fully expect that you will ultimately be able to take advantage of all of the existing AWS infrastructure options, including EC2 instances, database, high availability and “serverless” options like Lambda! ( we think the entire concept of “serverless” code is the real “game changer”). You do not have to use a softphone over the internet as there is AWS Direct Connect and VPN options. You can use your local handset if your prefer.

We are sure that this AWS solution is a serious options and certainly the only option for a “rapid deployment” scenario! It is however, going to require some help from the likes of us. You are still going to need network technology, firewall traversal solutions, backup strategies, custom scripting, custom reporting and integration services from AWS Solutions providers like DrVoIP. We think our expertise in Call Centers in general and AWS in particular makes us a natural consulting partner to you future call center plans. Give us a call, we can make it happen! – DrVoIP

A Five9 Call Center “cloud” migration success story!

Posted on March 25, 2017 by DrVoIP

Time for a new Call Center?

Recently we had the opportunity to move a major enterprise call center from a premise based solution to a virtual call center. Though the existing premise call center had performed faithfully for a number of years, we had lost faith in the manufacture and their reluctance to commit to a product road map that we could build on. Call Center technology changes as often as the weather and the demand for new features that the current system did not provide caused us to search for alternatives. Our client required advanced workforce and quality management including call recording, scoring and advanced reporting tools. Website integrations for visual IVR and “click to call”, Social Networking integration and SMS options were also high on our wish list. As the call center was expanding geographically we wanted a solution that did not require us to build a WAN to interconnect agents to a central server. We also wanted a company with a demonstrable track record, a rich history of experience and a customer reference list of others in our industry with similar deployment challenges.

We worked with our client to do the usual due diligence and explored both premise and cloud vendor solutions. The premise challenge was that the affordable architectures were basically centralized server applications. So if you had Agents in California, New York and London, you would have to network all your Agents back to wherever you put the contact center server. We have done literally hundreds of deployments these types of solutions, but in each case Agents would need to come up on a quality WAN network to be under the control of the contact center servers. CISCO has an excellent solution for geographically dispersed work groups with either the PCCE or UCCE. These are excellent call center solutions for mixed vendor ACD or geographically dispersed workgroups, but it would be more costly than the purchase of a used Russian ICBM missile. Additionally, the IT staff required to manage that caliber of deployment was more than our client was prepared to underwrite. Add in the ongoing cost of ongoing server refresh, system upgrades and other maintenance requirements we determined to focus on a “cloud” solution.

Clearing the Clouds!

When you focus on who has the experience, the references and the credibility to pull off a cloud based call center, the competitive playing field narrows quickly. Every vendor has learned to say “cloud” in the last couple of years, but who has really been executing customer focused call center solutions for more than 10 years? If you like the Gartner Group “magic quadrant” analysis, you will find about three players in the upper right hand quadrant. During our due diligence and RFQ process, two of the tree vendors in that quadrant changed their corporate identities through either merger or acquisition. This caused some concern on our part that as these new entities struggled to redefine themselves and the product lines that might result from their new combinations, we might be at the mercy of a company that was not yet fully formed!

In final analysis we chose to go forward with the Five9 solution and it has made all the difference!

Doing business the Five9 Way

They say “pre-sale” is about as good as it gets when it comes to vendor customer care. The Five9 team has set a new standard for both “pre-sales” and “post-sales” by which we will now measure every other vendor relationship going forward! Admittedly the Five9 “Enterprise Sales Director” we worked with was absolutely astonishing in meeting our requirements and exceeding our expectations. Always ready, prepared and available he never failed to deliver on a promise. We went through the normal “legal man and his bag full of deal killing goodies” back and forth between company attorneys, hammering out a Master Service Agreement but in the end both sides had come to an agreement that was fair and reasonable.

Five9 Project Implementation

Five9 assigned a Project Manager, Platform Architect and Connection Manager within hours of signing a contract. We had network readiness test instructions and project workbooks almost immediately. Just as quickly we had access to the Five9 platform portal including DID numbers to build and test with while waiting for carriers to do the vaudeville act known as “porting”! We had a goal of having the Five9 solution replicate our existing call center as a project first phase and we set a goal of achieving “go live” within 90 days. As you would expect the Five9 team had a number of workbooks that needed to be completed. The existing call flow had to be documented, numbers assigned, agents and supervisors listed, MPLS circuit connectivity options ordered and database access requirements considered.

Most of us that have had to deploy large telecommunications projects know the drill. The bottleneck is always the client’s ability to get their homework assignments in on time! One of the early on challenges for this project was to replicate the CRM SQL database lookup we used for call routing decisions and agent screen pops on call arrival. When moving to a cloud solution the usual ODBC connector to the local server strategy was not going to work! We had to build out a web service front end to our SQL farm and not knowing the Five9 IVR scripting tool set gave us some concern. The fact of the matter was, that the Five9 scripting for IVR is as good or better than anything we have worked with historically and we think we have seen them all. Having never seen the solution before, it took about an 30 minutes for us to create an inbound campaign complete with audio prompts, agents profiles, screen displays and basic call flow. We were impressed with the breadth of functionality that could be created with the Five9 IVR scripting tools. Again, if you have deployed even a simple iPBX, you know that at “go live” you are still waiting for the client to record the auto attendant script! Five9 has a text to speech option that enable you to create prompts on the fly and worry about the professional voice artist later! The Platform engineer who actually implemented the solution, managed the webservice conversion from OBDC with style and grace. We had it operational and tested in no time!

The Five9 platform web portal has a rich library of training materials for administrators, supervisors and agents. Our call center supervisors were able to create agent profiles and add agents with the appropriate skills to new campaigns in no time. Actually, it was easier to log in to the portal and add the agents than it would be to list them in the workbook and dumping it on the implementation engineer! Agents could log in to the portal and take video training sessions that increase comfort, knowledge and reduced the jitters that come with any type of workplace change.

One of our early on decisions was to use the Agent Softphone rather than an actual handset. This meant that each Agent would have a workstation with a USB headset and no other phone hardware. While waiting out the usual 90 day carrier window for an MPLS link to both Five9 data centers in Santa Clara and Atlanta, we built a VPN tunnel to enable our aggressive “go live” target. In one location we had a VPN link, in the other we used a pure Internet connection. Truth be told the quality of the connection was so astonishing that we are no second guessing the MPLS requirement!

Virtual Contact Center “Go Live”

Again the quality of folks we worked with at Five9 was astonishing! This was most obvious at “go live”. We noted that several of the Five9 team members were at one time Five9 customers. These folks were so excited about the company, product and technology that they wanted to evangelize as employees! Our Project Manager and Solutions Architect were both former customers who now worked on the implementation team at Five9. We had multiple geographic locations for this deployment and the Five9 team showed up at 0500 at each location ready to work! Their knowledge and experience was a great part of the success of our launch as both Agents and Supervisors could benefit by the many operating hints this folks could provide. This call center is no sleeper, handling some 5K calls a day! The move to Five9 was painless and event free. We never lost a single call or skipped a beat in our normal daily operations!

Post “Go Live”

The Five9 project team began to transition the project to the customer service group. As part of this process a technical account representative was assigned to the project. This individual would be available to us for some number of hours a month to work with us on new campaigns and smooth any transition issues. So far, all has been better than expected and the experience and overall implementation has been excellent. We are now moving into the second phase of the deployment, something we will tackle internally as the tools and resources to do so have all been provided by Five9 expertise. We are looking forward to implementing a Salesforce connector; integrating the corporate website with a visual IVR component and getting the outbound campaign process cranked up.

Cloud Contact Center Advantages

Some of the advantages we have found moving the call center to the “cloud” are benefits of virtual call centers in general:

Elastic scalability, pay as you go.
Geographic Independence – Agents can be located anywhere that they have access to the Internet. Think Business Continuity and disaster recovery.
Cost Allocation – Most call center expense is embedded in the general budget, with a VCC your costs are easily identified including call costs in real time.
Media Traffice off the WAN – Calls to the VCC are over the PSTN and not over your internal VoIP network.
Browser based Call Control – It is no longer necessary to push configuration files to desktops. This also enable desktop OS independence. Mac, Windows, Citrix whatever.
Freedom from and endless cycle of software maintenance, upgrades, server and desktop refresh.

Cloud Transition Assitance

DrVoIP has been deploying VoIP solutions with a core competency in geographically dispersed Enterprise Contact Centers since 1998! We have worked with most of the solutions in the market place and regularly implement custom contact center software and scripting services for ShoreTel, CISCO and Calabrio. If you are considering a cloud based virtual call center, give us an opportunity to assist you with RFQ, vendor selection, design, deployment management and custom software integration. Our experience is global, our expertise is verifiable, our projects are on schedule and always exceed expectations! – DrVoIP

WANtelligence – Software Defined Networks!

Posted on January 18, 2017 by DrVoIP

WANtelligence?

Recently while working an RFQ project to re-mediate the WAN for a major health care practice management company, we had the opportunity to listen to the major carriers describe their network solutions. The client company was seeking a new partner to provide network connectivity options for their several major corporate locations, three data centers and over 600 remote office locations. The company is growing expotentially and expected to double its WAN requirements and end points with in 12 months. The network was to provide Internet, data, voice and video communications and as such, the Service Level Agreements were to be consistent with those required to provide toll quality voice and full motion video. Historically the company had used ipsec VPN tunnels over Direct Internet Access (DIA) facilities that ranged from bonded T1 to shared media broad band cable and occasionally free space transmission when terrestrial connections were impossible. Each remote site also used Cradlepoint 4G for fail over and redundancy.

MPLS connectivity to rural America?

Not withstanding San Diego’s recent loss of the Chargers there are some 32 NFL cities in the United States. Contracting for a high quality, high speed WAN solution in any of these cities is really not a challenge, most any carrier can help you. The real challenge is getting the same connectivity to Margaretville, New York or East College Station, Texas. If you are searching for an MPLS connection to a branch office in a rural American area and you will find that it is rubric cube of challenges! No one carrier has a foot print that will cover all your requirements and if you are looking for “one neck to choke” when things go black, you may be giving up network visibility to facilitate easy order entry and administration. Work with an aggregator and you will most definitely lose your visibility to the underlying carriers who together knitted your WAN solution.

(Using our super secret online carrier database, www.buildinglit.com , we attempted to check out broadband connectivity to Margretville New York, just for kicks to prove a point. Click here for results.)

We listened attentively as Metel, AT&T, L3, Century Link and Earthlink stepped up to the podium and delivered their very best solutions. In all but one case, each carrier presented an MPLS solution. All carriers mentioned SDN, but only one carrier led with that solution and recommended it as the solution for this client opportunity. Most of the presentations began to sound the same, each carrier was the absolute best in the marketplace, each had the widest foot print, with outstanding customer service and the best proven technology!

What is SDN anyway?

Most folks can remember way back in 2007 when Steve Jobs introduced the device that would not only change Apple, but redefine mobile communications forever. Jobs had given AT&T the exclusive right to provide network connectivity for the new device. It was something of a “bet your company” play for both Apple and AT&T. When the iPhone App Store came online, after Jobs opened the iPhone to developers, the demand for bandwidth exploded and the AT&T network all but collapsed under the weight of all the new devices. AT&T had to act quickly, faster than building new network capacity would allow. The solution was to apply software in a way that network capacity would be effectively increased while physical plant was being deployed. AT&T pioneered software-enabled networking!

For those not familiar with the concept of Software Defined Networks, or what we call WANtelligence, think of two roads connecting a location across a river to a main highway on the other side. One road might be a more direct path, but not well paved. The other road might be well paved but not very direct, with more of a circuitous route that added miles to the distance of the direct path (i.e. Latency). From time to time, the roads might be backed up with traffic, slowing or stopping your efforts to get to the main highway (i.e. Jitter). A software defined solution works something like the popular mobile app Waze or Google Maps. As you are traveling, the map sends updates and suggest alternative routes. An SDN solution would not only inform you of conditions, but automatically just take the action of routing you over the best route!

At the Branch Office end point, SDN components require multiple connections to the main broadband highway. Generally, this might be a broadband connection like MPLS in addition to a DIA link. The onsite device, under control of a cloud based optimizer, does a packet by packet analysis of the best path solution. Again, much the way your traffic app knows your originating location and destination, the SDN knows source and destination and the status of the entire network options between and through central control, optimizes path selection.

There are many vendors of the equipment that might be located at your Branch Office, but they might not provide the total solution. A complete SDN requires that a centralized intelligence, typically a cloud based portal, be aware of the network and all other end points on that network. Some devices can also include functions that might otherwise require separate devices. For example, Firewall, Intrusion Detection, Network Optimization, Compression and Encryption in addition to the flow control and VRF functions that make up the elements of Software Defined Networks. We found a Gartner Summary that is worth a review and includes a summary of many of the vendors in this exploding market segment. We note that VeloCloud, a CISCO investment, seems to have it all and is establishing a defensible market share and leadership position. VersaNetworks seems to be a component play and both companies have been included in proof of concept offerings by major carriers. You can also download the white paper “Delivering Managed Services” from the DrVoIP site along with other free white papers on related subjects!

WANtelligence Summary

Software defined networks are in fact a reality and are rapidly becoming a cost effective solution that can assure high quality voice and video communications across the WAN. We continue to work with this technology and have hands on experience with both products and services. WANtelligence is our agnostic approach to developing Software Defined Networks! Our Certified Network Architects add expertise and expereince to your enterprise when considering how to include SDN in your network plan! Give us a call, or write DrVoIP@DrVoIP.com and we will share what we know!

Update note –

Cisco closes on $610M Viptela purchase

Aug. 1, 2017 9:28 AM ET|About: Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO)|

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) has wrapped its acquisition of privately held Viptela.

Cisco had come to a $610M (and assumed equity) deal to acquire the software-defined wide area networking company in May.

Viptela will join the Enterprise Routing team inside Cisco’s Networking and Security business under senior VP DAvid Goeckeler.

Shares are up 0.8% premarket.

ShoreTel Board takes company private?

Posted on November 9, 2016 by DrVoIP

“ShoreTel (SHOR) is in final stages of rolling out ShoreTel Connect”. Who cares? Technology issues aside, ShoreTel remains dog meat in the financial markets. Since the company’s public offering in 2007, the stock has never sustained a price above the first day closing of $12.50, itself a modest premium over the offering price of $9.50 a share. Currently SHOR is trading below the rejected MItel acquisition price proposal. Market capitalization continues to hang around the $430M valuation.

Ring Central (RNG) with a market cap of $1.5B and 8X8 (EGHT) with a market cap of $1.3B are pacesetters and models for what ShoreTel should be! Why are these companies valued so highly yet ShoreTel remains the living dead? Maybe Considering divesting the customer premise business? One of the key difference between these three companies, is that only one company is dealing with the challenges of manufacturing hardware. The CPE product line has greater value to a company that wants to focus on that segment. Can you walk both sides of the street, CPE and Cloud? If ShoreTel management wants to keep its head in the cloud, go for it.

Clearly public shareholders are never going to see a return on investment, so why not put them out of their misery and take the company private? Hell the only folks that made any money on this deal are insiders anyway. So take the company private, remove the quarterly pressure and public disclosures, retrench and maybe get it right for a future offering. Divest the CPE product line to a company that wants to develop that segment and commit to making the product a real player in the enterprise market.

Clearly the parts are more valuable than the whole! Customers, employees and Shareholders would all benefit and the Board would finally look like they know what they are doing. IMHO – DrVoIP
From the desk of DrVoIP

Recording ShoreTel phone calls!

Posted on September 21, 2016 by DrVoIP

Call Center not Required!

Long the standard in boiler room call center applications, recording calls is often a requirement outside the call center. There are any number of reasons to record calls for including compliance, clarity and certainty and just management of customer quality service. There are a variety of recording solutions in the market and they all have very different feature sets. Do you need the ability to annotate calls? To search on more complex parameters that time and date? If an employee is being recorded and transfers that call to the HR Director of the company, should that segment of the call be recorded? Do we want to record inbound calls only? Both inbound and outbound? Do you have multiple locations in your deployment? Do employees have the right to start and stop recordings? Add notes? You will also have to consider how recording are to be stored and for how long? This can have a huge impact on hardware requirements. Just some of the characteristics you might want to consider as you look for for a recording solution. The list of features is long and there are many options to chose from. It is best to get a solid requirements document together and to make sure that you fully understand that recording alone is not all there is!

Recording Server Applications

ShoreTel has an optional recording function that can be very effective! It can be installed as a single server solution or as a multiple server, multiple site solution. It can record all calls, or just in one direction only. You can select who is recorded and you can also select the archive location and time frame. The solution is deployed on a ShoreTel server, either HQ or DVS depending on the deployment model. There are actually four modules that can be installed: the recording server; the client side, the web player and the administrative module. The solution uses the integrated recording functionality of the ShoreTel phone system and most of the usual user group and class of service settings apply.

Generally you will create a route point with a call stack as deep as the number of calls you want to simultaneously record, and put it on the server that will host the recording application. You will also need a route point for the player and you will need to create a user who will proxy the recording functionality. The server install is very simple and conforms to the usual point and click install expectations of a Windows server application. The configuration is very simple, just provide the route point extension number, note the port for recording and click install!

The Administration Application

The Administrative application enables you to configure the specifics of the recording server and to create profiles. This application can be installed on the server or on a PC that can reach the server. The configuration options are very easy to understand and simple to enter. Basically they deal with where files should be stored and for how long. You also have the option of either saving the recordings to a file system, or saving them as a voice message.

You then create profiles that are used to customize different groups of extensions. For example, you might want persistent recording for some extensions and not others. This means that the recording continues even if the call is transferred. Do you want inbound and outbound recordings? And exactly who should be recorded! The profile also dictates if recordings are to be made all the time, or sampled as a percentage or by a defined schedule.

Client Side Options

The client side application is installed on a pc and is optional tray icon. You would use this only if your profile enables users to start and stop recordings and to tag recordings. If this is not a privileged that you want to extend to those be recorded there is no need to install this optional application at each desk. The use of the client is profile dependent.

The Player Application

The last application defines the player and is very useful for visually managing recordings. You can use a phone to play recordings , but most folks find this web application to be more useful. The application must be installed on a server as it uses IIS, but the recordings are played locally on a windows machine that has a sound card! Each extension is listed and there is a time and date stamp on the recording file. You have the option of storing other file information, like ShoreTel call properties to enrich the identification of a recording.

All in all, the ShoreTel Recording Application is a sweet suite! It gets the job done and at a price point that compares more than favorably with the third party Recording applications found in the market place. We recommend it for both call center and general recording applications when you are on a ShoreTel iPBX! Give us a call and we can help point you in the right direction or get this installed and configured for you!

TEXT-2-AGENT Sending text and pictures to your call center?

Posted on September 20, 2016 by DrVoIP

Can you send a picture to your ShoreTel or CISCO Call Center

We have been integrating SMS to CISCO UCCX and ShoreTel Call Center deployments for customer service scenarios for some time. The interface is very simple: Login, pick a number from anywhere on the planet; assign a “keyword” and match it to an email address or list! When someone text your “keyword” to your number, the text is converted to email and sent on to that address. The email recipient can then hit reply and we convert the email back to SMS and forward it back to the original Cell phone. Optionally, you can build a membership list with and auto response and the ability to send a bulk text to the list!

What is new in Version 3.1

We have released Version 3.1 and it now makes it possible to send not only text (SMS), but pictures (MMS)to the “next available agent” in your Call Center. The application now supports:

Inbound SMS to email Address based on “keyword” match with REPLY ability; – this enables you to use one number and many different keywords that point to different email addresses. The recipient can hit reply like any other email and send a response back to the sender of the SMS, usually a client who has a cell phone!
Inbound MMS to default email address – enables a cell phone to send a photo or picture into the customer service organization which will route to the default email address.
Inbound SMS to outbound SMS; – Stealth mode, you can forward an incoming SMS to another SMS.
SMS to List based on “keyword” match – This enables you to build an SMS marketing list. Each list is built by “keyword” match and you are able to send auto responds and “bulk” SMS
Outbound email to SMS;
Email to SMS – enables a customer service representative to send a text from an email client. The address can be a keyword group list or an individual cell phone number.

Each transaction has a unique “ticket” number, all transactions are searchable, logged and archived for HIPPA and PIC compliance.

We are finding that Insurance, medical, auto and tech support applications in particular are receptive to the concept of enabling clients to send a picture by text to a customer service representative.

Want A demo?

We can easily set you up with a demo account. A basic single number solution with 500 SMS credits is about $25 a month! Send the word “DEMO” (all ONE word, watch that auto correct) to 424-348-4000 and include your email address for an example of how this could work on a ShoreTel ECC or CISCO UCCX; or just create an account!

Note – Your do NOT need a formal call center to implement this technology. An email distribution list to customerservice@yourcompany.com works just as well!

Customer Service by the Numbers – brightmetrics!

Posted on September 18, 2016 by DrVoIP

In business what is measured gets done!

We subscribe to the business adage that what is measured gets done! For this reason key performance indexes are absolutely essential to the success of any customer service environment. How many contacts did we manage today? How long did a contact have to wait on hold before we were able to engage them? How much time does an average customer engagement actually take? What is the rate of abandonment and how long did a caller tolerate waiting before they gave up and hung up the phone? Sometimes we have to refer back in time and search “historical” records to locate a specific caller and verify the fact that they actually called! Other times, we have to be aware of “real time” data and be alert to what is happening right now! How many callers are waiting to engage us? So where do you obtain this type of information no how easy is it to obtain?

ShoreTel Call Accounting

In a ShoreTel solution there are at least three separate databases that keep this kind of information. The ShoreTel iPBX can generate historical reports out of the internal Call Detail Records log using the integrated report generator that you access through the ShorewareDirector administrative interface. A great solution if you want to generate total trunk activity reports showing the aggregate number of inbound and outbound calls. It has detail reports that can even list every phone call made by every extension user in the system. Ask it a simple question like how many phone calls did we receive this month from 202-555-1234 and you will quickly learn the limitations of this system solution.

The ShoreTel ECC has an internal historical data repository and a primitive report generator that has mystical templates that you can modify to create performance reports. You can not however, directly access the data in that database! The internal historical report generator has some serious limitations however. For example, do you want to generate a Group Activity report, showing all the desired metrics for all Groups in your deployment? You would have do to this one Group at a time using the ShoreTel provide tools.

The ShoreTel C2G is a veritable cesspool of disjointed data elements or “events” like, extension 123 went off hook; IRN 155 received an incoming request for service and Agent 789 logged in. Not very useful unless you are an accomplished SQL programming genius and want to spend your career figuring out the ShoreTel data dictionary while writing custom reports that assemble all of these events into meaningful record.

Though ShoreTel has some “standard reports” the fact is, you will want to generate custom reports unique to your environment. No matter how many templates are provided, we have yet to encounter a call center that did not have unique one off requirement when it came to reporting performance metrics. Where is the data? Is it in the PBX? or the call center? How do you track a call that came into the PBX, connected with the call center and transferred to an offsite backup answering service? Do I have to retain a SQL programmer to figure this all out? (Fortunately brightmetrics has already done that for you).

BrightMetric Illumination!

brightmetrics has created a powerful, yet very simple to navigate report generator available as a hosted solution. Connecting with the various databases internal to your ShoreTel deployment, brightmetrics can sort and integrate data from the PBX side, the Contact Center side and that cesspool of events that contain information from both sides of the data equation. Are you running ShoreTel Workgroups? BrightMetric puts wheels on the information that would otherwise require professional application software add-ons from ShoreTel.

The brightmetrics user interface is easy to understand and navigate. The portal has video based help files and report templates for almost every type of data assembly. You can generate reports on demand. Save reports and schedule reports for future delivery. The administrator can setup user accounts that provide access to specific report profiles and easy to understand “dashboards”.

Call Flow Diagrams can save an Admin’s life!

One of the most useful none numerical feature of brightmetrics is the ability to diagram your call flow. Have you every wondered about your automated attendant options, Hunt Groups, Route Points and IRN’s? Where do all the options lead? If you press 1 for customer service, where does the caller go and what are the possible outcomes for that caller? Do you have a complex SQL data dip over an OBDC connector from you ShoreTel ECC? Want to see where all the routing options might point to? This feature will map and diagram call flow from an Automated Attendant, IRN, Workgroup, ECC service and even an ECC Script!

How about Real-time Reports?

Historical reporting is extraordinarily important to both customer service and employee productivity. Real-time information is also very necessary and important. brightmetrics has introduce a new element to the product mix and now offers Real-time displays suitable for framing! If you have ever tried to make a Wall Board out of ShoreTel supervisor desktop, you now how frustrating getting status information in front of the Call Center team can be! Using a real-time event feed, brightmetrics can display comprehensive status information formatted for legibility and clarity!

The brightmetrics team!

brightmetrics has been making incremental improvements in the product from day one and post all of there progress, both features and bugs! Today the are generally recognized as the only viable solution for ShoreTel call accounitng accuracy and flexibility. More importantly, the company behind the brightmetrics product family is an astonishing group of people. Usually, pre-sale is about as good as it gets in American business! Not the case with brightmetrics! The real story begins after you sign on with them. The folks in this company from Jim Lewis the founder and CEO through each and every person you meet on the team, will treat you with a level of commitment and customer focus, that in this day of “Internet shopping carts” is very rare. Ask a question, open a support ticket, make a suggestion even offer a criticism and these folks will overwhelm you with not only time but focused attention. We have worked with many clients who use the brightmetrics solution and we have always had the most positive and productive experience. Technology is great but its people who make the difference!

Want a Free 21 day trial? Just text the word STATS to 630-GANDALF or 630-426-3253

Call, Click or Text your Contact Center?

Posted on September 3, 2016 by DrVoIP

Mobile devices are the most ubiquitous devices on the planet! Text messages are read almost instantly, never miss their target and are high impact, high content messages. Why continue to increase the number of incoming telephone lines to your call center? All you will do is cause more people to wait on hold, lowering your customer satisfaction scores while increasing your operating costs. The call center market is moving toward “purpose built” communication solutions through smartphone aps that pinpoint customer solutions and map directly to customer satisfaction solutions. Why not allow your clients to send a TEXT message to your call center? Chances are the Caller ID will have a higher match rate to client records in your CRM system then that of a land line! You can automated the reply, or route the text to the next available agent! Your client either gets an immediate call back, or is offered a scheduled call.

Why call an 800 number, self-navigate through a maze of Automated Attendant menus only to hear the ever present “please hold for the next available agent and your call will be answered in the order it is received”. A simple text message or smart phone ap, could automated that entire process! Your client never has to wait on hold! You agent has all the contact information and can instantly reply with a return text confirming wait time or suggest a scheduled call back time. After all it is a mobile phone, we don’t have to worry about where they might be when we do call back!

Call, Click or Text! A truly unified contact center needs to offer customers a text option. If your contact center is already routing email to the next available agent, we can bring up a TEXT solution in hours, not days. Compare the cost of a text message to the cost of a phone call! Compare customer satisfaction scores with immediate text feedback when compared to and increased wait time. The benefits are astonishing!

Text the keyword DEMO to 424-348-4000 include your email and we will send you a demo account for an automated demo. SMS numbers can be provided Internationally. Optionally open an account at PriorityMemberServices.com and we can get your ShoreTel ECC or CISCO UCCX setup for SMS and MMS!

Understanding ShoreTel Connect ECC Shifts!

Posted on August 8, 2016 by DrVoIP

Why use Shifts at all?

Most call centers have “on hours” and “off hours” that route callers to different options based on time of day and day of week. ShoreTel ECC has a concept entitled SHIFTS. Shifts have day types: Weekday, Weekend and Holiday. You go to System Parameters in the Contact Center Director, then Schedules and the create a Shift. Name the Shift something useful, specific the day type and the time the shift action should occur. You then apply it to the IRN you want to alter, open or close based on your shift schedule. If you do not understand shifts, however and how they are utilized by the ECC you are at risk of shutting down your call center unintentionally.

Let’s take a closer look at how Shifts work!

Each IRN in the ECC that uses Shifts, has a default setting that specifies where the call should route, if there is no corresponding shift instruction. The Shift might specify a Script, Service or Device. For example you might have Shift named “M-F” defined for day type Weekdays that is active at 8:00AM and specifies that the call should be routed to a script for handling calls during “on hours”. You might then also add another Shift named “Lunch” for a day type Weekdays and set if to activate at 11:59 AM and point it to script that plays an announcement alerting callers that the call center is closed for lunch and invites them to call back at 1PM (never happen but it makes for a good lesson example). Now we create another Shift also named “M-F” for day type Weekday and set it to activate at 1PM. This action points the calls back to the script for “on hours”. Clearly, you also created a Shift for “M-F” for day types Weekday and set the action time at 5PM. The action is to send the call to the script for After hours. Make sense? Seem easy?

Danger – The trouble Spot with Shifts!

Let’s assume you have an IRN for Sales and an IRN for Technical Support and you apply the shifts we defined above, to both IRN’s, but on the sales IRN they do not close for lunch! For this reason, you do not apply the Shift entitled “Lunch” to the Sales IRN. Let’s assume the default route for the Sales IRN is the Closes script, so that after hours calls defaul if not specified in the Shift list to the after hours call handling. So what do you think will happen to the Sales IRN at 11:59?

The fact that you created a Shift and one now exists for “Lunch” during the week is the important take away. Once you apply Shifts to an IRN, ALL shifts apply even if you did not apply that shift to your IRN. In this simple example, the Sales IRN will follow the Default route because you did not specific an alternative destination in you shift list on the Sales IRN for Lunch time. The fact that the Shift exists in the ECC database, requires that you specify an action for that Shift! This is where most folks get into trouble!

What Version of ECC is your Shift definition?

In versions before Connect and ECC 8, Shifts required you to open and close a shift. After version 8, you are not required to close a shift but it would be a good practice to do so! You must account for all shifts, even if they are to relevant to your IRN. The only way around this is to NOT apply any Shifts to an IRN. If the IRN does not use Shifts at all, it will ignore all Shifts! A bit confusing but once you “get it” it is easy.

When in Doubt press Explain Shifts!

In the IRN definition press “Explain Shift” and then select the day you want to explore. The list will populate with all the Shifts that impact that IRN. Remember it does not matter if it is on your list! What matters is that the Shift exists for the ECC and you must specify an action, or in the absence of a direction, the default destination for that IRN will be followed!

TOP ShoreTel Connect Installation Gotcha’s !

Posted on July 25, 2016 by DrVoIP

So you are upgrading to ShoreTel Connect! Watch out for these blistering hot spots:

Assume you have a call center that works three shifts, with 15 Agents per shift. In the Pre-Connect world, you would define 45 agents but you would only need licenses for 15. The Pre-Connect ECC license strategy was “concurrent users”. The new license strategy requires you to license 45 Agents. Additionally, all agents have to be named in the iPBX, costing you an additional “per seat” license for the newly named agents. Before, 45 agents could log into extensions Agent1 through Agent15 using their AgentID to differentiate them for reporting purposes. Wow! I hope you don’t find this out the hard way.

Here are some of our favorite ShoreTel Gotcha’s:

1 – Ever have to move route points from one server to another? You CAN NOT use the batch utility to do this and must remove and then reinstall each route point. So much fun on a large contact center deployment ( If you know SQL you can actually modify the configuration database to do this).

2 – Want to change IP address of your HQ? If you are using the new family of 400 phones, you will have to touch each phone individually and manually CLEAR the Configuration for the new Option 156 and DHCP values to take hold. How would you like to upgrade 3K phones across five times zones to learn that gem!

3 – Gee, would it not be nice to use DNS Name resolution in the Phone Setup? You could just change the IP address in DNS and update your entire deployment!

4 – Is it no time to get rid of the DB9 Serial IO cable for switch configuration? It is the 21st century and we sill do not have USB on ShoreTel switches? When was the last time you had a serial printer cable with an DB9 connector hanging around your tool bag?

5 – Setting up OBDC connectors still use 32-bit connector and do NOT support AD login. If you are connecting to Microsoft SQL, for example, if you use an AD credential your ECC Script will fail.

6 – Active Directory integration is a one way sync out of the box. Even adding the ShoreTel professional Service add on for AD will not solve all your issues!

7 – ECC Shifts will destroy you if you do not fully understand their use and impact. Create a Shift to close on of your Customer Service Queues at 1PM and end up closing your entire call center! (See this Blog entry).

8- You can not enter anything in the External number field for transfer a call but 9+1+NPA- NXX-XXXX. No 9+011-44-204-668-5000 for example. It will not work! Not for a call handling mode, CTI route point, External Assignment. Nada. no bueno, NFG!

Useful and Helpful Event Log error entries! Our Personal favorite:

Send us your favorite Installation and Maintenance Gotcha’s and we will update the list and credit you for the contribution!

DrVoIP@DrVoIP.com