Businesses of any size can make use of Automatic Call Distribution environments to provide their customers with the best possible caller experience. Whenever you don’t have enough staff to answer incoming calls, the ACD takes over, playing relevant messaging and intelligently routing calls to the right person when they become available. A visibility dashboard and detailed reporting will help establish staffing requirements and customer service standards. NEWT’s ACD will put calls in priority sequence which increases staff efficiency and productivity while ensuring friendly call experiences.
The call center functionality for agents includes an easy-to-use interface to handle incoming calls. You will be given log in credentials by your administrator. There are two ways you reach your Agent Console depending on the type of phone you are using.
For users on physical phones go to newtcf.fibernetics.ca and enter the login credentials emailed to you (please ask your administrator for assistance if you need this to be provided again).
For users on NEWT DESKTOP – simply click on the PBX icon on the left sidebar of the softphone and navigate to the ACD tab.
Please note, if you do not see the ACD tab, contact your administrator to turn this on for you.
Here is what the ACD agent console looks like:
Logging In to the Queue
Your administrator will have set up your extension assignment to a singular queue or multiple queues based on your role. Your first step is to log in to the ACD. There are a couple of methods to chose from.
Log in from the console by clicking on the Log In/Log Off button at the top left of the screen.
Log in from your handset by dialing 88008.
Log in from your handset using the Agent Key (if enabled) from the line key programmed to your phone.
Work State Status
A work state status allows agents to control their availability to take calls in the queue. They can change their work state status based on their activity at the moment. This provides live monitoring visibility for workforce management and valuable reporting capabilities. Your company can set some of their own work states based on your unique needs. However, some statuses are built by default (accepting calls, wrapping up and on outbound).
When you first log in, you will be put into available status to accept calls right away. You can change your status by choosing a new one from the drop down-menu.
Accepting Calls – When in accepting calls status, your phone will ring when a call comes in. Answer your phone as you usually would (see below for further information on call handling while in a call).
Wrapping Up - When you complete your call, you will be placed in an automatic Wrap Up state. You will remain in this state for a period of time designated by the administrator, and this time may vary by Queue. This allows for you time to complete any work related to the recent call. You have the ability to increase the Wrapping up time in 1-minute increments if you need additional time prior to accepting the next call. Once the wrap up time has expired or your have placed yourself back into an “Accepting Calls” state, the Agent’s handset/console will ring with the next caller waiting in queue.
Call Handling
Your administrator will have set up the queues in advance, to allow calls to flow through to available agents in Accepting Calls status. Prioritization of who receives the call depends on the initial set up of the queue from available strategies (such as Round Robin, Ring all, Fewest calls taken etc.) when inbound calls coming into the queue will ring to your phone.
Inbound Calls:
While in Accepting Calls status, answer the call from your phone and handle the call as usual. When you hang up, you will automatically be placed into Wrapping Up status, for a specific amount of time (based on your companies desired setting). When in this status, you’ll notice a timer counting up the seconds that you are in this status, as well as a Time Left indicator . Once the time left is complete, you will automatically be put back into Accepting Calls status. If you need more time before it goes back to accepting calls, you can add more time to stay in wrapping up, by clicking on the + min button. Click this button as many times as you need to add more time in 1-minute increments.
Call Backs:
If a customer chooses the call back function while holding in queue – as soon as an agent becomes available, their phone will simply ring as if it’s a new inbound. When you pick it up, the system will attempt to call the customer on the number they provided while setting up the call back.
Outbound calls:
Outbound calls can be made from the console using the following method:
Change your Status to Outbound.
Enter the phone number you are calling, into the Phone Number Field. Note that if the number you are calling, is in your Completed calls listing, you can click the phone icon in that list, to populate that number into the Phone Number field.
Select the Outbound Caller ID (the outgoing number you want to use for the call) as this will be displayed to the caller. This is not required if your system is configured to support a single Caller ID option.
Clicking on the Call button will trigger your own phone to ring.
When you answer the phone (accept the call), the system will then dial the outbound number from your extension.
Outbound calls will be listed in the Outbound Queue for reporting and show up in your completed calls list *.
Once the call is completed, you will go into wrapping up status, similar to when you end an inbound call. Wrap-up status is defaulted to 120 seconds (this could be different if your administrator has adjusted the default timing) and you will be returned to Outbound Status, after this time lapse.
If applicable, select the disposition type and add notes in the text field.
Please note that if you make outbound calls from your handset, rather than through the console, the outbound calls will not show up in the ACD monitor or reporting. It will be considered a “regular” outbound call and only show up in the normal PBX call details reporting.
Transferring Calls:
While on a call, you’ll notice that a transfer button appears. When you click on this button, a drop-down menu will appear and you can choose to blind transfer the call to another queue, or a specific agent that is logged into the ACD (agents not logged in, will not appear for transfer). Once you choose from those two options, you can then click on the search bar to reveal and choose where to transfer the caller.
*Note that if you need to transfer a caller to an extension that is not active in the ACD, you can still perform that function of transferring from your phone, as long as the extension you want to transfer to is within your PBX environment (including peered PBX’s).
Also note that unlike “blind” transferring, “attended” transferring is not an available function within the ACD environment. If you do need to complete an “attended transfer” please follow these steps:
Put the call on hold.
Call the transfer destination, announce the caller and hang up.
Blind transfer the call.
Call Recording/Pause Recording:
If your company has turned on call recording for the queues, a “Pause Recording” feature is available. This feature will provide you with the ability to press *3 from your phone, in order to pause the recording of a live call for a short period of time (default is 30 seconds). After you press *3, you will hear a message stating ‘No Recording’ to confirm that the feature has been enabled (the party on the other end will not hear this message). Before the 30 seconds passes, you can press *3 again to extend the pause. After the 30 second pause time has elapsed, you will hear the message ‘Recording’ indicating that the recording has resumed. If you do not require the entire 30 seconds of pause time, you can press *4 to override the feature and turn the call recording back on.
Dispositions
Your administrator may have set up a drop-down menu of dispositions for you to choose from. These are basically categories that allow agents to identify the “bucket” this call would be described as being in, for agents to select. This helps with reporting requirements and workforce management, by understanding what customers are calling in about. Additionally, there is a Disposition Text field which allows you to take notes for further information about this call. Often times, this may be used to reference ticket numbers, account numbers or other records associated with the caller, for easy look up reference.
You can choose from the drop-down list at any point in time during the call, or while in wrapping up status. Additionally, you can go to the Completed Calls table and update these records after the fact.
Queue Status, Unanswered Calls & Completed Calls
Queue Status Table
This table allows you to see, at-a-glance the queue activity. This can come in handy to help know how many of your coworkers are logged in to accept queued calls, how many calls are waiting and wait times etc.
Unanswered Calls Table
In the next table beside the queue details, you will see a listing of all unanswered calls for the day.
Calls that are waiting in queue will be highlighted in green but turn to yellow or red the longer the caller is waiting (the length of time is a configurable feature for you to determine). If abandoned, the time of abandonment and wait time before hanging up is indicated.
Taking unanswered calls in the queue:
Agents can click on the Icon at the end of the line item of the call waiting in queue, to take the call if desired.
Completed Calls Table
This table gives you a historical listing of calls you have completed throughout the day. If you missed entering your Disposition information during the call, you can do it here after the fact.
