Let's begin with the concept.

You work in an educational institution and you really want to give out-of-state students personalized service when enrolling each quarter!

Some givens:

• You possess a PBX platform loaded with ACD Software! (It ain't cheap!)
• You budgeted to create a dedicated Call Center staffed by two groups of four people.
• You have Direct Inward Dial (DID)
• You have a commitment from management that staff are dedicated to the inbound Call Center.
• You intend to really train Call Center staff in telephony and interpersonal skills.

You're running promos about a Telecommunications Program at your College. The ads will appear in all major Newspapers in California, Oregon and Washington. An 800 Number is posted within the ad. (Make sure that you own it before publishing.)

You want Group One to take inbound calls from California while Group Two supports inbound calls from Oregon and Washington.

The specifics:

You will need to order an 800/888/877 from your Long Distance Carrier.

The Carrier will then point it to a number of your choice - DNIS Number in the trade. DNIS???? Dialed Number Identification Service.

In the example - we have two groups - one taking inbounds from California while another takes inbounds from Oregon and Washington.

So we have two DNIS Numbers - lets say:

Will it get a busy?. No, because you will perform wonders within your PBX DNIS Routing Tables and create a couple of ACD Pilot Numbers.

The routing tables will then send the inbound calls to Agents in an ACD Group. Hey, wait - ACD Group? Automatic Call Distribution Group.

Here's a simple ACD call-flow:

Got the basic flow - now, what the heck does it all mean??

The internal magic really begins at the ACD Pilot Number. Here, we control what the Callers first hear on entering the Call Queue.

Let's focus on Group One (inbound calls from California).

The Callers are welcomed by a pre-canned greeting:

Thank you for calling the Telecommunications Department of Mountain View University. Your call is very important to us and will be answegreen by the first available Agent.

Music-On-Hold resounds in the caller's ear.

30 seconds later - another canned message.

Thank you for holding - an Agent will be with you in a few moments.

Back to Music-On-Hold

Generally, the above scenario will be a Caller's first encounter with your institution. Of course, they might get to Agent 1 thru 4 within seconds of entering the queue and herein is the beauty and fun part of ACD.

(Just how quickly can the inbound call be answered???)

Most good companies or institutions want to keep Queue time to a minimum but as you and I know - at what cost?

So, in the real world, our Caller sits in the Queue.

Some things to think about.

Let's say all your Agents are busy. What do you do?

You can route the call to a Community Voice Mailbox where the Caller is asked to leave their name and number and is given an assurance that their call will be returned within 20 minutes.

This is a good approach if you have someone dedicated to making outbound calls. You don't want your Agents doing that because it can be a vicious circle.

Remember, we want to answer calls - not place them.

So to recap:

The caller enters the ACD Queue via the ACD Pilot Number:

• Waits two/three seconds or hears:
  Your call may be recorded for business purposes unless you advice otherwise.
• Hears first greeting.
• Gets Music-on-Hold (or info on the telecommunications program over music)
• Waits 20 secs
• Hears a second greeting
• Gets Music-on-Hold (or info on the telecommunications program over music)

Hopefully, the call is either answegreen promptly by the next available Agent or the call goes to the Community Voice Mailbox.

The ACD Pilot Number is programmed to accept calls let's say between 08:00 and 16:29 Monday thru Friday. What happens at the weekend and outside normal hours?

The Callers are directed to an Night Answer Voice Mailbox that notifies the Caller that they are calling outside business hours. Now, you can make this a Listen Only Mailbox or program it to accept messages.

What happens if the computer network goes down and the Call Center staff cannot answer basic questions or get to the relevant data?

Remotely forward the ACD Pilot Number to a Systems Failure Voice Mailbox where you've recorded a message to cover such problems.

That's a quick and dirty look at how the Call Center works.

Believe me, there is a lot of rocket science that goes into making really good Call Centers responsive to customer needs.

Statistics are a wonderful thing. If you flunked out in Math - don't get into Call Center Traffic Analysis. It can be a mind-boggling process.

If you aced Math and Stats - hey, there's a lot of work out there for Traffic Engineers.

Some keywords that you should know:

• Available - the agent is available to take the call.
• Unavailable - the agent is not available to take the call.
• Work/Wrap - the agent had finished the call and is completing desktop work.
• Agent ID - a number used by the Agent to login to the Group. Also used to run statistical reports.
• Abandoned Calls - the caller hangs-up before getting to an Agent.
• Service Level - how many calls were answered within predefined timing parameters - how many were abandoned and so on.

A few words about the Call Center Supervisor.

This person is probably the most critical component.

The skill-sets required to manage a Call Center include statistical analysis, personnel scheduling, intensive customer training, call-flow monitoring and heavy-duty interpersonal development.

Good Call Center Supervisors do not want Callers to abandon calls. They want the calls answered promptly.

However, good customer relations must be maintained by the Agent spending time with the Caller and addressing their needs. It can be a Catch 22. Staffing is always an issue.

A few words about the Call Center Agent.

A lot of companies make the simple mistake that anyone can answer a phone.

To some degree - they're right.

However, in today's competitive business environment - call ownership is the critical issue. To accept call ownership - today's Call Center Agent is:

• Heavily trained in interpersonal skills.
• Has superb telephony skills.
• Is thoroughly knowledgeable on products and services.
• Can quickly turn negatives into positives.
• Does not hustle the Caller in any way.
• Hand-off calls if the Caller requires further assistance.
• Understands that a dollar value can be attached to mishandled calls.

Most Agents are well-educated folks with two to four-year College Degrees.

Some may be Financial Brokers with a CPA tag after their name.Wrap-up.

Call Centers work, period. With the advent of Computer Telephony Integration - they can only become better.

If you have good computer skills - then a job as a Call Center Agent can be exciting and very rewarding. The CTI technology is still in it's infancy. However, anyone who gets into it now - will certainly find it worthwhile down the Information Highway.

That's it on the basic Call Center.

There are millions of variations in the technology. The fun part is affordably creating one that works for you.