Contact Center Services Release 8.3

WindstreamEnterprise

OfficeSuite Contact Center Services release 8.3 will be released for production effective December 13, 2021. The following is a summary of what is coming in the new release. 

Contact Center Multimedia Agents (Webchat and Text)

Contact Center has expanded its multichannel offering by introducing Text (SMS/MMS) Queues to its existing portfolio of voice and webchat. As consumers look to be more efficient in engaging with businesses, they are looking to text messaging over voice or webchat. Now, with CCS Multimedia Agents, all chat and text conversations can be handled directly in the portal and all conversations are retained for reporting purposes.  Multimedia Agent licenses are an available add-on for Contact Center Agents and will include both existing webchat as well as SMS/MMS chat. Each Multimedia Agent includes unlimited webchat and a pool of 100 SMS/MMS messages which are shared among all Multimedia Agents. Additional messages are billed at $0.02/message. The businesses’ DIDs can be enabled for text (SMS and MMS), and then can be pointed at existing chat queues or added to a new queue. 

Tenant Admins will select DIDs under the Resources section to view all DIDs associated with their Tenant. Once a DID is edited and made available for being Text Enabled, the DID may take several minutes or hours to be fully enabled. When a DID is fully enabled for texting, the Admin can either create a new queue or edit an existing queue so that texts sent to that DID route to and are served by that queue.  Queues may have a single text-enabled DID or may use multiple DIDs. Wait treatment messages, stall messages, preliminary questions, and wrap-up questions all work with these texting sessions just as they do with chat. Similarly, coaching, monitoring, and barge-in all work for text queuing as well. 

Caller ID pass-through on Transferred Calls

Previously, when someone transferred a call into a queue, the OfficeSuite party transferring the call into the queue showed as being the party waiting in the queue. With R8.3 when someone transfers a caller into a CCS queue, the agent receiving the call sees the identity of the caller. The moment the transfer completes, Call Records, Call History, Dashboards, and the Agent Control Panel are all immediately updated to show the identity of the party who was transferred into the queue – replacing what used to be the OfficeSuite party. This caller ID passthrough is particularly helpful for businesses who like to have a human answer and distribute calls. It is also helpful for agents who can now call back the original caller from their Call History in their Agent Control Panel (ACP).

Addition of Prolog to Queue Wait Treatment

Inbound queues now offer the option of adding a prolog to the wait treatment before a call is presented to an Agent. Prologs are played all the way through to the caller before any agent is given a chance to answer the call. This is useful when a company is required to present information to a caller before a call is answered. This may be a call branding opportunity, a legal disclaimer, advising of a call being recorded, or monitored for quality and training purposes. Administrators may add multiple prologs as needed at the beginning of any Wait Treatment.

Routing Based on External Database Dips Through a REST API.

Information gathered either from inbound caller ID, or through information gathered from IVR questions (such as account or ticket number) can be distributed to any web-based or premise-based CRM to identify the best agent to take the call. This is accomplished through a REST API. Agent or Queue selection could be an assigned account representative, sales associate, repair technician and the like. While the customer database is identifying the correct representative, queue, auto-attendant, or outside telephone number, the caller will continue to hear designated wait treatment. Once the Agent or Queue is identified, the call would be routed to the available representative or group or if the representative is not available (on another call, in an away state, signed out, etc.) the call would be rerouted as determined by queue treatment. 

Finding all Calls for an Agent or ACD

Calls can now be found when the agent or ACD participated at any time during the life of the call. This includes the initial ACD, initial Agent answering as well as participation following a transfer. Previously, searching was limited finding calls where the agent was the initial participant or ACD and finding calls where the ACD was the first in a possibly long series of ACDs. With this enhancement the user can find all the calls that kept the agent busy, and all the calls that went through a particular ACD (e.g. queue), even if the call got to that ACD only after several conditional routes, IVRs and other queues participated in the routing.

Outbound Queue Calling from UC Chrome Connector

OfficeSuite Contact Center Agents now have the ability to control their outbound calling route from the OfficeSuite UC Connector (Found under Downloads/Plugins in the Customer Portal). An Agent may choose to have calls route directly from their OfficeSuite extension, or they may choose any available Outbound Queues built in their CCS Tenant. Once set, all calls originating from a Chrome webpage will automatically route out the Contact Center Outbound Queue. This will allow for all enhanced CCS reporting, coaching, monitoring, and call recording. Any web-based CRM can now be seamlessly integrated to allow click-to-dial functionality while also using all CCS features.