Contact center technology solution for Asterisk

Indosoft call center software Q-Suite is designed for enterprise contact centers using or migrating to Asterisk PBX.  It has an extremely powerful Script Builder for use with both Inbound and Outbound campaigns. For Inbound, the scripts can be associated to pop-up at Queue level and for outbound the scripts can be associated with Lists. One or more lists will form the lead base for outbound. The Script Builder is a WYSIWYG tool with powerful tools that allows contact center administrators to build a multi-page script  incorporating texts, variables, URLs and other neat features.

The Script Builder has tools to add custom variable including LOV and Parent-Child LOV as well as ability to start and stop selective voice recording based on triggers. It allows for initiating TPV (Third Party Verification) calls for completion of sale. You can build neat applications like a trouble ticket system or blend a campaign which does outbound dialing but expects inbound calls on the same campaign. You can build a multi-page script with the ability to branch to another page based on the script. Incorporating other web based CRM or sites into the script is as simple as a click of a button. With the ability to insert parameters into command line for URL, you can open and display the relevant information from any web based application. This Script Builder makes Indosoft call center software Q-Suite an extremely powerful enterprise grade contact center software solution.

Asterisk has revolutionized telecom, PBX and call centers. Asterisk is also widely used as a media gateway and voice recording server. It is a vast and daunting task to document all the vertical and horizontal applications of Asterisk. We at Indosoft have experienced the impact of Asterisk on contact centers as well as call center software development. The growth and maturity of  Asterisk is startling. As a consequence, we  do from time to time encounter difficulties in the implementation of the features essential in a contact center software as Asterisk introduces new and extremely useful functional enhancements.

Asterisk introduced MySQL CDR as an enhancement to its CDR (Call Detail Record). CDRs provide a detailed log of call activity and an ideal CDR especially for use in contact center software should capture the complete event life cycle of a call. Typically PBX and media gateways might want to be able to do ‘Third Party Billing’. CDR is also critical for ‘Least cost Routing’ billing as well as fraud detection, and resource management. Call center software requires complete cradle to grave life cycle capture of the call detail. In a multi-tenant software these call details are segmented based on the tenants of the call center software suite. Within a tenant, the billing details of the call center software will have to be identified at Queue level so that an outsourced contact center can share its agents among multiple clients and be able to bill them appropriately based on calls.

By default, Asterisk provides CDR output as a flat text file. The Asterisk MySQL CDR add-on can be used to insert this data into a MySQL database. Unfortunately, this can cause serious issues for a call center software. Within a contact center, the call center software needs to be able to use resources quickly and efficiently for both inbound ACD and outbound predictive dialing. After a hangup of a call, the channel in Asterisk stays open till the CDR write has completed. With the flat text file, this only takes milliseconds due to operating system file buffering. If you are writing the CDR to MySQL and the database is slow to respond, the channel will stay open and locked for several seconds. Implementing extra features within Asterisk that expect a channel to be freed and available for other operations within reasonable time, will encounter nasty surprises. A perfect example would be to implement a TPV (Third Party verification) for completing a sale in both inbound and outbound call centers using techniques that expect the channel to be free once you disconnect a call. A contact center with limited outgoing line resources will experience serious difficulty if the call center software is unable  to use these lines in a time effective manner for calls. Taking this a step further, if the MySQL database server fails or if the call center has network issues, the channels will stay open indefinitely causing your contact center enormous grief. This will go on until the channel count reaches a threshold and the call activities will cease.

There are many details in selecting the right call center software. The business requirements of the call center and costs are primary considerations. The obvious current requirements for  the call center software are easily identified but it is the future unanticipated requirements that may limit the capability of your call center due to the limitations of the call center software. In many cases, it may be very difficult to anticipate all the functional requirements for the call center software with fine granularity. Once a call center is operational, changes or software upgrades increase the risk of disruption and impose enormous overheads on project planning and execution.

Let us examine the requirements for an inbound call center. It could be either at a company premise or an out-sourced call center. Most out sourced call centers manage multiple clients at the same time. This means that the call center software should be able to segregate and manage multiple clients. This is different from a Multi-tenant call center software. Hosted providers require multi-tenant call center software so that they can offer the services to different tenants.

Inbound call centers require good ACD with skills based routing as well as  front-end call routing and processing capability. An IVR (interactive voice response) will provide flexibility for the call center to process calls before moving them to Queues with live agents. The call center software should have good GUI based tool to setup and change call routing and processing without requiring skilled programmers. Once calls move into Queues, skills based routing is a good way to get the most suitable to agent to answer the call.

There are numerous occasions when a call center software will have to use sophisticated call routing and call processing  to improve the efficiency of the call center. IVR and automated call processing can be used to handle calls that do not require agent intervention. The call center may want to offer seperate premium and normal service by providing separate phone numbers or using any other identifiable parameters.

More to Follow…

Managing and keeping up with the “state of the art” in technology is always a challenge. In late 2002, the design architects at Indosoft were looking to move away from maintaining and enhancing our PBX software based on legacy CTI boards. Indosoft wanted to keep its focus on call center software development. The emerging confluence of VoIP and TDM, made possible by PBX software like Asterisk, created significant product development opportunities in contact center industry. After considerable due diligence, we began porting and migrating the outbound and the inbound call center suite to the Asterisk PBX platform.  Our Legacy to Asterisk migration was well timed.

In the emerging union of data and voice where the border between IT software and telephony blurred, the Asterisk PBX has proven to be a life saver. The vision and foresight of Mark Spencer and his team has enabled Asterisk to be a dominant force in the PBX realm. For Indosoft, there were a few surprises along the way. One of the more significant limitations was in the design architecture of the built-in ACD in Asterisk.  Automatic Call distribution is an important component of any inbound call center. Skills based routing is an essential ingredient for achieving efficiency and quality of service that inbound call centers need. Call center managers look for a lot of flexibility in skills based routing.  Indosoft invested considerable effort in research and development to design and build an ACD that is truly skills based and which can work with Asterisk. This ACD architecture takes full advantage of all the features available in Asterisk without sacrificing the flexibility of skills based routing and prioritization.

Skills are unique to the functions of a call center. Examples of skills could be English language skills, Spanish language skills, Sales skills, Customer Service skills, etc. Skills can be defined and agent competence rated so each skill can be assigned to create a matrix.

The queues in an inbound call center require a set of skills so that competent agents can answer calls. Call center managers are usually very adept at identifying the queues required. In large out sourced call centers this can be generated using tools to identify all the combinations. “Spanish, Customer Service” is an example of a queue. The skills in Spanish and skills in Customer Service are together required for answering calls in this inbound queue.

It is a lot easier to assign competence levels for agents at queue level than skill level. Also, it is essential to keep the gradation to the required minimum to make it faster for the ACD to decide on the available agent competent to handle the call.