contact center technology platform for Asterisk

December 27, 2009

Basic network topology for Call Center setup

Filed under: ACD for Inbound, Call Center Software, Hardware, Hosted Multi-tenant, Predictive Dialer, Uncategorized, contact center software, contact center solution — rajan @ 3:55 pm

Efficient network setup can enhance the quality of your VoIP experience.  Even if you are averse to VoIP terminations for routing long distance traffic, within your call center, you can take advantage of VoIP. Here is a simple but efficient topology for Asterisk based call center setup.

Asterisk based contact center network layout
Asterisk based contact center network layout

Here all the agents, supervisor and admin phones are within the LAN and have assured bandwidth. Good quality IP phones from Polycom, SNOM, Linksys and other vendors can serve as the admin phones. Agents can use softphones like X-Lite or Eyebeam. An enterprise grade call center software like Indosoft Q-Suite will provide all the necessary features to setup and manage an advanced contact center. I recommend DELL 2950 category of servers which has served as very well in the past. The Dell web managed switches are inexpensive and work well within the contact centers. We implemented our first VoIP based contact center using Asterisk in 2003 with the long distance traffic terminated on PRI using Digium TDM board.

December 25, 2009

Considerations while setting up contact centers using Asterisk

Filed under: ACD for Inbound, Call Center Software, Hosted Multi-tenant, Predictive Dialer, contact center software, contact center solution — rajan @ 7:57 pm

Asterisk opens up a lot of options while setting up contact centers. Last ten years have heralded a revolution in the contact center technology platform. During this period VoIP technology has dramatically altered the landscape of of telecommunications.  Asterisk being an hybrid PBX with inbuilt support for VoIP and TDM, is the force behind the change in the contact center technology platform. Let us consider some of the options that are available for Asterisk based call centers.

You can have all your call center agents on VoIP  using IP phone or soft-phone within your internal LAN.  This is a relatively safe option where you can ensure required bandwidth using inexpensive web managed switches. There should be no measurable delay within your LAN to ensure very good quality voice. Any sane LAN design should achieve this.

You can also get a VoIP provider for terminating your calls to and from the outside world. Here the bandwidth and delay are critical. An uncompressed voice will require 100 Kbps and using G729 CODEC you can get away with 50 Kbps per voice conversation approximately. Generally SIP termination is a great option if you are maintaining your infrastructure in a co-location. The back-end bandwidth and latency to your SIP termination provider will not be a big issue. This is a great option for setting up at-home agents.

Another option is the Skype for Asterisk where you can take advantage of the Skype connectivity and its calling rates to make calls. Skype interconnectivity to Asterisk allows Asterisk users to make use of Skype’s superior codec and voice quality for VoIP.

When VoIP is not good and not an option for your site, the tradional TDM (PRI E1 or T1) is available through add-on telephony boards from Digium or Sangoma. What is more is if PRI is not available, you can use SS7 (ISUP) to connect to the next level.

You can decide to record selectively or all calls in Asterisk. One hour of voice recording at 64Kbps will consume 29 MB of memory. This should give you a rough idea on the storage requirement for uncompressed voice. You can also listen to live conversations.

You can also setup a fully functional PBX for the administrative section of your contact center. At Indosoft, we offer the feature rich contact center software Q-Suite which takes the mystery out of setting up enterprise grade call centers. Q-Suite offers all the features required for a contact center, right out of the box.

November 22, 2009

Cost of Setting up a 100 Seat Call Center on Asterisk Platform

Filed under: ACD for Inbound, Call Center Software, Hardware, Hosted Multi-tenant, Predictive Dialer, contact center software, contact center solution — rajan @ 1:27 am

I am generally tasked with the Web DEMO of Indosoft call center software Q-Suite for Asterisk. A Web DEMO is usually very interactive where the viewer has full control of my laptop and we can do almost everything (not run the predictive dialer, of course). All the Inbound IVR, Queue, Agent nail-up and an incredible amount of contact center functionality, all are with a few clicks of the button. At the end of the demo we will invariably enter the topic of cost of setting up a call center platform.

The costs of setting up contact centers depend on the infrastructure and the technology platform. The configuration of  your contact center will impact the capacity and overall cost. There are the costs for telephony and LAMP servers as well as the recording storage server (should you look at long term storage). The cost of any licenses like G729 Codec and Skype to Asterisk. It is important to remember that the most important and valuable components like Asterisk PBX, MySQL database, Apache Web Server, Ubuntu Linux all come without any price thanks to the incredible world of Open Source Software. The cost of the call center software, setup, installation and support have to be added to the cost of hardware and infrastructure. For a 100 seat installation (excluding the cost of agent machines), the cost per seat can run around 400 to 500 USD per seat. Compare this to what I can recall from the year 2000 when was in excess of 5000 USD per seat. To be honest, those contact centers were no where near as sophisticated as the present day call centers. Truly, I am amazed at the cost reduction.

October 5, 2009

This Script Builder Tool is a hit with Call Centers

Filed under: ACD for Inbound, Call Center Software, Predictive Dialer, contact center software, contact center solution — rajan @ 12:40 pm

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.

April 30, 2009

Call center software feature list – Part 1

Filed under: ACD for Inbound, Call Center Software, Hosted Multi-tenant, Predictive Dialer, contact center software, contact center solution — rajan @ 5:41 pm

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.

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