Using Asterisk in Call Centers

Asterisk for Call Centers

asterisk call center architecture

Considerations for Asterisk as Call Center telephony platform

There are several considerations while building a technology platform for call center. Telecom in general and telephony in particular are migrating to VoIP. Asterisk being the dominant hybrid PBX, provides an excellent telephony platform for call centers, with its seamless interface to both TDM (PRI T1/E1) and VoIP (SIP/IAX/H323). The sheer number of applications available within Asterisk makes is the overwhelming choice for both TDM and VoIP telephony (switch) platform. With Asterisk as the telephony switch, contact centers will still require a feature rich call center software ACD that can satisfy all the functional requirements, out of the box. The ACD has to be scale to grow with the call center. Q-Suite is an ideal ACD for call centers using Asterisk as PBX.

Scaling Asterisk with Call Center growth

Scaling is an important consideration in the selection of contact center technology platform to accommodate on going growth in call centers. Asterisk runs on x86 hardware and the processing power is limited by the motherboard and its CPU. This will impose an upper limit on the number concurrent calls that can be processed by the CPU. Requirements like voice recording and transcoding consume CPU power as well. Therefore the call center solution should be scalable to multiple Asterisk servers. ACD within the contact center software should be able to handle multiple Asterisk telephony servers to accommodate larger inbound call handling capacity. Q-Suite ACD design will scale to multiple Asterisk servers with growth.

Q-Suite ACD for Asterisk based Call Centers

 

  • Group calls by DID/DNIS/ANI or other unique incoming identifiers
  • Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
  • ACD call handling based on time of the day scheduling as well as holidays and special occasions
  • Ability to register agents who will be allowed to take incoming calls
  • Provide call information (referred to as call pop-up) to agents before handing over the call
  • Skills-based routing to route calls to the most appropriate agent available
  • Queue Prioritization based on business factors for the same type of calls
  • Ability to log agents into all the queues for which they have required skills
  • Provide required telephony functions like transfers, conferences etc

Redundancy, High Availability and Mid-call recovery

Indosoft call center ACD software Q-Suite can provide redundant, high availability setup for call centers. It offers call recovery for single point of failures. Q-Suite comes with a Socket and .NET API to allow CTI integration to existing applications. Q-Suite call center ACD makes it a lot simpler to migrate to Asterisk as a telephony platform.

Q-Suite - Indosoft Call Center ACD Software for Asterisk

If you are looking for call centre ACD software for setting up an Asterisk based contact center, look no further than Q-Suite. The effectiveness of Q-Suite based contact center technology platform using Asterisk will become obvious when you look at the features, ease of setup, and the value for money. Q-Suite is a multi-tenant, call center software with an ACD which can scale to multiple Asterisk servers. Redundant Q-Suite ACD setup has built in call recovery fail-over mechanism to protect on-going and future calls from single point of failure.

This call center software offers almost all important features that you require for your contact center, right 'out of the box'. It provides customizable Web interface for Agent as well a good .NET based API for embedding and integrating the CTI to your custom applications and CRM. It comes with a sophisticated ACD capable of queue prioritization and skills based routing . The contact center agents can work in blended mode on both inbound services and outbound calling campaigns.

The Script building tool within the call center software is powerful enough to satisfy the requirements of most inbound and outbound contact centers. The script builder comes with an array of drag and drop tools to develop powerful scripts that will fulfill requirements ofmeet the demands of most sophisticated script building requirements.

Cradle to grave reporting is an intrinsic component of the call center software CDR. There are detailed reporting for Agent productivity, Queue and Agent Statistics, Performance reporting, Wallboards and other necessary metrics to manage the operations of your contact center. Voice recording and Listening are built into the standard feature set of the call center software.

Multi-tenant

A Multi-tenant call center software permits segregation of different contact center tenants into separate partitions. This feature is especially useful for hosted providers of contact center service. The Indosoft call center software Q-Suite and the Indosoft PBX iHostPBX are both multi-tenant enabled software capable of scaling to multiple Asterisk. The super-user has the ability to setup and allocate trunks that each tenant can use. All the customizations are available to the tenant. Within each tenant there are various privilege levels to allow the tenant to effectively manage the contact center operations. A single tenant can run multiple contact center operations.

Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)

Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) refers to the ability of the call center software to manage, route and handle interactions. The Q-Suite provides one of the finest ACD for any call center software and is specifically designed to run on Asterisk. The ACD comes with a powerful Dialplan builder for creating sophisticated IVR (Interactive Voice Response). Every call routed to an agent will have detailed call pop-up with DID/DNIS, campaign and Queue information. The ACD is linked to the scripts allowing not only the pop-up of the call and queue detail but also the relevant script including web applications and CRM.

Key ACD Features

  • Time of the Day, Day of the week, Calender scheduling
  • IVR creation with a sophisticated GUI Dialplan Builder and XML interface to data sources
  • Multiple DID/DNIS per inbound contact center service
  • Queue prioritization, Multiple Music On Hold, Service Level, Branching
  • Skills based routing (Agent skill assignment, Queue Skill assignment)
  • Script builder
  • Custom Call Dispositions and Wrap-up codes
  • DND and Custom DND
  • Detailed CDR
  • Transfers (Live, Assisted and Consultative)
  • Detailed Cradle to Grave Reporting
  • Detailed Live Wall Board

 

Agent Interface

Agent Web Interface
Q-Suite offers web browser agent screen that can be customized and controlled using a powerful set of tools available within the call center software. An extremely sophisticated Script Builder for creation of scripts with custom variables and embedded URL like any web enabled CRM or web-sites. Custom disposition or wrap-up codes as well as custom DND codes allow for detailed reporting of agent activity.

Agent Web Screen Features

  • Configurable Agent Screen
  • Customizable Screen Layout and Contents
  • Customizable Wrap codes / Disposition
  • Custom Break/DND codes
  • Transfers (Blind/3-way/Consultative)
  • Nail-up and Dial-in feature for Voice
  • Multi-page scripts
  • Client - Info and Incoming Call Details

Agent .NET API integration
Q-suite offers a very powerful .NET library as well as an OCX library to integrate CTI software into your existing custom and native client applications. The .NET API provides complete access and interface to the call center software and its CTI database. This provides you with the opportunity to make the call center software and its CTI engine to work under the hood with your custom CRM or application.

Socket API integration
Q-suite offers comes with a socket library to allow eas integration of your existing custom CRM or application to the call center software and its database. If you are looking to migrate your vertical application to Asterisk and need a powerful CTI engine with a fully developed ACD, the Q-Suite socket API will provide all the hooks and interface to this powerful call center software.

 

Dialer

Outbound Dialer
Q-Suite offers an extremely proficient dialer available within its call center software suite for Asterisk. Predictive, Preview and Agent ready dialer modes are concurrently available within the call center software solution. The Predictive dialer is self-pacing and compliant to FCC regulations.

Key Dialer Features

  • Predictive, Preview and Agent ready dialer
  • Monitor List performance and alter List priority
  • Time of the Day Enforcement
  • NPA-NXX call time scheduling for the Dialer
  • Multiple concurrent predictive dialer campaigns
  • Dropped call recording in the predictive dialer mode
  • Concurrent predictive and preview dialer mode for the same campaign
  • Predictive dialer connects within milliseconds, to hear the 1st 'Hello'
  • Callbacks scheduling
  • Script builder
  • Custome Call Dispositions and Wrap-up codes
  • DND and Custom DND
  • Ansering Machine Detection
  • Transfers (Live, Assisted and Consultative) and Third Party Verification calls
  • Detailed Cradle to Grave Reporting

 

Contact Center Reports

Indosoft call center software offers detailed cradle to grave reporting for both inbound and outbound contact center operations. These reports cover every aspect of the contact center operations. Agent performance, lead performance, queue performance and media cost performance can be easy monitored. A detailed CDR reporting is also generated by the call center software.

Inbound contact center reports

  • Real-time Agent Status
  • Real-time Queue Status
  • Agent Time Profile
  • Queue Performance Report
  • Agent Queue Performance Report
  • Agent Disposition & Wrap-up Report
  • Media Dollar Call Tracking (DNIS/DID)
  • Live Listening
  • Listening to Voice Recording
  • Custom Reports

Outbound contact center reports

  • Real-time Agent Status
  • Real-time Dialer Status
  • Agent Time Profile
  • Custom Disposition Report
  • General Performance Report
  • Lead Performance Report
  • Real-time Dialer Performance Graph
  • Live Listening
  • Listening to Voice Recording
  • Custom Reports

 

Script Builder

Within the call center software, you will find one of the most powerful web based script builder available for contact center solutions on Asterisk. This script builder tool is an invaluable tool in developing scripts, integrating web applications and creating custom variables for your outbound campaign or inbound services. With ability to create multiple script pages, it is possible to have surveys and scripts with branching to the different pages. Simple applications like 'Help Desk' or 'Trouble Ticket' are easy to create and integrate into the call center software. You can embedd your Web pages and applications with the script with a click of a button.

Script Builder Features

  • GUI based WYSWYG Script builder
  • Embedd Text with data from the leads and system
  • Create different types of custom fields
  • Trigger various actions like call recording
  • Multi-page script with jump from one page to other based on customer response
  • Integrate your web applications
  • Open web application by passing parameters in the command line within the Script Builder
  • Assign Scripts to Lists (outbound) and Queues(inbound)

 

Dialplan Builder

Dialplan builder is a GUI tool to develop IVR and call routing in Asterisk from within the call center software. It is an extremely powerful tool to develop call flow. It has an elaborate set of functions to process an incoming call and decide its routing and managements.

Dialplan Builder Features

  • GUI based WYSWYG Dialplan builder
  • Create sophisticated IVR
  • Database interface
  • Branch options
  • Branch to Queues
  • Branch to Other Dialplans
  • Integrate to Web services
  • Create Billing events for IVR
  • Library of functions for IVR

 

Our PBX interface

The iHostPBX by Indosoft is a complete GUI to setup, manage and run your phone system. Built upon Asterisk PBX, it can handle your requirements,whether you are a small or large premise based organization looking for a stable sophisticated phone switch or a service provider offering multi-tenant hosted service. A key ingredient to any good phone system regardless of your industry domain or size, has to be able to grow, adapt, and change with the increasing demands and requirements. The iHostPBX not only meets those demands head on buit will exceed them by provide your organization with the savings, flexibility and freedom to take them to the next level.

Dialplan Builder Features

  • Setup and management of multiple trunks
  • Setup various types (SIP, Skype, IAX, TDM, H323)
  • Setup and management of multiple auto-attendants and DIDs
  • Time of day routing, multi-level IVR auto attendant creation
  • Creation of administrative and end-user accounts and extensions
  • Creation of ring groups and call queues
  • Manage call recordings
  • Setup and management of voicemail (mailboxes, voicemail to email, voicemail folders)
  • Access and creation of custom feature/star codes.
  • Music-on-Hold management
  • Creation and management of conference rooms
  • Access to the iHostPBX script library

Read more: Contact Center Software and Technology Solutions FAQ