Bluestone Telecom

The only phone system you will ever need.

Special PBX Applications

Overview

Although customers can create a lot of the necessary custom functionality themselves using the cell library, there are some special functions that cannot be realized that way that have been custom coded and are described in more detail below, they are:

  • Priority support and agent locater service
  • Speech driven contacts directory

Priority support and agent locater service

Do you need a means of promptly supporting customers out of hours, or when your support staff are all on the road or for some other reason are not immediately available? Then this service is for you. It operates as follows:

  • A customer calls, needing immediate support (usually out of hours)
  • The call is automatically answered and the customer is prompted to leave a message describing the problem.
  • Once the customer hangs up the system uses a predefined list of support personnel and successively calls each of them.
  • If the first person called does not pick up then it tries the next on the list. This process continues in a looped fashion until someone answers.
  • The person answering the call is then given the customer's message. At this point they have the choice to:
    • Press the pound key to call the customer back on the number they used to dial in.
    • Hang up and call into the support line themselves at some later convenient time (maybe they are driving when the call comes in) and getting the customer's message again UNLESS its already been taken care of by another member of the support staff.
    • Hang up and call the customer back on some different phone. If they choose this option they must confirm that call is being handled.

Agent Management

The application provides a GUI for the management of agents (or support personnel), an example is shown on the left. Note how you can:

  • List a large number of people
  • Allocate each of them a "class". Class 1 members are called first, class 2 next, etc ...
  • Select which members of the team are active or "on duty" at any given time. This enables companies to change the active group on (say) a weekly basis without having to enter any new information.

The "Interval" setting allows you to define the rate at which the system contacts agents. In the example this is set to 4 minutes - meaning that if the first person called does not answer the call then the system will wait 4 minutes before calling the next person. The reason this is not immediate is to give the first person called time to respond by calling into the support line.

In the example shown on the left when a call comes in the action is as follows:

  • The system makes an arbitrary choice between Terry Cooper and Susan Wright (as these are both class 1 agents). Assume it calls Terry but he does not answer. After waiting 4 minutes the system calls Susan.
  • If Susan answers then search stops there. If she does not and after the wait of 4 minutes the system progresses on to call Mary Church as she is the only active agent of class 2.
  • If she does not answer then the system calls Sam Brown. If he does not answer then the cycle repeats until someone does.

Speech Driven Dialing and IVR functionality.

Internal and External Directories

The configuration of internal and external directories is identical. Each entry in the table comprises the following:

  • Keyword
    A unique name that will be used within the system if any of the synonyms are recognized.
  • Extension/Number
    The extension or number that will be used to contact this person or company.
  • Synonyms
    A list of comma seperate words or phrases that, if detected, will be resolved to their corresponding keyword.
The use of synonyms provides a means of routing calls based on phrases other then the literal name of the person or department. For example:
  • Assume that you have a department called Networking.
  • Customers calling in a printer problem, need to be routed to this group
  • Add the synonym "printer" to those for "Networking"
  • Now callers mentioning "printer" will be routed to networking.




Intelligent IVRs

We have all used the new speech driven phone interfaces deployed by the Fortune 500 companies - very sophisticated and very expensive. However with the newly released capabilities on the Bluestone phone system now your company can have this capability as well and at a price any company can afford.

Given your company is not the size of General Electric or American Airlines why would you need this facility? Here's why:

  • Reduce the load or cost of the receptionist function in your company - have the phone system manage calls for you
  • Callers can ask for people and departments by name, of course, but they can also describe the problem they are having and have the phone system route them to right support organization.
  • Callers can check on the status of an order without needing help from your staff.
  • The interface can be in any language and is operational 365 days a year, 24 hours per day.
In summary this technology allows you to run your company more efficienty and projects a company that is modern and at the leading edge of its field.