asterCC, asterisk callcenter and billing solution

Astercrm currently supports 2 modes of direct outward dialing(DOD);

Manager Mode

In this mode, the AsterCRM will dial the customer, and wait for the call to connect. Once the call is connected, it can be set to go to an IVR prompt to play any pre-recorded message or a wait message e.g “Please wait while we connect your call to an agent”. It can also be set to go into a queue, in which it will ring the phones of agents who are logged in, who in turn can answer the call and talk to the customer.

One of the key advantages of Customer Mode is that the only connected calls get transferred to your agents and there is no waiting for the calls to ring. Call ringing/setup time can take up to a minute and this can be time lost when multiplied by thousands of calls.

Another advantage is that you can make more calls than the number of agents that you have, e.g. you can make 10 simultaneous calls with 6-7 agents and maximize the answer/seizure ratio.

The disadvantage to this that the agents are required to answer the calls almost immediately, as failing to do so will result in the customer hanging on to the queue or connected to an IVR, which can result in customers hangup up prematurely, lost calls.

In addition to this, in this mode the agents will not have much time to see the customers details of who they are calling so lack of visibility of customer information might result in inaccurate presentation or missed opportunities due to lack of information.

Agent Mode

In Agent Mode, AsterCRM will dial the agent, once answered it will proceed to dial the customer/recipient. In this way, every customer or target will have an agent waiting to respond to them instantly.

When the call is finished, AsterCRM will implement a wait/cooling-down period (which can be defined/pre-set for each agent individually). This period can be set to something like 10-30 seconds, for various purposes. One example is to give agents some time to compile/update information to AsterCRM about the result of the call to the customer and such. AsterCRM will proceed to dial the next call once this period is over.

The main advantage of this mode is that the agent is more or less dedicated to the customer, the customer gets talking instantly, no waiting for agent to answer, and it provides a seamless transaction between dialing and connecting. In addition to that, the agent gets to brief up on the customer information prior to dialing so the customer identity is more or less known to the agent. One simple example is the agent will be able to address the customer by his name, which can be more personal and effective, e.g . Good Morning Mr.Joe, as opposed to not knowing the customer name.

Disadvantage of this mode is that time is lost while waiting for the ringing/calls to answer, which can lead to a significant amount of time lost in a situation where there is lots of calls.

Flow directions

If you want to use DOD function, you should add the dial list to system whichever DOD mode you want to use, but you must add some campaign for agent group before adding dial list.

1. Add Campaign

Go to the manager panel, click the “dial list” on menu to enter dial list manager page, you will find a button named “Campaign” on the top left corner:

Click “campaign” button to entered Campaign page, add a campaign:

Fill correct configuration in these blank:

Campaign Name: give a name for this campaign;

Campaign Note: the description of this campaign;

Outcontext: assign which context in Asterisk it would be using when dials external number in DOD mode;

Incontext: assign which context in Asterisk it would be using when dials internal number in DOD mode;

Inexten: when using agent mode, leave a blank here; when using customer mode, if you fill some content in here e.g a queue number, the customer call will be set to go to this queue which you filled.

Queue name: assign a queue name use for simultaneous strategy when use predictive dialer, system could set the max counts of simultaneous calls base on the counts of member in this queue.

Group: assign this campaign to a group.

Max trytime: if dial to diallist number blong to this campaign, but the calls didn’t connected, then you can recycle the number, but if the retry time of this number has been to this count, then the system could not recycle this number.

Click the “continue” to complete adding;

l Add dial list

There are two way to add dial list, the one is in dial list manager page to add it one by one; the other on is import dial list by excel in import page.

Add in dial list page

When you have added campaigns, go back”dial list” page, click “Add” button to add a dial list record:

Fill correct configuration in these blank.

Number: the external number which auto dial;

Assign to: the extension of agent who you want to the record can be got.

Dialtime: the astercrm dialer will check it when dialer was started, if this time earlier than current time, the dialer will auto dial to number of this record;

Goup Name: select a group name which want to this record belong to;

Campaign Name: if you selected a group for this record, the campaign name belong to group you selected will list here, select one for this record;

Click the “continue” to complete adding;

Import by excel file

Click”Import” on menu to enter Import page, and click browse to select a excel file for upload:

After upload, you can select a table (customer or contact) which will import the list, then the page like following fig will display.

Then you should fill filed number of table you selected in blank under the corresponding column you uploaded. Choose the “add” check box under page, add select the number of column which import as dial number to dial list, choose the”assign to” check add and fill extension of agent (it like the “assign to” of dial list add page) who you want to the record can be got, at last you should select group and campaign for dial list, e.g.:

Click the “Import” button to complete, then you can see the new list you import in dial list page:

Then you have got things ready for DOD, you can choose a DOD work mode for agent.

Start DOD

Manager mode

In this mode, you should start DOD in dialer page of manager panel.

Select a work group and campaign, and define how many simultaneous calls per dial. Click “Dial” to start DOD, you can monitor the active channel in this page.

Agent mode

In this mode, you must define the dial interval for agent or group in extension page of manager panel.

Define interval in “Adding Account” page:

Define default interval in “Adding group” page:

The PRI of interval define for account is higher, if it was not defined, then the system where use default interval of group which the agent belong to.

Now, start agent mode DOD in agent portal page:

If there are some records of dial list assign to agent, he can click “Start work” to start DOD for himself, then “Start work” button turn to “Stop work”.

When a call hang up, the system will dial next call after seconds which admin define dial interval for agent or group. The work status space will display count down when system waiting.

If want to stop work, click”Stop work” button, then a validation page will pop-up such as following fig, it must use the correct group admin account and password which this agent belong to or admin account and password to stop work(if require password to stop word could be set in preference page).