Correct workflow for outbound calls

[Former Member]

Hello all,

I'd like a recommendation for proper workflow when making an outbound call.

How should an agent make an outbound call without getting an inbound call first and without reporting himself as "Not Ready" or using an Absence Profile?

The current situation is that our agents have to set themselves to "Not Ready" to prevent calls from the queue while dialing out to a customer. This shows in reporting as "Not Ready" time which is not desired because we look at Not Ready as equal to unavailable/non-utilized time equal to Paused.

In other situations, some agents use an absence profile to prevent calls from the queue while dialing out to a customer. This shows in reporting as "Paused" unavailable time which is also not desired because they are on a call with a customer.

Suggestions?

[alexander_kupke · Accepted solution]

Hi Cris,

this sounds like some pretty busy queues indeed.

I never run into an issue with an agent dialing being interrupted by an inbound call, but then usually we used CRM or Directory for Dialing.

If manual dialing is required, you might create an IVR you can quickly dial in to and dial the number as DTMF in the Queue, but this is more like an awkward workaround.

Except for the logging on to an "Outbound Queue" as suggested by Chander, you could make use of PRS Profiles. Just create a PRS Profile that either logs you out from all queues, or which is not "Not ready". Name the profile something like Outbound and this state can be reported different than Not ready.

BR

Alexander

[former_member187604 · Accepted solution]

Hi Cris,

I would also suggest you to try the PRS profiles like Alexander proposed. See e.g. Creating Profiles / Queue Group. Let us know how it works out.

BR

-Lasse-

[Former Member]

Thank you all for your suggestions. 

I don't think logging the user into a queue that does not handle inbound calls would be helpful because then either I or the user would have to manually manage which queues the user is logged into at a given time which potentially create gaps where agents are not serving a queue nor handling outbound calls.

I think the PRS profile could work but that too means agents could potentially enable that profile and not serve any queues.  I suppose I could manually look at the Call(Out) Time & Wrap Up Time while on that profile and subtract that time from total PRS profile time.

It's just not simple to do but maybe an ok work-around.

[Former Member]

Dear

Could u could  try allocate the outbound agent only a queue where no inbound calls are configured.