Setting up a strategy for Inbound and Outbound

[elwan]

Hi All,

I have a request for setting up a strategy for a blended Inbound and Outbound calls for three of our centres that we are supporting. I'm not really sure how I would go about this one, so I need some guidance from you guys out there.  We already have a Main Strategy for all our Inbound centres (including the three above). The business want to set up a strategy for both inbound and outbound calls. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

[mark]

A few questions:

Are you already doing outbound?
Do you have separate outbound strategies?
Do the strategies really need to be blended? (Personally I prefer to have them separate)

You could have both in one strategy, at the start, use the function GetRoutingPoint[] then do an IF statement on either the inbound or outbound routepoints. Then you can have 2 different sections to the strategy.

[cavagnaro]

Don't forget to configure in the Annex Tab of the Agent Group the progressive_blending_reserved_agents

[elwan]

We do have an outbound centre already. Currently, outbound calls are taken by a separate agent group. They now want the calls to be received by the same agent group. And Inbound calls take priority as well before an outbound call.

[elwan]

[quote author=cavagnaro link=topic=2173.msg7717#msg7717 date=1176732976]
Don't forget to configure in the Annex Tab of the Agent Group the progressive_blending_reserved_agents
[/quote]

What should be the value of this option? and what is it for?

thanks

[mark]

Its how many agents should be reserved to take inbound calls (or other non outbound media). It can be set at either OCS level or agent group / place group level (annex tab).

If you want more outbound calls then set it low, if you want to prioritise inbound calls you should set this higher.
I think that this will only work in progressive mode.

Mark

[elwan]

[quote author=mark link=topic=2173.msg7740#msg7740 date=1176807226]
Its how many agents should be reserved to take inbound calls (or other non outbound media). It can be set at either OCS level or agent group / place group level (annex tab).
[/quote]

the problem with this option is if we have a small pool of agents, say 5 people logged in at 8 am. Then at 8 am as well an outbound campaign is loaded. So if we set the option to 5, no one would be taking outbound calls, even though they are available (but correct me if i'm wrong). But if we set it to zero, inbound calls would be waiting to be answered as soon as an outbound call finishes.

is there a way that we could prioritize inbound calls against outbound calls, like setting the a high priority of inbound calls? how about calculating the MaxReady statistic of the agents before targetting the agent for inbound or outbound?

thanks for all your help guys...

[victor]

I have not done it for a while, so if there is a better way out there, please tell me!

Here is what I would do regarding queuing the inbound and outbound calls:

1. create a strategy that would automatically increase priority of any calls entering by 1 per minute
2. look at calltype and if the call is outbound then make the calls priority 10. If inbound, make the calls priority 1
3. queue them targeting the same agents

so, this way, if you have inbound call in queue, it would be targetting the next available agent. first minute, it priority would be one, second minute it would be 2, and so on... If the outbound call happens to enter this strategy during the first 10 minutes, it will be placed in front of the currently holding queue. The cool thing is that if queued inbound call is waiting for more than 10 minutes, then the next outbound call would be placed after the inbound call. In other words, you would be able to ensure that the inbound calls get moved too.

Needless to say, 10 minutes is just an example. I guess, 3 minutes is probably what most of you would use.


This would prioritize the outbound calls, of course. You can reverse the logic to prioritize the inbound calls, of course.

[elwan]

Our outbound is managed by an OCS and CPD using an ASM mode(not supported by our team). I'm not sure if i can queue an outbound call to a virtual queue? 

I created a design, please see the attached file, and please comment if this would work in regards to prioritization of Inbound calls versus outbound calls.

Thanks again.

[mark]

[quote author=elwan link=topic=2173.msg7746#msg7746 date=1176873969]
Our outbound is managed by an OCS and CPD using an ASM mode(not supported by our team). I'm not sure if i can queue an outbound call to a virtual queue? 

I created a design, please see the attached file, and please comment if this would work in regards to prioritization of Inbound calls versus outbound calls.

Thanks again.
[/quote]

elwan, where are your call centres?
If they are in the UK, it would be worth remembering that you should only drop a certain percentage of calls, any more than this and OFCOM will start slapping wrists.

Would it not be better to not dial if there are no agents available, rather than dial then find out that none are available?

If you do not create availability for the outbound calls, then you should never take an outbound call, given that contact centres like to work at an agreed SLA rather than above it (having a higher service level than targetted would mean unproductive time for the agents, which means money being paid that should'nt be on staffing levels).

using the progressive_blending_agents option allows you to create an acceptable level of availability to take outbound calls.

Which mode of dialling do you use?
Do you normally dial outbound at 8am? (I am guessing that response rate must be low at this time if you do).

Mark

[victor]

Ooops, I assumed that you had a URS, because you are talking about a call-blending.
With URS, you can handle the calls both outbound and inbound.
Since you are using CPD, you have to specify where the outbound call is routed to after it is established, right?
So, just specify Target DN as the routing point where this strategy is running on.

[cavagnaro]

But he must have URS, otherwise how calls are delivered to the agents? The OCS reads info about this Destination Transfer in order to start a campaign, so Genesys must handle it.

[elwan]

Is it possible to know if there are available agents before dialing in?
Using URS, I can use SData to know if there are available agents. But the business wants, Inbound calls should take priority before doing an outbound call. And if there are available agents and no Inbound calls, then they can do outbound. I am only familiar with URS for my team is responsible with it.

Thanks.

[cavagnaro]

When you start the campaign OCs will see if logged agents are in and if the progressive_blending_reserved_agents is true. Example, 1 agent loggen in progressive_blending_reserved_agents = 1, this agent is reserved for Non Outbound actions, only on progressive dialing. Once a second agent login as logged agents > progressive_blending_reserved_agents then Outbound campaign will start dialing.

[elwan]

Do the agents need to login to their outbound queue or they just need to login as per normal inbound queue? The outbound routepoints are configured and URS are able to distinguish the calls from here.

Thanks.