Week 12 (21-25 JUNE 2010 )

This week, the same work as last week continued. However, this week my team and I did beta testing. All the procedures beforehand is to prepare for this beta testing. Once the configuration in the Superceed Virtual Contact Center was completed, we did test calls to test weather the call flow, agent attributes, VCC configuration, knowledge base attachments are in proper condition.

This beta testing involves real contact center environment as we were to deal with real customers of the company's product. We assigned each other with certain specifications. For example, I will be in charge of customers who require agents to speak in English, specialized in Sales and Marketing. Meanwhile, other agent will be in charge of other specification.

Through this experience, I am able to know on how to handle if there is an error in configuring and also troubleshooting the system. However, programming the system will be handled by the programmers only. My job is to do research on it and also test it out in case there is any error need to be recovered. 

On the other hand, this week I had a meeting with a supervisor from MDEC. MDEC is the company that recommended me to my current company. I will be obtaining a certificate from MDEC upon completion of my internship.

Week 11 (14-18 JUNE 2010)

Starting of the week, I had another meeting with my boss Mr. Jeffrey. This meeting is regarding the follow-up work from the week before. We were asked to construct a more detailed call flow with more sub-category. Again we were briefed about the call flow, Superceed IVR, Call distribution Strategy.

We had to anticipate Q & As for Phone Explanation and create a call flow option branching out from Press 1 for Sales and Press x for Customer Service that will provide automated explanation users.e.g. Press 1 for Sales > Press 4 for frequently asked questions.

Press 1 on how to signup

Press 2 on how to make a payment

Press 3 on activation process

.

.

.

Press 9

The key here is to create another option named : "AUTOMATED GUIDE" where it will be useful for customers who calls after office hours. In this automated guide options, the frequently asked questions (FAQ) will be listed together with the answers as well.

After creating those questions, again I converted the text using text-to-speech and also used my own voice in creating the speech in BAHASA MELAYU. This is because the TTS software for bahasa that is available is not up to standard of today's world. The same process of attaching these speeches into the system and creating a call flow continues.

Some of the examples of FAQ :

How to qualify as a reseller?

Sign up as a Member for Package B for 6 months, subscribe to UNICEED Network Builder Tools @ USD 19.99 per month

What is private label opportunity?

Enable you to brand the powerful capabilities of UNICEED according to your own private label by running a high potential Unified Communications business. Market the services and get the reward.

Other than that, I had to create the CAT and SUBCAT for the overall call flow. This cat and subcat is very important because it shows the attributes of the available agents in the contact centre.

Example :

Once I am done with the agent profile, entry of agent attributes into manager admin panel was done. His registration was done in the Superceed Virtual Contact Centre website which would be www.superceed.com/vcc/inbound. Each agent will have their own profile. In this profile, each agent’s attributes will be listed. For example :

Agent A : Language spoken : English, Malay, Tamil

Specialised on : Marketing, Technical Assistance

Agent B : Language spoken : English, Malay, Mandarin

Specialised on : Billing, Marketing.

This registration can be done using this steps :

1. Click on "Supervisor/Agent"

2. Click on "Add New"

3. Create the agent profile K1, K2, K3 etc

Figure : List of registered agents using Superceed.com

Figure : Attributes of the agents. Each agents will be specialized in something.

Week 10(7 - 11 JUNE 2010)

Starting of this week, my colleagues and I had a meeting with my boss, Mr.Jeffrey. The meeting was intended to explain to us further about the beta testing and what other procedures needs to be taken care of before that. Below are the topics that have been covered in the meeting :

CONTACT CENTER

1. The earlier virtual contact center, UNICEED is a smaller scale of a contact center.

2. SUPERCEED is a larger scale contact center. (www.superceed.com/vcc/inbound)

CALLS

1. Call Queue : to offer customer the best waiting time possible

2. Call Distribution Strategy : a) supervise talk time (average 3 min)

                                        b) supervise the etiquette of agents

PREMISE-BASED CONTACT CENTER : Home agents ==> working from home

                                                                       ==> new concept in Malaysia.

CALL ROUTING STRATEGIES

1. Lowest talk time : next available agents

2. Fewest received calls

3. Last agent : customer calls back to the last agent they called.

4. Round Robin : a) With memory : If the queue of agents that answered the call stops halfway due to an error, when the system recovers, the calls directed to where it stops.                 

                       b) Without memory : If the queue of agents that answered the call stop halfway due to an error, when the system recovers, the calls are not directed to where it stops.

For VCC, each agent will have the specialized services. For example, Press 1  for English, press 2  for Malay and so on. Each agent will be categorized according to their specialty in certain topics and so on. 

All the configuring can be done in SUPERCEED VCC. Information such as number of supervisors, the time of working and etc. If the configuration id successful, i will be able to see a pop up on the screen stating that the process of registration is successful.

At the end of the meeting we were asked to design a call flow for the UNICEED product. This call flow then will be converted to voice using the TTS software. Other than that, we were also asked to work as a team to create possible Q&A for this product. the call flow and the Q&A should consist of details such as the preferable language, department and also other related items. 

Using the this information on SUPERCEED vcc contact center, I should be able o do the beta testing in the coming weeks.

Figure : Virtual Contact Center SUPERCEED

Week 9 (31 MAY- 4 JUNE 2010)

This week my colleagues and I was asked to prepare for beta testing that will be carried out in the coming weeks. This is important as it involves active participation in real contact center environment. This beta testing will cover topics on :

1) Canned Responses

Industries

a) Government

b) Telcos

c) Finance

2) Customer Service

3) Supervisory Skills 

Preparation for the beta testing involves finding information on inbound and also on outbound. Other than that, each of us were given a task to tackle a call script. A call script consists of Q & A designed anticipate questions from the caller, and what answers could be provided to each of the anticipated question. 

I was assigned with the MINISTRY OF DOMESTIC TRADE, CO-OPERATIVE AND CONSUMERISM. I was asked to find 30 QnA that involves this MINISTRY.

To prepare 10 Q & As touching on General Enquiries

To prepare 10 Q & As touching on Customer Service

To prepare 10 Q & As touching on Billing

Later on the same week, I was asked to find the details on 50 companies in North Tower, South Tower and also in The Boulevard. The details are like the address, URL, contact person and so on. After I am done with that, I was asked to find 50 more companies that is located in KL Sentral.

Week 8 (24-28 MAY 2010)

The erlang is a unit of traffic density in a telecommunications system. One erlang is the equivalent of one call (including call attempts and holding time) in a specific channel for 3600 seconds in an hour. The 3600 seconds need not be, and generally are not, in a contiguous block.

In digital telecommunications, the voice signals are compressed. This makes it possible for one channel to carry numerous calls simultaneously by means of multiplexing. In theory, there are many ways in which a channel can carry a certain number of erlangs. For example, a traffic density of 3 erlangs can consist of three simultaneous calls, each lasting for an hour (a total of 10,800 seconds); it can consist of six calls, each of which are allocated 30 minutes (1800 seconds) of time during the hour; it might consist of 180 calls, each of which occupy one minute (60 seconds) of time during an hour.

Smaller units of traffic density are sometimes used. The hundred or centum call second or CCS is the equivalent of one call for 100 seconds out of an hour. A traffic density of 1 CCS is equal to 1/36 erlang. An erlang can be applied to the group of lines in a telephone trunk line or to the traffic in a telephone call center.

The term is named after the Danish telephone engineer, A. K. Erlang, the originator of queueing theory.

So this week, I was assigned to do research on ERLANG. There are many types of Erlang, however, I was asked to to find more details on Eralng A, Erlang C and also Erlang B. Other than that, I was also asked to find the spreadsheet for these Erlangs and their respective formula in telecommunication field.

 

 ERLANG A

Palm introduced a simple (tractable) way to model abandonment. He suggested enriching Erlang-C (M/M/n) in the following manner. Associated with each arriving caller there is an exponentially distributed patience time with mean a-1. An arriving customer encounters an offered waiting time, which is defined as the time that this customer would have to wait given that her or his patience is infinite. If the offered wait exceeds the customer’s patience time, the call is then abandoned, otherwise the customer awaits service. The patience parameter a will be referred to as the individual abandonment rate.

In call centers, Erlang-A is used, or should be used, to support solutions of the staffing problem, namely: how many agents should be answering calls during a specified time period. Typically, the goal is to provide a satisfactory service level (for example, fraction abandoning less than 3%), but sometimes one optimizes an economic measure - minimize cost or maximize revenues.

There are certain parameters that are important in Erlang A :

1. Arrival : Arrivals of incoming calls are typically assumed Poisson, with time-varying arrival rates. The goal is to estimate/predict these arrival rates, over short time-intervals (15, 30 minutes or one hour), chosen so that the rates are approximately constant during an interval. Then the time-homogeneous model is applied separately over each such interval.

2. Service : Service durations are assumed exponential. Average service times tend to be relatively stable from day to day. In practice, service consists of several phases, mainly talk time, wrap-up time (after-call work), and what is sometimes referred to as auxiliary time. An easier-to-grasp notion is thus “idle-time”, namely the time that an agent is immediately accessible for service.

3. Number of Agents

4. Patience

ERLANG C

Erlang C is a traffic modeling formula used in call center scheduling to calculate delays or predict waiting times for callers. Erlang C bases its formula on three factors: the number of reps providing service; the number of callers waiting; and the average amount of time it takes to serve each caller. Erlang C can also calculate the resources that will be needed to keep wait times within the call center's target limits. This method assumes that there are no lost calls or busy signals, and therefore may overestimate the staff that is required.

Figure : Erlang C Traffic System

Clearly some of the assumptions of the Erlang C model are not true for a call center. For example, there are only a finite number of trunks, hence only a finite number of places where calls can be parked while waiting for service. But, if the number of trunks is quite large, then as a practical matter, there may be no situation when all trunks are busy, hence the assumption of infinitely many waiting positions might "almost" be true. Similarly, the assumptions of Poisson arrivals and exponential service times will not hold exactly. Nevertheless, experience over many decades has shown that using the Erlang C model can give helpful insights into the operation of agent groups in call centers, provided that

(1) there are a large number of trunks (hence many waiting slots),

(2) the assumptions of Poisson arrivals and exponential service times are approximately correct over the period being studied,

(3) waiting calls are handled first-come-first-served.

Figure : Calculation formula for Erlang C

 

Figure : Spreadsheet for Erlang C

ERLANG B

Erlang B is a modeling formula that is widely used in call center scheduling. The formula can be used to calculate any one of the following three factors if you know or predict the other two:

• Busy Hour Traffic (BHT): the number of hours of call traffic during the busiest hour of operation

• Blocking: the percentage of calls that are blocked because not enough lines are available

• Lines: the number of lines in a trunk group.

Erlang B can determine the number of trunks, or lines, needed to handle a calling load during a one-hour period. However, the formula assumes that lost calls are cleared; i.e., if callers get a busy signal, they will never retry. This assumption means that Erlang B can underestimate the number of trunks needed. For this reason, it is best used in situations with few busy signals. The Erlang B Extended formula takes into account the callers who will immediately retry if their calls do not go through.

Figure : Erlang B Traffic System

Generations of telephone engineers have successfully used the Erlang B model to predict blockage in telephone trunk groups, despite the fact that no telephone trunk group exactly matches the assumptions of Erlang B. Perhaps the most questionable assumption is that when a caller is blocked (i.e., finds all trunks busy), the customer then goes away, never to return. If there is a lot of blocked, customers start a cycle of re-calling in order try to get through, then the assumption of Poisson arrivals will fail. (Agner Erlang himself dealt with re-calling by using the Erlang C model. He imagined that re-calling customers were placing themselves in a virtual waiting queue.)

Figure : Calculation Formula for Erlang B

Figure : Spreadsheet of Erlang B

Week 7(17-21 MAY 2010)

This week I was assigned to find the Contact Center vendors (Premise-based) and also Contact Center vendors (Hosted). I was asked to find the details such as:

• the product's name
• the best virtual person
• URL of the product's website
• features of the product
• and also the product summary

Premise-based Call Center Technology Historically, call center have been built on PBX equipment that is owned and hosted by the call center operator. The PBX might provide functions such as Automatic Call Distribution, Interactive Voice Response, and skills-based routing. The call center operator would be responsible for the maintenance of the equipment and necessary software upgrades as released by the vendor.

Some of the companies for this category are :

1. eON Communication
2. Stratasoft
3. Vertical Networks
4. APEX Voice Communications
5. Avaya
6. Cantata
7. ClickFox
8. Spoken
9. Prosodie
10. Convergys

Hosted Call Centre are those which we do not need
to buy, just need to subscribe like the one we tested with UNICEED product.

Some of the findings are as below :

1. West Corporation
2. Voxify
3. Voxeo
4. Volt Delta
5. SoundBite
6. Resolvity
7. CSG Systems
8. Microsoft
9. Message Technologies Inc.
10. LiveVox

Week 6 (10-14 MAY 2010)

This week my research continues on Text-To-Speech Plug Ins, Speech-To-Text Plug Ins and also Predictive Dialing. Other than that, I also did some researxh on TTS and STT Plug Ins using Asterisk. The main reason of this task is to find and survey the prospective products that can be used by our companies. It is also purposed to survey the price and usage of these products and determine the benefits of this product for the company.

TEXT-TO-SPEECH (TTS) SOFTWARE

Text-to-speech (TTS) is a type of speech synthesis application that is used to create a spoken sound version of the text in a computer document, such as a help file or a Web page. TTS can enable the reading of computer display information for the visually challenged person, or may simply be used to augment the reading of a text message. Current TTS applications include voice-enabled e-mail and spoken prompts in voice response systems. TTS is often used with voice recognition programs. There are numerous TTS products available, including Read Please 2000, Proverbe Speech Unit, and Next Up Technology's TextAloud. Lucent, Elan, and AT&T each have products called "Text-to-Speech."

In addition to TTS software, a number of vendors offer products involving hardware, including the Quick Link Pen from WizCom Technologies, a pen-shaped device that can scan and read words; the Road Runner from Ostrich Software, a handheld device that reads ASCII text; and DecTalk TTS from Digital Equipment, an external hardware device that substitutes for a sound card and which includes an internal software device that works in conjunction with the PC's own sound card.

Figure : Demo of TTS that provides visual.

This TTS can be found using this URl : http://vhss-d.oddcast.com/admin/sitepalV5.php.

TTS are normally used to read out from a text. It can be used to read text from a Word file, Powerpoint file or even Excel file. IT is very useful from who are difficulties in seeing and so on. However, in the context of my company, TTS is used to create human like voices to be used as operator person whenever you call a company.

My job is to edit these voices using the WAVEPAD EDITOR software that we have learnt from week 1 of my industrial training. Certain TTs does not provide the exact voice that we wanted. This is why we can use the wavepad editor to change the pitching, amplitude and other elements of the voice. Using this editor, I am allowed to attach or detach certain voices to or from each other.

Figure : Process that involved in TTS

SPEECH-TO-TEXT (STT) SOFTWARE

Ability of computer systems to accept speech input and act on it or transcribe it into written language. Current research efforts are directed toward applications of automatic speech recognition (ASR), where the goal is to transform the content of speech into knowledge that forms the basis for linguistic or cognitive tasks, such as translation into another language. Practical applications include database-query system information retrieval systems, and speaker identification and verification systems, as in telebanking. Speech recognition has promising applications in robotics, particularly development of robots that can “hear.”

However, in my company we seldom use this software as the process of my work does not involve this software. this software is not widely used although its beneficial to people who are unable to write or to make it easier for deaf people to understand certain conversation to be in back and white copy..!!!

Figure : The process of changing speech-to-text.

Figure : Application on STT

PREDICTIVE DIALING

A predictive dialer is a telephone control system that automatically calls a list of telephone numbers in sequence, screening out no-answers, busy signals, answering machines and disconnected numbers while predicting at what point a human caller will be able to handle the next call. Predictive dialers are commonly used for telemarketing, surveys, appointment confirmation, payment collection and service follow-ups. Sellers of predictive dialer systems claim that they greatly increase caller productivity. The phone calls you receive from "no one there" are often predictive dialer calls in which a manual caller isn't ready yet. Not to be confused with an automatic dialer, a predictive dialer is programmed to predict when a human caller is available to pick up a call. Predictive dialers can also measure the number of available agents, available lines, average handle time and other factors to adjust outbound calls accordingly. This measurement delivers a high level of mathematically efficiency to use in call centers. A related system is a lead generator, which dials a list of telephone numbers and, when a live voice answers, delivers a recorded message.

Figure : Predictive dialing. It will guess which is online at the particular time so that the caller do not have to wait long to get to an agent.

This mode is widely used because it is, without doubt, the most productive for agents. Predictive dialers use historical statistics and sophisticated algorithms to calculate agent availability. Thus, based on past trends, the solution will know exactly how many dialing attempts and how much time are required to reach a live contact, as well as exactly when an agent will become available to take that next outbound call. Therefore, the dialer can start dialing to reach the next available customer/prospect even before an agent becomes available and connect this live contact as soon as or shortly after an agent becomes available. Since the predictive algorithm analyses a number of factors, including the number of available telephone lines and agents and the probability of a call not being completed (e.g., busy signal, no answer, etc.), it becomes impossible to establish a "magic" rule to determine the number of agents required for the planning algorithms of the predictive mode to select the perfect rhythm. However, a dynamic rule can be constructed according to three closely linked criteria; in order of importance, these are:

• call length
• length of after-call wrap-up
• the number of agents for one campaign and its sublists

When properly used, predictive dialing can have a dramatic effect in the contact center. Normally, the busy rate for agents between manual and predictive modes increases by 30% to 60%.

Figure : Difference between wait time and talk time using predictive dialing and also manual dialing.

Week 5 (3-7 MAY 2010)

For this week, I was given the R&D task where I was supposed to research on three topics that would be Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) , Call Queue System and a little research in the product that uses this system such as AVAYA, GENESYS, CISCO and so on.

Call Queue System

Queues consist of :

• Incoming calls being placed in the queue.

• Members that answer the queue (extensions or users that login as agents).

• A strategy for how to handle the queue and divide calls between members.

• Music played while waiting in the queue.

• Announcements for members and callers.

In Asterisk, queues are defined in queues.conf or in dynamic real-time. The latter allow storing queue configuration in a database so that changes are immediately available for new callers without the need for an explicit reload.

• Agents are the people (or person) that answers call(s) that have been placed into a specific Queue. An agent logs in indicating that s/he is now ready to take calls. Asterisk transfers an inbound call to a queue, which is then in turn transferred to an available agent.
• Members are those channels that are active answering the Queue. It can be agents or normal channels, like "sip/snom23"

Figure : Call Queue System

Usually, a call queue works as below:

§ Calls are queued

§ Agents answer the queue (logged in agents)

§ A queuing strategy to distribute the calls is used.

§ Music on hold is played while the caller waits.

§ Announcements can be made to callers, warning about waiting time.

What are Advanced Call Queue and Group Functions?

Traditional telephone systems either return a busy tone or direct the call to a voice mailbox when the intended recipient does not pick up. Advanced call queue and group functions in VoIP PBX systems will receive the call and put it on queue until the intended recipient is able to take the call. While waiting, the caller is told the queue status of their call, how many callers there are ahead of them or an estimated number of minutes before their call can be answered.

Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)

• Automatic Call Distributor (ACD), also known as Automated Call Distribution, is a deviceor system that distributes incoming calls to a specific group of terminals that agents use. It is often part of a computer telephony integration (CTI) system.

• Automatic Call Distributor: A computerized phone system that responds to the caller with a voice menu and connects the call to the appropriate agent. It can also distribute calls equally to agents. ACDs are the heart of call centers, or contact centers, which are widely used in the telephone sales and service departments of all organizations.

How It Works?

The system consists of hardware for the terminals and switches, phone lines, and software for the routing strategy. The routing strategy is a rule-based set of instructions that tells the ACD how calls are handled inside the system. Typically this is an algorithm that determines the best available employee or employees to respond to a given incoming call. To help make this match, additional data are solicited and reviewed to find out why the customer is calling. Sometimes the caller'scaller Id or ANI is used; more often a simple Interactive Voice Response is used to ascertain the reason for the call.

There are several stages to consider with an ACD system :

1. The system architecture and how calls are handled by the system and controlling software.

2. The decision processes of the controlling software

3. The real time management of the system

4. The management reporting system.

5. Making the system failsafe.

GENESYS

Genesys Interactive Insights is a Web-based query and reporting application that provides a complete business-oriented view, based on role, for contact center managers, business users, supervisors, and agents. These users can measure past interactions in their own terms and collaborate to improve performance using common reports. Interactive Insights draws on the data stored in Genesys Info Mart, which contains complete customer interaction and contact center agent details across all media types. This contact center reporting tool can also capture data outside the contact center, for visibility into previously “untrackable” business activities and processes.

AVAYA

Avaya Contact Centre Express is a multi-channel, high-volume software solution designed specifically for the Intelligent Routing and Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) needs of medium-sized Contact Centres.

CISCO

Cisco Unified CME B-ACD provides automatic answering and call distribution for calls through the use of interactive menus and local hunt groups. Each Cisco Unified CME B-ACD application consists of one or more auto-attendant (AA) services and one call-queue service.