IP Telephony configuration

Voice menu (IVR)

Each time you dial the phone number of different kinds of organizations, you hear a pleasant voice of a woman or man, which helps you navigate the structure of the company, tells you what number you need to click to contact an employee, or offers to wait for the response of the manager. Pleasant music usually plays while waiting.

This is the voice menu or IVR (Interactive Voice Response). In addition to its main function - reducing the load on the telephone line and increasing the productivity of operators - IVR has another, no less important task: it is the formation of the status of the company. The situation on the modern market is such that the non-trivial voice menu can become a "chip" that distinguishes you from your competitors in a good way. The cost of this service in our company "TechnoSystemService" costs 60$.

Main types of voice menus. Usually it is possible to allocate the voice menu of three types:

1. Simply the voice menu consisting of a greeting: "Hello! Thanks for calling TechnoSystemService Company. Please stay on the line until the manager answers."

2. Voice menu with the possibility of dialing an internal number: The caller is offered to enter the internal number of the desired subscriber: "Hello! Thanks for calling TechnoSystemService Company. If you know the internal number of the employee, dial it in the tone mode. Or stay on the line until and our manager will answer shortly."

3. Interactive voice menu (IVR): You can extend the functionality of the voice menu beyond the informative part by offering the client to connect it with the department of interest: "Hello! Thanks for calling TechnoSystemService Company. If you know the internal number of the employee, dial it in the tone mode. To connect: With technical support - press 1; With sales - press 2; With accounting - press 3; If you want to send a fax - press 4; Or stay on the line and our manager will answer shortly.".

Recommendations for voice menu (IVR) compilation and recording. In order for voice mail to be most effective, certain simple rules must be followed:
1. Voice recording should be done in a recording studio by a person with a professional background, and amateur recording will not add to your company's credibility.
2. Conduct a target audience analysis of your company: if your main client is a man, you will be more productive if the call is answered by a pleasant female voice. The same can be said about the opposite situation.
3. It is better if the IVR contains the necessary information, but still remains short: a long wait is a bad tone in communication with the client.
4. Even if you think that your IVR is ideal, do an evaluation test for it: you need the opinion of people outside your company for an unbiased evaluation.

Voice mail

Another important point to improve the functionality of your company's telephone system is the use of voice mail (Voice Mail). Voice mail records all incoming calls, even if the caller is currently unavailable or unable to answer. The service reproduces the recorded greeting and offers to leave a message, which the subscriber can listen to at a convenient time for him/her.

If voice mail and IVR work in tandem, there is a possibility to process the calls which have arrived when possibility to answer a call was not present (non-working time, the subscriber is occupied, the subscriber is not present etc.). Service Asterisk will inform on that reason on which it is impossible to accept a call now and will execute readdressing on vocal mail, for example: "Hello! You are welcomed by TechnoSystemService. Now we cannot answer you, you have called in non-working hours. We work from Monday to Friday from 8:00 to 20:00. Leave your message after the tone and we will call you back. Thank you for your call!

In order to listen to the received messages, which will be in the so-called Mailbox, you need to enter an additional number or press the indicator button on your phone (it automatically lights up when an incoming message). After connection with the service and authentication you can enter the mail, which can be controlled by means of the voice menu. The advantages of this system are that it works around the clock and has no limits on the number of incoming calls or subscribers.

Call routing

Asterisk is responsible for the distribution of incoming and outgoing calls and access to corporate telephone system services. Call processing is influenced by factors such as time, requested services, subscriber availability, etc. The router's function is to regulate calls and reduce waiting times during incoming calls.

Base number of Asterisk allows you to create routing rules:

1. By the policy of your organization's policy there has to be decision on the possibility of long-distance and international calls.
2. First of all, the incoming calls form clients come to the customer service department and are processed by the CRM-system (Customer Relationship Management - software for organizations, designed to automate customer interaction strategies).
3. If an employee is currently absent from the workplace for any reason, an incoming call can be forwarded to the employee's mobile phone.
4. If an employee is currently absent from the workplace for any reason, an incoming call can be forwarded to the employee's mobile phone.
5. If an employee is currently absent from the workplace for any reason, an incoming call can be forwarded to the employee's mobile phone.

Call recording

The system of recording and listening to conversations on the Asterisk PBX of course has a number of advantages:

1. Reducing the company's costs of telephone calls, on average, by 50%.
2. Improvement of the work quality of employees: that in the long run, affects the work of the company as a whole.
3. Ability to evaluate telephone conversations: analysis of errors and sharpening the level of effective telephone calls.
4. Recording of telephone conversations in order to prevent or resolve conflict situations, control the execution of orders by employees of your company.
5. Protection of business from information leakage.
6. Protection of business from information leakage.

The last point is related to the possibility of storing a large amount of information and the system of convenient navigation through this database, as well as implementing protection system to the existing records. In addition, the service should be able to connect to all telephone channels and record them around the clock with the function of listening in real time.

Integration with CRM

Multifunctional CRM systems — is a productive marketing tool that allows you to optimize the process of working with data, automate customer calls and SMS-mailing. CRM-system performs important functions for work with clients. It is responsible for the following tasks:

1. Keeps records of people, preliminary contacts and organizations.

2. Synchronizes the overall company calendar.

3. Records customer requests, events and orders.

4. Responsible for the storage of documents, knowledge base.

5. Conducts work with e-mail and e-mail newsletters.

Call queues.

Conference call

Service Asterisk also helps in organization of conference calls, which can be useful in situations where the callers are in geographically different locations (such as in different cities) or in different offices of the same company. Conference call is a convenient system that allows you to connect calls from different locations in one. To participate in a teleconference, you need to call a certain extension number where the service is located and enter the number of your conference.

Return call

The service system is as follows: IP PBX Asterisk server and GSM gateway are installed, through which calls are routed. In GSM gateway in advance SIM-cards of various communication operators are inserted, with the chosen company rate plans. After this manipulation the GSM gateway becomes a standard mobile subscriber for the GSM network.

How the service works: an incoming call from a mobile phone arrives at the GSM gateway, the system recognizes the incoming number, and then interrupts the call. Reset automatically starts an outgoing call to the same number, determining the cheapest rate in the GSM gateway for this call. Using an internal number or access code to city lines, the caller can be connected to the right person or connect to any city number at interconnection or corporate rates. Incoming number can be automatically determined by the system (the so-called administrative callback) or requested (the subscriber indicates his number or the number to which he needs to call, and then he receives a call) - it depends on the settings of each particular provider.

The service has one important advantage: Minimize the cost of company phone calls, unifying them into a single corporate account.

The convenience of the service is also that it sets the optimal settings, depending on the situation, it is quite simply built into the existing office PBX, at the same time can be made an infinite number of outgoing calls, which is impossible with the usual outgoing call.

Also, within the IP-PBX Asterisk there is a certain set of variations, because each specific connection will be established by the secretary to a specific subscriber, if it is not in place or he does not answer, the call will be transferred to the voice mailbox.

Call accounting

Each company working with telephone calls should have a certain system of call accounting (information about callers, duration of calls, etc.), which allows you to effectively allocate money to corporate telephony and analyze the effectiveness of the telephone system. The statistics is available in a standard CDR format, which makes it possible to use Excel for its processing. You can store it in MySQL or send CDR records to a RADIUS server.

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