Outbound Reservation Call -- When does it end if the call doesn't connect?

[Luis Yrigoyen]

Hi,
    I understand that a single reservation call might correspond to multiple customer calls.  ICM finds an agent and it will reserve the agent via the reservation call and then call a customer. If a human answers, it is  transferred to the agent. If an answering machine answers or if it is a no answer or invalid number, etc it is not transferred to the agent but routed to the AMD or Abandoned RPs.

Say I'm running a Transfer-to-Agent campaign in PROGRESSIVE_ONLY (1 line per agent, 4 No answer ring limit) with only 1 agent Ready.
So now I feed the dialer 10 numbers to dial so the agent gets reserved and the first call goes out and is a ring-no-answer (it rung 4 times or about 14 seconds) the dialer moves to the next record. 
Let's say that the next 7 calls are ring-no-answers also.

Does this mean the agent is kept reserved for ~98 secs (7 x 14)?
If this is the case, is there a timer that can be set to reduce this?
Does the Abandon Call Limit control this?

I'm running UCCE 7.5(9)

thanks

[david.macias]

That is correct, the agent does get reserved for that long.  It might not be all at once, like 98 seconds of consistent reservation, but the total reservation time will be around that time.  Is there a reason why you want to change this?  How about not using a progressive campaign or dialing more lines per agent?

david

[Luis Yrigoyen]

But it could be all at once if there's nothing else going on; correct?

The customer wants it 1 to 1, these agents also do inbound and they want to make sure there's always an agent available.

Progressive allows us to set the number of lines per agent.

any suggestions?

[david.macias · Accepted solution]

Assuming there is no inbound call then yes it's back to back.  However, the moment an inbound call arrives it will be received by the next available agent.  If an agent is in the middle of a reservation it will take a few seconds before the inbound call is answered.  This is probably your best way and it maximizes your agent's productivity.

david

[Luis Yrigoyen]

Lets sya the agent belongs to 2 skill groups 1 used for outbound only and the other used for inbound only.

Does the reservation call get canceled when an inbound call is delivered to the agent?

Wouldn't the reservation call set the agent as busy in the inbound skill group?

[david.macias · Accepted solution]

Assuming you only have 1 agent with 2 skill groups (inbound and outbound).  If the dialer places a call and sends a reservation call your agent is now occupied for 14 seconds (per your example).  If within those 14 seconds an inbound call arrives then the agent will receive the inbound call after those 14 seconds pass.  So, your inbound call will be in queue for a max of 14 seconds in a worst case scenario.

david

[Luis Yrigoyen]

thank you

[Luis Yrigoyen]

one more question:

Should I set the outbound skill group to PREGRESSIVE_BLENDED? would this allow for those inbound calls to the other skill group to take precence or this would only affect my outbound skill group?

[david.macias]

That is correct.  Play around with the different dailing mode, it's hard to get a grasp without actually seeing them in an actual system.

david

[Edward Umansky · Accepted solution]

I have dealt with this problem many times before and I can tell you that no, the reservation call will not be dropped until either A) a live customer is transferred to the agent by the dialer or B) the campaign runs out of records and shuts down. So in your example, the agent may indeed be stuck reserved for the full 98 seconds if none of the calls reach a live customer.

Since you are looking to only dial 1 line per agent then there is a nice solution in your case. If you switch to Preview mode, then the reservation call is dropped after every unsuccessful attempt, getting the exact behavior you are looking for. If you don't want to require agents to click the "Accept" button, there is an "AutoAccept" setting you can enable via the dialer registry. The setting is detailed in the outbound user guide.

[Luis Yrigoyen]

Ed,

     Thanks for your reply, I'll give the PREVIEW mode a try to see how it plays out.

thanks

[Luis Yrigoyen]

Ed,

     Currently we're running a campaign in PROGESSIVE_ONLY and I've noticed that the agents don't get wrap-up time after a call.

I've assigned wrap-up time in the Desk Setting they're using but it doesn't happen.

They get reserved then the call connects and as soon as they hang up  they go back to reserve.

Is this how it works?

Is there a setting to change this behavior?

We want so that the agent has some time after each call; somebody in this forum recommended that the agents should go in not-ready mode to prevent new calls.  Is this right?

Also, I checked the Outbound Guide and I couldn't find the AutoAccept registry change, can you let me know which guide did you see it in.

thanks

[Edward Umansky]

Sorry it wasn't in the user guide, but in the release notes: http://www.cisco.com/web/software/280840583/26706/Release_Notes_for_ICM_7.5.5.pdf.

You need to set the wrap-up mode to required to force the agent to enter wrap-up. Make sure the correct agent desk settings are also assigned to the agent.

[fabien.damien]

HI Luis,

where you able to find a solution for wrap up problem using progressive outbound mode?

thanks for the feedback,

regards,

[Luis Yrigoyen]

Yes.  I created an agent desk setting (as recommended by Ed) with "Required" on Work Mode on Outgoing and setting the Wrap up Time to 600 seconds (10 minutes).

What this does is that after the agents hang up on a dialer-outbound call it forces them into "Wrap-up mode" for 10 minutes, preventing them from being reserved right away; the agents can get out of "Wrap up mode" any time by clicking "Making Agent Ready"-- they use the cisco CTIOS Agent Softphone.