ASAI and Supported Applications
Sample Applications
The sample applications in the following section provide a practical, “real world” illustration of ASAI capabilities.
NOTE:
The applications described in this section are not restricted to any particular configuration described in this section, nor are they mutually exclusive. Any configuration and group of applications can be used simultaneously. The ECS does not restrict any mix of applications, except as dictated by capacity and performance constraints. For information on ASAI capacity limits, see Appendix B, ‘‘ASAI and Release 6 Requirements.’’
In addition, the ASAI interface provided by the ECS is not the only system component that might be needed to provide these applications. For example, additional hardware (computer data terminals, voice response units, call classifier boards) and/or software (application interface, call vectoring) might be needed. The ASAI interface only provides the communication link to access the ECS services that make these applications possible.
Outbound Call Management
A good example of Outbound Call Management (OCM) is an Outbound Telephone Support Center Application. An Outbound Telephone Support Center Application automatically generates outbound calls that are to be handled by a specified user community (agent pool).
Outbound applications fall into two categories:
Preview Dialing — The agent or user previews a screen of data pertaining to the call and enters information into the system when ready to make the call. Preview dialing allows an agent or user to control when the outbound call is started, enabling the user to prepare for a conversation with the called party.
Predictive Dialing — The adjunct application makes more outbound calls than there are agents. Statistically, a certain number of calls will go unanswered, will be busy, will go to intercept, or will be answered by an answering machine, etc. The system connects agents only with answered calls. With the answering machine detection option, the system can be set up to connect agents only when a call is answered by a person rather than an answering machine. Predictive dialing makes more efficient use of an agent pool by eliminating dialing time, listening to ringing, etc.
The following sample scenarios illustrate the operation of Preview Dialing and Predictive Dialing.
Issue 7 May 1998
