Controlling your call state and presence:

An important part of using Cirrus is controlling your call state and your presence. Many users will be familiar with the principle of presence, either from using similar business software, or from consumer products like Facebook Chat, Skype and MSN.

In the case of a Cirrus user, and especially for a Cirrus Call Centre user, you will be a part of a business telecommunications strategy, which your company will have put in place to make sure that your caller’s get a good service level and a great experience. You play a big part in maintaining that service level and the caller’s experience.

Part of a well thought out strategy will be the efficient routing of calls to employees, trying to make sure that workloads are evenly distributed and that everyone gets an opportunity to not only answer calls, but also get breaks from the  phone to do other important tasks like emails.

Most phone systems group users together into what are commonly referred to as hunt groups²¹ . Hunt groups are not a particularly efficient way of managing the routing and delivery of calls, because, in most circumstances, everyone in the hunt group’s phone will ring at the same time, even though there is only one person calling.

This not only serves to distract everyone when only one person needed to be alerted to the call, but it also often results in lower service levels because everyone waits to see if someone else will answer the phone so they don’t have to.

Cirrus and Cirrus work differently. The system has many options for routing calls, and in almost all of them, the system will match a caller to a single operator, thereby overcoming the problems inherent with hunt groups. Cirrus will allow your managers to select from several different rules of how to decide which operator gets the call. The most frequently used of these is Longest Waiting²². Other popular choices are Cyclic²³ and Linear²⁴.

Using an advanced call routing plan like Longest Waiting has many advantages, but it also means that the system needs to know that you are at your desk, and that you are available to take calls.

It would be counter-productive if the system routed a call to one person at a time, only for that person to not be at their desks. All that would happen then is the caller would have to wait longer. It is for this reason that C4Win has Presence and when you are signed in, you have a call state.

Your Presence is simply whether you are logged in to make or receive calls. There are only 2 Presence States, IN and OUT. You cannot make and receive calls when your Presence is OUT, only when you are IN.

When your Presence is IN, you may be able to make and receive calls, but there can be circumstances where it is not desirable to RECEIVE calls. Your Call State not only tells other Cirrus operators whether you are available to take calls, but it also tells Cirrus if it can send you a caller.

The following are all of the Call States states you can be in, together with a brief summary of what it means to be in that state:

• Logged Out:
  Your Presence is set as OUT and you cannot make or receive calls. This is the only Call State where your Presence is Logged Out.
  • Note: All Call States below occur when your Presence is Logged IN.
• Waiting:
  You are waiting for a call. This is the default state for when you have no calls.
• Ringing:
  Your phone is ringing. You are receiving a call.
• In Call:
  You are currently in an inbound Call.
• In Call Outbound:
  You are currently in an outbound call.
• In Wrap:
  Your call has finished, but you are set to have wrap up time at the end of your calls. This is to allow time for completing administration related to the last call before the next call is presented to you.
• Break:
  You are on a break, away from your desk. Break Presence states are normally followed by a message like “Comfort Break”, or “Lunch”.
• In Busy:
  You are Busy, at your desk. Busy Presence states are normally followed by a message like “Emails” or “Admin”.
• AWOL:
  You have over run the allotted time for your Break or Busy.
• Engaged – Not one of our Calls:
  There is a fault with your Cirrus. Please Sign Out and then Sign In again.

Some of these states are set by Call control for you when it delivers or receives calls from you, and some of these states are set by you. Specifically, the Break and Busy states are extremely important and you will need to manage your Call State with these 2 options very carefully. Your managers will have decided what categories of Breaks and Busy are available to you.

Please always select the relevant one and make sure that you click ‘Start Break’ or ‘Busy’.

4.3) Changing your Presence:   You can change your presence from Logged Out to Logged In and vice versa using these buttons:
4.4) Call State Control – Setting Break / Busy Click anywhere on the drop down box and you will see the list of available Break and Busy Call States that you can select.           Select the State you want from the list and click the Start Break button (note, If you choose a Busy State, the button will say “Busy”).           When you are in a Break / Busy state, your Presence Widget will look similar to the one on the Right.
4.5) Presence Control – Ending Break / Busy There are 2 ways that Breaks/Busy States will end The allocated time for the State you selected will expire. if this happens, one of 2 things could take place: Your States will be changed to AWOL. other users will be alerted to this by the operator List widget. it may even be shown on a wallboard. If you were in a Busy State, you may simply be returned to waiting, because busy statesassumes that you are at your desk. it is extremely important not to leave your desk without being first in a BREAK State. You can click the ready for call buton shown on the right
4.6) Presence Control – Wrap Time:   4.7) Presence Control – Wrap Time:
Correct use of the Presence Control Widget can have excellent results on Service Levels. Using a Longest Waiting routing method combined with Wrap-Up and effective Call state management, we have seen SLA’s improve by as much as 15% vs. pre deployment levels.