Phone Panel Open Line
Open Line is designed to increase your effectiveness as an Agent when high call volumes require the minimum amount of time between calls. When you are using the Open Line feature, you will not hang up your phone in between calls. Instead, your telephone line will remain open as Cloud Contact Center Platform sends calls to you.
Your telephone will not ring when you are using Open Line. Instead, you will hear an audio tone announcing an incoming call. When the call ends you will hear another tone letting you know the caller has disconnected. DO NOT HANG UP YOUR PHONE. The next call will arrive momentarily. You will hear a prompt between call reminding you to stay on the line.
Open Line Tones | ||
Hear the incoming call tone: | Hear the call ending tone: |
Initiating an Open Line Session
There are two ways to initiate an Open Line session, depending on the Line Group for which you will be taking calls in any given My Schedule block. For typical in-bound calls follow the instructions below. For Line Groups using "Presence Pod" technology, such as Political Outbound, see the special instructions for Presence Pod calls:
Figure 10-1: Open Line Link
Figure 10-1: Open Line Active Message
Instructions for Presence Pod Calls
What is a Presence Pod?
Some types of Campaigns place higher demands on the Contact Center platform than others. In particular, outbound Campaigns and Campaigns with potentially large or "spiky" call volumes can require dedicated system resources to ensure proper service levels. "Presence Pods" provide this by grouping all of the required platform services into dedicated units, or "pods."
Presence Pods exist "behind the scenes;" Agents generally need not be concerned with whether the calls they take are part of a dedicated pod or part of the general system. Open Line is the one Agent feature affected by Presence Pods.
If you are scheduled to take calls for a Presence Pod block and Open Line is required, you must initiate Open Line using the Phone Panel:
Figure 10-2: Start Open Line dialog
Taking Open Line Calls
While you are connected to Open Line, calls will be automatically routed to you, just as if you were handling regular (non-Open Line) calls. The only difference is your phone will not ring and you must not hang up your phone until you are finished with your scheduled block. Again, incoming calls are announced with a tone. A call's end is announced with a second tone. You can hear these tones by clicking on the audio controls in the feature box above.
Hanging Up on an Open Line Call
If for some reason you need to disconnect from a call in progress, but want to keep your Open Line session active, use the Hang Up button in the Phone Panel.
Using Last Call: Ending an Open Line Session
Figure 10-3: Last Call Button
When you want to terminate your Open Line session, use the Last Call button in your Phone Panel. Clicking the Last Call button signals Phone Panel that you want the call you are currently on to be your last call. Once the current call is finished, no more calls will be sent to you and you can safely hang up your phone.