[Asterisk-Users] Asterisk as plain PABX in call centre

[jurgen]

Hi all,

I've been lurking here and reading the Wiki for a month or so now,
getting information on the suitability of Asterisk for my
installation.

I'm responsible for the technical stuff at a mostly-inbound call
centre in Melbourne, Australia. Due to our rapid expansion, it's
getting close to the time to put our old beloved Fujitsu 9600 PABX out
to pasture. I'm evaluating different options, both hardware-based and
Asterisk, to go forward.

Right now, we've got a single ISDN line, with a 100-number block
attached to it, and 30 incoming lines. There is also a small handful
of PSTN lines that we need to maintain for historical purposes. Our
phones are all Fujitsu AT-class models - about 30 of them. I'd like to
hang on to them if I can, but it's looking less and less likely,
unless I keep the Fujitsu PABX and run Asterisk in parallel somehow.
We've also got a dozen or so plain analogue lines, used for fax
machines, fax modems (Hylafax!), answering machines (real ones!) and
other assorted weird stuff.

Personally, I like Asterisk, and I'd like to be able to recommend it
to the Directors as The Way To Go. I like the flexibility, the
programmability, the database friendliness, and the openness of the
code and architecture. Terminating calls through VoIP isn't that
important to us right now, but it's a great enabling technology, and
I'm looking forward to implementing it later on. Essentially though,
right now we're looking to use Asterisk as a pretty much ordinary
PABX: voicemail, call queues, call parking, music on hold, etc etc.
Nothing particularly envelope-pushing. If I can avoid using IP or SIP
phones right off the bat, so much the better.

This is *the* most important thing to our business. Changing anything
about how our phones work makes me very nervous (and the Directors
even more so). So in order to convince myself, and the Directors too,
I need some testimonials from people using Asterisk in a call centre
environment. There must be some people out there doing it. How did you
pull it off? What equipment are you using? What do I need to watch out
for along the way?  How's it working out for you now? I'd like to be
able to go to the Directors with as much backup as possible. "Here are
a bunch of similar setups, all working great and saving money".

Thanks very much, in advance.

....jurgen

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Check out http://jurgen.ca/ for more yummy goodness.