[asterisk-users] Remote Call Center Agents and Asterisk?

[Steve Totaro]

On Feb 1, 2008 10:33 AM, d4rk f1br <d4rkf1br at gmail.com> wrote:
> Anyone using Asterisk in a Call Center environment?  And more importantly is
> anyone supporting home based remote call center agents with an Asterisk
> backend?
>
> My experience with Asterisk is limited, however I have set it up and
> installed it previously and had it working for home usage and for simply
> playing around.  My background however is with Cisco CallManager, Cisco
> IPCCX for call centers as well as a mixed bag of other big name systems.
>
> I am simply researching and investigating different possibilites and
> solutions for a project at this point.  Pursuing as many avenues as possible
> and trying to setup various test beds and labs if you will to accomplish the
> goal of one day rolling out home based remote call center agents.
>
> Look forward to hearing from others about this.  Looking to hear of any
> success stories, as well not so successful stories.  Trials and
> tribulations, good and bad experiences and where that left you.  I know
> others have at the least done exactly what I am doing and have researched
> and entertained various ideas regarding this model of home based agents so
> hopefully this message can be a catalyst for further disscussion around this
> trend.


I have had several very successful implementations.  Some small
~50-100 agents, and some larger, around 500 agents.

The trick is keeping the agents honest since there is no supervisor
standing behind them.  You want to establish a minimum standard for
the home agent.

Recording of calls for sound quality and agent evaluation will be
critical for QA as well as ChanSpy and "whisper coaching" which I
believe is available in 1.4 (?)

Use AJAX and Jabber ActiveX controls to control your CRM (web based of course).

You could even ship them a "Kit" which contains a router running
DD-WRT or OpenWRT setup with an OpenVPN tunnel back to your data
center, an ATA, and a headset.

There are several benefits to sending the router.  Obviously, VPN.
Then you also have something to SSH into and do testing like ping,
traceroute, test throughput.  You could even create some kind of app
(if it doesn't already exist) to regularly run these diagnostics and
upload them to you.

That is just a few ideas but I think the main thing you will run into
is agents not logging off or somehow trying to beat the system.  That
is what I see time and time again.

Thanks,
Steve Totaro