[asterisk-users] Asterisk system for church call center

[Duncan Turnbull]

Hi Frank

I have found Freepbx on top of Asterisk a good solution for the church I look after and the rest of my customers, the callcentre functions you need are built in it and if they have someone technical then they can expand what they are doing

It has both queues and ring groups (which are often all they need) 

I would imagine you just send them to an IVR or mailbox to ask for their name and details then move them into a higher priority second queue 

Elastix has Sugar in it I believe and looks okay but I like debian/ubuntu as a base distribution rather than Centos so haven't gone that way.

However most of my customers still struggle with the concepts involved in telephony so while they are happy to look at it while I am there they forget quickly how to drive it or lose their nerve, especially the church which is faith focussed rather than tech focussed ;-)

Because of that I think you want the easiest system for you to maintain remotely and elastix or freepbx is pretty easy. It also allows you to say this is available, this is not which is useful in narrowing down requirements. 

Cheers Duncan
On 30/03/2010, at 9:58 AM, Frank Church wrote:

> I have been asked by my church to recommend a VoIP system which can do
> the following.
> 
> They do internet radio shows which are sometimes broadcast on radio.
> 
> They are looking for a system which does the following for about 5
> agents, exactly as they have described it.
> 
> 1. Take incoming calls
> 
> 2. Put them on hold if there is no one to handle the call immediately,
> or transfer them to an available agent
> 
> 3. Take down their details, and number, (if this can be retrieved and
> saved from the caller id, thats better)
> 
> 4. Get them to hold on after taking their details if they still want to hold
> 
> 5. Call them back when the backlog is cleared up.
> 
> I have a fairly good grasp of the hardware and programming part of
> Asterisk, having compiled it more than a few times and implemented
> A2Billing phone card and call shop system with it.
> 
> But the type of software suited to the Call Center side is where my
> knowledge gap lies.
> 
> I am looking for solutions based on the usual Asterisk distributions
> like AsteriskNow, trixbox, elastix etc, whether ready packaged or
> requiring additional customization.
> 
> 
> The matter of whether they will use soft phones, or regular phones
> with headsets is also something to consider. Soft phones with good
> GUI's may be preferred if more cost effective for them, although my
> personal preferences are with hard phones.
> 
> Any recommendations - the ease of software for the end users is the
> main thing for me, and integration with the database for taking
> customers details is the main thing for me. One of the distributions
> with SugarCRM comes to mind here.
> 
> Sorry for cross-posting, but ready made and commercially supported
> systems are not ruled out, if they come within their budget.
> 
> Regards
> 
> 
> Frank Church
> 
> -- 
> _____________________________________________________________________
> -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com --
> New to Asterisk? Join us for a live introductory webinar every Thurs:
>               http://www.asterisk.org/hello
> 
> asterisk-users mailing list
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>   http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users