How to Allow or Restrict Outbound Calls made by agents in call Centers

There are many situations where the call centers  need to implement restrictions on calls made by agents so as to reduce cost, improve performance and service levels;  For example restricting only certain agents to make long distance calls or only to certain customers can greatly improve the overall performance of the call centers.   The restrictions can be as simple as Skill Group or Call Type or as complex as allowing calls from particular agent to a customer at a particular time and that is monitored by a supervisor. 

.  IVR based solution can help to easily configure different class of Restrictions.   Common Restrictions can be classified into following categories:

  * Based on Agent, Skill Group, Call Type

  * To existing customers, or customer who are waiting for a call back

  * Only when Supervisor approves it or Assigns it

  * To Schedule Time based outbound calls

VIMLA CBA (Call Back Assistant) from Approach-IT  (www.approach-it.net) is an IVR based solution that allows customers to leave a call back number and call the customer when agent becomes available. It has additional functionality that helps in setting up the restriction rules, based on each call center requirements. The tool also provides an easy to use interface for defining various restrictions.

Based on Agent, Skill Group or ANI:  The Agent based restrictions are used to allow or restrict calls to destinations based on agents who are making the calls. Supervisors of each call center can select the agents who can make the calls based on Agents or Skill Groups.  User can create a CallerRestrictionGroups as well with various agent ids or calling numbers as well.  Agent restriction has preference over CallerRestrictionGroup preference that has preference over Sill Group that has preference over Call Type preference.

Based on Customer Information or DNIS: The Customer based restrictions are used to allow or restrict certain agents to make calls to only particular customers. Customer based restriction can be based on customer specific information like Customer Type, Customer Name, Customer Phone Number etc.  CallerRestrictionGroup can have any of the above restriction criteria. 

Based on Supervisor Assistance: The Supervisor assisted restrictions are used to allow supervisors to assign or approve or restrict the calls made by agents.  CallerRestrictionGroup can be either supervisor assisted or supervisor approved,

Based on Time: Time based restrictions can be either allowing outbound calls certain times or to allows calls who called in or expecting a call certain times. TimeRestrictionGroup restrictions can be created for each CallerRestrictionGroup.

  A typical call scenario would be agent makes an outbound call. IPT system would forward it to the CVP IVR that would apply the restriction rules and allow or restrict the outbound call.