Local Agents

Setup

Start the setup by accessing the Queue Agents icon in the management page of the Queue extension. Click the Add Local Agent icon and fill in the form taking into consideration the explanations below.

1. Enroll agent requires that you select the Phone Terminal extension you want to set as queue agent.
2. Penalty refers the agents' availability to take the calls and is considered by the call distribution algorithm. The smaller the penalty, the larger the number of calls the agent will be able to get. If you want this agent to take most calls, set the penalty to 0. Default values: 0 to 100.
3. Require authorization to connect to queue is not a mandatory setting. This is a password authentication login. It means the agent will be required to dial the PIN code before connecting to the queue.
4. Queue login PIN will be needed if you want to connect to the queue as agent or supervisor. Confirming this PIN is mandatory.
   
5. Supervisor is a setting describing the role you can assign to your agent. Select this checkbox, if you want this agent to supervise other agents.

How it works

All incoming calls from customers are kept in a queue and distributed to logged in agents, local or remote, according to a call distribution algorithm.

With a simple dial from their phone terminal, local agents can perform a series of operations:

• Log in the queue from their personal extension by dialing *96 on the phone terminal keypad. They need to provide the password set up in the Require authorization to connect to queue. They can log out from their queue by dialing *98 on the phone terminal keypad.
• Log in the queue from any other extension by dialing *97 on the phone terminal keypad. They need to provide their agent number and the password that was set when the agent was added to the queue. They can log out from the queue by dialing *98 followed by the short number of the extension they logged from. The short number is necessary because several agents can log in from a single extension.
  
• Take a break without logging out of the queue by dialing *26 followed by their extension short number. This pauses their extension and incoming calls are no longer assigned to them until they unpause. They can unpause and return to the queue by dialing *28 followed by their extension short number.

Trips and tricks

VoipNow allows you to turn your best agents into supervisors. As supervisors, they can help training other agents.

To turn a local agent into a supervisor, click on the icon in the Queue Agents Information. To revert the supervisor to a simple local agent, click on the icon in the same table.

With a simple dial from their phone terminal, supervisors can perform the following operations:

• Listen to other agents' conversations in the queue by dialing *999 followed by the number of the queue. VoipNow announces the active agent that was the last to answer a call and starts playing their conversation. To listen to the next conversation available, the supervisor dials *.
• Whisper to the agents registered in the queue and involved in a call by dialing *998 followed by the number of the queue. VoipNow connects the supervisor to the active agent that was the last to answer a call. To whisper to the next available agent, the supervisor dials *.

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