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<p>The scripted IVR option with some variations has worked for me in
the past.</p>
<p>- Used a 'secret' IVR option, like the IVR says Press 1,2 or 3
but the secret option is 7 or 8. This presents a prompt "are you
sure you wish to be transferred to the duty engineer?" and does so
only after a second, subsequent confirmation.</p>
<p>- Threatening a charge is interesting, but I would hope
unnecessary...</p>
<p>- Use a dedicated phone number for those customers who pay extra
for 24/7 support.</p>
<p>I've also overseen a contracted relationship with a third-party
callcentre who were nothing more than a skilled tag-and-bag centre
- they worked for multiple brands, would answer 'as' you, collect
information and follow a flow chart to determine whether to
escalate immediately, or log-a-job for the next business day.
That also worked very well.</p>
<p>I'm a Kiwi, so unless you want a Wellington based option, I doubt
a reference would be useful. But I support the concept - humans
can deal with exceptions (once suitably trained!) and having a
third-party option also gives you alternative BC/DR options when
your PBX is taken down by the very outage your customers are
calling you about...</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Mark.<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 17/09/18 20:10, Nick Pratley wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAKqif7hLVXqb6j8MB-Qgi4nqZnAiSbpHmZByX-cqTwQMQXEtFA@mail.gmail.com">
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<div>
<div dir="auto">This. Humans are always better confirming
escalation requirements. </div>
</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">I worked on-call for $work before we had 24/7
staff in ops.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">The best of both worlds solution for this problem
for us was a scripted IVR. </div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">“Thanks for calling $work. You’ve called outside
of business hours. Hold the line to leave a message and an
engineer will attend to this first thing in the morning. If your
issue is critical, press 9 to be transferred to an on-call
engineer. “</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">*press 9*</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">“if you’re issue is found to be of a non-critical
nature or outside of your contractual terms an escalation fee of
$99 will be charged at the discretion of the engineer. Press 9
to accept these charges and be transferred through or hold the
line to leave a message “</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">I think about 5 calls in a 2 year period ever got
charged back to the customer as outside escalation criteria,
everyone else logged a ticket for the morning or had an issue
that warranted on-call escalation. </div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">“Is my issue that critical that I want to pay 100
dollars to have it looked at right away?” That’s a very
powerful motivator. If yes, then we were happy to look at the
issue, charge the customer and on-call engineer bill the company
for the call out. </div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Everyone won. It gave the customer the chance to
consider their issue again and if it was actually critical for
their operation. </div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Just some food for thought. It also beat the
scammers (never had a single one escalated through the IVR -
it’s not like we could have charged them either, but a risk we
were willing to take.)</div>
<div><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">On Mon, 17 Sep 2018 at 5:29 pm, Matthew
Moyle-Croft <<a href="mailto:mmc@mmc.com.au"
moz-do-not-send="true">mmc@mmc.com.au</a>> wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div
style="word-wrap:break-word;line-break:after-white-space">Hi,
<div>I’ve got to agree with this. A properly
scripted/documented list will reduce engineer call outs
(improving staff morale) and, more importantly, mean
that if they get woken up they know it’s worth doing
something about. </div>
</div>
<div
style="word-wrap:break-word;line-break:after-white-space">
<div><br>
</div>
<div>MMC<br>
<div><br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>On 17 Sep 2018, at 4:55 pm, Kisakye Alex <<a
href="mailto:kisakye@gmail.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">kisakye@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br
class="m_-5890966342276387749Apple-interchange-newline">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">I think what a human provides is
the ability to sort through tickets for what can
wait until morning and what needs the engineer
to wake up. If you are forwarding the calls
directly to an engineer on call, then half the
time s/he is making decisions on whether to get
up or not.<br>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Alex</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 12:09 AM
Chad Kelly <<a
href="mailto:chad@cpkws.com.au"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">chad@cpkws.com.au</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0
0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc
solid;padding-left:1ex">With most modern PBX
systems they will tell you if it's a PBX call
and <br>
give you the option to either answer the call
or hang up.<br>
<br>
Or you can send the call to an answering
machine which means you can get <br>
to the issue the next morning.<br>
<br>
If you are running services that are mission
critical that you need the <br>
phone answered 24/7 then you really need
someone in the office who is <br>
awake and functioning but given what has been
discussed a decent PBX <br>
would be fine as even if you wanted to
redirect calls to a call centre <br>
ware a human answers that is also an option,
though less needed.<br>
<br>
As a voicemail system would be a lot cheaper
and tickets work better for <br>
more complex issues anyway.<br>
<br>
Regards Chad.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 9/17/2018 4:50 PM, Andrew Jones wrote:<br>
> I can see the benefit of having someone
else take the call. I can remember my days as
an on call engineer years ago where I would
get a phone call from the NOC in the middle
of the night, I would need to keep a pen and
paper by the bed to write down basic details,
as in my just woken state, I would forget
whatever I was told 2 seconds later.<br>
><br>
> You don’t want end customers talking to
someone who just woke up seconds ago, as they
won't be in a state to properly take down
details and provide a mechanism to follow up
(ticket numbers etc)<br>
><br>
> Cheers,<br>
> Andrew Jones<br>
> 0435 658 228<br>
><br>
> -----Original Message-----<br>
> From: AusNOG <<a
href="mailto:ausnog-bounces@lists.ausnog.net"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">ausnog-bounces@lists.ausnog.net</a>>
On Behalf Of Chad Kelly<br>
> Sent: Monday, 17 September 2018 4:35 PM<br>
> To: <a
href="mailto:ausnog@lists.ausnog.net"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">ausnog@lists.ausnog.net</a>;
<a
href="mailto:ausnog-request@lists.ausnog.net"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">ausnog-request@lists.ausnog.net</a><br>
> Subject: Re: [AusNOG] after hours staff
requirement<br>
><br>
> On 9/17/2018 12:00 PM, <a
href="mailto:ausnog-request@lists.ausnog.net"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">ausnog-request@lists.ausnog.net</a>
wrote:<br>
><br>
>> I'm looking for a company to take on
our level 1 support, after hours.<br>
>> 10pm - 8am AEST<br>
>> 7 days a week, including public
holidays.<br>
>> Would prefer a local Australian
company, but will consider<br>
>> International too.<br>
>> Require a team of sorts, that handles
other companies too as it's not<br>
>> financially viable to have a team
dedicated to us as the volume of<br>
>> calls is bugger all.<br>
>><br>
>> We'll just redirect the 1300 number
to you during those times, a<br>
>> simple greeting, take down notes and
urgency, check the on-call<br>
>> calendar and call the Engineer to
action.<br>
>> Basically, I need you to wake up the
Engineer on call:)<br>
> Frankly if this is all you need a decent
phone system will do this without you needing
to hire an outsourcing company.<br>
> Most decent PBX systems will redirect to
a mobile after hours or better yet straight to
an answering machine that will email a
voicemail message to an engineer.<br>
> That way they can decide if the message
is important enough to bother doing anything
about, and frankly if you offer an on call
service you should be charging enough that it
deters unwanted callers from ringing you in
the middle of the night anyway.<br>
> This is why we don't advertise 24/7
support as idiots randomly spam the ticket
system with rubbish which you then need to
delete anyway.<br>
> We offer support for critical issues on
weekends for existing customers only.<br>
> Your PBX also should have a decent
blacklist function for telemarketers.<br>
><br>
> Regards Chad.<br>
><br>
> --<br>
> Chad Kelly<br>
> Manager<br>
> CPK Web Services<br>
> Phone 03 5273 0246<br>
> Web <a href="http://www.cpkws.com.au/"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">www.cpkws.com.au</a><br>
><br>
>
_______________________________________________<br>
> AusNOG mailing list<br>
> <a href="mailto:AusNOG@lists.ausnog.net"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">AusNOG@lists.ausnog.net</a><br>
> <a
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rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog</a><br>
<br>
-- <br>
Chad Kelly<br>
Manager<br>
CPK Web Services<br>
Phone 03 5273 0246<br>
Web <a href="http://www.cpkws.com.au/"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">www.cpkws.com.au</a><br>
<br>
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-- <br>
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"
data-smartmail="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">
<div><span style="font-size:10pt;color:rgb(64,64,64)"
lang="EN-US"><br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size:10pt;color:rgb(64,64,64)"
lang="EN-US">Kind Regards,<br>
<b>Nick Pratley</b></span></div>
<div>P: 0448 379 418</div>
<div>E: <a href="mailto:nick@npratley.net" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">nick@npratley.net</a></div>
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