AT&T 585-350-812 - Manual (Page 13)

1-7
ASAI Overview
■ Incoming Call Delivered Directly to Agent by ACD — In this call flow sce-
nario, incoming trunk calls are delivered directly to live agents. Here, data
screens delivered to agents would be based primarily on ANI, DNIS, and/or
call prompting information. Data screens would not be based on data col-
lected in a voice script since a VIS voice script is not used to collect data
from the caller.
■ Agent-to-Agent Transfers - In this call flow scenario, calls are transferred
between live agents. Here, for example, “screening” agents may be used
to collect information from the caller and handle simple transactions. The
call may subsequently be transferred to “specialized” agents who can han-
dle more complex or detailed transactions. In these scenarios data
screens can be based on information keyed in to the host application by
live agents. The host application can save data collected and entered by a
screening agent and then use this data as the basis for data screens deliv-
ered to more specialized agents who may receive the call. Note that the
information available for the other two call flow scenarios (that is, ANI,
DNIS, call prompting information, and voice script data) is available in this
scenario as well. This information may be used in conjunction with data
entered by a live agent to provide the basis for data screens.
The VIS-to-agent transfer scenario described previously is supported by using the
enhanced transfer capability provided for ASAI voice response applications. The
enhanced transfer capability allows data collected in the voice script to be saved
and associated with the transferred call. Data saved in this fashion can be
included in the call event information passed to the host at the time the transferred
call is delivered to an agent.
This ability to save voice script data may be used for many reasons. A voice script
can be used to collect a variety of information such as account number, social
security number, personal identification number, desired service, etc. In many
cases, this type of information is more meaningful and useful than ASAI informa-
tion such as ANI to the host application and the live agents handling calls. Also,
the voice response application might be the primary application providing, for
example, an automated banking application. Here, live agents are used only as a
backup to answer questions beyond the scope of the voice response application.
The ability to save voice script data with the enhanced transfer capability provides
a very useful bridge between voice response and data screen delivery applica-
tions. This capability provides true integration (in addition to co-residency) of the
voice response and PBX-to-host gateway capabilities offered with the VIS ASAI
feature. This mechanism for embedding voice script data in call event information
for the transferred call can significantly reduce the complexity of the host applica-
tion. Without this mechanism, the host application is typically required to associ-
ate information from two different physical interfaces (one interface from the voice
response unit to receive data collected from the caller and another interface from
the monitoring device over which call events are received). Also, the host applica-
tion is typically required to track and associate multiple events for multiple calls