Omnichannel for Customer Service – Personal Numbers

Within Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Contact Center (aka Omnichannel for Customer Service) we can define personal numbers that can be used for incoming and outgoing calls. In this post I will complete a deep dive into this feature.

Within in a contact center environment it is common to have one phone number that is linked to many agents. Possibly even several virtual agents, as we’ll have IVRs to direct calls and more. We configure the features connected with these types of inbound calls within our channels and workstreams.

But from time to time a requirement will come up when a phone number needs to be dedicated to a single agent. This could be for inbound or outbound scenarios. (aka: a personal number.)

Let’s begin at looking at the setup process

• Step One – Create a number
• Step Two – Setup Number
• Step Three – Create Inbound Profile

Step One – Create a number

I first needed a new number to use for personal inbound / outbound calls.  So, I created a new number in Azure Communication Services (ACS) and ensured that was available within my customer service admin center. (Using the advanced option to sync the newly created number into Dynamics.)

Tip: You will need a local / geographic number not a toll-free number.

Step Two – Setup Number

I now selected the number and clicked setup. Often, I would now select “workstream” but in this example I wanted to create a personal number, so I clicked “Assign to user”.

This takes me to a list of Omnichannel users. I searched for my user and opened it. Then in the omnichannel tab of the user, I selected my new number as their “Omnichannel Phone”.

Tip: When using the Omnichannel phone lookup, you are only going to be presented with numbers that are available to be used as personal numbers. Meaning geographic (local) numbers that aren’t already associated with a workstream or an outbound profile.

Below you can see that my number is now linked to my user. (As seen when I view the phone numbers option from with channels.)

Step Three – Create Inbound Profile

As I wanted to use my number for inbound and outbound scenarios I created an inbound profile.

In the productivity option, I selected “outbound and inbound profiles. I clicked “+ New Profile” and created an inbound profile.

First, I gave my inbound profile a name and selected inbound as the type.

Having clicked next, I Now I added my inbound number.

Note: I am adding just one number into this inbound profile, but it is possible to list multiple numbers.

Next I add a queue and capacity profile.

For my queue, I could have just selected my inbound voice queue. But instead, I decided to create a new queue specifically for personal calls.

This queue isn’t really being used for routing purposes! As personal numbers are always going to route to the agent they are associated with. I believe the reason we’d have a queue is so that supervisors can see calls that are active on the queue. (By creating separate personal calls queue my supervisors will be able to see all agents engaged in personal calls!)

Tip: When I created my personal calls queue, I didn’t even need to assign users to the queue! Although I assume I could have assigned a supervisor to the queue as then they get alerts on negative sentiment etc.

To complete the setup of my inbound profile I reviewed the behaviors tab. One tip I have here is to set your language carefully. As it can’t be changed later. Additionally, I noticed that we don’t have any options to control the voice that will be used for automated messages. (Such as the initial greeting to the customer, and any prompts connected with voicemail.) I assume just the default voice for the selected language will be applied.

The inbound profile has many attributes in common with a standard inbound workstream. Therefore, I reviewed my inbound behaviours to set wait music and more. (I will comment on some of these options in more detail later in this post.)

Using Personal Numbers

Personal numbers are a little different to numbers typically assigned to workstreams. For example, there isn’t really any concept of queuing. When the customer dials they are connected directly to the agent. (Pretty much regardless of presence, I will talk more about this below!) Other features available on an inbound workstream such as using a BOT as an IVR also aren’t available.

In my tests, if my agent was in another call or offline then the incoming call was diverted to voicemail. But if the agent had manually changed their presence to “Do not Disturb” this was ignored. Meaning call assignment seems to take the agent’s capacity into account but is ignoring presence. (I suspect this could be a bug and will hopefully be fixed.)

For outbound calls, I could use the dialer as normal. And select which outbound number I wanted to use. Including the personal number that been assigned to me as an agent.

Tip: I did notice that I don’t think I can control the “caller ID number” for outbound calls. With a “regular” outbound profile I can define which phone number I wish to show to customers as the caller ID number. I don’t believe that is an option with personal numbers.

There are a few settings you might need to consider with personal numbers, I will flag some of these below ….

Greeting message. I commonly add an automated message into each of my workstreams. As I use the “Greeting Message for Async Channels and Voice” automated message to welcome the customer. In each workstream I would add something like “Welcome to NP Dynamics Limited, one moment whilst we connect you.”.

With personal messages we don’t have a workstream! Meaning the automated messages will be the defaults found under customer settings in the customer service admin center. This implies we’d have one greeting message per language across all our personal numbers.

You might need to configure this default automated message, also by default you may find the message for your language is inactive.

What happens if agents reject or miss calls? If the agent is offline, in another call or the agent manually rejects the call the customer is diverted to voicemail. Whilst I believe this is useful, I couldn’t find a setting to disable this feature. So, you may need to be aware that voicemail for personal calls is on by default.

Notifications, on the inbound profile in the “advanced settings” tab we can set which notifications will be shown if agents consult with other agents or transfer the call. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an option to set a custom notification for the incoming call. Why did I want to do this????  …. well …. I wanted my agents to clearly see that the call was a personal one and I wanted to tailor the how long the timers would run before considering the call to be missed.

Unfortunately, I haven’t found a method to tailor the incoming call notification. As I believe it is using the default incoming notification template which can’t be amended.

Conclusion

The setup of my personal number was straight forward, and I worked well.

But as mentioned I did observe a few limitations in defining notifications, automated messages, caller ID and the voice used for automated messages.

Additionally having voicemail on by default might be fine but could be a limitation if you don’t want to offer voicemail.

Having said this personal numbers remain a useful option with Omnichannel for Customer Service. Enjoy.

Original Post https://neilparkhurst.com/2024/08/15/omnichannel-for-customer-service-personal-numbers/