How to identify issues with agents accepting callbacks

Troubleshooting Scenario

Use this guide if you believe that agents are not able to press 1 to accept incoming callbacks offered to them. If agents are not accepting callbacks, it could be an indication of a DTMF detection issue in your telephony environment, and this guide can help you to determine exactly which agents may be having trouble.

This issue can arise in two scenarios:

  • When using the Agent First Callback Strategy
  • When using the Customer First Callback Strategy with the Wait for Live Agent setting enabled

In these scenarios, customers should be connected to an agent almost immediately after answering their callback, since the agent should already be on the line and ready to speak with the customer. If agents are unable to accept the callbacks that are offered to them, the result can be longer customer wait times and lower Punctuality.

How Do I Know There is an Issue?

You can be alerted to an agent-side DTMF issue in one of several ways:

  • System alert emails for the Rescued from Agent Disconnect or Priority Queue Timed Out events
  • Communication from supervisors or agents
  • A high number of Rescued from Agent Disconnect or Priority Queue Timed Out events in your Call Detail reports

Troubleshooting Tips

Use the following steps to export a list of all callbacks that may be affected by agent-side DTMF issues and trace the call to a specific agent station. Once you have traced the call to a specific agent, you can then investigate further in your telephony environment to find the cause.

Generate Filtered Call Detail Reports

image of the event filter with the rescued from agent disconnect item highlighted

  1. On the Call Detail page, use the Event filter to select Rescued from Agent Disconnect. The event can be found in the Connecting Events section.
  2. Set any additional filters that you would like, such as a date range or Call Target filter.
  3. Click Export to generate a report in CSV format.
  4. Return to the Call Detail page and adjust the filters to select Priority Queue Timed Out from the Event filter. This event is also in the Connecting Events section.
  5. Click Export once more to generate another report.

  6. On the Exports page, download the two reports that you generated in the previous steps. You can combine the data from both reports manually if you would like, or work with both reports separately.

    image of the exports page

Identify Timestamps and Customer ANIs

  1. Open your exported Call Detail report(s) using your preferred spreadsheet software.

  2. In the Timeline column (column AA if opened in Excel) for each call, note the timestamps of the first instance of the following events:
    • Connecting:CallingCompany
    • Connecting:PromptAgent

  3. In the Caller column (column E if opened in Excel), note each customer's phone number.

You should see the Connecting:CallingCompany and Connecting:PromptAgent events several times per call in this scenario.
  • If these two events are followed by Connecting:DisconnectRescue or Connecting:PriorityQueueTimedOut, then it indicates an issue.
  • If they are instead followed by Connecting:ConnectingAgent and Talking:PartiesTalking, then it indicates a successful attempt that was made after the initial failure.
The following example shows a DisconnectRescue event in the Timeline column:image of a C.S.V. highlighting the disconnect rescue eventThe following example shows a PriorityQueueTimedOut event:image of a call detail C.S.V. with the priority queue timed out event highlighted

Identify the Agents Who Were Offered the Callbacks

  1. Compile a list of the customer phone numbers and timestamps found in previous steps.

  2. Use this information to search your ACD reporting data to determine which agents were offered calls from the phone numbers in the list, at the associated times.

With the agents identified, you can now perform further troubleshooting in your telephony environment to trace the potential source of the issue.