As a new user to Flow you may have many questions relating to operation and some of the logic Flow uses.

How Does Flow Calculate...

Queued Calls

Calls that have been processed through an IVR menu and have arrived to Flow from NocTel are associated with the queue based on the call handling options. Calls are attributed to only one queue - this is because even if a transfer to a different queue/department occurs, it is still the same unique caller. This prevents "double dipping" of counting queued call volumes.

Abandoned Calls

A call is considered abandoned if the caller is queued and hangs up before they speak to an agent. It is important to distinguish that if a caller hangs up while still working through IVR menu prompts this situation is not considered an abandoned call. The caller in this case was never queued and never waiting to speak with an agent.

Please note that abandoned calls are only calculated for inbound calls. Outbound calls cannot be considered abandoned as the caller relative to the contact center is not waiting in queue to speak with an agent.

Call Duration

Call duration is the difference between the time stamp at which the call ended and when the call was answered. The caller's queued time is not a factor. This applies both to inbound and outbound calls.

Which Agent Will Receive the Next Call in a Longest Idle Distribution

Longest Idle call distribution examines Available agents' time. When a call needs to offered to an agent, Flow compares the current time stamp to all agents who are currently in Available status. The agent with the largest timestamp difference between "now" and when the agent entered Available status is offered the call. This does not examine the time between last call to determine "idleness" of agents. Therefore, if you have two agents A and B with agent A idle for 5 minutes and agent B idle for 3 minutes, agent A would be offered the next call. However, if before the next call arrives agent A goes into Not Available for a minute then returns to Available, their time spent in Available status is reset. This situation would then make agent B the longest idle agent of those Available.

Flow Reporting provides an "adherence" report in order to track how often and for how long agents enter certain statuses to assist supervisors in detecting if agents are attempting to actively avoid receiving calls.

Does/Can Flow Calculate...

Active Hold Time with an Agent

This would be the total time a caller has spent on hold after they've begun speaking with an agent. This calculation is currently not performed by Flow. For supervisors and managers concerned about long caller hold times, we recommend that the average call duration (ACD) be examined as frequent holds will drive up call duration.

Why Does Flow...

Not Allow Agents to Transfer Callers to Numbers That Are Not Directory Entries

This is a human error protection mechanism. Normally an agent would be able to manually type in the phone number they wish to transfer their caller to, but this can be error prone. After a call is transferred there is no way to send them back to the agent. In customer service oriented organizations, this is highly undesirable as it leaves the caller confused and tarnishes the reputation of the business. Using the directory is also more efficient as agents often only need to type a few characters before the number of possible matches is filtered down to a handful of possibilities. Do note that the searching capability of the directory does not account for misspellings on the part of the agent. Frequent abbreviations as "St" for "Saint" used in names like "St. Louis" won't be recognized if the directory entry is stored as "St. Louis" as opposed to "Saint Louis."

Call directory entries in Flow can be updated by Supervisors and Managers, and any additions, removals, or modifications made occur instantly. NocTel recommends supervisors and managers communicate with their agents on frequent transfer destinations then adding them to the directory.

Not Allow Supervisors and Team Leads to Take Phone Calls From Queue

The design and intent of Flow was to provide specific resources and functionality to the common types of staff in contact centers. For supervisors in particular, their daily duties generally do not revolve around filling in during peak periods to assist taking calls along with agents. Supervisors and Managers are given resources to observe, monitor, and gauge the activity and performance of the contact center to make informed decisions regarding staffing volume and shift assignment as well as accessible ways to assist and coach agents.

If there is a need for supervisors and team leads to take calls from queue as agents do, the applicable individuals can be added to Flow as an Agent type user. If this is done, the individual must do one of the following:

• Ensure they have logged out of Flow as their non-Agent user
• Open a second web browser instance in Incognito mode (or equivalent) to log in as their Agent user. Alternatively, if multiple web browsers are installed on the individual's workstation, a different browser and log in as the Agent user.