9. Attendant Console:
Manage and Dispatch Your Incoming Calls Effectively
Attendant console is a traditional tool for receptionists to manage a large number of incoming calls and dispatch them to enterprise employees effectively.
In traditional analogue telephone systems, an attendant console is a phone, designed specifically for receptionists and pluggable extension modules.
The Aastra 560m attendant console
In IP-telephony networks, you can still use such devices, but VoIP technologies allow you to transfer all the functionality of the attendant console to software, which significantly reduces its price, makes it more flexible and extendable to your business needs.
The Cisco software-based attendant console
Now, let’s take a brief look at software-based attendant consoles for IP telephony networks.
Software-based attendant consoles provide your receptionists with basic features of incoming calls management and dispatching:
- support of several phone lines;
- call queues support;
- corporate directory with quick search functionality;
- call transfer (both “blind transfer” and “consultative transfer”);
- recalls management.
In addition, an attendant console with extra functionality only available in VoIP networks enables you to:
- provide your receptionists with extended information about user statuses and preferable ways to connect with presence services integration;
- keep the up to date list of employees and their phone numbers with enterprise directory or HR system integration;
- quickly send an email to the user using the interface of the attendant console;
- send a short text message to users’ IP phones;
- manage the queues of incoming calls (such as “sales calls”, “technical calls” etc), identify the incoming call and treat it according to the call queue priority with an intelligent call queuing engine;
- record calls.
Attendant Console Software Vendors
You can find a software-based attendant console, offered by major IP-telephony system vendors and, sometimes, you can find a basic version at no cost at all. There are also 3-rd party software vendors, who develop software based attendant consoles for IP-telephony networks.
- Arc Enterprise by Arc Solutions
- Cisco Unified Attendant Consoles by Cisco
- IPFX Operator Console by IPFX
- NEC Integrated Attendant Console by NEC
- NeXspan software attendant console by Aastra
What to Do Next
The software based Attendant Console solution provides you with a number of advanced functionality, like
- presence integration;
- directory management tools;
- options for distributed deployment that help your organization increase call answer speed and improve caller experience.
You can choose the attendant console that meets your business needs better from the vendor list above.
Read the next chapter: 10. Virtual Queuing - “Call Me Back”
