Case Study: JIRA Call Center
About the Customer
Some time age we completed an interesting project for one Russian company that specializes in creation of anti-theft alarm system for vehicles and manufacture of hi-tech equipment, such as CAN-modules, programmers for reading and updating firmware of CAN-protocols. The company cooperates with major vehicle manufacturers on the Russian market and supplies their cars with reliable and secure anti-theft alarm systems. Manufacture with all its branches resides completely in Russia and company is very proud of this fact. The company appreciates high quality and innovations and tries to be always one step ahead of its rivals. Innovations are not only introduced in manufacture and technologies, but also in quality assurance and customer support.
Project Overview
The customer wanted to build a call center on the basis of Asterisk and Atlassian JIRA. Asterisk was supposed to be used as a communication VoIP system for phone calls to and from customers. JIRA should become an incident tracking platform for issues and their resolutions. The customer wanted to integrate these systems into a single ecosystem for instant response and keeping all call activities in JIRA. The main objectives were the following ones:
- Display of relevant information about the caller (customer) when the agent takes up the phone.
- A capability to initiate a phone call from JIRA to customers who reported issues.
- A capability to call customers whose calls were missed.
How these principles were met see the next chapters for details.
Add-on Configuration and Installation
Before installation of the add-on, the administrator needs to configure connection and operation of Asterisk service. The configuration is performed in two configuration files stored within the add-on JAR package. The first part of configuration is network connection parameters stored within the /conf/connection.xml file. There are parameters to establish connection to Asterisk server, to start websocket server, to configure database access for storing the list of missed phone calls. The second part of configuration includes configuration of JIRA meta data, such as project, groups with user accounts of call operators, field names and so on. Additionally, the administrator needs to define customers and custom fields for customers, such as Country, Area or City. The parameters are stored in the /conf/general.xml file. Once the configuration is completed, the administrator can pack the extracted files as a JAR file and then install as a normal JIRA add-on.
Typical Workflow
Once the lead makes an issue assignment, the agent starts progress on the issue by contacting the customer via the phone number (SIP) specified in the issue. The agent clicks the Make Call button and waits when the customer takes the phone.
Once the customer answers, the form with the list of issues related to the current customer opens. The support agent can open the required issue and make the necessary updates in it. The add-on fetches the phone number and uses it to determine the customer and the related issues.
When the call operator switches to some issue, the collapsed tray is shown. The agent can perform the required modifications or create a new issue. If the agent double-click the tray, it will be expanded to the initial form listing issues associated with the current customer.
All the modifications made during the call are logged in the agent’s profile, which the lead can view further. Once the agent or customer hangs up the phone, the form with issues close and the call is ended. The agent can indicate his/her availability through the additional menu of Asterisk. If the agent is away, Asterisk server will not redirect calls to this agent and will consider only the active agents.
Viewing Missed Calls
On the page with the project overview, users can view the list of missed calls from the customer. For each call the following information is shown:
- Call time
- Customer’s Phone
- Customer
- Voice Mail
The user can download the file with audio message left on Voice mail or call to the customer right from the page.
Viewing the Agent’s Activity
The lead of the support team can view the individual activity of each support agent in the profile. The add-on keeps track of the following things:
- Call Time
- Customer and SIP Number
- Call Direction (Incoming/Outgoing)
- Source Issue (issue which the call was made from)
- Related Issues (issues associated with the same customer)
The lead can quickly open the related issues and view the agent’s progress on them.
Results
The add-on has significantly simplified the overall experience of call center operators when dealing with support requests from customers and users. The add-on allows them to instantly view the related issues once the customer contacts the call center for help. This has improved the quality of support services and increased the response time.
If you are interested in the solution, feel free to send emails with questions to support@stiltsoft.com.
