FreePBX Softphone: 5 Incredibly Useful Features for Call Centers

FreePBX is the most popular PBX in the world. According to the developers, the number of installations has reached several million across 220 countries. It has lots of great features, some of which are automatic. For the rest, however, manual use is required. And this is where our Softphone.Pro can help.

Operators handle up to 300 calls a day, so it is extremely important that the program is as convenient and easy-to-use as possible. Then the employee will be able to handle more calls efficiently.

Softphone.Pro has been developed with this important point in mind, so the following has been added to it:

- Large buttons. They are perfectly visible with any extension. However, if the scale of the program seems too small, you can always enlarge the window using the zoom function.

- Any typical action is performed in only two clicks: call transfer, conference, redial, etc.

- Customizable interface. All unnecessary windows can be closed. And if most of the time the operator works in the CRM system, you can turn off the display of the main window during a conversation. Only a small window will remain, which will take up a minimum of space on the screen.

FreePBX also has many features that can only be utilized in Softphone.Pro.

1. Transfer of a call in a softphone with or without consultation

You can transfer an active call to a colleague. There are two types of translation for this:

- Without consultation. The current call is immediately transferred to another employee.

- With consultation. The call is put on hold, an outgoing call is made to the desired colleague, in order to talk to him before the transfer. For example, to transfer the necessary information about the client.

Both options can be configured and used in Softphone.Pro. You can read more about setting up call transfer for FreePBX in our article: «Call transfer in FreePBX: how to set up and use».

2. Conference in softphone

If the operator realizes that he needs the help of a more experienced colleague or the advice of a specialist from another department, he can create a conference from an existing call and add new participants to the conversation.

The «Conference» article describes how to configure this feature.

3. Displaying the current status of colleagues in the "Contacts" window (BFL)

If the operator needs to use one of the functions described above, it will be useful for them to know which of their colleagues is currently free. This will help save the client's time. To do this, Softphone.Pro has a built-in display of the current status of colleagues in the «Contacts» window.

Thus, the softphone will show to whom the call can be transferred.

You can read more about setting up this function here: «Contact presence indication (BLF)»

4. Listening, prompting, barge

FreePBX has a feature that integrates perfectly with Softphone.Pro - ChanSpy. This feature allows you to listen to conversations between employees and clients in real time and connect to the call if necessary. This will help not only in training new operators, but also in resolving an escalating conflict with a difficult client.

To use it, you just need to enter your Softphone.Pro Team personal account, open the tab with the employee control panel and connect to the desired employee.

Read more about setting this up in the article: «How to set up ChanSpy on FreePBX».

5. Influence of the operator's status in softphone contacts on the call sequence

FreePBX has another useful feature - incoming call queues. This will help you work with clients even more efficiently.

How it works:

When a customer calls the company, he hears a recorded message from the menu. For example: "You have called Auto Show 2000. To contact the sales department, press 1; to contact the service center, press 2 ...". Having selected the desired department, the client enters the queue and hears music. At this point, FreePBX calls available operators in a given order. If the call is accepted, PBX "takes" the client out of the queue and connects him to the employee. If, within the specified time, the call is not accepted, then FreePBX goes to the next operator and so on down the list.

A problem may arise if an employee is busy with post-processing or is completely absent from the workplace, and PBX considers him free. The program will continue to call him. Unfortunately, this situation is not uncommon.

On average, post-processing of a call takes from 1 to 5 minutes. However, in addition, the operator can go for a smoke break, lunch, etc. Ideally, the employee should either close the softphone or send a special FreePBX DTMF command to exit the queue. But operators often forget to do this.

The essence of the problem is that, due to the human factor (forgetfulness of employees), PBX will continue to dial up these operators, increasing the time the client has to wait for a response. Most likely, in this case, he will simply hang up and call a competitor.

In addition, the call center performance deteriorates, and the response time and number of dropped calls increase. Read more in the article: «How "ACW" status improves Average Speed of Answer (ASA)»

These problems can be solved using Softphone.Pro:

- Open the Settings — Interface window.

- Turn on the Show post-processing window checkbox and select the Busy status. You can set up a special Post-Processing status.

- Ensure that the checkboxes are selected for Change status to departed in case of inactivity and Change status to Online.

You can find more information on settings in our Knowledge Base.

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