Configure Direct Connect Phone Line

The Direct Connect Line aims to connect inbound callers with your team members in real-time. If no one is available, the line captures a voicemail message for easy escalation within your organization, ensuring you never miss an important call.

Step 1

Navigate to 'Manage Account' via the profile menu.

Step 2

Select 'Line Configuration' from the page navigation.

Step 3

From the 'Phone Lines' section, choose the phone line that you wish to configure.

Step 4

Next, choose how to configure the phone line. You can opt for Multi-Purpose, Single-Purpose, Direct Connect, Cascade Connect or Interactive Voice. If you need assistance with Phone Line configuration, please book a training session and we'll be happy to help. For this article, we will choose the Direct Connect option. Once selected, click 'Next.'

Step 5

If you're setting your phone line up for the first time, you will now be prompted to name your phone line. You can optionally provide a description for the phone line. When done, click 'Next'.

Step 6 - Add a Greeting

The Phone Line Greeting is what your caller will hear when they are waiting to be connected with a member of your team. For the purpose of Direct Connect, you may wish to customize the default greeting to advise the caller that there may be a delay as the system works to connect the call.

To set a custom greeting, decide how you would like to add a greeting. There are 3 available options for adding a greeting.

1. Create a new greeting using text-to-voice. If opting for this method of adding a greeting, you'll be prompted to type your greeting as text. We will then run the text through a text-to-speech engine and allow you to preview your greeting before assigning it to a phone line.
2. Record a new greeting. In this instance, you'll be asked to provide a direct phone number where you can be called. The application will phone you and provide step-by-step instructions on how to record, preview and save your greeting.
3. Upload an audio file. If selecting this option, you will be able to upload an existing audio file for use as a greeting on one of your phone lines.

Choose the method you'd like to use and follow the provided instructions and finish by assigning the desired recording to the phone line. Regardless of how you choose to add a greeting, once you have completed the process your new greeting will be installed on the phone line. Now, when callers ring through to your phone number, they will hear your greeting played.

Step 7 - Establishing a Direct Connection

At the heart of a Direct Connect Phone Line is the ability to connect an inbound caller directly with a human being. In order to do this, we need to determine which Group to connect the inbound caller with. Under 'Recipients' choose the Group or Groups that you want Connect Rocket to call when this line is activated.

Under 'Activation Delay' choose the number of seconds that we should try to connect the inbound caller with a member of the Group(s) selected in the previous step.

In this example, when a caller rings through to this Direct Connect Phone Line, Connect Rocket will place the inbound caller on hold while we ring all of the Contacts in the 'Team Leaders' Group. The first Contact in a Group(s) to pick up the call will be connected one-to-one with the caller. Any additional members who try to join the call will be advised that the call has been handled. We will try to establish a connection with a human being for 30 seconds before moving to the failover Workflow.

If we are unable to connect the caller with a human being before the 'Activation Delay' period expires, we will request the caller leave a message so we can trigger a failover workflow. Connect Rocket ships with a default recording prompt but you will likely want to customize this message to improve the experience for your users. This prompt can be recorded using the same options outlined in 'Step 6' above.

You may to choose to record something like; "We're sorry but all staff are unavailable. Please record a message at the prompt and a member of our team will follow-up within 5 minutes."

Step 8

Once a caller has recorded a message requesting a callback, Connect Rocket can trigger a Workflow that you design to ensure the caller receives a response. You can choose to add notifications, a conference call and/or a pager notification.

Adding a Notification

Adding a Conference Call

Note: Accounts with a single phone number can only add one conference call per unique Workflow.

Adding a Pager Notification

The Pager Message field can contain the digits (0-9) as well as '*', '#' and 'w' to insert a half second pause.

Notes

Once you've configured your selected Actions, test and confirm the phone line behaves as expected.