Integrations
Contact centre platforms
How the agent works alongside your existing contact centre platform and routing, and how conversations pass between the agent and your team.
On this page
If you have invested in a contact centre platform, it stays. The agent works alongside your existing platform and routing rather than replacing them. Your platform keeps deciding where each conversation goes: the queues, the skills, the hours and the overflow rules your operations team has built. The agent takes the conversations you route to it, and when one needs a person, it passes it back into your platform with a written brief, so your team picks up with the whole story in front of them.
What connecting your contact centre platform lets the agent do
| Ability | What it means for you | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Take routed conversations | The agent receives the calls your platform's routing sends to it, by queue, menu option, time window or overflow threshold | The "claim status" option in your menu routes to the agent |
| Hand back with a brief | When a conversation needs a person, the agent transfers it into the queue you name, and the brief appears in the system your team works in | A caller asking for a refund lands in the refunds queue with the booking and the request already set out |
| Carry the conversation reference | Each transferred call carries a reference your platform can use to open the right record | Your agent desktop opens the Telonic conversation alongside the call |
| Absorb overflow | Calls reach the agent when your queue passes a threshold you set. Configured during implementation | Peak volume after a flight is cancelled |
Working alongside your platform is configured during implementation, around the routing you already run.
Platforms Telonic connects to
| Integration | What the connection covers |
|---|---|
| Genesys | Routing calls to the agent and back into your queues, with the brief |
| NICE | Routing calls to the agent and back into your queues, with the brief |
| Five9 | Routing calls to the agent and back into your queues, with the brief |
| Amazon Connect | Routing calls to the agent and back into your queues, with the brief |
How the connection works
Calls reach the agent from your platform over SIP (the standard protocol business phone systems use to connect calls), the same way they would reach any other destination your routing sends them to. Your operations team adds the agent as a destination in your existing routing: a menu option, a queue, a time window or an overflow rule.
When the agent hands a call back, it transfers the call into the queue or number you have named for that situation. The handover brief (who the caller is, what they asked, what has been established and what is outstanding) is delivered into the system your team works in: your contact centre platform, your CRM (the system that holds your customer records) or the Telonic console. The caller does not have to repeat themselves.
The technical detail
Each transferred call carries a conversation reference in a SIP header (a labelled field within the call's signalling), which your platform can use to link the call to the brief and the full conversation. Transfers use SIP REFER (the SIP message that asks your platform to take the call back and connect it elsewhere) by default, or a bridged transfer where the brief must be delivered by voice first. Signalling travels over TLS (Transport Layer Security), version 1.2 or higher, and audio is encrypted with SRTP (Secure Real-time Transport Protocol) by default. Where the brief is written into your platform, it uses the platform's standard API (application programming interface: the documented way other software exchanges data with it) and a dedicated integration account.
Permissions typical for this category
Routing stays in your platform, controlled by your operations team. Where the brief is written into the platform, the integration account needs only the access that requires.
| Permission | Needed for | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Receive routed calls | Taking the conversations you send | Set by your routing rules |
| Transfer to named queues | Handing conversations back to your team | Only the queues you name |
| Write the brief to the interaction record | Showing your team the brief alongside the call | Granted where your team works in the platform |
| Read queue status | Offering a callback instead of a long wait | Not granted unless you choose it |
The agent can only take actions your team has granted. Anything not granted cannot be invoked. See Permissions.
In practice
Rimal Air, an airline, runs its contact centre on its existing platform.
- Operations adds one routing rule: when the wait in the rebooking queue passes the threshold it sets, new callers route to the agent.
- A storm cancels several evening departures. The queue fills and the rule starts sending calls to the agent.
- Hana calls to rebook. The agent offers the options her fare permits and rebooks her onto the next morning's flight.
- Another caller, travelling with an infant and stranded overnight, needs a hotel. The agent transfers him to the operations desk that handles delays and cancellations. The duty agent's screen opens the brief with the call.
- When the queue falls below the threshold, the rule stops and calls go to the team as usual.
What your team controls
- The routing rules that send conversations to the agent.
- The queue or number each kind of handover goes to.
- Where the brief appears for your team.
- Returning all conversations to your team at any time, in your own platform.
Related
- Voice: connecting your telephony over SIPChannels
- Voice: transfers, callbacks and overflowChannels
- Handover to your teamAgents
- Telephony and carriersIntegrations
- PermissionsIntegrations
Product names and logos are trademarks of their owners. Their mention shows systems Telonic connects to and does not imply partnership or endorsement.