Making and receiving calls

This feature is available if the Telephony feature has been activated for your account.

In short: As a phone agent, you answer phone calls in aishaa itself, in the browser. You set your availability via the phone icon in the top bar, answer an incoming call in a pop-up, call a customer with one click from the ticket, and can mute and add a colleague during the call. Afterwards, aishaa asks whether the ticket can be closed.

Where to find this

The phone icon is in the aishaa top bar, next to the chat icon. It is only visible if an Organisation admin has enabled you as a phone agent for the organisation you currently have selected (see Activate telephony). Incoming calls and the ongoing call appear as a card on top of the page, wherever you are in aishaa.

Who: from the Agent role upwards, and only if you are a phone agent. Your availability is personal and applies per organisation.

Setting your availability

Click the phone icon in the top bar. The icon and its colour show your current status; the menu contains the choices. At the bottom of the menu is My phone…, where you enter your own phone number and choose where calls ring (see Calls on your own phone number).

The expanded phone menu in the aishaa top bar with the choices Available for calls and Do not disturb, My phone… at the bottom, and above them Restore live connection if the phone is offline.

Your choice between Available for calls and Do not disturb is remembered. If you close aishaa and open it again later, you start with the same status. If changing it fails, you see Could not update availability.

If you have entered an own phone number under My phone…, Do not disturb applies to both devices: neither the browser nor your own number rings. With Phone offline, only the browser does not ring; your own number still rings if you have chosen a setting for it.

If you switch organisation in aishaa, the phone reconnects for that organisation. You only ring for the organisation you currently have selected.

Answering an incoming call

When a customer calls your organisation’s number, the Incoming call pop-up appears, with a ringtone, for all colleagues who are ringing at that moment. Who rings is determined by the routing (see Routing of incoming calls).

The Incoming call pop-up with the caller’s name and number and the Decline and Answer buttons.

The pop-up shows:

• The customer’s name as known in aishaa, with the phone number below it. If the customer is not known yet, you only see the number.
• Unknown number if the caller has withheld their number.

You have two buttons:

If a colleague answers before you do, the pop-up disappears by itself. If nobody is ringing any more, for example because the customer hangs up, the pop-up also disappears.

If the call rings on your own phone number, there is no pop-up: your phone rings, you hear who is calling and you press 1 to answer. See Calls on your own phone number.

The call belongs to a ticket straight away: every incoming call is linked to a phone ticket of the customer before you ring. The ticket is not opened automatically; afterwards you can open it with View ticket, or during the call via the ticket overview.

Calling a customer from a ticket

Open the ticket and look at the customer card next to the conversation. For a ticket whose phone number is the active customer address, a button with a phone icon and the tooltip Call appears on the right of the customer card, next to the three-dot menu.

1. Click the Call button. A Calling… card appears with the number you are calling. Use Cancel to abort the call before the customer answers.
2. When the customer answers, the card changes into the card of the ongoing call.
3. The call is recorded as an outgoing call message on this same ticket.

The customer sees your organisation’s connected number as the caller. You cannot choose a different number.

The Call button only appears if you are a phone agent, your phone is connected (not Phone offline) and you are not already on a call or receiving one. In all other cases the button is not there. If your status is Do not disturb, you can still make outbound calls.

You cannot dial a separate number to make a call; calls are always made from a ticket with the customer’s number.

During the call

As soon as the call is connected, you see the card of the ongoing call with a running call duration.

The card of an ongoing call with the call duration, the Live transcript panel, the Mute and Add colleague buttons, an added colleague in the participant list and the red Leave button.

Adding a colleague

Click Add colleague. The list only shows colleagues who are phone agents, have aishaa open with the status Available for calls and are not on a call. If there is nobody, you see No colleague is available right now.

When you click a colleague, this happens:

1. The colleague appears in the participant list on your card with the note ringing.
2. The colleague sees the Colleague invites you pop-up, with the text (your name) asks you to join the call with followed by the customer’s name or number. The colleague chooses Answer or Decline.
3. If the colleague answers, they join the call straight away. Everyone hears everyone: the customer, you and the colleague.
4. If the colleague does not answer within 30 seconds or declines, the colleague disappears from the participant list and you see (name) did not pick up.

An invitation rings on one of the colleague’s devices: the phone in the browser if that is reachable, otherwise the colleague’s own phone number. In that last case the colleague hears (your name) asks you to join. Press 1. and answers with 1.

Other messages you may see when inviting: (name) is on another call, (name) is not available right now, (name) is already on this call and The colleague could not be called.

There is no separate consultation without the customer: the customer hears everything you and your colleague say. If you want to hand over the call, add the colleague, explain the question while the customer listens in, and then click Leave. The customer then stays with your colleague. You can also add several colleagues this way.

Live transcript

If transcription for the number is set to Live during the call or Live, refined after the call (see Number settings), the Live transcript panel appears on the card. Every sentence gets a speaker label:

• You for what you say, or Agents as soon as a colleague has joined (you are shown together).
• The customer’s name, or Caller if the name is not known.

A sentence that is still being recognised is shown in italics; as soon as the sentence is final, the italic line is replaced. All colleagues on the call see the same transcript.

Wrapping up the call

When you click Hang up, or the customer hangs up, the Call ended card appears with the call duration, the customer’s name and the question Is this resolved? Close the ticket, or keep it open for follow-up.

The Call ended card with the call duration, the question Is this resolved? and the View ticket, Keep open and Resolved – close buttons.

This card only appears for the last colleague to leave the call. If you click Leave while a colleague is still talking to the customer, you do not get the question; your colleague gets it later. The card also does not appear if the call could not be linked to any ticket, for example with a caller who has withheld their number.

If you answered the call on your own phone number, you do not get this card. You hang up on the phone and wrap the call up in the phone ticket itself.

Good to know

• While you are on a call, you do not ring for a new incoming call. That call goes to your available colleagues, or to the greeting and voicemail if nobody is available.
• Putting a call on hold, parking it or blind-transferring it to an external number does not exist. Adding colleagues and leaving yourself is the way to hand over.
• Whether a call is recorded and transcribed depends on the number’s settings, not on you. This also applies to outgoing calls. On an outgoing call the customer hears no automatic recording announcement; tell them yourself in that case.
• If you have aishaa open in several tabs, they all ring; you answer in one tab.
• If your browser does not support the softphone, your status stays on Phone offline. Use a different browser in that case, or have calls ring on your own phone number (see Calls on your own phone number).
• A call you answered on your own phone has no call controls in the browser: muting, adding a colleague and leaving belong to the phone in the browser.
• If your connection with aishaa is lost, aishaa tries to reconnect by itself. If the status stays Phone offline, click Restore live connection in the phone menu.
• You can find the call itself, the recording and the transcript on the ticket. See Phone tickets and transcripts.

Related

• Activate telephony
• Number settings: greeting, recording, transcription and voicemail
• Routing of incoming calls
• Calls on your own phone number
• Phone tickets and transcripts
• Customer context next to the ticket
• Ticket statuses and lifecycle