What is VICIdial

is a call center software package that sends calls to an agent and allows an agent to place calls.

How does the agent screen work

The VICIdial agent screen is basically an interactive web page. It allows the agent to interface
with the system during the process of a call and do things such as add or modify information
about the customer, conference in other parties, transfer the call, record and many other
functions necessary.

UNIVERSAL FEATURES
• PROPER LOGIN AND LOGOUT PROCEDURES

If you have a login for your phone first (it will show "Phone Login" and "Phone Password"
fields) then enter the values in that your manager gave you for those fields. Then you will see
the "User Login" "User Password" and "Campaign" fields in the form for you to fill out. Once
these fields are filled in and your campaign selected, click on the "SUBMIT" button to login

After you click SUBMIT, your phone should ring (unless you are dialing into the
system or using an integrated web phone). Pick the phone up (or answer it if you are using a
soft-phone on your computer). When you answer the phone, you'll hear the system announce,
“you are the only one in this session” indicating the connection is successful. From now on
you should not hang up your phone unless you log out of VICIdial.
At this point you are logged in to VICIdial and you are PAUSED. Most of the buttons
on the left side will not be activated until you are on a call, you may also see a INBOUND
GROUP selection screen, which we will discuss further on in the manual. At the top of your
screen you will see the ID of the phone you are currently connected through, as well as your
user ID and name
Further below that, in the grey section, is the Status line which will show important
information as calls are placed and received. Towards the bottom, below the Comments
section, on the left side, you may see your dialing status and a count of the calls being dialed in
your campaign at this moment as well as the number of dialable leads in your campaign (This
is only useful in Autodial mode and may not appear on every screen). On the right side there
may be a link to active Agent-only callbacks, if enabled. Next to that, you may see an ENTER
A PAUSE CODE link. Below these you may see links to manually dial a customer
(MANUAL DIAL and FAST DIAL) with a MUTE button on the far right. Below this is a
small line of type that shows you the software version and build date as well as the address of
the VICIdial server that you are connected to. At the bottom is a link to show the calls that are
in your session. Clicking this link toggles the display on and off. There are also similar links
to show you Agent View (status of other agents on your system) and Calls In Queue View
(shows the inbound calls in queue that you are able to take) Farther on the right at the bottom
is where the HOT KEYS activation section will appear if your campaign has Hot Keys
activated.
 • PAUSE CODES
When you go on a break, your manager may want you to remain logged-in to the dialer, and
simply go into PAUSE mode. This allows you to use a PAUSE CODE to show what kind of
break you are on. To select a PAUSE CODE, just click on the text link below the Comments
field labeled “ENTER A PAUSE CODE” and a screen will appear with choices of Pause
Codes to enter for your Pause time. Just click on one to select it, and you will immediately go
back to the main screen.

Even if you do not use a specific Pause Code, you should stay logged-in to the dialer in
PAUSE mode until you start calling again, after your break has ended. Make sure to not hang
up your phone at this time. A manager can also set pause code selection to be mandatory for
every pause time you have.

• LOGGING OUT
When you are done with your shift, click on the "Logout" button in the upper right corner of
the VICIdial screen. This will hangup your phone and show you a re-login link. If you click
on the re- login link, all of the login information that you entered when you logged-in will
show up on the screen and you can just click "SUBMIT" to log in again without having to fill it
all in again.

NOTE: At NO TIME should you press the BACK or FORWARD buttons in your web
browser, this may log you out without you knowing. Also, DO NOT close your browser with
the "X" at the top of the window. That may lead to your session not ending properly, you
may not be logged out and may result in your losing clocked-in time on your VICIdial time-
sheet.

• SCRIPT TAB
When you login to VICIdial you will see several tabs at the top, left corner of the screen. The
VICIdial Main tab is furthest to the left, followed by the SCRIPT tab. VICIdial is the main
screen that shows all customer information in the system as well as a call timer, the name of
the line your call is c onnected on and the local time where your customer is located. The
SCRIPT tab's purpose is to show the agent a script to read with the customer's information
put into the script or to open a website inside the SCRIPT tab that may show your
company's CRM or ordering system. Your manager can define that the customer's name,
address and other information are automatically put into the script for eachcall. If it is set up
by your manager, the SCRIPT tab may pop up when a call comes to you, otherwise you can
get to the SCRIPT tab by just clicking on the tab portion at the top of you screen and you
can go back to the main VICIdial screen by clicking on the VICIdial tab at the top.

• FORM TAB
When a customer's record is shown from a list that contains Custom Fields, the FORM tab will
appear. It's found just to the right of the SCRIPT tab, at the top of the agent's screen. The
FORM tab's purpose is to display all of the Custom Fields created for this lead. Your manager
will have created the fields for 2 reasons. They can pre-load the Custom Fields with detailed
data about the customer not contained on the MAIN tab. Custom Fields can also be used to
prompt you to ask the customer
specific questions, while allowing you to retain their answers. The Custom Field types consist
of either multiple choices selections, or text boxes for open ended questions. Your manager can
also provide brief instructions for each field, which can be accessed by clicking the “help” link
beside the field.

• WEB FORM
This button will take all of the information about the call and the customer and send it to a new
web browser window that has been set by the manager for this campaign. This allows for such
things as the easy lookup of a customer's information in a company database or even a longer
sales or survey form that can contain many fields. Your manager can also set the web form to
open automatically when a new call arrives at your session. There is also an option for a
second web form button that goes to a different webpage if your manager has enabled it.

• CRM POPUP LOGIN

This feature pops open a new window as soon as you first log into the campaign, directing
you to the accompanying CRM login page. It allows you to quickly login to the CRM while
the dialer loads the agent window. This saves additional steps and ensures that when you are
ready to take calls both systems will be available to you. This is an optional feature that is
enabled by your manager. If this has been set for your campaign, make sure you do not have
“popup blockers” enabled on your web browser, or it will not work correctly.

• PARK CALL
The next button is the PARK CALL button and it allows you to send a customer that is in your
session to a music-on-hold waiting area. Once you send the customer to park you can retrieve
them by clicking on the button again. The park button can be set to a custom message by your
manager if a recording
has been setup for this campaign. When you click on the button to park a call, a timer above
the button will start that lets you know how long the call has been on park.

• TRANSFER CONFERENCE

This button opens a blue form that allows the agent to transfer the call or add a third party.
There are 8 different kinds of conferences and transfers, 4 agent to agent, 3 agent to outside
line, and Quick Transfer (which works for both). They are each explained below, by type.
Once a conference has been created, you can exit it in one of 3 possible ways (indicated by 3
large buttons on the bottom left of your agent screen).
 • HANGUP XFER LINE
This button disconnects the conference, and leaves you and the customer still connected.

• HANGUP BOTH LINES

This button disconnects everyone from the conference.

• LEAVE 3-WAY CALL

This button allows you to drop from the conference leaving the customer and the other
party still connected.

TRANSFER CONFERENCE TYPES

• Agent to Agent, Blind Transfer
When you want to immediately send the call over to an agent or In-group, without
notifying the recipient or staying on the line with the customer.
1. Click the “TRANSFER-CONF” button on the left side agent screen
2. Select the In-group in the pull-down menu
3. Click the “LOCAL CLOSER” button to send the call

• Agent to Agent, Consultative Transfer

When you want to transfer or conference a call to another agent or In-group, while you and the
customer wait together. You can converse with the customer while waiting for the agent or In-
group to pick up. When they do, all 3 of you will be on the line together.
1. Click the “TRANSFER-CONF” button on the left side agent screen
2. Select the In-group in the pull-down menu
3. Select the “CONSULTATIVE” box
4. Click the “DIAL WITH CUSTOMER” button to send the call

• Agent to Agent, Parked Transfer

When you want to transfer or conference a call to another agent or In-group, but you wish to
talk to them privately without the customer being on the line. This allows you to place the
call while the customer is hold and speak with the other agent as long as you like before
bringing the customer back on the line with all 3 of you.
1. Click the “TRANSFER-CONF” button on the left side agent screen
2. Select the In-group in the pull-down menu
3. Select the “CONSULTATIVE” box
4. Click on the “PARK CUSTOMER DIAL” button on the left side, directly above the
“TRANSFER-CONF” button. This will both park the customer's call and initiate the
consultative transfer to the selected In-group.
5. You can bring the customer back on the line by selecting the “UNPARK CALL”
button (this was labeled as the “PARK CALL” button prior to the Agent selecting
“PARK CUSTOMER DIAL”)

• Re-Queue Call
This feature needs to be enabled on the campaign. You will have a “RE-QUEUE CALL”
button on the left side of your screen just below the “QUICK TRANSFER” button. It allows
you to take your
current live call and transfer it to an AGENTDIRECT queue for you to answer at a later time.
This will send the customer right back to you if you do not pause immediately (the campaign
can be set to pause after every call). The purpose of this feature is to allow you the ability to
click “GRAB CALL” that may appear in the “CALLS IN QUEUE” frame at the bottom of the
screen when there are calls
waiting.

• Quick Transfer
This feature needs to be enabled on the campaign. When this is active, there will be a
“QUICK TRANSFER” button on the main agent screen, just below the “TRANSFER-
CONF” button. This is the only transfer that does not require starting with the “TRANSFER-
CONF” button. Your manager has pre-programmed either an In-group or phone number to
that button. To initiate this transfer, press the “QUICK TRANSFER” button and the dialer
immediately blind transfers the call to the preset location.

• AGENTDIRECT Transfers
The AGENTDIRECT transfer is a special type of Agent to Agent Transfer. It allows you to
transfer (or queue) a call for only one specific agent. If you select the AGENTDIRECT entry
from the Local Closer pull-down menu, an “AGENTS” link will appear to the right of the
number to call field. You can click on this link to see a list of the available agents that you can
send an AGENTDIRECT transfer to. Simply click on one select it. From here you can either
select the CONSULTATIVE checkbox and click “Dial with Customer” for a Consultative
Transfer, or click on the “Local Closer” button to send the call as a Blind Transfer

• USING HOTKEYS
Hotkeys are a way of reducing the time it takes to hangup and disposition a call if the customer
is unavailable. This feature is set up by your manager. Hotkeys work by assigning a Call
Disposition to the number keys(1-9) on your keyboard. This feature is activated when your
mouse pointer is on top of the orange Hotkeys button at the bottom of your screen. When the
mouse is over the Hotkeys button you'll see the list of Call Dispositions available, and their
corresponding number on your keypad.
When you are ready to end the call, press the number for the disposition you've chosen for
that call. The call will immediately be hung-up, dispositioned automatically, and you will
be able to take your next call immediately. To use Hotkeys, it needs to be activated by your
manager for your user login and for the campaign that you are using.
 • COMMENTS
This field appears below the customer's information on the MAIN tab. The Comments field
allows you to add additional remarks regarding the call or customer, beyond the general
information provided on the MAIN tab.

• CALL NOTES
This is an optional feature that can be enable by your manager. This field appears below the
“Comments” field on the Main tab, and the Disposition screen (allowing you to add remarks
even after you have hung up the call). Unlike Comments, these notes are permanently saved
on the lead. Optionally (If you manager has enabled) you can see the previous Call Notes
from other agents that have spoken to this customer. The notes will each be stamped with the
date & time of the previous
call, along with the User ID of each agent.

DISPOSITIONING A CALL
After a customer call is hung-up, the green Disposition screen will appear. Here you can
select the appropriate status for the call you've just completed. To select a status, you can
either double click the link, or click the link once and then select the SUBMIT link at the
bottom. If you are in auto-dial mode and want to go into PAUSE before receiving your next
call, select the PAUSE AGENT DIALING checkbox before selecting your status. This
assures you will be in PAUSE after dispositioning the that call, and you do not immediately
get another call.
If you need to take written down notes, such as a log sheet, and you forget to write down the
customer information before you select the hangup button, you can click on the 'minimize'
button at the top of the Disposition screen to move the disposition frame out of the way. This
allows you to see the customer data below. At this point, the data can not be edited, because it
has already been committed to the system once you pressed the hangup button.

• Customer is still on the line

If a customer is still on the phone after you have arrived at the Disposition screen, you can click
on the "Hangup Again" link at the top of the screen to attempt to hangup the call again (You can
only click this link once per call). This should be an infrequent problem. If the call still does
not hang up, you should be able to hang it up from the "conference call channel information"
link list at the bottom of your agent screen after Dispositioning the call.

• Minimize to see customer details

If you need to see the information on the screen about the customer you just talked to, you can
click on the "minimize" link at the top of the screen to view the customer information again.
Any editing of this information will be discarded since the customer information is committed
to the system as soon as you click on the "Hangup Customer" button.
 • Open web form after dispositioning
If your manager instructs you to, you can click on the "Web Form Submit" link on the
Disposition screen to open up a web form window at the time you submit your chosen call
disposition. This web form window will also be sent the disposition that you just selected
for the previous call.

• Wrapup Time After Call

If your campaign is set up for it, you might have a set amount of time after you hangup and
disposition a call, during which you can complete other call wrapup work before you are able
to receive another call. You will see a green Wrapup screen after dispositioning a call. It
contains a countdown indicating how many seconds of wrapup time remain before the green
wrapup screen disappears and you can take another call. There is also a “Finish Wrapup and
Move On” link that you can click to bypass the wrapup time and immediately go on to the
next call.

• PRE-CALL WORK
This manager enabled feature is available in Auto-dialing mode. This setting will
automatically place you in PAUSE when you have selected any of the following functions
that would require you to be paused; such as: Manual Dial, Fast Dial, Lead Search, Call Log
View, Callbacks Check, Enter Pause Code.

• CALLS IN QUEUE, AND TAKE CALL

To see the waiting calls, in the queues available to you, click on the "Show Calls In Queue"
link at the bottom of your screen. A frame will appear (at the bottom of the screen) that will
list calls from the In-groups currently assigned to you. This listing will show you the phone
number of the caller, the name, if there is one, the amount of time the caller has been waiting
in queue, the agent the call came from or the number that the customer dialed to get to the
queue, the color of the In-group, the name of the In-group and whether the call is inbound or
outbound.

To take a call you need to be paused. Then click on the TAKE CALL link to have the call
sent to you. There may be a delay of a few seconds, if the customer is listening to a place-in-
line prompt or other non-transfer prompt.

• CALLBACKS
The Callback feature allows you to set a date and time for leads so that they can be removed
from
active dialing, until that date and time have arrived. Callbacks default to allow any agent to
receive the call when the customer is called back (ANYONE Callbacks). Additionally, if it is
enabled for your account, an agent can select to have the callback be restricted to only their
login (AGENT ONLY Callbacks). When an agent receives a call that was last set as a
CALLBK, there will be a message showing up next to the "Customer Information" header of
the VICIdial screen that will say "PREVIOUS CALLBACK" so that the agent will know that
this lead was set as a callback the last time it was called. Agent Only Callbacks will trigger a
pop-up alert on the screen.

• Setting a Callback
When setting a Callback for a specific date and time, the agent will hangup the call as usual
and select the CALLBK status in the disposition screen. Once chosen, a new calendar screen
displaying the next
12 months will pop up.The agent needs to choose a day from the calendar and then select a
time (hour, half hour and AM/PM menus at the top of the screen) for that lead to be
contacted back. There is also a field for comments about the callback, if necessary. Once a
callback date and time are set, click on the SUBMIT button to go on to the next call. The
manager can also limit how far in advance a callback may be set. If you are unable to set a
callback for the desired date, contact your manager to see if that feature has been enabled.

Callbacks are reactivated and put back into the system at the date and time specified by the
agent. The call will not happen immediately and by default the agent that set it may not
necessarily get that callback call. It is important to note that managers have the ability to see
what callbacks were set by each agent and when the agent set them. Managers also have the
ability to override agent callbacks by changing them to Anyone callbacks or assigning them to
another agent

Receiving a Callback

If you receive a call that had been last dispositioned as a CALLBK, either ANYONE or
AGENTONLY, you will see a box appear with information about the callback record
including the date of the last call, the scheduled callback date and time along with any
callback comments that were entered by the agent that set the callback.

• Callback Alert Types

Your manager can also enable Callback Alerts, which differ from the standard status line.
The alerts range from red, blinking, or blinking red. In addition, each of those alerts also
has a DEFER option which will stop blinking and/or displaying in red when you check the
callbacks, until the number of callbacks changes. Select the “close” or “Close Call Log”
link to go back top the Main tab.

AGENT LEAD SEARCH

If your manager has enabled this feature on the campaign, you can search for a specific
customer lead while in Pause. You can search by using either the Main, Alternate or Address3
phone number, and any combination of the following data : Lead ID, Vendor ID, First Name,
Last Name, City, State, and Postal Code. We recommend Main phone number, Lead ID, or
Vendor ID, as they yield the fastest results. These fields do not allow for wildcard or partial
search terms. Once you click Submit, the system will display a results page showing the lead or
leads that meet the given criteria. From that page you can click the “INFO” link to view the
lead itself, or “DIAL” to manual dial the customer

NEW LEAD, SEARCH LEAD MANUAL DIALING, AND FAST DIAL

If your manager has activated this feature, you will see a MANUAL DIAL text link and a
FAST DIAL text link below the comments field of your main VICIdial screen. These features
allow you to add a new lead to the database manually or search for an existing lead by phone
number and call that number.

• Manual Dial
If you click on the MANUAL DIAL link, you will go to a green screen allowing you to
specify the customer number you want to call. When the "NEW MANUAL DIAL LEAD"
screen appears you will see instructions at the top along with the campaign's dial prefix that
your system may use to get to an outside line, a Dial Code field and a Phone Number field. In
the USA and Canada the Dial code usually stays as a "1", the phone number field is a
maximum length of 10 digits (this should only have digits entered into it). Once you have
entered in a phone number you can click on the “Search Existing” checkbox to see if this
phone number is already in the system and bring up its
record. An option feature (enable by your manager) allows you to see the Comments or Call
Notes from previous calls. You can click the "Dial Now" link and go to the main screen, ready
to dial the lead. Once on the main screen you may choose to enter or modify the lead data in
the "Customer Information" fields, before clicking the "DIAL LEAD" button to place the call.
From the Manual Dial screen, you can also place a call to any extension by entering it in the
"Dial Override" field. After the call is finished and you have selected “Hangup Customer”,
you will disposition the call as usual and go into the next call.

• Fast Dial
The FAST DIAL link is very similar to the Manual Dial link, except to use it all you have to
do is enter a phone number in to the main Customer Information “phone number” field and
click on the FAST DIAL text link to start dialing that number. There are not as many options
with this feature, but it is much faster to use with less steps.

PAUSE AND RESUME PROCEDURE

If wish to go on a break or log out at the end of your shift, you will need to be Paused to click
on the LOGOUT button in the top right corner. If you haven't done this and leave from
disposition screen or just close the web window, your login time may not be recorded
accurately. In addition calls may still be made for several minutes because the system is not
aware you have logged out. If you are experiencing a high call volume, or you have no delay
between when you hangup one call and receive the next, it would be a good idea to use the
“PAUSE AGENT DIALING” checkbox on the call disposition screen.
Time-Clock Punch-in Punch-out
Included with VICIdial is an independent timeclock application that allows agents to clock-in
and clock-out. The VICIdial Agent Login screen can also be restricted to allow only
timeclock clocked-in agents if your manager has set this for your user group.

To properly clocking-in is a 2-step process. First, enter your user Login and Password
and click submit. You will then see a notice of the last time you clocked-out with a
LOGIN button below.
Lastly, you must click the LOGIN button to fully clock-in to the system. Clocking-out of the
system is the identical process.