Configuring Routing Automation Call Flow

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Introduction

The routing automation call flow allows you to automate your incoming calls to take a particular action based on the functions and responses configured in your custom apps. This gives your customers an enhanced call experience and also helps in achieving higher customer satisfaction.

For a general overview of custom apps and call routing, refer to Overview of Call Routing Automation.

User Requirements: Only a Freschaller admin or account admin can configure the routing automation call flow.

This article contains the following sections:

1. Use Cases
2. Prerequisites
3. Setting up the routing automation call flow
   • Importing Routing Rules
   • Using Dynamic Messages

Use Cases

Before learning how to set up the routing automation call flow, take a look at a few use cases that can help you understand this feature better:

1. Handling VIP customers
   Create a custom app that can identify your VIP callers from your customer's phone number. You can then use Freshcaller to automate call flows that can quickly route your VIP callers to relevant teams. For details, see Routing Automation Use cases.
2. Giving dynamic responses to customer queries
   Consider you have a call center for an e-commerce business, and customers generally call to know their order status. For this, you can create a custom app that validates the customer's order number received via IVR. You can then create a call flow to read these responses and give dynamic answers to customers. For more details, see Routing Automation Use cases.

Prerequisites

1. Before configuring the routing automation call flow, ensure that you have a serverless custom app installed. For details, see Routing Automation - Custom Actions.
2. The custom app should have the following configurations:
   • Function: Defines the action to perform through the call flow. When you receive an incoming call, the routing engine communicates with the custom app to fetch this function.

     For example, you can configure a returnorderstatus function in your custom app that can automatically give the order status of a caller based on the IVR input received from the caller.

   • Input Type: The input format you want to receive from the caller via IVR. The input types you can configure are single-digit, multiple digits, speech, and phone number. The input type is specific to the function defined in the custom app.

     For example, for the returnorderstaus function, if you want the caller to give their order number as input for validation, the input type should be multiple-digits.  

   • Responses: These are the results that the custom app returns to Freshcaller after validating the caller's input. So the response from the app only tells if the caller's input is correct or incorrect. Based on this response/result, you can configure the action to perform in the call flow.

     For example, if the caller enters a correct order number, the custom app could validate and give the response that the input is valid. So based on this, you can configure the action to perform in the call flow.

Setting up the routing automation call flow

To configure the call flow:

1. Log in to your Freshcaller account as an admin.
2. Go to admin > Call Flows > Routing Automation.
   
3. Enter the Routing automation flow name.
4. App Name: From the drop-down, select the custom app configured in your account.
   If you do not have a custom app, create and install a custom app.
5. Function Name: Select the function name with which you want to automate the call flow. The function names you see here are fetched from the custom app selected in the previous step. 
6. Welcome Message: Select a message to initiate the automated routing call flow. Freschaller provides default messages. You can choose to select one or create a custom message.
7. Input Type: Select the input type configured for the function selected in step 5. Check your custom app and give the exact input type configured for the selected function. The options are:
   • Single-digit: Expects single-digit keypress input from the caller. 
   • Multiple-digit: Expects multiple-digit input from the caller.
   • Speech: Expects voice input from the caller.
   • Phone number: The caller's phone number is considered as the input, which means the caller does not have to give any input. This is useful when you want to automate your call flows just with the incoming call numbers.

     For example, to identify if a customer is a VIP caller, all that you need is the caller's phone number as input to validate.

8. Hold Message: Select the hold message to play. This is played when Freshcaller is waiting to receive a response from the custom app based on the caller's input. You can choose to select the default hold message or create a custom message.
9. Create Routing Rules: Enter the response and action to take based on the input received from the caller.
   Note that the response is the result that the custom app returns after validating the caller's input. So, ensure that you enter the same response as configured in the custom app. The actions you can take for each response are:
   • Send to voicemail: Select this to send the caller to a voicemail message. You can now configure a dynamic message. For details, see Using Dynamic Messages.
   • Send to call queue
   • Send to IVR
   • Send to routing automation
10. Import Routing Rules: Alternatively, you can use this option to import multiple responses and actions instantly. See Importing Rules section for more details.
11. If input is invalid: Select the message to play when the caller enters invalid input. Also, enter the number of times you want to repeat this message and select the action to perform after N repeats.
12. If app did not understand: Select the action to perform when the app does not understand the caller's input. 
13. Once you enter all the details, click Save.
    
    

Note: To activate this call flow, make sure to assign this to a number in your account. For details, check Setting up your Call Actions.

Importing Routing Rules

In addition to adding individual action/response pairs, you can also upload and import multiple action/response pairs instantly using an XLSX file.

1. In the Routing Automation Call flow, click on the Import Routing Rules option.
   
2. Browse and select the XLSX file you want to import and click Upload.
   The file should have responses, corresponding action type, and action name. If you are not sure about how to create one, download the sample xlsx template and fill in the details.
   

3. The sample template contains the following columns:

   • Response: Enter the responses configured in the custom app

   • Action type: Select the action type from the drop-down.

     • Send to call queue

     • Send to IVR

     • Hangup

     • Send to Voicemail

     • send to routing automation

   • Action Name: Enter the name of the action type.
     For example, if the action type is "send to call queue", the action name should be the name of the call queue.

4. On successful upload, you will see the following message.
   

5. Additionally, you will also receive a confirmation message on your registered mail id.
   To see the uploaded rules, refresh the automation call flow page.

6. To edit/view the imported rules, click on the edit icon next to the uploaded rules.
   

7. Note that you cannot add new sets of responses and actions, but you can edit the action type and action names here.
   You can also click the Import new routing rules link to upload rules. But note that if you do this, the existing rules will be removed and replaced.

Using Dynamic Messages

With Freshcaller, you have the option to create pre-recorded messages and use them in multiple points of a call workflow, such as welcome message, hold message, voicemail message, etc. However, with routing automation, you can now create dynamic messages with placeholder variables.

For example, If you have a subscription business, callers can know the account balance without the need to talk to an agent. You can automate this by using dynamic messages within routing automation. If dynamic message is used in routing automation workflow, Freshcaller gets the actual values to in the message from the custom app selected.

You can create a dynamic message from within the automation call flow, or create from the Messages tab in the Admin Settings. For details, see Creating Dynamic Messages.

Learn More:

• Overview of Routing Automation
• Routing Automation Use cases