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Play message to the one who answers the call ?

Started by Prez, November 01, 2014, 09:09:57 PM

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Prez

I have linked my OBI 100 to my GV account and set up call forwarding.

Can a message be played to the person who ANSWERS the call.

(Again the message is not for the caller. Also, I am not talking about voicemail.)

SteveInWA

What sort of message?  What do you mean, exactly?  Why?

It sounds like you may not understand how Google Voice works with OBi devices.

GV is not simply a free telephone carrier used by OBi boxes.  It's an inbound call forwarding system.  Someone calls your GV number.  GV then forwards that call to your list of forwarding destinations.  There can be a total of six, in any combination of US mobile or land line phone numbers.  One of those destinations can also be Google Chat.  OBi boxes are pretending to be Google Chat clients.  When you answer a call on your OBi-connected telephone, you are answering a call forwarded to the OBi device's chat client, by Google Voice.

So, the caller is either going to get you, live, or they'll get your GV voice mail greeting.  The greeting is recorded and managed by you, on your Google Voice account, here:  https://www.google.com/voice#voicemailsettings

GV can also provide a "call screening" feature.  If you turn it on, you, the person answering the call, will hear "call from Joe Blow", if you have a Google Contact listing for Joe, or if you've had GV ask Joe to record his name previously.  If not, you'll hear "call from unknown caller".  In either case, you will then be asked to press 1 to accept Joe's call, or to press 2 to send Joe to GV VM.

https://www.google.com/voice#callsettings

There are some unrelated OBi features regarding OBi's own "auto attendant" feature, but again, it's unclear what you mean, and what you want to do.  Describe your desired behavior in more detail...give a hypothetical example.

Prez

#2
Sure. Here is a use case-

Imagine the GV number is assigned to a call center. When the customer calls, we would like the call center agent to hear the following message- "be courteous and be patient" prior to answering the call.

The goal is superior customer service.

Hope that helps.





SteveInWA

No, it can't do that.

Google Voice is not designed for, nor supported by Google, for business use.  Problems do occur occasionally, and there is no direct customer support, nor any service level guarantee for GV.  When something goes wrong, any money you may have saved on phone cost will be offset by loss of business and reputation when people can't reach you.

RFC3261

Quote from: SteveInWA on November 02, 2014, 01:22:19 PM
... nor any service level guarantee for GV. 

I always thought there was a guarantee.  It is you get what you get.  And get over it if you expect different.  :)

That said, GV does an amazing job most of the time.  Their uptime and reliability is quite good.  It is just that they are so big and have so many customers, that any outage causes a disturbance in the force that it does not take Obi-Wan to feel.

But, yes, if your income is on the line, you want someone to be able to hold accountable for outages, and GV is not (and has never tried to be) that.

SteveInWA

All kidding aside:  yep, it's very reliable, but it does occasionally break or suffer degradation, or (most likely) the user screws up some setting, or "accidentally" deletes their account, or they can't remember their password and expect Google to tell them what it is, etc.

It's not a matter of "if something goes wrong", but when something goes wrong.

We have thousands of posts on the GV help forum from business users who chose to ignore this warning, and then post a frantic and/or outraged plea for help.  It usually includes wording like "I printed 1000 business cards and/or flyers and/or paid for ads using my GV number, and now it is gone!  I need it back!"  or "It suddenly stopped working and my clients can't reach me!  Who can I call to get this fixed ASAP".

As I always say, you don't get what you don't pay for.

Lavarock7

As mentioned, GoogleVoice is not meant (nor would I use it) for things like a call center.

However, an account with a VOIP service (with appropriate channels for calls) COULD work fine for you. A call comes in, a message is played and the call goes to a call taker.

However a better solution would be either an online PBX or a small PBX running in the office. I use a RaspberryPi with FreePBX (the unit was less than $50 and the software free). Alternatively, a PC running the software might be better.

Then a call comes in, the PBX answers, delivers a message and puts the caller in the queue with announcements as to where they are and that their call is very important, all with background music. For the cost of a cheap computer and free software this might cost $100 and be way more professional.

With the PBX idea, the call takers would need an adapter or IP phone. Adapters could be as cheap as $10 each if you want to hack them.

http://voip.planet-aloha.com/ has some other ideas.

I am a big fan of the Obis but you are trying to get it to do something it was not designed to do.

I guess the GoogleVoice call could be forwarded to a free NYC number with a CallCentric account which would play the message, then send the call back through the internet to the Obi device, but why then would you not just port the GV number to a voip provider that can do the announcements for you. Trying to save money with GV is commendable for a person at home, but for a business is kinda high on my cheap scale.
My websites: Kona Coffee: http://itskona.com and Web Hosting: http://planetaloha.info<br />A simplified Voip explanation: http://voip.planet-aloha.com

drgeoff

#7
@Lavarock7

I think you have not grasped that the recorded message is to be played to the call centre agent, not the caller.

@Prez
I think the agents would very quickly come to hate hearing that message (or any message) every time they answer a call and it could even become counter-productive.  Surely better and simpler to instil this behaviour during the training phase and repeat it every so often at team meetings.

SteveInWA

Quote from: drgeoff on November 05, 2014, 11:34:13 AM
@Lavarock7

I think you have not grasped that the recorded message is to be played to the call centre agent, not the caller.

@Prez
I think the agents would very quickly come to hate hearing that message (or any message) every time they answer a call and it could even become counter-productive.  Surely better and simpler to instil this behaviour during the training phase and repeat it every so often at team meetings.

+1

Working in a call center is hard enough, without some Dilbert boss telling me to be polite EVERY TIME I answer a call. I'd quit after one day.

We've flogged this discussion to death, but bottom line, Google Voice is totally unsuited for this application.

Lavarock7

Quote from: drgeoff on November 05, 2014, 11:34:13 AM
@Lavarock7

I think you have not grasped that the recorded message is to be played to the call centre agent, not the caller.


Yes, I did miss that nuance. In my defense, I think all call center people should be polite anyway :-)

My websites: Kona Coffee: http://itskona.com and Web Hosting: http://planetaloha.info<br />A simplified Voip explanation: http://voip.planet-aloha.com