Voice and video
Contact centre and CTI
Contact centre tools and computer telephony integration, so every agent sees who is calling and their history before they answer, calls queue to the right team, and team leaders can see what is happening.
Who it is for
Customer teams in Teesside and the North East that have outgrown the way calls reach them: a sales office, a service desk, an order line, a practice reception or a council contact point where calls queue in the wrong place, agents ask callers who they are, and nobody can see waiting times or missed calls. From a team of five on one phone system to a multi-site operation.
What you get
Calls routed to the right agent in the right order, the caller's record from your CRM or customer system on screen as the call arrives, voice and other channels handled in one place, and dashboards that show team leaders call volumes, waiting times and missed calls as they happen. Built on Mitel MiContact Center or inside Microsoft Teams with Microsoft Dynamics, designed with your team and supported by our own engineers.
The problem
Customers repeat themselves because the agent cannot see who they are, calls queue in the wrong place, and managers cannot tell how the team is performing.
A customer team usually inherits the phone set-up it had when it was three people. Calls land on whoever is free rather than whoever can help, callers are asked for their account number twice, a dispute about what was said comes down to memory, and the team leader finds out about a bad afternoon from the complaints the next day. The CRM holds everything about the caller and the phone system knows nothing about it.
Computer telephony integration (CTI) connects the two: when a call arrives, the agent sees who is calling and their history on screen before answering, and the call is logged against the record. Queues and skills-based routing send each call to the right agent in the right order, with announcements and callbacks when the team is busy. Reporting shows volumes, waiting times, abandoned calls and agent performance as they happen, not in a monthly spreadsheet.
We build this on two platforms. Mitel MiContact Center, for businesses running Mitel MiVoice Business or wanting a full multi-channel contact centre with voice, email and web chat in one queue. Or a contact centre inside Microsoft Teams, with Microsoft Dynamics integration, for teams that already work in Teams and Dynamics all day. PD Ports' MiVoice Business system added presence applications and encrypted call recording across its sites; Charles Clinkard's 26 stores and head office run on the same platform family.
What Odyssey provides
- Computer telephony integration that brings the customer's record up from your CRM as the call arrives
- Call routing, queues and skills-based distribution that send each call to the right agent in the right order
- Voice, email and web chat handled in one place with Mitel MiContact Center, for a multi-channel team
- Contact centres inside Microsoft Teams, with Microsoft Dynamics integration, for teams already working in Teams
- Real-time dashboards and reports on call volumes, waiting times, abandoned calls and agent performance
- Design with your team leaders, agent set-up and training, and support from our own engineers
What is included
| Included | Detail |
|---|---|
| Design | Call flows, queues, skills and routing planned with your team leaders, including what happens when the team is busy and out of hours |
| Integration | CTI connected to your customer or CRM system so the record appears on screen and the call is logged against it |
| Agent set-up | Users, skills, queues and wrap-up codes configured, with agent desktops or Teams clients set up |
| Channels | Voice first, with email and web chat added to the same queues on Mitel MiContact Center where you need them |
| Reporting | Real-time dashboards for team leaders and scheduled reports for managers |
| Training | Agents and team leaders shown the tools on site, and supervisors shown how to change queues and routing themselves |
| Support | Changes to queues, skills and agents, and faults, handled by our engineers |
Not included, or sold separately
- The phone system underneath
- Mitel MiVoice Business or Microsoft Teams calling is the platform the contact centre runs on, and is its own service
- Call recording
- Encrypted recordings for disputes and compliance are added through the call reporting and recording service, which also covers reporting for teams outside the contact centre
- The CRM itself
- We integrate with the customer or CRM system you run; the CRM's own licences, configuration and support stay with its vendor, and we confirm the integration is supported before quoting
- Web chat and email channels on Teams
- The Teams contact centre handles voice, with Dynamics integration; multi-channel queues are a Mitel MiContact Center feature
- Workforce management
- Rota planning and forecasting tools beyond the reporting included are priced separately where a platform offers them
How it is delivered
-
Map how calls reach the team
Who calls, why, how often and when; which agents can handle what; what happens at the busy times and out of hours. The design starts with the team leaders.
-
Design the routing and the screen
Queues, skills, announcements, callbacks and overflow agreed and documented, and the CRM fields that should appear on screen chosen with the agents who will use them.
-
Integrate and build
CTI connected to your CRM and tested with real records, agents and queues configured, dashboards built for the team leaders, all alongside the phone system you already run.
-
Train and go live
Agents and team leaders trained on site, the new routing switched on at a quiet time with our engineers present, and the first days watched for queues that need adjusting.
-
Tune and support
Routing, skills and announcements adjusted as the reports show what callers actually do, supervisors able to make day-to-day changes themselves, and our engineers on the end of the phone within three rings.
Why trust Odyssey with this
-
1987
Business telephony specialists since 1987
-
In-house
All work completed by Odyssey employees, never subcontracted
-
3
Calls answered within three rings, and a director is always reachable
- ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certified by NQA
Client story
Charles Clinkard
A phased refresh of Charles Clinkard's hosted Mitel system across stores, concessions and head office, with no unplanned downtime.
Read the story
Questions people ask
What is computer telephony integration?
CTI connects your phone system to your customer data, so when a call arrives the agent sees who is calling and their history on screen before answering, and the call is logged against the record afterwards.
Can CTI work with the system we already use?
Usually, yes. We work with Mitel MiContact Center and with Microsoft Teams and Dynamics, and integrate with the customer or CRM system you run. Tell us what you use and we will confirm the integration is supported before we quote.
Can we run our contact centre in Microsoft Teams?
Yes. We set up contact centres in Microsoft Teams, with Microsoft Dynamics integration, so agents work in the tool they already use and calls reach them through Teams calling on your existing numbers.
Can agents handle more than phone calls?
Yes. On Mitel MiContact Center, voice, email and web chat are handled in one place from the same queues, so a customer gets the same team whichever way they reach you.
What reporting do team leaders get?
Real-time dashboards of calls waiting, waiting times, abandoned calls and who is on a call, and scheduled reports on volumes and agent performance. If you also need recordings, our call reporting and recording service adds them.
Is this only for large call centres?
No. A team of five on an order line or a practice reception has the same problems at a smaller scale. We size the design to the team, and the per-agent pricing means a small team pays for a small team.
Can we offer callbacks instead of making people wait?
Yes. Queues can offer a callback when the wait is long, play announcements with the position in the queue, and overflow to another team or to voicemail out of hours, all agreed in the design.
Who looks after it once it is running?
Our own engineers, never subcontracted, answered within three rings. Supervisors are trained to make day-to-day changes to queues and routing themselves, and anything larger goes to our service desk.
Challenges this helps with
Related services
Ask about contact centre and CTI
Send us your question and we will come back to you. We call back within the hour in office hours.
Rather talk? Call 01642 661888. Already a customer with a fault? Call the service desk on 01642 661800.
Please fill in every field marked *, then send again.
That email address does not look right. Please check it and send again.
We have had several messages from you in a short time. Please call us on 01642 661888 instead.
Online messages are paused for the moment. Please call us on 01642 661888.
Your message is too long for this form. Please shorten it, or call us.
Something went wrong on our side and your message was not sent. Please call us on 01642 661888.
We could not confirm that a person sent this message. Please try again, or call us on 01642 661888.
Talk to a human about contact centre and CTI
Call and we answer within three rings. Or tell us what you need and we will call you back at any time.