Configuring Amazon Connect Voice Mail For several years we have been deploying a modified version of the Amazon Connect Voice Mail solution as published by the AWS team to GitHub!   When Amazon Connect first hit the market in 2017, it was without a voice mail solution.  Actually it was without lots of features that most call center folks would expect!  However, as time unfolds in its petty pace, new features are regularly being added.  Today, Amazon Connect continues to lead the way in call center technology.   The voice mail solution, has changed over the la ..read more

The Challenge! We had a voice notification system setup to alert member of our “club” about meetings and special events.  It consisted of a Dynamodb table that listed the phone numbers of the club membership; several lambda functions to access and update the database and an Amazon Connect instance to drive the telephone network requirements.   It worked well and got the job done.   Administrators would call up the application, enter a security authorization code, reset the database, record a new greeting and have a message delivered to every member within minutes.  ..read more

Emergency Notification? There are a number of use cases for an application that can process a list of contacts to be notified by voice message of an impending event.  The event may be an emergency or  a notification of a community activity of interest to the list subscribers.   Even an appointment reminder falls into this category, so it is not necessary to have an actual ’emergency’ to have a requirement to mass notify a subscriber or customer group. Basic Functional Spec We had need of a “campaign dialer” like a solution and we found that all the parts we needed were avai ..read more

Dynamic Call Centers? We can dynamically reconfigure our contact flows, the experience a caller has when calling our contact center.   To do this, we us DNIS (i.e. dialed number information services) essentially using the number the caller dialed, to index a configuration database and return all of the options we need to route an care for the call.   Rather than “cut and paste” contact flows, modified for each queue, why not just use one contact flow that can be reconfigured on the fly?  DNIS is a system attribute in Amazon Connect, it can be passed to the contact flow ..read more

Amazon Connect Agent Scripts? We have been very impressed with Amazon Connect’s growing move into an embedded CRM.  Customer Profiles and Cases are powerful capabilities that are now integrated in the “pay only for what you use” cloud based contact center.  Recently, Amazon has added “step-by-step” Agent guides!  This powerful new functionality brings “one call” customer problem resolution from concept to reality.    It offers a unified experience for contact center agents to access the tools they need to address customer calls effectively.  Each phone call can ge ..read more

with SIP it is easy to spoof a phone number. What is confusing is when a hacker sends an SMS messaage from a spoofed number, how are they able to get the return SMS message? When a hacker sends an SMS message from a spoofed number, they are not actually using the phone number associated with that number to send the message. Instead, they are using a technique known as SMS spoofing, which allows them to send SMS messages from any number they choose, including numbers that are not associated with them. When the recipient of the spoofed SMS message replies to it, the message is not actually sent ..read more

with SIP it is easy to spoof a phone number. What is confusing is when a hacker sends an SMS messaage from a spoofed number, how are they able to get the return SMS message? When a hacker sends an SMS message from a spoofed number, they are not actually using the phone number associated with that number to send the message. Instead, they are using a technique known as SMS spoofing, which allows them to send SMS messages from any number they choose, including numbers that are not associated with them. When the recipient of the spoofed SMS message replies to it, the message is not actually sent ..read more

Out of the Box? AWS has configured the contact center to work out of the box.  Add a phone number, define at least one agent and using the default contact flows, you can be taking phone calls in minutes.   The contact center features will be minimal, but they work without having to have a engineer do everything.  A reasonably intelligent business process professional should be able to configure a working contact center.  The price you pay for this however, is that you are not able to delete contact flows within the Amazon Connect dashboard. Why Default Contact Flows? I ..read more

Route by DNIS? A common call center request is to provide a custom greetings or route a call to a Customer Service Queue (aka CSQ) based on the number the caller dialed.   DNIS or “dialed number information service” is usually the solution to this request.   Typically you create a database table in which the index is the DNIS.  In this way we can pull back all the information we need to greet and route the caller.  The solution consists of mapping a DNIS number to a contact flow that has a lambda function that looks up the greeting and routing details in the datab ..read more

Is Amazon building a CRM Competitor? Amazon Connect continues to innovate and is adding new features at an accelerated rate.   They do not seem to be leaving any flesh on the bones for other third party providers and seem to be taking aim at the CRM market.  There are two new features that address the most common request of call center supervisors: can we pop a screen with info about the caller on call presentation to an agent?   Historically, this was done by integrating the CRM or Practice Management system with the call center though a complex web of connectors, API ..read more