Overview: Interactions (App)

This article provides an overview of interactions in App.

Overview

An interaction is a communication between a queue user and an external customer. The core functionality of Edify CX revolves around processing and routing interactions.

Interactions are created in queues. The settings of a queue drive how the interaction is set up for the queue user and the overall interaction experience including what happens when it’s first created, when it moves to wrap up status, and when it’s finally completed.

This article will go into the various states, directions, and communication types of interactions.

Interaction states

There are two overarching states for all interactions:

• Active

• Completed

An active interaction is any interaction that hasn’t yet been marked as completed. Active interactions age as time goes on, and they contribute to your queue’s SLA (service level agreement) metrics. Active interactions can be claimed by a queue user. They can also be transferred to a variety of destinations like another queue user, another queue, or an external contact. Active interactions remain active until they’re officially completed. 

A completed interaction is any formerly active interaction that’s been marked as completed.

Once completed, an interaction no longer contributes to your queue’s SLA metrics. You can view an interaction’s call recordings, audio transcriptions, chat transcriptions, dispositioning notes, feed activity, or coaching tools (if these features were enabled while the interaction was active) to get a sense of what happened during the interaction when it was active and how it went overall.

Another helpful feature of completed interactions is seeing who completed the interaction and when, so you can reach out to them to ask questions about the interaction as needed.

Although you can’t communicate with the customer on a completed interaction, you can clone a completed interaction to create a new, active interaction, so you can quickly reach back out to the customer to follow-up if needed.

Once completed, you can also edit various fields on an interaction, including:

• Customer name

• Customer phone number

• Customer email address

• Subject field

• Interaction Type menu

• End Result menu

• Notes field

• Custom fields configured to the queue

Interaction directions

In addition to states (active or completed), interactions also have directions. There are two types of directions for an interaction:

• Inbound (into the Avaya system from an external source)

• Outbound (out of the Avaya system to an external destination)

Queue users may receive or claim inbound interactions in any queues they have access to. Users with appropriate permissions can create outbound interactions from Queue home.

Note that interaction directions are closely related to subcommunication types (described in the section below). The most important takeaway is to understand that interactions can either originate from an external source (inbound) or from within your account (outbound).

Interaction actions

While handling an interaction, there's a wide array of actions you can perform, including:

• Transfer an interaction

• Mute / unmute an interaction

• Put an interaction on hold or take it off hold

• Start or stop recording on an interaction

• Claim ownership

• and many more

For more information, view our library of interaction documentation to learn more about how to handle interactions.

Communication types

Every interaction has a communication type. As its name suggests, the communication type of an interaction indicates how the queue user and the external customer communicate. The communication type of an interaction can change at any time. 

This means that the interaction could have been created as an inbound phone call interaction, but during the conversation the customer decided to continue the engagement over SMS texting. So, in this scenario, the interaction communication type moved from a phone call to a messaging interaction, specifically text messaging. This communication type change all happened in real time.

 The four communication types are:

• Phone

• Messaging

• Task

• Email

In addition to these communication types, there are also subcommunication types. These provide even greater specificity into the kind of communication taking place between a queue user and an external customer. 

The list below shows each communication type with its associated subcommunication types.

• Phone

  • • Callback: An outbound phone call made by a queue user after either party on an interaction hangs up.

    • Inbound: A phone call made from an external source to your account.

    • Outbound: A phone call made from your account to an external destination.

• Messaging

Chat: A web chat interaction.

Text: An SMS interaction.

Voicemail: An interaction created when a customer leaves a voicemail on a queue.

• Task

  • • Coaching: An interaction to prompt a queue user to review feedback on a completed interaction.

    • Learning: An interaction to prompt a queue user to complete some sort of training activity.

    • Fax: An interaction to prompt a queue user to send a fax.

    • Other: A miscellaneous task.

• Email

  • • Inbound: An email sent from an external source to your account.

    • Outbound: An email sent from your account to an external destination.

Routing interactions

Admins with access to Console can route interactions to appropriate queues or users based on tags that can be assigned with workflows. 

To learn more about routing an interaction, see: Overview: Tag routing (Console).

Transferring an interaction

Interaction transfers allow you to send an interaction to any of the following types of destinations

• A user

• A queue

• An external contact

You can initiate an interaction transfer at any time on an active interaction by clicking the Transfer button in the call controls of an interaction.

To learn more about transferring an interaction, see: Overview: Transferring interactions (App).

Ending an interaction

Ending an interaction closes it, with the queue user able to either mark it as resolved or unresolved. To learn more about ending an interaction, see: Overview: Ending interactions (App).

Visual breakdowns

Breakdown: Active interaction

All interactions include a details tab on the left side of the interaction. This is where you can see the customer’s information and the call control buttons. On the right side of the interaction, a menu of workspaces is available to you for toggling between different applications. The interaction tab along the top is where you can see quick details.

• Interaction Tab (A): This tab is where you view quick details about the interaction, like the customer’s name, the interaction’s communication type, the name of the queue where the interaction was sent, and the running timer for the duration of the interaction. For messaging interactions, you can return the interaction to the queue by closing the Interaction Tab.

• Small Tabs Panel (B): Horizontal list of tabs that gives you access to viewing any one of the following applications within the Small Tabs Workspace:

• Customer Details Tab: This tab is displayed as the game controller icon and gives you access to the call controls, customer information, dispositioning input fields, and the map (if enabled for the queue). 

• Customer Journey Tab: This tab is displayed as the tri-fold map icon and gives you the ability to view the customer’s historical engagement with your business. If data isn’t populated here, then your admin needs to configure the Journey container of the queue in Console.

• Feed Tab: This tab is displayed as three messaging bubbles and gives you access to sending and reviewing message interactions like chat and texting.

• Salesforce Lookup Tab (SFDC): This tab is displayed as the Salesforce cloud icon. It gives you access to looking up and linking customer details and account information from Salesforce directly from the interaction. See Run an SFDC lookup (App).

Note: Each queue can have a different configuration of small tabs. However, every interaction will show the Customer Details tab.

• Small Tabs Workspace (C): This area displays the information for the selected Small Tab. 

• Large Tabs Panel (D): This vertical list of tabs gives you access to the following applications:

• Knowledge Tab: This tab is displayed as an open book and provides access to a library of content articles and email or messaging templates. 

• Feed Tab: This tab is displayed as three messaging bubbles icon and gives you the ability to send and review message interactions like chat and texting.

• Email Tab: This tab is displayed as an envelope icon and gives you the ability to send and review email interactions.

• Customer Journey Tab: This tab is displayed as a tri-fold map icon and gives you the ability to view the customer’s historical engagement with your business. Note that the queue must also have the Journey container configured to capture these details though the journey details displayed include all interactions managed through any of your business’ queues.

• Fax Tab: This tab is displayed as a desk phone icon and gives you the ability to send a fax message to the desired recipient while engaged in an active interaction.

• Script Tab: This tab is displayed as a scroll icon and gives you the ability to utilize dynamic scripts while engaging with the customer. These scripts are configured by your admin in Console and are custom to the needs of your business. 

• Custom Tabs: These tabs give you access to external applications important to work executed in this queue. These are configured by your admin and can vary in appearance and content depending on the needs of your business.

Note: Each queue can have a different configuration of Large tabs. 

• Large Tabs Workspace (E): This area displays the information and fields applicable to the selected Large Tab.

Breakdown: Completed interaction

In a completed interaction, the customer details tab workspace allows you to edit interaction details and/or clone the interaction. The completed interaction also includes access to the coaching tab, which is where you see data about the interaction and the coaching tools for evaluating it. 

Refer to the labeled image below to learn more about the important features of a completed interaction.

• Completed By (A): The Completed By area shows which queue user completed the interaction. This is also where you can see that user’s current availability (ie. CX Status and user status) and contact the user by either chat or phone.

• Chat button: The chat button is located below the user’s name and availability. This button is displayed as a message bubbles icon. Click on this to open the chat workspace and create a direct message with the user.

Note: If you already have a direct message with the user your conversation will continue in that thread. 

• Call button: The call button is located below the user’s name and availability. This button is displayed as a phone receiver icon. Click this button to call the user’s extension.

• Edit button (B): The edit button allows you to make updates to any of the customer contact information, dispositioning fields, and/or customer fields (if applicable). You can edit the following fields:

  • • • • Customer name

        • Customer phone number

        • Customer email address

        • Subject field

        • Interaction Type menu

        • End Result menu

        • Notes field

        • Custom fields configured to the queue.

Note: You can’t modify who completed an interaction or the activity associated with an interaction.

• Clone button (C): The clone button allows you to quickly generate a new outbound interaction to reach back out to the customer. See Clone a completed  interaction (App).

• Coaching tab (D): The coaching tab is where users can access data on interaction, coaching tools for commenting directly on the interaction and more. This tab populates at the top of the tabs panel when an interaction is completed and is only available when reviewing a completed interaction. See Overview: Interaction coaching tab (App).

Note: This feature is not available to all users.

Read more

• Overview: Outbound interactions in Queue (App)

• Overview: Ending interactions (App)

• Overview: Transferring interactions (App)