It's all about the Screen Pop!

- Contributed by Justin Couto, President, Couto Solutions

If you had the opportunity to read my opening article on this series titled Feature-Rich Integration of the OnDemand Contact Center, you would have already heard the term “Screen Pop”.  So, what is a Screen Pop anyway?  As I will detail in a brief example, a Screen Pop is an invaluable application programming interface (API) that allows us to trigger an action in an external 3rd party program when a phone call is received.  In addition to its trigger mechanism, this API delivers valuable information that you can use in many ways to increase efficiency and your ability to track inbound call information.  The Contactual Screen Pop offers a true deep integration point that can really make a difference in how you handle your inbound communication.

Now, let’s get down to the nuts and bolts of the Screen Pop to see how all of this really works.  First, a call comes in.   Then, an agent takes the call which triggers the Screen Pop.  The Screen Pop is then initiated from the Contactual Agent Window which pops open a new window.  This new window is nothing more than a web page that you specify in your Contactual API configuration settings in the Administration Console. Now if you were able to follow that, thus far we have a call coming in which, when answered, triggers a web page to pop open. So, what is so magical about that?  Well, the magic is really in the data that gets passed to the popped open window and is not so much in the window popping itself.  With this data we can accomplish all sorts of amazing things in your external systems.

To get a better understanding of what this data looks like, here is a list of some of the things we can collect from incoming Screen Pops to use to cause something to happen in your external system:

[tenant] => royalway	It passes your tenant name
[extLogin] => Johnny	It passes a external username that can be used to login to an external system
[extPwd] => 123456	It passes a external password that can be used to login to an external system
[AccountID] => 19863522	It passes the customer’s Contactual Account ID
[Channel] => 1-888-877-8667	It passes the phone number the customer called
[Queue] => Software and Web Services	It passes the name of the queue the customer was placed in
[WaitTime] => 00:00:08	It passes the amount of time the customer sat in the queue waiting on hold
[CustomerName] => Justin Couto	It passes the customer’s Caller ID which may be a name or phone number
[Company] => Couto Solutions	It passes the customer’s Company name if you have it in Contactual
[ANI] => 8057810419	It passes the customer’s ANI which is a lot like Caller ID, but it can’t be blocked
[ExtVar1] => 333-33-3333	It passes information you collected at a prompt (ex. Social Security Number)
[ExtVar2] => 32	It passes information you collected at a 2nd prompt (ex. Customer’s Age)

Ok, now it is time for some examples on how this data can be used.  Lets say you have an external web CRM or some other system your employees typically work in.  Utilizing the Screen Pop from an incoming call we can collect the caller id data and look up the customer’s account in your external system automatically based on the incoming customer’s phone number.  In addition to this, we could look them up by name, social security number, age, or any other information they have provided at the phone prompt.  This automatic account look up functionality can dramatically increase your employee efficiency by reducing the number of clicks they have to do to get to a customer’s account.  Saving time like this can make a real difference in the number of calls an agent can take in a day.  If you multiply this increased efficiency over time you will quickly realize that the upfront cost of this type of integration is nominal.

In addition to doing auto account lookups, we can utilize data in the screen pop to automate call tracking in your external system.  What this means is that you would have the ability to go into a customer’s account and see all call history associated with that customer account.  You could also use this tracking functionality to measure a return on your marketing based on the phone numbers you use, the marketing codes you supply, and so much more.

As I hope you can see from this article, Screen Pop Integration can make a huge difference in the way you handle your inbound communication.   With its many uses you can bridge the disconnect between Contactual and your 3rd party software systems. 

Author’s Note

I hope you have enjoyed this article about the Contactual Screen Pop integration capabilities and benefits. I am Justin Couto, the President of Couto Solutions which is a Custom Software Development and IT Services company. With over 8 years of business behind us, Couto Solutions has developed Enterprise Custom Software Applications, has done numerous Software Integrations, and has designed and implemented many IT infrastructures.  If you have any questions about us, please feel free to call me at (888) 877-8667, visit our website at www.CoutoSolutions.com, or email us at info@CoutoSolutions.com