Phone support

Calls sit on the customer's record next to their emails and chats. You get the call list, notes, recordings, voicemail, phone menus and queues. You bring your own phone company.

Read this first. The phone part needs your own account with a telephone provider — Exotel or Twilio, or your own carrier over SIP. We do not sell you a number or minutes. It is switched off on the demo, so nothing you see there places a real call.

There is also no softphone in the browser. You cannot answer, hold, transfer or join calls from the screen. Calls are made by ringing your own phone first and then the customer. Be clear about that before you buy.

Connect your phone company

  • Exotel or TwilioPut in your account and token, and calls in and out are logged as they happen
  • The address to paste at their endThe screen shows the web address their call events should be sent to
  • Two ways to run itLog calls only, or log calls and let your team ring customers from the screen
  • Your own carrier insteadConnect over SIP, with encryption required on the line and on the audio, and a connection test
  • Numbers you already ownAdd them with a label and a country. Buying a new number from inside MerlinDesk is not there yet
  • The number customers seeEither your main number, or the number they rang
  • Disconnect safelyYou have to type a confirmation before the provider is removed

Every call on the customer's record

The point of this is not the call. It is that next week anyone can see the call happened, who took it and what was said.

  • One list of every callFiltered by in or out and by what happened, and searchable by number or by the notes
  • Who is ringingWhile the phone rings you see the caller's details, their open requests and their recent calls
  • Write down what happenedFixed, needs following up, ring back later, no answer, or your own note
  • Calls you took on a mobileLog them by hand with the number, how long it took, what happened and your notes
  • Turn a call into a requestOr link it to a request that is already open, and jump to it from the call
  • Missed calls become requestsAt a priority you choose, so nobody is forgotten
  • Calls you make, tooCreate a request for an outgoing call, or add it to that customer's open one
  • Ring from the screen or the phone appYour own phone rings first, then the customer. With no provider connected it hands over to your phone's own dialler
  • A list by callerOne row per number with call and missed counts, downloadable as a CSV file
  • Hide numbers from some staffPart-time or outside helpers need not see the customer's phone number
  • Keep calls for as long as you chooseAnd delete one behind a typed confirmation, if the person has the right to

Where a call goes

  • A press-one menuSend the caller to a queue, to voicemail, on to another number, or end the call. The screen builds a menu with two choices
  • A practice run before it goes liveIt walks every path of the menu, open hours and closed, and checks each one ends somewhere. It does not place a real call
  • No publishing until the test passesA broken menu cannot go live by accident
  • Greeting and hold musicSet the words and the music. You cannot upload your own recorded greeting yet
  • QueuesHow many callers may wait, how long is too long, and quiet time after a call to finish writing notes
  • When the queue is fullVoicemail, pass to another number, offer a call back, or end the call
  • Rules in orderBy open or closed hours and by the start of the caller's number, to a queue, a menu, voicemail or a number
  • Your working hours decideOpen or closed is read from your working hours and holiday list
  • After hours and when things breakChoose where calls go out of hours, and a fall-back number if the provider fails
  • Nuisance and important numbersBlock a number or a whole prefix, and mark numbers that jump the queue
  • How fast you mean to answerSet an answer-time target per queue and see which queues are at risk
  • Offer to ring them backSet when it is offered, how long it stands and how many tries. There is no call-back list for your team to work through yet

Recordings and voicemail

Recording somebody has rules. The screen warns you before you switch it on, and every play is written down.

  • Off, announced, or only if they agreeSet the rule for new numbers. The screen warns you about consent before it saves
  • Card numbers taken outCard numbers are removed from recordings and transcripts. Nothing else is removed
  • Keep them only as long as you needSet how long recordings are kept
  • Playing is loggedEvery time someone plays a recording it goes in the record of who did what
  • Downloading needs a reasonThe person must have the right to download and must type why
  • Deleting needs moreType the call number and a reason, and the recording and transcript both go
  • Voicemail in a listWho rang, whether it is dealt with, and the request it became. Listen and mark it handled
  • A request from each voicemailSo a message left at night is in the queue in the morning
  • How long a message may beSet the limit

No speech-to-text. There is no system here that turns speech into writing, so there are no real call transcripts. The voicemail "transcript" is put together from what the provider reports about the call, not from the words spoken.

Who is on the phone right now

  • A board on the wallCalls in progress, answered, missed, the answer rate, what each person is doing and how long people are waiting. It refreshes every five seconds
  • Each queue at a glanceHow many callers are waiting and how many of your team are on it
  • The month in numbersTotal calls, answer rate, missed and dropped, voicemails, average wait, time talking and time writing up
  • By hour, day and personSo you can see when you are short-handed, with a CSV download