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Integrate your voice bot with your Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) provider

When you integrate a Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) provider into your Ada bot, you can manage handoffs from your bot to human support. There are several tools and user experiences you can serve your callers with them.

Understand the types of call transfers​

When you're configuring call transfers between your Ada bot and your CCaaS provider, you can choose to do those transfers using the phone network or over the internet. Which is best for your organization depends on your organization's needs and what your CCaaS provider supports.

Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) transfers​

Because PSTN transfers only happen over the phone, you just need to provide a phone number and don't need to configure anything else.

BenefitsDrawbacks

Easy to configure - to make a call or transfer, you just need to dial a phone number

Supported by all CCaas providers

More expensive - the per-minute fee that Twilio charges for inbound PSTN calls is higher than the fee for SIP. Each call can involve up to three transfers between systems, and for each transfer, there's an ongoing per-minute fee that both the sending and receiving services charge for the rest of the call

Not possible to include metadata with calls

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) transfers​

If your CCaaS provider supports SIP transfers, you can take advantage of the cost savings and additional features that are possible when transferring calls over the internet. For more information, see the Configure Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) transfers section of this topic.

BenefitsDrawbacks

More cost efficient - Twilio charges a lower per-minute fee after each transfer

Can sometimes include metadata with call transfers, depending on what your CCaaS provider supports

Not supported by all CCaaS providers

Configuration can be more complicated in CCaaS platforms

Configure Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) transfers​

To configure PSTN transfers in your bot, you have to start by configuring your Ada bot, then connect your Ada bot with your Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) provider.

Configure your phone number in Ada​

In your bot settings, make sure your bot is using the Phone Number setting instead of SIP Address. For more information, see Configure a phone number with your bot.

Configure PSTN transfers in your CCaaS with voice​

This section takes you through Zendesk Talk and Aircall configurations, as well as more generalized instructions for using other tools. Click a section to expand the full instructions.

Integrate Voice with Zendesk Talk

This section takes you through how to transfer calls between Ada and Zendesk Talk.

Transfer calls from Zendesk Talk to Ada​

There are two ways you can get calls into Ada from Zendesk Talk: you can provide a menu option in Zendesk Talk in your Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, or you can route all of your calls to Ada.

Option 1: Create a menu option in your Zendesk Talk IVR​

If you put a menu option in your Zendesk Talk IVR, callers will only get routed to Ada if they select certain options from a touchtone menu. For example, this option is useful if you only want to route calls related to specific use cases to Ada.

note

When you route to an external number via an IVR, Zendesk Talk doesn't record or create a ticket for that call.

BenefitsDrawbacks

Allows you to control which calls are sent to Ada and which are not

Allows a more limited initial rollout of Ada

Callers will need to interact with a touch tone menu in order to get to Ada, rather than use their own words to describe their issue and have Ada’s AI respond based on their issue

  1. Add a route to a new or existing IVR menu in Zendesk Talk. You can learn how to do this at Creating an IVR menu at Zendesk Talk's documentation.

  2. Update your greeting to refer to your new route! For information on how to do that, see Creating a custom greeting and assigning it to numbers at Zendesk Talk's documentation.

Option 2: Transfer all calls from Zendesk Talk to Ada​

If you route all calls from Zendesk Talk to Ada, the caller can skip directly to speaking with your bot, without having to interact with a touch tone menu.

BenefitsDrawbacks

Ada acts as the “front door” for all calls. Callers use their own words to describe their issue and have Ada’s AI respond based on their issue

None

  1. Add your Ada bot's phone number as an overflow number to Zendesk Talk. For information to do this, see Adding an overflow number (for phone lines) at Zendesk Talk's documentation.

  2. Create a group with no agents in it, so agents will never be available and Zendesk Talk forwards all callers to your Ada number. To learn how to do this, see Creating groups at Zendesk Talk's documentation.

  3. Finally, route all inbound calls to this group. Each time a call comes in, Zendesk Talk will see that there are no available agents in this group and route calls to your Ada number instead. For information on how to do this, see Routing incoming calls to groups of agents at Zendesk Talk's documentation.

Escalate calls directly to agent groups using Zendesk Talk​

If a caller using your bot needs to escalate to a human agent, you can hand them off directly to a number you have associated with a particular agent group, using the Transfer Phone Call block. Transferring the caller directly to a human provides the best experience, so they don't have to go through the frustration of going through a second menu after they get transferred.

If required, you can assign different phone numbers to different departments. For example, you can configure one number for handoffs related to billing issues, and another one related to sales inquiries.

  1. Configure a number for an agent group. To do this, see Routing incoming calls to groups of agents at Zendesk Talk's documentation.

  2. Put that phone number into an Answer using a Transfer Phone Call block. For more information on how to use this block, see Transfer phone calls.

Integrate Voice with Aircall

This section takes you through how to transfer calls between Ada and Aircall.

Transfer calls from Aircall to Ada​

In Aircall, you can forward calls to an external number to send inbound calls to your Ada bot. For more information, see Using Aircall's Forward to External Number Feature at Aircall's documentation.

Escalate calls directly to agents using Aircall​

If a caller using your bot needs to escalate to a human agent, you can hand them off directly to a number you have associated with a particular agent group, using the Transfer Phone Call block. Transferring the caller directly to a human provides the best experience, so they don't have to go through the frustration of going through a second menu after they get transferred.

If required, you can assign different phone numbers to different departments. For example, you can configure one number for handoffs related to billing issues, and another one related to sales inquiries.

  1. Configure your agent number in Aircall. To learn how to do this, see Creating a New Number in Aircall at Aircall's documentation.

  2. Put that phone number into an Answer using a Transfer Phone Call block. For more information on how to use this block, see Transfer phone calls.

Integrate Voice with a different CCaaS provider

You can use a variety of CCaaS providers with Voice. This section contains general instructions on how to set them up.

Option 1: Transfer calls from your CCaaS provider to Ada​

In this scenario, callers call a phone number associated with your CCaaS provider. Then, you can use your CCaaS provider to transfer calls to our Ada bot's phone number.

BenefitsDrawbacks

Callers can continue to call the existing customer service phone number that's already set up in your CCaaS

The whole call will be reflected in your CCaaS platform’s analytics

Allows you to control which calls are sent to Ada and which are not (e.g., if you only want to send certain call types or a set percentage of calls to Ada)

Your CCaaS may charge an ongoing per-minute fee for these calls

Option 2a: Have callers call your Ada bot directly using a new phone number​

In this scenario, callers directly call the phone number you purchased in your Twilio account to use with Ada.

BenefitsDrawbacks

Ada acts as the “front door” for all calls

You won’t be charged an ongoing per minute fee by your CCaaS for these calls unless an escalation to a human agent is required

If you have an existing customer service phone number, you need to replace that number with the new number that you purchased in Twilio for your bot

Option 2b: Have callers call your Ada bot directly using a ported phone number​

This scenario is identical to option 2a, but instead of requiring callers to call a new customer service phone number, you port an existing phone number to Twilio. you can find instructions on how to do this at Porting a Phone Number to Twilio at Twilio's documentation.

BenefitsDrawbacks

Ada acts as the “front door” for all calls

You won’t be charged an ongoing per minute fee by your CCaaS for these calls unless an escalation to a human agent is required

Callers can continue to call your existing customer service phone number

Porting a phone number can take up to four weeks

On your porting date, you have to coordinate configuring the phone number with your Ada account to avoid interrupted service

Configure Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) transfers​

To configure SIP transfers in your bot, you have to start by configuring your Ada bot and your Twilio account, followed by your SIP provider.

Configure SIP transfers in Ada​

In your bot settings, make sure your bot is using the SIP Address setting instead of Phone Number. For more information, see Configure a SIP address with your bot.

Configure SIP authentication in Twilio​

Configure SIP authentication for your domain, which determines how Twilio accepts SIP traffic.

This procedure takes you through configuring IP Access Control Lists (ACLs), so Twilio only accepts SIP traffic that originates from your specified IPs, but you can also choose to configure credential lists instead, so it only accepts traffic from specific usernames and passwords. For more information, see Inbound - Sending SIP to Twilio at Twilio's documentation.

  1. Log into Twilio Console.

  2. In your Twilio account, go to Develop > Voice > Manage > IP access control lists, then click Create new Access Control List. The Create new Access Control List window opens.

  3. In the Create new Access Control List window, fill in the following fields:

    1. Under ACL Friendly Name, enter a name (e.g., All IP addresses).

    2. Under IP Address Range Friendly Name, enter a name (e.g., 0.0.0.0 - 127.255.255.255).

    3. Under CIDR Network Address, enter 0.0.0.0.

    4. Under Range, enter 1.

  4. Click Create new ACL to save the list and close the window. Then, click Create new IP Address Range to add an additional IP range to the list. The Add Ip Address Range window opens.

  5. In the Add Ip Address Range window, fill in the following fields:

    1. Under CIDR Network Address, enter 128.0.0.0.

    2. Under Range, enter 1.

    3. Under IP Address Range Friendly Name, enter a name (e.g., 128.0.0.0 - 255.255.255.255).

  6. Click Add IP Address Range to save the range and close the window.

  7. Next, configure authentication for your SIP domain. Go to Develop > Voice > Manage > SIP domains. You should see the SIP domain that you entered when you configured SIP in your Ada settings. Click the domain.

  8. Under Voice Authentication, beside IP Access Control Lists, select the IP Access Control List you created.

  9. Under Secure Media, click the toggle so it says Enabled.

  10. Click Save.

Transfer calls from Ada to a CCaaS using SIP​

You can also transfer calls from your Ada bot to a SIP address using the Transfer Call block. For information on how to do this, see Transfer phone calls.

Connect your SIP provider with Voice​

The configuration steps to connect your SIP provider to your bot vary depending on SIP provider. Click a section to expand the full instructions, or contact Ada if you need assistance with a different provider.

Configure SIP transfers from Genesys Cloud

Create a SIP trunk for transferring calls to Ada Voice​

  1. Log into your Genesys Cloud account, then go to the Admin tab.

  2. Under Telephony, click Trunks.

  3. On the External Trunks tab, click Create New. The Create External Trunk page opens.

  4. On the Create External Trunk page, fill in the following fields:

    1. Under External Trunk Name, enter a name (e.g., Ada Voice trunk).

    2. Under Type, select BYOC Carrier and Generic BYOC Carrier.

    3. Under Protocol, select TLS.

  5. In the Inbound section, fill in the following fields:

    1. Under Number Plan Site, select your main Genesys site. For more information, see About sites at the Genesys Cloud Resource Center.

    2. Under Inbound SIP Termination Identifier, enter a name (e.g., ada-voice).

    3. You can leave the Inbound SIP Termination Header field blank.

  6. In the Outbound section, fill in the following fields:

    1. Under Outbound SIP Termination FQDN, enter your SIP domain.

    2. Under Outbound SIP DNIS, enter admin.

    3. Under SIP Servers or Proxies, in the Hostname or IP Address field, enter your SIP domain, and in the Port field, enter 5061. Then, click the + icon to add it.

  7. Under SIP Access Control, in the Add an IP or CIDR address field, enter each of the following CIDR addresses, one at a time, and click the + icon to add it.

    These are all of Twilio's SIP IP addresses. For more information, see IP Addresses for Elastic SIP Trunking Services at Twilio Docs.

    168.86.128.0/18
    54.172.60.0/30
    54.172.60.0/23
    34.203.250.0/23
    54.244.51.0/30
    54.244.51.0/24
    54.171.127.192/30
    54.171.127.192/26
    52.215.127.0/24
    35.156.191.128/30
    35.156.191.128/25
    3.122.181.0/24
    54.65.63.192/30
    54.65.63.192/26
    3.112.80.0/24
    54.169.127.128/30
    54.169.127.128/26
    3.1.77.0/24
    54.252.254.64/30
    54.252.254.64/26
    3.104.90.0/24
    177.71.206.192/30
    177.71.206.192/26
    18.228.249.0/24

  8. Click the Protocol section of the page to expand it. Then, under User to User Information (UUI), do the following:

    1. Click the UUI Passthrough toggle so it's Enabled.

    2. Under Type, select User-to-User PD Attribute.

    3. Under Encoding Format, select Ascii.

  9. Under Transfer, click the Take Back and Transfer and Release Link Transfer (RLT) toggles so they're both Enabled.

  10. Click Save External Trunk.

Connect your SIP trunk to a number plan​

  1. In Genesys Cloud, go to Telephony > Sites and select your main site. For more information, see About sites at the Genesys Cloud Resource Center.

  2. On the Number Plans tab, click New Number Plan.

  3. On the page that opens, fill in the following fields:

    1. Under Number Plan Name, enter a name.

    2. Under Match Type, select E.164 Number List.

    3. Under Numbers, enter the range of numbers that, when dialed from your system, will transfer to Ada Voice. These can be placeholders, and they can be the same number to indicate that the range only contains one phone number.

    4. Under Classification, choose a classification.

  4. Click Save Number Plans.

  5. On the Outbound Routes tab, click New Outbound Route.

  6. On the page that opens, fill in the following fields:

    1. Under Outbound Route Name, enter a name.

    2. Under Classifications, choose one or more classifications.

    3. Under External Trunks, click Select External Trunks and select the SIP trunk you created.

    4. Under Classifications, add a classification for your Outbound Route. This must match the Classification that you used for your Number Plan.

  7. Click Save Outbound Routes.

Create a call flow that transfers to Ada Voice​

  1. In Genesys Cloud, on the Admin tab, click Architect.

  2. Select the call flow you want to transfer to Ada Voice. The Inbound Call Flow page opens.

  3. On the Inbound Call Flow page, under Toolbox, click Task to expand it, then drag the Task action into your Starting Menu. This creates the task we use to transfer callers to Ada Voice. The New Task pane opens.

  4. Under Toolbox, click Data to expand it, then drag the Set UUI Data action into the New Task pane, into the Drag action here box. The Set UUI Data pane opens.

  5. In the Set UUI Data pane, under Outgoing UUI Data, beside the Enter value field, click the menu that has an icon of a document on it, and select String Builder.

  6. Click the same menu again and click Expression. The String Builder window opens. In the String Builder window, under Expression, enter this string:

    Append("phone_number=", Replace(Call.Ani, "tel:", ""))

    This is a Genesys expression that extracts the caller's number and adds it to the UUI header in the format Ada Voice expects (e.g., phone_number=+14035555555).

  7. Click Save to save the string and close the String Builder window.

  8. Under Toolbox, click Transfer to expand it, then drag the Transfer to Number action into the New Task pane, under the Set UUI Data action you just added. The Transfer to Number pane opens.

  9. In the Transfer to Number pane, do the following:

    1. Under Number, enter the number you added in your number plan earlier.

    2. Under Perform release link transfer, select True.

    3. Under Audio, under Pre-Transfer Audio and Failed Transfer Audio, enter messages for Genesys to play to callers before transferring them and to let them know the transfer failed, respectively.

  10. Under Toolbox, click Disconnect to expand it, then drag the Disconnect action into the New Task pane, under the Transfer to Number action you just added.

  11. Click Publish.

At this point, you should be able to call your Genesys Cloud IVR and be successfully transferred to Ada Voice.

Have any questions? Contact your Ada team—or email us at .