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. This topic takes you through Zendesk Talk and Aircall configurations, as well as more generalized instructions for using other tools.
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.
Benefits | Drawbacks |
|---|---|
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 |
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.
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.
Benefits | Drawbacks |
|---|---|
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 |
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.
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.
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.
Configure a number for an agent group. To do this, see Routing incoming calls to groups of agents at Zendesk Talk's documentation.
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.
Configure your agent number in Aircall. To learn how to do this, see Creating a New Number in Aircall at Aircall's documentation.
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.
Benefits | Drawbacks |
|---|---|
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.
Benefits | Drawbacks |
|---|---|
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.
Benefits | Drawbacks |
|---|---|
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 |
Have any questions? Contact your Ada team—or email us at help@ada.support.