How to Add Telephony Features to a Web Site

Web enabled telephony involves linking a company website to a call center. It allows customers to receive better service by offering them the option of being immediately contacted by a representative via telephone. At that point, the service or support representative and the customer can review the items on the website or other questions together.

This is sophisticated and cutting-edge customer service technology at its finest! As an Active Call Center customer, it should be exciting to think that this type of technology is available to you at a fraction of what your competitors will pay. Consider the following scenario which can be implemented using Active Call Center:

Customer: << Surfing web site, needs help. Fills out phone number and leaves a brief message, then presses a "Please Call Me" button on the web page >>

Web Server: << Processes customer's request and initiates outbound dialing from Active Call Center's outbound calling COM object. Active Call Center calls a customer service representative. >>

Customer Service: << Answers phone. >> Hello?

Active Call Center: Please Press 1 for a web-site message...

Customer Service Representative: <<< Presses 1 >>>

Active Call Center: A web site surfer is requesting a call back at 1-800-555-1000. That number again is 1-800-555-1000. The web site surfer also sends the following comments - "Please help me, I don't understand this pricing structure". Would you like to repeat this information? Press 1 for yes or 2 for no, or say yes or no.

Customer Service Representative: <<< Presses 2 >>>

Active Call Center: Please hold, I'm transferring you to the customer now. If you are not connected to the customer, please call them directly. << Transfers call to waiting customer >>

Customer: << Answers Phone. >> Wow! I can't believe you got back to me so quickly...

Customer Service Representative: It's all thanks to our Active Call Center software...

Implementing a Web Enabled Telephony Solution with Active Call Center

In order to integrate telephony into a website, the web server will need some kind of dynamic web content delivery tool installed - e.g. Allaire's ColdFusion, Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP), or Microsoft's free Personal Web Server. Each of these tools support COM, which is critical to making Active Call Center work with a web site. Active Call Center and corresponding telephony hardware will also need to be installed on the web server that will accept the call-back requests. Once the necessary installations have been performed, the implementation procedure is generally as follows:

Step 1: Create an area on the website where a customer can request a callback. Have the customer input a phone number and perhaps a brief message of what they need.

Step 2: When the customer presses a "Please Call Me" button, the data entered by the customer is passed along to a ColdFusion or ASP web-script.

Step 3: The web-script initializes the Active Call Center Outbound Calling COM object. The Active Call Center COM object is given the phone number and message entered by the customer. The web-script also starts the outbound call process and lets the web surfer know that their message is being expedited to a customer service representative.

Step 4: Presumably, the web-script is going to initiate an outbound call to a customer service representative. Small business owners: this call could come to your cellular phone and no one would be the wiser! The web-script will deliver the message and callback number entered by the web surfer to the customer service representative using text-to-speech.

Step 5: This is where things really get interesting. The outbound call could now automatically disconnect, leaving the customer service representative to dial the customer on their own. Even better, if the phone system and telephony device support call transfer with Active Call Center, simply transfer this call directly to the waiting customer - the customer can get a callback within approximately 60 seconds!

Example

This example will demonstrate a small web site with telephony features. Be warned: installing a web server on your computer system may create security issues. Do not attempt to implement this example if you are a novice user or do not have access to a system professional who could undo the changes you make.

This example assumes that Active Call Center and a working telephony device are installed on the web server being used. The technique illustrated here is by far the easiest way to add web callback services to a web site that we have ever seen.

Step 1. Install Personal Web Server (PWS) if it is not already installed. Personal Web Server is a free web hosting tool available from Microsoft.

• Check if PWS is installed by clicking Start ... Settings ... Control Panel ... Add/Remove Programs ... Windows Setup ... Internet Tools. If PWS is installed, locate it under Start ... Programs ... Accessories ... Internet Tools and start PWS.
• If PWS is not installed, download and install PWS from Microsoft's web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/ie/pws

• The remainder of this example assumes that C:\Inetpub\wwwroot is the root directory for the web site hosted by PWS.

Step 2. Copy demonstration files to the web site folder C:\inetpub\wwwroot.

• Copy the files ACCWebDemo.htm and ACCWebDemo.asp and paste the files to your website folder C:\inetpub\wwwroot.

Step 3. Click on the PWS globe icon in the system tray and make sure the web server is indeed monitoring for hits. PWS should say that your web site is available.

Step 4. Verify connection to the internet, determine your local IP address.

• Users with a dial-up connection will not be able to test this service properly. Users on a LAN connection should make sure they are connected. Users behind a firewall may also have some difficulties.
• Determine the local IP address by clicking Start ... Programs ... MS-DOS Prompt. At the MS DOS prompt type

netstat -n

and press ENTER. Your local IP address is a set of four numbers separated by periods (everything before the colon) under the Local Address column. A typical IP addresses looks like: 129.103.45.21.

Step 5. Test the application from a different (or the same) computer.

• Open a web browser, and browse over to:

http://129.103.45.21/ACCWebDemo.htm

Be sure to replace the IP address 129.103.45.21 with your own IP address from Step 5.

• The browser should display a demonstration page. Enter the information and press the Please Call Me button on the web page.
• Look for the Active Call Center Outbound Dialing COM object to begin an outbound call on the host computer! The outbound call is performed with the "Web Telephony Demo" example Call Tree in the Examples folder.
• Windows NT and 2000 users should refer to the notes below if they are having trouble.

Step 6. Customize the application!

• Change the ACCWebDemo.htm to change the web surfer's view of the process.
• Modify the "Web Telephony Demo" Call Tree to behave differently on the outbound call or add call transfer features.
• Modify the ACCWebDemo.asp page to suit your particular needs.

Important Notes for Windows NT and 2000 Users

Windows NT and 2000 implement security for web servers by running all web originated processes under a different user account. As a result, Windows will not allow the Active Call Center outbound CallMaker object to launch properly. In order to use the ACCOutbound COM component, you have to change its permissions so that the web server is allowed to run the component.

Before changing permissions for the ACCOutbound component, discuss potential implications with your network administrator. To change permissions, follow these steps:

From the Windows NT/2000 Taskbar, choose Start ... Run ... and type DCOMCNFG.

From the Applications list box select ACCOutbound.Application and click Properties.

On the Identity tab, select the interactive user option and click OK.

The outbound dialing component is working properly when the outbound calling dialog box with a purple phone icon appears during outbound calls initiated from the web server.