A single pool works fine with six people who all do everything. Then the team grows. Sales and collections have different hours. A borrower with a hardship question lands on a new sales hire, who puts them on hold and walks across the room. A team lead wants to see their own team's calls, and the only option you have is to give them the whole account.
A desk is a group of your people with its own routing, hours, numbers and supervisors. Hand-overs and calls to its numbers ring only its Available members.
Do you need one yet?
You probably do if two or more of these are true:
- Two groups need different hours.
- Certain calls need certain skills or a certain language.
- A team lead should see one team's calls and nobody else's.
- Several people should call out from one shared business number.
If you have five people who handle anything, skip this for now. A hand-over list with the free pool will serve you better than one desk with five people on it.
Choosing a routing style
Each desk has one of three.
Longest idle
The person who has been free longest gets the call. It suits most floors, because the work spreads out without anybody managing it.
Round robin
Calls go round the list in turn. It feels fair to teams who are paid on what they close.
Ring all
Up to 10 free members are offered the call at once. The first to answer takes it, and the other offers are withdrawn. Use it when speed matters most and a little competition is healthy. It can also mean that your faster people take everything, so check the numbers after a week.
Setting one up
On the Desks tab of Team Members, name it, add its members and supervisors, and set its hours and routing. Hours are windows by day, in India time. You can also set how long a call may wait for the desk, and the language it works in.
Now the part that catches almost everyone. Making a desk on its own changes no call. You must point calls at it: add an “A desk” step to an agent's or team's hand-over list, or give the desk a number.
Member or supervisor?
A member takes the desk's calls. A supervisor looks after the desk, seeing its calls, grades and practice, and can listen, whisper and join only on that desk's calls. A supervisor is rung only if they are also a member. If your team lead takes calls at busy times, add them as both.
A person can sit on more than one desk. Their first desk is the one they call out from, unless they are calling back one of another desk's customers. Keep a telecaller's first desk the one that matches their main work.
Outside hours and empty desks
Two different things can happen, and it is worth knowing which is which.
- A hand-over step for a closed desk is skipped, and nobody counts as missing the call. The next step on the list runs, so make sure there is one.
- A call to the desk's own number goes to its fallback AI, which leaves one callback for the desk.
A callback left for the desk shows for everyone on it until someone presses Take. If everyone assumes someone else will, nobody does. Make it someone's job at the start of each shift.
Numbers
A desk can hold several numbers, inbound and outbound. Members without their own number call out from them. A person's own calls show their own number if they hold one. The desk itself costs nothing, but rent applies to each number beyond your plan's allowance, whoever holds it. A desk that holds a number cannot be deleted until the number is given to someone else.
What you can see afterwards
A desk filter runs through Call Logs, the Call Detail Report and Analytics. A desk's numbers are the calls on its numbers or handed over through it. A supervisor sees only their desks' calls, so one team lead's Monday report covers their own floor. The floor view shows who is free, who is on a call and who is on a break, desk by desk.
A simple first layout
Say a lender has sales, collections and customer care. Build three desks with the hours each team keeps. Point the sales agent's hand-over at Sales, and the collections agent's at Collections, with a language set on any desk that works mainly in one language. Add a fallback number after each. Then make test calls during hours and after them, and listen to both.
Desks ring people on the Workspace, which is not on the free trial and depends on your plan. See pricing, and the guide to hand-over and desks.