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Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

  • 1.  Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 02-22-2021 15:01
    Hi Genesys Community, 

    What are some of the ways that you guys handle analysts/agents who are constantly in a "Not Responding" status? Meaning they set themselves to be "On Queue" to accept incoming calls, but end up not being able to answer calls that are routed to them, so the system automatically sets that agent to "Not Responding", which has been causing an issue because when new calls come in, the agents are them not notified and will not know that they are receiving calls.

    We've trained our analysts to continuously monitor their statuses and remove themselves from the "On Queue" status to "Busy" or "Away". However, this is constantly an issue for us as analysts might be multi-tasking and forget that they've put themselves to be "On Queue" or have stepped away from their desks. 

    Is there a way to remove or disable the "Not Responding" status? Or what are some ways that your team has handled this situation?
    #PlatformAdministration
    #QualityManagement
    #SystemAdministration
    #Telephony
    #Unsure/Other

    ------------------------------
    Thanks,
    Anne
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 02-22-2021 17:04
    Hi Anne

    This is a challenge with most.  Agents should be seeing the not responding alert, but I believe there's an idea request to have some type of reminder notification to keep warning the agent that they're in not responding.  Otherwise it relies on supervisors watching something like the queues activity view to pick up on them - and if need be manually force them back onto on-queue and responding.

    ------------------------------
    Vaun McCarthy
    NTT New Zealand Limited
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-28-2022 11:05

    Hi Anne!

    Vaun is correct, we do have any idea started on the Ideas Lab as my teams have seen issues with this being cumbersome as well. Feel free to add in your thoughts to this idea and vote this up as well!

    INB-I-935

    -Monica

    ------------------------------
    Monica Michaud
    Koch Business Solutions
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    GENESYS
    Posted 03-29-2022 09:49
    Hi everyone - interesting discussion and I wanted to play devil's advocate for a moment here.  I'm going to take the position of defending the 'not responding' workflow!  This state is there to protect the customer and ensure that interactions are answered in a timely manner.  If an agent sets themselves 'on-queue', declaring their intention to receive an ACD interaction but is not able to answer it for any reason, Genesys Cloud will pull the interaction back into the queue to look for the next available agent. 

    We have no way of knowing that the agent is good to accept the next interaction without the agent moving themselves back into an available status.  We do our best to show a pretty obvious warning in the agent UI that they are in not responding but moving them back to on-queue automatically feels like a bad idea to me.  What if they are actually not available and we send them another interaction, or worst yet, what if they are the only agent to go back on-queue and we send them the same interaction again only to have them not answer it again.  This will likely result in an increased abandon rate.  One could argue that the abandon rate could increase if the agent isn't put back into available, but its far safer to err in the other direction, IMO.

    As for putting up another alert to the agents, if they didn't see the first alert (which I think is hard to do unless they have GC completely in the background of another application) will the second be any better?  Maybe we could look to play something audibly that might be better?

    Love to hear your thoughts here.

    Thanks,
    Chris

    ------------------------------
    Chris Bohlin
    Product Manager - PureCloud
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-29-2022 10:11
    Hi Chris,

    How about a simple alert that can be sent to Supervisors letting them know they have agents "not responding"?

    ------------------------------
    Thanks!

    Bob Shappell
    Avtex Solutions, LLC
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-30-2022 08:34
    I second this, or at least allow supervisors to set up their own alerts based on agent status through the UI.

    ------------------------------
    Bethany Han
    Business Application Expert
    Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    GENESYS
    Posted 03-31-2022 08:04
    I think this makes a lot of sense and is certainly something I can speak to the Analytics team about (as they own our alerting system).  Bob - could I ask you to open an idea on this just so I can follow up on it appropriately?  (I'd encourage everyone to vote for it as well!!!)

    ------------------------------
    Chris Bohlin
    Product Manager - PureCloud
    ------------------------------



  • 8.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-29-2022 14:59
    Agree with other comments here - forcing agents back into on-queue without knowing why the not-responding status happened in the first place isn't the right approach.  There could be many reasons why this happens - WebRTC negotiation problems, microphone/headset issues or browser permissions not accepted etc.

    I think the reminding alerts to an agent with an audio tone is probably the way to go.  But it would also be handy if there was maybe some mechanism to alert Team Leaders/Supervisors to these.  Although in the queue performance view they can get a quick view of them already.

    ------------------------------
    Vaun McCarthy
    ------------------------------



  • 9.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-30-2022 04:44
    I personally find it confusing that the agent's status is still "On Queue" and they're in this limbo state where they're not able to receive calls but aren't already on an interaction / Wrap Up.

    In my opinion it would be cleaner to just move them to Off Queue if they go into a Not Responding state - the slider in the top right is more obvious (and the "circle" around their status would change colour).

    I'm not certain if, from a metrics point of view, being in a Not Responding state would count towards an agent's "On Queue" time but if it does, it doesn't seem correct to me that it should.

    ------------------------------
    James Dunn
    Pitney Bowes Inc.
    ------------------------------



  • 10.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-30-2022 21:28
    Edited by Jeff Hoogkamer 03-30-2022 21:28

    Hi @Chris Bohlin,

    I'd like to add our use cases to this discussion.

    Use Case 1 - We've got our after hours and security team now using Genesys Cloud, and get only around 1-2 phone calls an hour overnight. When it's only 1 or 2 staff 'On Queue' and they are dealing with other alarms and radio calls -  they are occasionally missing answering the interaction and end up in Not Responding state.

    Use Case 2 - Our staff at our customer service centres need may need to quickly step away (i.e. accept a delivery, go to the printer, etc) without going off-queue, and also miss answering an interaction. If they don't actively have Genesys Cloud open and see the message - they just keep doing other work thinking they are on queue.

    As they Genesys Cloud minimised and the Desktop Application doesn't persistently show the 'Not Responding' notification - they are not seeing they are not responding - even though the Dashboard still shows them primarily as 'On Queue'. Plus there no active alert available or reminder to advise them they aren't responding.


    Ultimately - I'd see three possible solutions that I'd find most helpful :

    - A 'Not Responding' timeout (similar to ACW timeout) that can be configured (per agent or per queue) to try an agent again X minutes. (If they are on manual answer anyway, I don't see there being an actual risk to increasing an abandon rate)
    - A persistent re-notification of 'Not Responding' with an audible tone (e.g. every 1 minute, play a 'ding' and re-notify so it triggers a pop-up message)
    - A visible flashing/pulsing of the 'On Queue' toggle/button with a different colour to try and alert that whilst it may show them 'On Queue' they technically aren't anymore
    - Option to move them entirely 'Off Queue' (similar to Away Idle) - because if they aren't responding and ignore it, they really aren't On Queue anymore and shouldn't appear as an productive agent.

    Thanks for reading :)





  • 11.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    GENESYS
    Posted 03-31-2022 08:10
    Thanks, Jeffrey (and others).  Definitely a few options for me to run down here.  I'm not sure why the decision was made to move an agent to not_responding but also keep them 'on-queue'.  I'm going to investigate that some.

    The 'Not_Available Duration' option is interesting as well and I'll look into that.

    Thanks again for the feedback - this is what the community is for!

    ------------------------------
    Chris Bohlin
    Product Manager - PureCloud
    ------------------------------



  • 12.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-29-2022 13:59
    Edited by Juliano Montagner 03-29-2022 14:16

    Hi @Anne Hoang, let me share with you my understanding of this behavior in GC. When the agent connection is very slow (probably because latency) the GC is unable to connect the call properly with deadline timeout specified in the queue configuration and so the GC assumes that there is a problem to connect the interaction (latency or hardware performance) and set the agent to "not respond" to prevent other interactions are forwarded to them, until the issue is resolved (connection issues or hardware performance).

    If the customer's environment does not compliance whit the Genesys specification to match "network readiness" these issues will always occur.

    Network Readiness

    A workaround that you can try is, increase the timeout into queue setup, but it could have a negative results in queue SLA and the customer will wating a little bit more in a queue, because the GC will try to connect an interaction to an agent that has a network issues and does not matter how long you set the timeout the never will have the minimum condition to receive the interaction.

    But in my sugestion above you will attack the symptoms and not the root case.

    In another words my point of view match with @Chris Bohlin

    ------------------------------
    Juliano Montagner
    Mutant Company - Brazil
    ------------------------------



  • 13.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-30-2022 02:32
    Hi , we face this issue and gets a lot of complains about the alert for the agent which is easy to miss if you are quit busy and working on another page . Due to some other issues it is also possible that the agent was not aware missing a call ( example WebRTC is not responding or network issu) 
    The agent status should not be On Queue anymore in this stat and not blue colored !
    Another status or color should help a lot , also extra alerts to supervisor and agents would help 
    Missing a call and go to this state is not bad but not being aware or correctly informed is :-(

    ------------------------------
    john van de Ven
    ------------------------------



  • 14.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-24-2023 22:35

    Hello John,

    I had an agent in the queue, and the status was blue. The caller abandoned three calls because the three calls did not route to the agent, who was the only agent not on an interaction. The agent stated that their phone did not ring, and thus, they could not answer any calls. Can you please elaborate on why the agent should not be blue-colored? Or are you saying the agent should not be in nonresponding and a blue status? I am trying to understand why the call would not route to the caller.

    Thanks,

    Thanks,



    ------------------------------
    Jeanine Ferguson
    Inspiritec, Inc.
    ------------------------------



  • 15.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-27-2023 08:38

    Hi Jeanine,
    If a agent does not receive the signaling that there is a new call ( often because of a network issue ) , the agent is not aware that a call is offered but Genesys Cloud did select the agent and routed the call  and "thinks" the agent was alerted but not answering so the state of the agent will be set on  "not responding"  but still in color blue

    A lot of times agents does not notice that a call was missed so as an extra trigger the state color when in "not responding state" should not be blue ( but for example Purple ? ) 
    Blue indicates that the agent is on queue but that is actually not 

    Greetings John



    ------------------------------
    john van de Ven
    ------------------------------



  • 16.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-30-2022 04:08

    mainly there are 2 reasons for "Not Responding" or we call it RONA

    1. network issue
    lately we are sending out agents to work from home and the network speed will not be as consistence and quality as during in the office . so to reduce the RONA due to network issue is to increase the time out
    2. Human issue
    we all human .... including agents , they might not be as 'focus' when they were fully supervise when in office .  I am suggesting carrot and cane 
    1. if they reduce the RONA buy some "%" give them carrot
    2. if they hit how many "%" give them cane 



    ------------------------------
    Alex Goh
    Intel de Costa Rica
    ------------------------------



  • 17.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-30-2022 12:46

    I want to mention that the reformatting of the On-Queue box in the upper right corner has made it harder for agents to track their status. While it looks more modern/fresh, it has shrunk in size (the blue/gray color) making it less visible to agents and thus increasing the chance the agent will not notice they are on queue (and potentially go Not Responding).  I was very disappointed in this update.  Be aware that most clients using the interface are multitasking and not staring at Genesys waiting for a call to come in; the interface layout needs to reflect that an agent is doing many other things besides answering and responding to calls.  






    ------------------------------
    Nathan Smith
    ConvergeOne, Inc.
    ndsmith@convergeone.com
    ------------------------------



  • 18.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-30-2022 21:07
    Edited by Jeff Hoogkamer 03-30-2022 21:06

    +1 on this (also raised here under On Queue/Off Queue toggle changed appearance?)

    The original slider was very prominent and clear when a user was On Queue vs Off Queue - it was very easy to tell in peripheral vision if you were still On Queue or not.
    Now it requires direct attention - and it's even less obvious now using a darker blue toggle (and not the same 'blue on queue' colour)

    What's even worse - when you're Off Queue, it highlights the slider with a light blue border and keeps it highlighted until you click something else in Genesys Cloud. So from a quick glance it even looks like you're On Queue when you're not.





  • 19.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-30-2022 21:12
    If they were going to redesign that area, that's great, but there's a lot of other things that make more sense, like maybe changing the background colour of the Off/On queue text as well to maybe red or even taking it further to have that background also match the colour of the status (but still red or something for not responding).

    ------------------------------
    Vaun McCarthy
    ------------------------------



  • 20.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-31-2022 08:35
    @Vaun McCarthy , great idea I can go even further. Could be changed the background color of menu task bar following the status (on queue, off queue and not responding).​​

    ------------------------------
    Juliano Montagner
    Mutant - Brazil
    ------------------------------



  • 21.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    GENESYS
    Posted 03-31-2022 08:13
    Thanks, Nathan.  I'll share this feedback with the Agent UI team.

    ------------------------------
    Chris Bohlin
    Product Manager - PureCloud
    ------------------------------



  • 22.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 10-12-2022 08:15
    All,

    We have just migrated our first batch of users to Genesys Cloud and experience the same issue, agents don't see that they are in a non-responding state when working in other apps (especially with 'back-office' users). We come from PureConnect, and Interaction Desktop had a visual warning when you (the agent) was set to non-responding.

    I understand there is an idea opened for it, and/or already a solution for it? If so, has someone the name and/or link to the idea so we can vote for it? I don't seem to be able to find it myself.

    Thank you,
    Ewald Lap

    ------------------------------
    Ewald Lap
    NN Insurance Eurasia N.V.
    ------------------------------



  • 23.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-29-2023 02:29

    Agent going to not responding may happen even if the persistent connection breakes between  agent phone andnGC. since datawise he is logged in, thencall will be roured but he may not get ring.

    Look at the parameters in phone setting to correct this.



    ------------------------------
    Venkatachari Krishnamachari
    Skylux Inc
    ------------------------------



  • 24.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 01-03-2023 15:07
    I have several customers for which this issue is a significant concern.  The Genesys Idea INB-I-935 has been set to "Will not implement" with no reason or option to help address it.  

    ------------------------------
    George Scott
    TTEC Digital, LLC dba Avtex
    ------------------------------



  • 25.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 01-03-2023 16:36
    I have a better idea.  Instead of having to watch for this, use Gamification and a metric for Not Answering to give incentives for agents not to let this happen.  Say a prize of $15 gift cards each month for those with no calls that hit that status and for those at the bottom, mandatory learning modules about promptness, courtesy, and keeping your job.

    ------------------------------
    Robert Wakefield-Carl
    TTEC Digital, LLC dba Avtex
    Contact Center Innovation Architect
    https://www.Avtex.com
    https://RobertWC.Blogspot.com
    ------------------------------



  • 26.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 01-03-2023 19:03

    Hi All,

    As a workaround option to this, I ended up creating a set of Data Actions to put into an Architect flow that will attempt to put all Not Responding staff back to Idle (On Queue) to alert them again

    The basic steps are:

    - Data Action gets a list of queue members who are active (joined) but in Not Responding
    - Architect Decision checks if any results returned
    - If true, then Loop through second Data Action to update routing status back to Idle

    These steps can then be put somewhere in Architect, such as:

    - just before the Transfer to ACD step to make sure all available staff are ready
    - in the In Queue Call loop with the hold messages/music so it periodically checks as well

    This has greatly helped to make sure our night shift staff (when there's only 1 or 2) aren't just sitting there doing nothing and calls not getting answered.

    Cheers,



    ------------------------------
    Jeff
    ------------------------------



  • 27.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-28-2023 04:37

    what is the name of Data action you used? 



    ------------------------------
    Mohammad Dalqamouni
    Fourth Dimension Systems - Jordan
    ------------------------------



  • 28.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-28-2023 08:50

    This is a smart thing you did!
    Can you share how you did this exactly with the data actions? 

    Thxs.



    ------------------------------
    Rolph Lieverse
    CED Nederland B.V.
    ------------------------------



  • 29.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-28-2023 18:18
    Edited by Jeff Hoogkamer 03-28-2023 18:18

    Hi @Mohammad Domi  & @Rolph Lieverse 

    To support this custom workaround, I created two custom Data Actions:


    Data Actions


    1. Get Queue Members (Joined, Not Responding)

    This data action expects the string queueID as an input, and outputs a list of userId as an array of strings.

    This performs an API GET request to /api/v2/routing/queues/${input.queueId}/members?pageSize=100&expand=routingStatus&routingStatus=NOT_RESPONDING&joined=true passing along the QueueId in the Request and translating the Response into a list of UserId's

     

    2. Update User Routing Status


    This data action expects the string status and userId as an input, and outputs a string of (routing) status.


    This performs an API PUT request to /api/v2/users/${input.userId}/routingstatus passing along the userID and the desired (routing) status, and if successful returns the routing status as IDLE.

     

    Architect

    Then from here, in Architect I call the following actions in the following order/flow.



    In the first Call Data Action, I've manually specified the queueID here and output to a string collection Task.notRespondingMembers



    The decision checks if the list Task.notRespondingMembers is empty or not.

    If it's not empty, then start a loop to go through all members in the list using an index Task.userIdLoop

    Then for each loop, call the data action to change the status to IDLE, by getting each user from the list corresponding to the loop value GetAt(Task.notRespondingMembers,Task.userIdLoop) 


    Once the list is empty, the loop will finish and you're done.

    I've included an export of the Data Actions in case you wanted to give them a try.


    Cheers,



    ------------------------------
    Jeff
    ------------------------------



  • 30.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 05-10-2023 12:33

    LOL @ "keeping your job"!!!



    ------------------------------
    Paul Simpson
    Eventus Solutions Group
    ------------------------------



  • 31.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-28-2023 09:06

    Does anyone know if Genesys is attempting to find a solution for this issue?  We were on Engage Cloud for 5 years and never had an issue with this for our in house or remote agents.  



    ------------------------------
    Byron Nelson
    Customer Operations System Administrator
    Oklahoma Gas and Electric Company
    Engage Cloud 2015 to 2021
    Cloud CX 2022 to Present
    ------------------------------



  • 32.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-29-2023 09:50

    I may be mis-remembering, but in PureConnect (CIC) you could configure an interval which allowed the system to put the agent back on queue after a delay. This meant that if an agent stepped away from they computer without changing their Status, when they got back they would start to get calls again...



    ------------------------------
    Paul Simpson
    Eventus Solutions Group
    ------------------------------



  • 33.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-28-2023 11:15

    Hi everyone,

    This is also experience for Org on Genesys Voice? 



    ------------------------------
    Vincent Sabolboro
    ATB Financial
    ------------------------------



  • 34.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    GENESYS
    Posted 03-29-2023 09:51

    Hi Community,

    The following notification should display when agent is put into not responding state.  This notification can not be dismissed. Is this not showing?



    ------------------------------
    Rick Phung
    Genesys - Employees
    ------------------------------



  • 35.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 03-29-2023 10:31

    Hi Rick, yes it is showing. 
    But you now take the assumption that the agent has the webpage or application open in front of him. 
    With our company this is not always the case. Agents have not only phone duty but are also doing other business in outlook and other applications at the same time. 
    The fact that an agent comes into 'not responding' (due to various reasons) is then not noticable for the agent. 
    If for some reason the agent doesn't navigate to the Genesys Cloud webpage or app, they have no clue being in the 'not responding' status. 

    Just did a test in edge, where I must admit that edge does show a notification. It slides in, but only for 1 or 2 seconds, then it disappears. Also easy to miss if you are not looking at the screen.

    So in general there must be another way of 'alerting' an agent he/she is in this status, without having the webpage or application in front of you. 

    I know that in the PureConnect Desktop Client you had an option where the 'client' pops-up over all other applications. This already made it for the agent a lot easier to notice a call was presented or coming in with auto-answer. 



    ------------------------------
    Rolph Lieverse
    CED Nederland B.V.
    ------------------------------



  • 36.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 05-10-2023 11:13

    Folks, I have made a very simple change to "Allow All Cookies" and "Clear Cookies on exiting chrome" as below. This seems to have made a significant difference in the number of "Not Responding" interactions that have now been answered. I would recommend you give this a try and post here if you feel that same. This has worked well for our offshore sites.

     

    please allow all cookies and enable clear cookies on quitting in chrome

    image

     



    ------------------------------
    Bharat Rudrakshala
    ESRI
    ------------------------------



  • 37.  RE: Best Practices to Handle Agents in "Not Responding" Status

    Posted 05-11-2023 11:38

    Sleeping tabs is also an issue.  For those users that jump into other apps or browser tabs and Genesys' tab loses focus, the tab will sleep, which will eventually lead to not responding.

    Add your purecloud URL to the Memory Saver's "Always keep these sites active" list.

    chrome://settings/performance

    edge://settings/?search=never%20put%20these%20sites%20to%20sleep

    This will reduce the occurrence of it, but it still happens.  Clearing cookies on quitting is a must have.  Our issue is we have agents that don't quite chrome or reboot for over a week at a time.

    There is an allow cookies by site setting in Chrome and Edge and can be set by GPO.  I recommend that you do this.  Also set the clear on exit in the GPO as well.



    ------------------------------
    Ryan Cheesman
    Senior Manager, IT Integration Services
    Tandem Diabetes Care Inc. | positively different
    ------------------------------



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