12345 Service Hotline Solution

How can we utilize advanced technologies to implement such a government convenience hotline service? The government convenience hotline system should fully utilize the existing information network resources of governments at all levels, closely combine automatic voice query, manual service, and information data processing to provide uninterrupted 24-hour service. In this way, citizens can use methods such as telephone, fax, E-mail, and Internet telephony to put forward reasonable suggestions to government departments, criticize or complain about discovered problems, report major cases, and realize the networking of government office work internally. This call center product should be able to meet the needs of the 12345 Mayor's Hotline, improve the efficiency of daily management, strengthen the resource sharing and effective communication among government departments, between superior and subordinate units, and with society through the call center and computer network, and obtain the maximum social effect. Based on our understanding of the requirements of the 12345 Mayor's Public Hotline Call Center, the system should achieve the following goals:
In terms of system establishment:
1. The main system equipment and seats are set up in the urban area, and the unified access number 12345 for the whole city is enabled, making use of the resources of the China Tietong switching network. Remote equipment and seats are set up in each county, district, and subordinate network unit, and the center uniformly accesses and allocates telephone lines.
2. The call center system adopts a combination of centralized and decentralized seats.
3. The call center system is connected to the government office system through a high-speed network to realize data transmission.
4. Ensure the openness and sustainable development of the system to meet the needs of future expansion and upgrading.
5. The system must be safe, reliable, and stable to ensure the secure transmission of data.
In terms of system functions:
6. Realize the basic functions of the call center, including automatic voice response, manual seat response, intelligent call traffic distribution, seat softphone, etc.
7. Provide a high-performance database system to store and maintain the required data and support each business module.
8. Realize the quality inspection function for seats to facilitate management.
In terms of business functions:
9. Realize citizens' information inquiries about various government policies and initiatives.
10. Realize the function of citizens' reporting problems and making complaints.
11. Realize the system's support for social survey functions.

1. Advancement: The design of this system is based on an open network, a distributed relational database management system, and the client/server model. The whole system embodies transparency, openness, and networking. The development of the whole system adopts advanced and mature technology products internationally, taking into account both the needs of long-term development and the actual needs of the present.
2. Security: The system adopts VPN technology, which has the functions of encrypting data, authenticating identities, and controlling access to ensure the security and confidentiality of the system. This system is physically isolated from the public network to ensure that it will not be invaded by the outside world. At the same time, important files recorded by the system are stored to ensure that important information will not be lost; meanwhile, backup processing is carried out for critical data.
3. Ease of Use: This system fully considers the limited popularization of computer applications in government work. Therefore, during the research and development of the system, the design of operation, management, and other interfaces is intuitive and clear, easy to learn and use, and the system is convenient to maintain.
4. Universality: Standard interfaces are adopted in software development to realize connection with other systems that conform to the open system (such as seamless connection with departmental office systems), and it is easy to realize the expansion and upgrading of software and hardware.
5. Expandability: Both the software and hardware of the system adopt modular design, which is conducive to the expansion of the system. Users can expand and reorganize any module according to their actual situation, or embed this module into office systems at all levels through simple technological transformation to realize the transmission and processing of telephone information data in the internal office environment. This system can realize flexible selection from small to large scale in system configuration, so it has expandability and a very high performance-price ratio. The easy expansion of the system can fully meet the growing business needs of the telephone network call centralized acceptance system. Without changing the original system structure, it only needs to add voice processing modules and related computer equipment to realize it. Standard interfaces are reserved during the system development process, which can facilitate the connection with other systems that meet the development system standards and other existing relevant information systems.

A clear four-layer planning is adopted, with the network layer as the foundation, the information layer for storing data, the support layer as the core, and the service layer for specific service contents; ultimately, it can serve citizens and government departments at all levels such as cities, counties, and districts simultaneously.

The network layer is the most basic part of the whole system. As the channel for data transmission, it provides services for the data information of the information layer, including all the necessary network conditions for the system, such as internal private networks, various data networks, and voice networks. Avoid the scattered and independent structure to prevent it from becoming an isolated island in the information ocean. Through data networking, the grasped information can be shared in real time.

The role of the information layer is to closely connect the government convenience hotline systems of the municipal government and each district and county government through advanced technologies such as network technology, database technology, and computer technology to realize information exchange and resource sharing. Due to the large amount of data in the information layer, high-end servers and database systems must be used to support it. How the information is managed, organized, planned, counted, maintained, and networked will directly affect the amount and quality of various service contents provided to users. The main contents included in the information layer are:

Government Information: Including various policies, regulations, and government documents at all levels.

Business Information: Including various telephone data accepted by the convenience hotline center and various written information compiled.

Public Information: Including public policies, regulations, government documents, and news and other information provided to the public through the automatic voice service module of the convenience hotline network system.

Other Information: Commerce, transportation, public sentiment, reporting, cracking down on counterfeits, social surveys, etc.

The support layer is the core of the whole system and the key guarantee for supporting the whole platform to provide various services to users. Meanwhile, the support layer is responsible for the information access, interaction, management, control, and statistics between the information layer and the service layer. The support layer mainly includes the following four systems: data center, call center, internal website system, and internal office software.

Data Center: We recommend adopting the method of centralized data and distributed services to realize the convenience hotline services of governments at all levels. The databases of government convenience hotlines including those of each district and county will be centrally built in the data center of the municipal government convenience hotline center, and the government convenience hotline systems of each district and county government will directly access the data of this data center; in this way, the municipal government convenience hotline center can guide, supervise, manage, and assess the work situations of the government convenience hotline offices of each district and county; moreover, the unified data center provides more stable data services for the whole system, and the maintenance and management of data are also more convenient.

Call Center: The call center is the core part of the support layer and also the core part of the whole system because the call center is directly responsible for the acceptance service of all mass calls (with one number) and is also the center of all information exchanges. The call center combines automatic voice query, manual service, and information data processing closely by using the advanced CTI technology that combines communication and computer, providing functions such as efficient telephone access, telephone acceptance, and information processing.

Internal Office Software: Many government agencies already have their own office software or other systems, and data sharing and information interaction between the internal office software and the call center system can be realized by directly reading through open interfaces or by using middleware.

Provide specific and various information services to various users. For example: public information release, mass call acceptance, internal transfer and processing of telephone information and data, internal ICC call, and internal information exchange.

It is recommended that the call center platform be implemented by using the INTESS intelligent switching platform of Huawei Company. The INTESS intelligent information interaction platform is a new generation of CTI application platform launched by Huawei Company in the process of years of theoretical research and practical application development. The platform has powerful business development, control, and management functions, spans various information interaction media, and with rich access methods, complete third-party communication interfaces, and an open architecture support, it can be used as a platform for building call centers in various industries and can easily meet the application requirements of call centers in various industries. At present, call centers built on this platform have spread across more than twenty provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions in the country, covering many application fields such as telecommunications, electricity, finance, and government.

Platform Logical Structure:

INTESS Platform Framework

Logically, the INTESS platform adopts a five-layer structure, each layer has its own unique functions, and there are certain coordination and control relationships between layers. The whole structure has a clear process and powerful functions, which is also the key to the INTESS platform being able to provide high-quality call center services.

1. Access Layer

The access layer is responsible for handling various access services, including the actual operations such as picking up the phone, hanging up the phone, transferring calls, and holding conferences. With the rapid development of information technology and the renewal of customer concepts, users' communication methods are becoming more and more diverse, so the system must provide multiple flexible access methods. The INTESS platform provides various rich access methods such as incoming call queuing access, switch access, Email access, and Internet access.

2. Control Layer

The control layer is the core control part of the INTESS platform. It mainly includes two parts: CTI Server: It is the server of the system, and all other modules of the system must register with it, and it saves the running data of the whole system. ACD Server: It is the queuing machine of the system, and it is responsible for performing queuing operations for service requests in the system and recommending them to corresponding service receivers, such as manual seats, corresponding outbound services, and automatic services.

3. Service Layer

The service layer mainly provides various basic services of the call center, mainly including automatic voice, automatic fax, manual seats, active outbound calls, Internet assistance, short messages, etc.

4. Management Layer

The management layer provides configuration, management, monitoring, and statistical analysis tools for the system to realize the management function of the whole platform.

5. Data Layer

Database System: Stores call records, information materials, etc. during the operation of the platform.

Data Access Proxy Module: Provides support for other data access in the platform, supporting access to mainstream databases such as SQLServer, Oracle, Informix, DB2, Sybase, Access, and Foxpro.

6. Business Layer

According to specific business needs, various services of the service layer can be combined and superimposed to quickly provide various business functions that match the actual situation.

The system provides functions of telephone access, fax access, Email access, Web access, etc. These functions, combined with the traditional call center access methods, make the whole platform a call center built on multi-channel connections.

The system can analyze the calling and called telephone numbers of telephone calls. For the user's calling number, user information and historical records can be popped up. Different called numbers can be analyzed, and after queuing, corresponding different business processes and services will be carried.

The ACD server is mainly used for the situation where a group of ACD telephones handle a large number of incoming calls, so that all incoming calls have an average traffic volume among operators. The system assigns the first arriving incoming call to the operator who has been idle for the longest time according to the principle of first come, first served, thus evenly distributing the calls to each operator completely. The ACD server can also distribute calls to different groups of operators according to the nature of the call, such as priority, so that the incoming calls can get the most satisfactory response treatment. All incoming calls, including telephone calls and fax calls, must go through the unified queuing of the ACD and be assigned to corresponding service providers (automatic voice service, manual service, etc.) for service acceptance.

The ACD can specifically realize the following functions:

Incoming Call Waiting and Queuing: Incoming calls are generally queued in the order of first in, first out and are automatically transferred to the operator seat that has been idle for the longest time.

Call Delay Notification: If equipped with a recording trunk card board and a recording player, when all operator seats are busy, the incoming caller can hear a recorded notification.

Automatic Answer: Incoming calls can be automatically transferred, and the operator can hear a short prompt tone. There is no need to press the incoming call key, and the connection with the calling party is established immediately. It is best to use a headset for the telephone.

Priority Seat: Different priorities can be defined for the supervisor's seat, for example, skilled operators can be defined as high priority to answer more incoming calls.

Music Waiting: If equipped with a recording trunk card board and a recording player, the incoming calls waiting for an answer can hear music.

The queuing algorithm is implemented using a scripting language and can be written and set on the management console according to the requirements of system operation.

The CTI server is the hub of call control in the whole call center. All types of call control are carried out through the CTI server, and the CTI server uniformly controls various types of calls for unified ACD queuing, management, statistics, billing, and monitoring.

Call Arrival Notification: Notify the operator seat or IVR of the arrival of a new call.

Call Answer: Answer the arriving call.

Outgoing Call: Initiate a new call to the user.

Pre-outgoing Call: Initiate a call to the user through a dialing program. When the user picks up the phone, the user and the operator seat are connected.

Call Release: Disconnect the connected call.

Call Hold: Temporarily suspend the user.

Seat Auxiliary Functions: Recording, playing voice.

Mute: Make the user unable to hear the voice of the operator seat.

Supervisor Monitoring: The supervisor can listen to the voice of the operator seat without being noticed by the operator.

Call Transfer: Transfer to other operators.

Supervisor Assistance: The supervisor and the operator jointly serve the user.

The IVR automatic voice response system is mainly used to provide voice prompts for users' incoming telephone calls, guide users to select service contents and input the data required for telephone transactions, accept the information input by users on the telephone dialing keyboard, and realize the interactive access to information materials such as computer databases. The IVR provides 7x24-hour automatic voice service, which can complete information inquiries and serve as an auxiliary and guiding function for automatic voice reporting of staff numbers and manual services.

The system provides the function of manual service, enabling customers to receive the cordial service of seat staff. Seat staff can perform login and logout operations of the system. They can handle all types of calls, and the handling process includes answering, hanging up, completing transaction processing, negotiating, transferring, holding conferences (multi-party calls), etc. When the seat is in an idle state, it can actively initiate calls, conduct service return visits to customers, carry out social surveys, etc. All call operations of seat staff can be realized through softphones, only requiring the operation of computers without the need to operate the telephone. Besides the call handling function, the seat system must also have an interface with the business system, enabling seat staff to provide appropriate business services for customers. The seat system can automatically pop up the corresponding business interface, customer data, etc. according to the calling and called numbers analyzed by the system. When the seat system transfers calls between seats, it can achieve the synchronous transfer of call lines and data. That is, when seat A transfers the current call to seat B, the data being processed by seat A can be simultaneously popped up on the interface of seat B.

The supervisor is a special seat, which not only has the functions of an ordinary seat but also can supervise and manage ordinary seats:

Viewing Seat Status: View the status of ordinary seats to check whether they are working normally.

Viewing Call Queue: View the call status waiting for service in the current system.

Seat Monitoring: Monitor the seats that are providing service to understand the service status of ordinary seats.

Seat Recording Management: It is possible to set up full recording for all seats or recording for specified seats.

Forced Insertion: The supervisor can choose the forced insertion function according to the service status of the seat being monitored and actively help the seat to provide customer service.

According to needs, the supervisor seat is responsible for verifying or handling the business or complaint information accepted by the operator seat and monitoring the processing situation of the request throughout the process.

The main functions of the recording subsystem include two parts:

Real-time Recording Function: That is, to record the conversation contents between the operator and the user in real time and automatically number the recording files and store them in the server.

Recording Data Maintenance Function: Through the maintenance interface provided by the system, authorized personnel can play back the selected recording data or regularly ｄｅｌｅｔｅ the outdated recording data.

Recording monitoring is mainly aimed at manual seats to prevent malicious calls, harassing calls, and rude calls from entering the call center, thus affecting the normal business operation. Meanwhile, it monitors the service quality of seat staff, such as the civilized language, expression ability, and ability to handle customer requests of business representatives.

The recording monitoring mainly includes the following functions: setting the recording time period; querying recordings by trunk; querying recordings by time period; querying recordings by seat; querying recordings by staff number.

The management and maintenance terminal is mainly responsible for managing the local information service center, and its main functions include:

Seat Management: Seat management includes adding and deleting seats, setting up supervisor seats, and modifying seat attributes.

Parameter Configuration: Parameter configuration includes specifying the locations of various servers, formulating the range and time of uploading and downloading data.

Voice File Management: Voice file management includes locating and querying the existence status of voice files, adding, deleting, and re-recording them.

Black and White List Settings: The blacklist refers to prohibiting certain users from obtaining specified services. Blacklist settings include querying, adding, deleting, and modifying the blacklist. The whitelist refers to that the billing service can provide free services for certain users. Whitelist settings include querying, adding, deleting, and modifying the blacklist and whitelist.

Other Functions: Remote maintenance function; database maintenance function; network maintenance function; voice system maintenance function; maintenance functions of various servers; backup function for system data and software.

The monitoring server is responsible for monitoring the running status of system equipment and resources, the performance and efficiency of system operation, tracking the process of the system accepting calls, and analyzing and locating faults when the system operates abnormally.

The integrated monitoring management system enables managers to conveniently monitor the status of system access channels, the working status of the ACD system, the working status of the automatic business system, and the working status of manual service personnel. Meanwhile, the monitoring quality inspection personnel can listen to the conversation process between the specified service personnel and the customer at any time and set up full recording for backup inspection. The quality inspection personnel can also intercept the customer at any time and force the specified manual service personnel to log out.

The statistical report mainly generates data reflecting the system operation situation from the service information and historical records of the database server and submits it to relevant personnel in a certain way. The statistical results can be displayed in the form of tables or graphs, or can be generated as reports and printed out or transmitted to the superior management department through the network.

It includes: statistical summary data; statistical general data; statistical detailed data; statistical traffic volume of business desks; statistical traffic volume of operators; statistical traffic volume of incoming trunks; fault data statistical function; statistical function for classifying various users.

Physical Structure of Call Center (Switching Mode)

The IVR server, also known as the integrated voice service workstation, is a multi-functional processing server that integrates call processing and voice processing. It is the core of the information service node and the executor of business. It completes the voice guidance and automatic information service functions of the system. Physically, it adopts an industrial control computer (the industrial control computer is superior to a PC in terms of card insertion capacity, stability, and maintainability) with multiple voice cards inserted and equipped with corresponding software control processing to realize the automatic voice service function. On the one hand, it is connected to the PSTN through a trunk interface to realize voice communication. On the other hand, it is connected to the local local area network through a local area network card to realize data synchronization.

Usually, an industrial control computer can ｉｎｓｅｒｔ 1 to 4 E1 voice cards. According to the scale of the system, the IVR server can be composed of one or more industrial control computers. A single server system communicates independently with the switch, and a single-point failure does not affect the service of other nodes.

The voice card is the basis of voice service. The quality, stability, expandability, and clarity of the voice of the voice card determine the quality of the voice service. Correctly selecting the voice card is crucial for the information service system. The most widely used voice cards in China are the Dialogic series cards. The Dialogic series voice cards have excellent voice performance, accurate DTMF and call detection, powerful development tools, efficient processing capacity, good expandability, flexibility, and unified resource sharing, etc., and have been recognized by a large number of users. This system recommends using the Dialogic series voice cards.

The IFR server, an automatic fax server, is generally composed of a fax card and its driver software and realizes functions such as automatic sending and receiving processing of faxes. Since the fax card itself does not have access capabilities, it must be inserted into the IVR server equipment with access capabilities. Therefore, the two are generally collectively referred to as the IVR/IFR server.

Middleware (middleware) is an independent system software or service program. Distributed application software uses this software to share resources between different technologies. Middleware is located above the operating system of the client-server and manages computing resources and network communication. It is a major category of basic software and belongs to the category of reusable software. Middleware is above the operating system, network, and database and below the application software. Its general role is to provide an operating and developing environment for the application software above it, helping users to develop and integrate complex application software flexibly and efficiently.

Middleware is a type of software, not a single software. Middleware not only realizes interconnection but also realizes interoperability between applications. Middleware is software based on distributed processing, and its most prominent feature is its network communication function.

The middleware product based on CTI technology is CTI middleware. CTI middleware is a set of software products that link communication devices such as switches, trunk voice cards, IP cards, and data networks with user application programs. An open CTI middleware can support different access devices (switches) and different business applications.

Physically, a higher-end server is used to run the CTI middleware software package to build a call center platform. This middleware software can also be integrated into the CTI Server for application.

The ACD (Automatic Call Distribution) server. The usual ACD function can be realized by two schemes: hardware ACD and software ACD. Hardware ACD is generally implemented by encapsulating it in the switch PBX. Therefore, some people also call the PBX a queuing machine. Due to the limitations of the openness and operability of the switch, more and more call center systems adopt the software ACD method to realize flexible and intelligent queuing strategies.

Logically, the ACD Server is an independent server software. Physically, it can share a device with the CTI Server according to the scale of the system.

The CTI Server is the core of the call center platform. It not only controls the connection of switch call paths through the CTI Link but also takes into account the management of peripheral equipment and other functions. When there is a call path access, the ACD transfers the access information to the CTI Server, and the CTI Server is responsible for notifying the background business application server to realize the synchronization of voice and data.

CTI integrates telephone and data communication. The main function of the CTI Server is to synchronize voice and data. By accessing the host and PC, it can better serve customers. Traditionally, when a call enters the call center, the operator (business representative) needs to access the personal information and business records of the customer. Manually initiating a query is a relatively primitive or low-automation application with poor timeliness. To improve efficiency, it is necessary to synchronize the voice terminal (telephone) and the computer terminal and other desktop devices, which requires the automation brought by CTI technology.

To complete the CTI function, it is necessary to establish a connection between the voice switch and the backend host/computer network. This mainly depends on two components: one is the communication gateway between the switch and the computer network, and the other is the communication connection between the switch and the gateway. The communication gateway is often called the CTI server. It is the application-level interface between the PBX/ACD and the computer network. Using it, a series of value-added applications and services can be developed. The CTI server enables the telephone system and the computer system to share information, thus making the call routing more explicit or triggering some functions, such as updating the host database according to specific calling, call reasons, time periods, and traffic conditions. These functions are provided by application software, such as Incoming Call Management (ICM) and Outgoing Call Management (OCM).

The connection between the PBX and the CTI server uses AS AI (Auxiliary Switching Application Interface) technology, and its physical medium is a standard Ethernet network cable connection.

Nowadays, there are quite a lot of GSM mobile phone users, and short message service is also one of the currently popular information services. Through the short message gateway, the relevant data of the platform can be sent to the short message sending device in the form of short messages, and finally, GSM mobile phone users can receive the short message content corresponding to the enterprise customer service.

The synchronous recording function of the system can effectively improve the service quality of operators. The operator seat, as the window of the enterprise facing users, directly affects the service image and even the overall image of the enterprise.

Through the full-process recording server, the system can record the conversation contents of all operators and users. On the one hand, when a user complains about an operator, the service supervisor can analyze the complaint reason through the original voice recording at that time to confirm whether the complaint is reasonable. On the other hand, the service supervisor can monitor the work of the operator through the original voice recording to provide first-hand information for correctly evaluating the work performance of the operator.

The hardware platform of the full-process recording server can be completed by using an industrial control computer plus a Dialogic analog voice card.

The call center database server is mainly responsible for storing and managing business data, system data (including call bills, historical records, etc.), customer information, customer complaint information, and customer information. To improve the pertinence of service, detailed information introduction and historical service record information should be available for important users. The performance and stability of the database have an important impact on the efficient operation of the system. Therefore, according to different business needs, scale needs, capacity needs, and performance needs, the corresponding database server system is configured.

Physically, the database server is composed of server equipment and a database operating system.

According to needs, the server equipment can be selected from ordinary PCs, PC servers, SUN workstations, etc., and appropriate measures such as dual-machine hot standby, disk array, and disk mirroring should be considered to ensure the safety and integrity of data.

The database operating system can be selected from: Orcale, MS SQL, Informix, DB2, etc., which are medium and large-scale database systems.

Since the system provides IVR services and recording services, a large number of voice files are involved. There are two schemes for voice file management: local storage scheme and centralized management scheme. The local storage scheme means that each IVR server has its own voice file backup. The centralized management scheme means that each IVR server uses mapping technology to share a file server. Compared with the two schemes, the local storage scheme has a faster service speed but is more difficult to manage and update. The centralized management scheme is very convenient for management and update, and the service speed is slightly slower but is almost the same as that of the local storage scheme. Therefore, the centralized management scheme is adopted.

In addition, the file server also stores complaint recordings and fax files for convenient centralized processing by managers.

The seat is equipped with a telephone handset (with a headset) and a computer to realize the CTI seat function. The call path of the telephone handset is provided by the switch user board, and the computer PC is connected to the local area network through a network card. The ACD and CTI Server control the synchronous communication of voice and data.

Business Acceptance

Back-end Processing

Category Maintenance

Department Maintenance

Personnel Maintenance

Role Maintenance

Most of the client-side processing functions are operated in the above various functional modules. Therefore, this part only includes the operation of functional modules that are not listed above.

Complaint Summary Report: Generate the number of complaint information for each complaint category within the specified time period that is unprocessed, processed, cancelled, and visited, as well as the total number of information for each category and the total number of information for each status.

Other Business Summary Report: Generate the number of unprocessed and processed information for various other businesses within the specified time period, as well as the total number of information for each business and the total number of information for each status.

Consulting Business Summary Report: Generate the number of unprocessed, browsed, and processed information for each consulting category within the specified time period, as well as the total number of information for each category and the total number of information for each status.