At CallHarbor, we believe your phone system should work with your lifestyle, not against it. That’s why our cloud-based Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) platform is built to keep your team running smoothly—whether you’re in the office, on the road, or halfway across the country. With crystal-clear voice, powerful collaboration tools, and a mobile-first approach, we make sure that summer flexibility doesn’t come at the cost of productivity.

Here’s how CallHarbor’s UCaaS features help businesses like yours stay connected, responsive, and professional—all summer long.

1. Mobile & Desktop Apps for Total Freedom

No more being tethered to your office desk or juggling between personal and work phones. With CallHarbor’s mobile and desktop apps, your entire communication system travels with you—giving you full access to the tools you need, wherever work happens.

Whether you’re poolside or in a pop-up workspace, you’ll be able to:

• Make and receive business calls with your professional number
• Transfer and conference with team members
• Send and receive SMS and team messages
• Access contacts, call history, voicemails, and more

It’s all unified in a simple, user-friendly interface—no IT degree required. Stay productive and present without giving out your personal number or sacrificing work-life balance.

2. Smart Call Routing to Match Your Summer Schedule

Vacations, flexible hours, and varying time zones are par for the course in the summer—but your customers still expect fast, reliable service. That’s where our Find-Me-Follow-Me and custom call forwarding features come in.

CallHarbor’s smart routing tools let you:

• Set up multiple devices to ring in sequence or simultaneously
• Create time-of-day rules to adapt to your summer hours
• Automatically send calls to voicemail or team members when you’re unavailable

No matter where you’re working from—or when—you’ll never miss an important call. These features are fully customizable and easily managed from our intuitive online portal or mobile app, so you’re always in control.

3. Built-In Team Messaging for Instant Collaboration

Coordinating across departments or time zones doesn’t have to be a hassle. With built-in team messaging from CallHarbor, you can ditch the long email threads and keep your team aligned in real time.

Use messaging to:

• Chat one-on-one or in dedicated group channels
• Share links, and have conversations instantly
• Communicate in real time, without leaving the CallHarbor platform
• Keep the momentum going, even when schedules don’t align for a call

Whether someone’s stepping away from their desk or working remotely, team messaging makes collaboration fast, easy, and centralized. Less lag time, more productivity.

4. Presence & Status Indicators for Smarter Communication

Nothing’s more frustrating than trying to reach someone who’s out of office, mid-meeting, or on vacation. With CallHarbor’s presence and status indicators, you get real-time visibility into team availability—so you can plan and communicate more efficiently.

With just a glance, you can:

• See who’s available, busy, or away
• Avoid disruptions during meetings or vacation
• Make quick, informed decisions about when (and how) to follow up

Especially during summer, when people are coming and going, this level of transparency leads to smoother workflows and better respect for everyone’s time.

Why Summer-Proof Businesses Choose CallHarbor

Your communication system shouldn’t be another thing to manage—it should be the thing that keeps your business running effortlessly, even during peak vacation season. That’s why modern, growth-minded companies choose CallHarbor.

Here’s what sets us apart:

• US-Based, 24/7 Support: Real humans, real help—whenever you need it
• Transparent Pricing: No hidden fees or confusing contracts
• Customizable Features: Tailored to your team’s unique needs
• White-Glove Onboarding & Training: We get you up and running, fast

Whether you’re a small team with big goals or a multi-site organization juggling diverse schedules, CallHarbor is your partner for building a communication ecosystem that’s flexible, secure, and built to grow with you.

Don’t Let Summer Disrupt Your Momentum

Work doesn’t stop in the summer—and neither should your communication. With CallHarbor’s powerful, easy-to-use UCaaS features, your team can enjoy the freedom to work how and where they want, while staying connected and productive every step of the way.

Ready to give your communication system a summer refresh? Reach out to CallHarbor today to schedule a demo, chat with our team, or explore how our UCaaS solution can help you simplify, streamline, and stay connected—all year long.

The post 4 UCaaS Features to Stay Connected All Summer Long appeared first on CallHarbor.

At CallHarbor, we believe UCaaS pricing should be transparent and predictable. That’s why our platform is built around an all-inclusive model. Features that competitors often lock behind premium tiers or add-on fees are included as standard with our basic user—so your business gets the functionality it needs without surprise costs.

Below is a closer look at some of the high-value features CallHarbor includes at no additional charge.

Call Recording

Call recording plays a critical role in training, quality assurance, dispute resolution, and regulatory compliance. Sales teams use recordings to refine their approach, support teams rely on them to resolve issues accurately, and managers use them to coach more effectively.

Many UCaaS providers treat call recording as a premium feature. CallHarbor includes call recording as part of our standard offering, allowing you to securely record, store, and review calls without paying extra. This ensures your team always has access to the insights they need to improve performance and maintain accountability.

Storage options:

• CallHarbor stores your recordings with 30 days of retention for free
• Connect your storage (i.e. AWS Glacier, Oracle Cloud, Wasabi, and more) for free

Call Center / Reporting & Analytics

Visibility into call activity is essential for managing performance, improving customer experience, and making data-driven decisions. CallHarbor includes robust call center reporting and analytics tools that many providers reserve for premium tiers.

With our platform, managers gain access to detailed call reports covering call volume, wait times, abandoned calls, agent activity, and more. Automated email reports can be scheduled to deliver insights directly to your inbox, while our live analytics dashboard and wallboard provide real-time visibility into queue performance and agent status. These tools empower teams to react quickly, optimize staffing, and continuously improve service levels—without added reporting fees.

Unlimited Call Queues

High call volume shouldn’t mean poor customer experience. Call queues help organize inbound calls, reduce abandoned calls, and ensure customers are handled in a fair and efficient order.

While some providers charge per queue or restrict this feature to call center plans, CallHarbor includes unlimited call queues with our basic users. Whether you’re managing a small office or a high-volume department, you can design call flows that scale with your business and keep customers from falling through the cracks.

Unlimited Auto Attendants

Auto attendants are the front door to your business, helping route callers quickly and professionally. CallHarbor includes unlimited auto attendants, allowing you to create flexible call routing menus for departments, locations, or after-hours needs.

Many providers limit the number of auto attendants or charge per menu. With CallHarbor, you can design and update call flows as often as needed—without worrying about usage limits or additional fees.

Music on Hold with Queue Announcements

Music on hold does more than fill silence—it sets expectations and improves the caller experience. CallHarbor’s music on hold capabilities go a step further by allowing callers to hear their place in line and estimated wait time.

These announcements help reduce frustration, lower call abandonment rates, and keep callers informed while they wait. Features like these are often bundled into higher-cost call center packages elsewhere, but CallHarbor includes them to help businesses deliver a more transparent and professional customer experience.

Advanced Call Monitoring (Listen, Whisper, Barge)

Advanced call monitoring is a game-changer for coaching and quality control because it provides businesses with unparalleled tools for improving call quality, enhancing team performance, and elevating customer satisfaction. CallHarbor enables supervisors to:

• Listen: Monitor live calls without interrupting.
• Whisper: Privately provide feedback to team members during a call.
• Barge: Join a call when necessary to assist or address issues directly.

These capabilities are often reserved for higher-priced plans elsewhere, but CallHarbor includes them as standard—giving leaders the tools they need to train confidently and intervene when it matters most.

Mobile App / CallHarborUC

Modern workforces are increasingly mobile and remote. Employees need to stay connected without sacrificing professionalism or functionality.

CallHarbor’s mobile app allows users to make and receive business calls, access voicemails, manage presence, and stay connected to their team from anywhere—all while keeping personal and business communications separate. There are no additional licenses or fees required, making it easy to support flexible work without extra cost.

Webphone & Desktop App

A modern UCaaS solution should meet users where they work—on their computers. CallHarbor’s webphone and desktop applications allow users to make and receive calls directly from their browser or desktop, with no desk phone required.

Users can manage calls, transfer, hold, view presence, and access voicemail from an intuitive interface, making it ideal for remote, hybrid, and in-office employees alike. While many providers charge extra for softphone access, CallHarbor includes web and desktop calling as part of our standard user experience.

CRM Integrations

Your phone system should work hand-in-hand with your CRM. CallHarbor offers free CRM integrations with select platforms, enabling click-to-call functionality, screen pops, and automatic call logging*.

These integrations help sales and support teams save time, reduce manual data entry, and maintain accurate customer records. By including CRM connectivity at no additional cost (for supported CRMs), CallHarbor ensures your communications data enhances—not complicates—your existing workflows.

Supported CRM Integrations for FREE: Accelo, Active Campaign, Allstate eAgent, Autotask 15, ConnectWise, ConnectWise Contacts, Copper CRM, Dealer Socket, Drift, Dynamics, eAgent, eLead One, Facebook, Fresh Desk, Gingr CTFD, Gmail, Google, Google Contacts, HubSpot*, Infusionsoft, Insightly CRM, Kayako, LeadMaster, LeadMaster CRM, LionDesk, MarketSharp, NetSuite, Nutshell, Pipedrive*, PIPL Search, Propertyware, RedTail*, Salesforce*, Smart Background Check, Spokeo, Stripe, Trello, US Phone Book, Vtiger KF, WhitePages, Yahoo, Zoho*

Additional advanced CRM integrations are available as an add-on product

Conference Bridging

Collaboration is essential for productivity, whether it’s internal meetings, client discussions, or multi-party coordination. Conference bridging enables multiple participants to join a single call using a dedicated dial-in number.

While many UCaaS providers treat conferencing as an add-on, CallHarbor includes conference bridging in our basic user package. This allows teams to collaborate efficiently without worrying about usage limits or unexpected charges.

Dedicated 24/7 US-Based Support

Technology is only as good as the support behind it. When issues arise, businesses need fast, knowledgeable assistance—not automated runarounds or costly support plans.

CallHarbor provides 24/7 U.S.-based support to every customer, included at no additional cost. From onboarding and installation to troubleshooting and optimization, our team is always available to help ensure your system runs smoothly. Support isn’t an upsell—it’s a promise. With no tiers and no costs associated with our Support, you can rest assured that we’ve got your back, no matter how big or small your company is.

Onsite Installation & Training

A successful UCaaS deployment goes beyond software—it requires proper setup and user adoption. CallHarbor includes free onsite installation and training for businesses with 10+ phones to ensure your system is configured correctly from day one.

Our team works directly with your staff to install equipment, configure call flows, and train users on best practices. This hands-on approach helps minimize downtime, accelerate adoption, and ensure your team gets maximum value from the platform—without costly professional service charges.

Why Choose CallHarbor?

CallHarbor’s all-inclusive UCaaS model is designed to eliminate hidden fees, simplify budgeting, and deliver real value. By bundling critical features into our standard offering, we help businesses:

• Operate more efficiently
• Deliver better customer experiences
• Train & manage team effectively
• Scale communications without escalating costs

With CallHarbor, what you see is what you get—enterprise-grade features, transparent pricing, and dependable support.

Ready to experience a UCaaS platform built around value instead of add-ons? Contact CallHarbor today to learn more about our all-inclusive solution.

The post All-Inclusive UCaaS: Features CallHarbor Offers That Competitors Charge For appeared first on CallHarbor.

Now, we’re taking innovation to the next level with CallHarborAI—an intelligent suite of AI-powered tools designed to transform how you interact with and analyze your communications.

With CallHarborAI, you can unlock insights from recorded phone calls in seconds. Features like Call Transcription and Sentiment Analysis deliver a clear understanding of call outcomes and highlight key moments without replaying recordings. This advanced technology empowers businesses to save time, make smarter decisions, and stay ahead in a fast-paced world.

Experience the future of communication with CallHarborAI—where efficiency meets intelligence.

Call Transcription

CallHarborAI leverages cutting-edge speech-to-text technology to deliver highly accurate transcripts, enabling effortless navigation through call content. Instantly search calls for specific words or phrases to uncover key topics, address concerns, or identify patterns in customer interactions. This powerful tool eliminates the need for lengthy call reviews, saving time and boosting efficiency.

How Call Transcription Benefits Your Business:

Effortless Data Discovery

Transcribing phone calls into text transforms unstructured audio into searchable, actionable data. Quickly locate crucial details, track trends, and assess call quality with ease. Live transcription also reduces the need for manual note-taking during meetings, letting you focus fully on the conversation.

Enhanced Customer Service

Detailed call transcripts provide actionable insights for coaching and enhancing customer service strategies. By reviewing past interactions, you can identify opportunities to refine your approach, address recurring issues, and elevate customer satisfaction.

Sentiment Analysis

CallHarborAI Sentiment Analysis analyzes the words and phrases used in a call to determine the overall sentiment once the call is complete. This powerful tool categorizes interactions as positive, neutral, or negative, offering valuable insights into the customer’s experience. The Closing Sentiment feature provides a concise summary of the emotional tone at the end of the call, giving businesses a clear snapshot of customer satisfaction and identifying areas for improvement.

Benefits of Sentiment Analysis:

Objective & Consistent Feedback

Say goodbye to subjective interpretations. Automated sentiment analysis eliminates personal biases, providing consistent and objective feedback on customer interactions. This helps companies accurately assess customer opinions and adjust strategies accordingly.

Strategic Customer Insights

In today’s competitive business landscape, understanding customer sentiment is key to building lasting relationships. By analyzing sentiment after a call concludes, teams can identify patterns of dissatisfaction or recurring issues, enabling them to refine strategies and proactively address customer needs. These insights help businesses foster trust, loyalty, and stronger connections over time.

CallHarbor is dedicated to empowering businesses with intelligent communication solutions that simplify processes and deliver measurable results. With CallHarborAI, you have the tools to stay ahead of the curve—harnessing the power of accurate transcriptions and sentiment insights to optimize operations, enhance customer experiences, and unlock growth potential.

Don’t just adapt—thrive. Contact CallHarbor today to discover how our innovative solutions, including CallHarborAI, can revolutionize your communication strategy and elevate your business to new heights.

The post Introducing CallHarborAI appeared first on CallHarbor.

An auto attendant is an automated answering service within a business phone system that greets inbound callers and directs them to the appropriate person, department, or resource—without requiring a live receptionist. Acting as a virtual receptionist, an auto attendant ensures every call is answered promptly and handled professionally.

A familiar example is calling a company and hearing a greeting such as, “Press 1 for Sales, Press 2 for Support.” Behind the scenes, the auto attendant is intelligently routing calls to the correct destination, reducing wait times and improving the overall caller experience.

How Auto Attendants Improve Business Operations

Auto attendants perform several essential functions that significantly reduce the workload of front desk staff while improving call efficiency. By automating call handling, businesses can reallocate valuable employee time toward higher-value tasks that require a human touch.

An auto attendant can:

• Answer incoming calls with a professional greeting
• Present menu options and route callers to the correct department or individual
• Play informational messages such as business hours, locations, or holiday notices
• Direct callers to voicemail or call queues when necessary

By minimizing long hold times and ensuring calls are routed correctly the first time, auto attendants help customers get the information or assistance they need quickly—often without speaking to a live operator. This consistency creates a smoother experience for callers and reinforces a professional brand image.

Why Use Auto Attendants?

Auto attendants aren’t just convenient—they’re a strategic tool for improving efficiency, scalability, and customer satisfaction. Below are some of the most common reasons businesses choose to implement an automated attendant.

Time-Saving & Efficient

Auto attendants eliminate the manual task of answering and transferring calls, allowing employees and managers to focus on core business responsibilities. Frequently requested information—such as hours of operation or directions—can be delivered automatically, reducing repetitive interruptions and improving overall productivity.

Full Customizable Call Flows

Auto attendants are highly customizable, allowing businesses to tailor the caller experience to their exact needs. From custom greetings and recorded prompts to time-of-day routing and department-specific menus, you have full control over how calls are handled.

Whether you need a simple menu or a more complex call flow with multiple routing options, your auto attendant can be designed to match your organization’s structure and customer expectations.

Cost-Effective & Scalable

Hiring and staffing a full-time receptionist can be costly—especially for growing businesses. An auto attendant provides many of the same benefits without the additional overhead. Included as part of a modern business phone system, it scales easily as your company grows, allowing you to expand call routing options without increasing costs.

Planning Your Auto Attendant Call Flow

To get the most value from your auto attendant, it’s important to plan your call flow before implementation. Start by identifying your departments, extensions, and call queues, and determine how incoming calls should be routed for maximum efficiency.

Consider:

• Common reasons customers call
• Departments or teams that receive the highest call volume
• Information callers frequently request (hours, locations, directories)
• After-hours and holiday call handling

With the CallHarbor management portal, configuring and modifying your auto attendant is simple. Call flows can be updated quickly as your business evolves, ensuring your phone system continues to support both your team and your customers effectively.

A Smarter Way to Manage Business Calls

Auto attendants are a powerful tool for businesses looking to streamline communication, improve customer experience, and operate more efficiently. By automating call handling, reducing wait times, and delivering consistent, professional interactions, auto attendants help organizations make a strong first impression—every time the phone rings.

When thoughtfully designed and properly managed, an auto attendant becomes more than just a feature—it becomes a foundational component of a modern, scalable communication strategy.

The post Streamlining Communication: The Power of Auto Attendants appeared first on CallHarbor.

Calls aren’t just about relationship building and problem solving. Calls provide a source of valuable insight into customer needs, agent productivity, and growth opportunities. Making the most of these insights before, during, and after your calls equips you to exceed customer expectations. Most businesses know that data is the key to unlocking success. If you want to run a more productive team, reduce your budget, or drive better customer experiences, you need data. Unfortunately, you also need a way to turn that information into insights. That’s where analytics come in.

What Analytics Can We Track?

Service level – The percentage of calls answered within a specified time frame, usually expressed as “X% of calls answered within Y seconds.”

Abandoned calls – a call or other type of contact initiated to a call center that is ended before any conversation occurs

Hold Time – the amount of time for which a call center agent puts a customer on hold

Talk Time – the amount of time a phone agent talks to a customer during an interaction as measured by the automatic call distributor.

Wait time – the mean duration that an inbound call spends waiting in a queue

Calls Handled – calls touched by your team or a specific agent during a specific duration. It usually doesn’t include abandoned calls.

These metrics are just a few examples. There are many more metrics to track with call analytics and this list shows the beginning of what your team will be able to do.

Why Use Call Analytics?

Call analytics are about measuring, collecting, analyzing, and reporting call data. This allows your team to use insights derived from call analysis to optimize their campaigns and call handling. The key idea behind implementing these analytics is to better measure, manage, and analyze the call performance of your customer service or sales representatives.

Here are our top 3 reasons to want the data gathered from call analytics:

1. Enhanced Customer Experience: By analyzing call recording and transcripts, call analytics tracking software helps identify customer aggravation points and improve call handling processes, leading to a better overall customer experience and increased customer satisfaction.
2. Call Performance Optimization: Businesses can monitor and analyze key call performance indicators such as call duration, call abandonment rates, and call conversion rates. This information helps identify areas for improvement and implement strategies to enhance call quality and conversion rates.
3. Competitive Advantage: Businesses can gain a competitive edge by understanding their customers’ needs and preferences. This knowledge allows them to tailor their products, services, and marketing campaigns to meet customer demands more effectively than their competitors.

What Industries Should Use Call Analytics?

Any industry that relies on inbound calls to acquire customers would benefit by using a call analytics solution. Phone calls are particularly important to industries with complex, expensive, or imperative purchases. Examples of these industries include automotive, home services, technology, financial services, e-commerce, healthcare, education, insurance, travel and hospitality, senior living, retail, lead generation, direct response, real estate, and more. Based off of this list, we believe that call analytics would be important for any industry and with CallHarbor call analytics is just the beginning of what we can help you accomplish.

The post Call Analytics: How They Can Help Your Business appeared first on CallHarbor.

Time-Based Routing

Time-based routing enables businesses to route calls based on predetermined schedules or times and can be linked to call queues and auto attendants. This strategy is particularly useful for organizations with global operations or distributed teams across different time zones. By routing calls to predetermined queues and routes during their respective working hours, businesses can ensure prompt handling of customer inquiries, irrespective of geographical boundaries. This also can come in handy when business are closed on weekends and holidays.

Skills-Based Routing

Skills-based routing is a strategy that directs calls to the most suitable agents based on their skills, department, expertise, or language proficiency. By matching callers’ needs with agents who posses the necessary skills or departmental knowledge, businesses can provide personalized and efficient customer service. Skills-based routing ensures that customers are connected with the right representative, reducing call transfers and improving first-call resolution rates.

Geographic Routing

Geographic routing directs calls based on the geographical location of callers. This strategy is valuable for businesses with multiple locations or regional offices. By routing calls to the nearest or most appropriate location, businesses can provide localized support and reduce call transfer times. Geographic routing enhances customer satisfaction by connecting callers with agents who understand their local context and can provide tailored assistance.

Auto Attendants

Auto Attendants are automated menu systems that greet callers and provide menu options to direct their calls. An auto attendant allows businesses to route calls based on customer selections, such as department, product, or service. This strategy ensures that calls are directed to the appropriate teams or individuals, minimizing wait times and enhancing overall customer experience.

Queue-Based Disbursement

Overflow and load balancing routing strategies evenly distribute incoming calls among available agents to prevent employees from becoming overwhelmed. Queue-based routing automatically disperses calls in pre-determined orders available employees with different options such as Ring All, Round Robin, and Linear Hunt. Load balancing evenly distributes incoming calls across a pool of agents, optimizing resource utilization and reducing call handling times.

Caller Prioritization

Having the option to prioritize calls when routed to specific queues can give call handlers the option to prioritizes calls from high-value customers, designated clients, or even for emergency use. By identifying and prioritizing calls from designated callers to specialized teams or dedicated agents in the call queues, businesses can provide exceptional service and personalized attention to their most valuable customers. In the case of multiple prioritized calls, the calls will all move to the top of the queue in the order of “longest in the queue” first. Prioritized routing demonstrates a commitment to customer satisfaction and can help nurture and strengthen important business relationships.

Implementing effective call routing strategies is crucial for efficient and streamlined business communication. By utilizing tools such as auto attendants, skills-based routing, time-based routing, geographic routing, queue-based disbursement, and caller prioritization, businesses can optimize call handling, enhance customer experiences, and improve overall operational efficiency. The selection of the most appropriate call routing strategy or combination thereof depends on the unique needs and objectives of each business and can vary. By embracing these strategies, organizations can elevate their communication capabilities and deliver outstanding service to customers, thereby setting themselves apart in today’s competitive landscape.

The post Call Routing Strategies to Enhance Effectiveness and Efficiency appeared first on CallHarbor.

Plan your call flow

Before implementing your auto attendant, your company should carefully plan the needed call flow. Determine the different departments and extensions in your organization and how you want incoming calls to be routed. Consider the specific needs of your business and your customers to create an efficient and user-friendly call flow and also any information that will need to be shared such as directories or addresses and locations. With the easily accessible CallHarbor management portal, it is simple to configure and modify your auto attendant’s call flow as well.

Personalize your greetings

Make a positive first impression on callers by personalizing your auto attendant greetings. CallHarbor allows you to record professional voice prompts, utilize text to speech options or upload pre-recorded audio files to create a customized greeting. Craft concise and clear messages, including options for different departments, extensions, and additional relevant information. Making sure you are providing up to date and accurate information is critical. A friendly and professional greeting enhances your brand image and customer experience.

Implement a dial-by-name directory

CallHarbor offers a convenient dial-by-name directory feature for your auto attendant. This feature allows callers to search for an employee by entering the first few letters of their name using their phone keypad. Implementing a dial-by-name directory streamlines the process of reaching the right person, particularly in larger organizations with numerous employees. It saves time for both callers and employees by slimming the need for manual transfers. In the CallHarbor management portal, you are also able to pick and choose who is included in the directory. If you have certain employees that you do not want to get bogged down with calls, you are able to simply exclude them from being included in the directory/searchable within the directory.

Utilize time-based routing

Time-based routing is a powerful feature provided by CallHarbor that enables you to route calls based on specific time criteria. If your business operates in different time zones or has varying business hours, you can configure your auto attendant to route calls accordingly. For example, during non-business hours, calls can be directed to a voicemail box or an on-call staff member. Time-based routing ensures callers receive the assistance they need, regardless of the time of day and can increase customer satisfaction overall.

Incorporate call queueing

To manage high call volumes efficiently, CallHarbor’s call queueing feature is an invaluable tool. Call queues place incoming calls in a virtual line and provides callers with informative messages or hold music while they wait. This feature ensures that every caller receives acknowledgement and reduces the chances of lost or abandoned calls. With CallHarbor, you can customize the queue settings to match your business requirements and keep callers informed and content while waiting. You are able to notify the caller of their place in line, or give them an estimated wait time. Your options for the hold messages are also the same as your auto attendant greeting options: text-to-speech, recording a new message, or uploading a saved file.

Monitor and analyze call statistics

CallHarbor provides comprehensive call analytics and reporting capabilities that allow you to monitor the performance of your auto attendant. Analyzing call statistics helps you identify trends, understand call volumes, and make informed decisions to optimize your call flow further. With this information, you can adjust your auto attendant settings and allocate resources more effectively, leading to enhanced productivity and customer service.

Optimizing your auto attendant with CallHarbor is a smart investment for businesses seeking to improve their communication processes and provide exceptional customer service. By carefully planning your call flow, personalizing greetings, implementing features like a dial-by-name directory and time-based routing, utilizing call queueing, and monitoring call statistics, you can create a streamlined and efficient auto attendant experience. CallHarbor’s feature-rich platform and user-friendly interface make it a reliable choice for businesses of all sizes. Unlock the full potential of your auto attendant and elevate your communication with CallHarbor.

The post Optimizing Your Auto Attendant with CallHarbor: A Comprehensive Guide appeared first on CallHarbor.

Release of PWA (Progressive Web App)

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are web-based apps that share many of the same features as a mobile native app. PWAs allow improved functionality for users in the browser, push notifications, and more. If you are familiar with the CallHarbor web softphone, you know that it is completely browser based. This is a huge perk, since you can open it from any browser without having to download it onto every device you would use. While our users can still utilize the browser based webphone, we now have the PWA as a great option for those who want push notifications, and the ability for the phone to run in the background.

Installing the PWA is as easy as opening your webphone from the link or from the portal, and choosing the download option that should automatically pop up in the web address bar.

Once downloaded, the PWA will appear in your list of applications from your main menu of your computer. It is able to have a place on the home screen, be pinned to the taskbar, and is available in the Finder/Windows Explorer.

Even when the PWA tab or window is closed, users can still receive calls and messages as push notifications. When the notification is clicked, the PWA opens.

Improved Music on Hold Options

Music on Hold and Marketing on Hold are both great ways to help callers recognize when they are holding, while keeping them entertained or informed. With the new custom Music on Hold (MoH) options, messages can be stitched into the currently playing audio. For example, while a customer is on hold, the music can now be briefly interrupted with a message, such as: “Your call is important to us. Please wait on the line and an agent will be with you shortly.” This is often called a “comfort message” – a message or recording that reassures the caller to not hang up. The message can be used for advertising, for updating wait time, and more, and is configurable (time between messages, copying messages, etc.). It can be used to announce a caller’s place in line, or give them the option to leave a voicemail instead of waiting longer.

MoH can still be customized domain-wide, per queue, or per user. For the message announcements, you have the options to utilize text-to-speech, recording, or bringing in a saved audio file.

Custom Call Center Agent Status

Call Center Supervisors can add custom agent statuses for agents to utilize. Pre-defined statuses are broad descriptions such as “lunch”, “break”, and “available”. By using a custom status, the Supervisor has increased granularity on call center reports.

Note that custom statuses are defined as a period of time when the agent is “offline”. Example custom statuses are “appointment” or “bathroom,” or even specific projects that some of your team may be working on. These are only to be used for periods of time when the agent is not available to take calls. The custom statuses are shared by all agents in the domain/organization and are limited to 8.

Custom statuses are available to agents in two places: in the call center agent home page as part of the portal and in the web softphone under the call center tab. Call Center Supervisors can review and report on the time spent in each custom state by navigating to the Agent Availability tab in Call Center “Reports,” clicking Table Settings, and checking or unchecking custom stats.

Other updated features include:

Domain-Wide Call Recording

Domain wide recording can easily be toggled on and off to save time and turn on call recording for whole domains, rather than individual extensions or call queues. There are still customization options per user and per call queue as well, if that is your preferred method!

Prioritize Calls Waiting in Call Queues

The feature to prioritize calls that are waiting in a call queue allows greater control in how calls are being received. When a call is prioritized, it is sent to the top of the queue and it will be the next one dispatched to a call center agent. In the case of multiple prioritized calls, the calls will all move to the top of the queue in the order of “longest in the queue” first. 

Tiered Round Robin

Round Robin is a type of call queue that evenly distributes incoming calls. This is common in situations such as a sales office where each sales agent needs to be given an equal call volume to fairly distribute potential sales, or a support team that doesn’t want to overload a select few members. Tiered Round Robin follows the same principle as traditional Red Robin, with the exception that agents are placed into tiered groups.

Note that this is not a “ring all” call queue. Agents will be rung one at a time for the configured timeout. When a tier has been attempted, then the call will ring into agents in the next tier, and so on. If the queue reaches the last tier and no agent answers, then the caller will be sent to the extension or number that is configured in “Pre Queue Options” or “In Queue Options”.

WebHID Headset Standard Introduced

When using a compatible headset with the updated system, calls are able to be answered, muted and hung up directly from headset while in use.

Status Light Abilities Updated

Status light on hardware is now able to be updated based on phone status. The result of this configuration is that the configured button on your device will show the equivalent of an available user BLF status on the device when the timeframe is enabled and the equivalent of an in-use/busy status (often red) when the timeframe is disabled.

Pressing the button will toggle the timeframe status and play the new status audibly. Shortly thereafter, the BLF will adjust the status accordingly.

CallHarbor is excited about all of our updates and new features. We’re always making sure our customers have the latest and greatest. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to reach out to our team at the correct contact below!

Current customer?
P: 833-363-VOIP x2
E: support@callharbor.com

Interested in a demo & overview?
P: 833-363-VOIP x1
E: sales@callharbor.com

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Features and Benefits of Call Monitoring

Listen

This feature allows you to passively listen to an agent’s conversations. The Listen mode allows the user to hear both the sales rep and the caller but doesn’t allow them to speak to either person. It’s typically used so supervisors can take notes and provide feedback, or even assess the company’s customer service quality when applied to multiple calls. Listening to live calls can help sales managers better understand the daily actions of agents and how they’re executing on your sales process.

Whisper

With Whisper mode, supervisors can join a live call and speak directly to the agent without the caller hearing them. This allows supervisors to coach their remote sales team in real-time and train them as they work on a call. This is a great feature to use during an agent’s training period, as it allows supervisors to give tips and guide the agent to success.

Barge

When agents are having a hard time during a call, call barging lets the supervisor drop in on a live call to speak with both the agent and the caller. This basically turns your call into a three-way conference call, allowing all participants to hear and speak to one another. When using call barging, make sure the agent introduces the third party that’s joining the call. Never barge an in-progress call without being introduced.

Who uses call monitoring?

Call center managers

Supervisors can monitor calls to ensure that call quality standards are being maintained and that agents are attending to customer queries as quickly as possible and in the right manner. 

Marketing departments

Knowing how well leads are converted once they are passed over to sales agents is key, and monitoring calls allows you to do just that. Join active calls or relisten to call recordings to assess how sales agents present a particular product or service and hear how customers respond. Use this data to tailor marketing campaigns and create popular content.

Sales and customer support

Properly train and coach employees from day one using live and recorded calls from the best agents. Revisit calls to find key details that may have been missed during the original call.

Conclusion

Call monitoring can be one of the best methods to ensure that your employees are providing effective, compliant, and excellent service. Through CallHarbor’s user portal, supervisors can easily access an active call from the dashboard in real time, listen to the conversation discreetly without the customer or agent being interrupted or disturbed during the call, and monitor their team regularly from one call to the next. Call centers that make effective use of call quality monitoring are likely to find a corresponding improvement in customer satisfaction levels.

Sources:

https://www.talkdesk.com/blog/call-monitoring-benefits-in-call-centers/
https://www.ringover.com/blog/call-monitoring-definition

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CallHarbor makes it easy for anyone to manage their phone solution. Whether your internal IT team is taking control, or you administrative staff – they’ll be able to easily & quickly make changes to your phone system. The best part is that if they ever get stuck, our 24/7 US-based support is always there to help.

Check out some powerful administrative features CallHarbor offers in our basic package:

1. User Access Scopes

Having the administrative ability to scale user access scopes up and down will help you greatly. This will give you the ability to determine who gets access to what, and what role each individual user plays within the system. User access scopes range from basic user all the way up to advanced user, and everything in between. We’ve included some descriptions below that show you what each scope has access to.

Office Manager

This user scope provides the following access:

• Admin Account
  • Full domain control, full user control. No feature limitations.

Advanced User

This user scope provides the following access:

• Answering Rules
• Time-Frames (self owned, not domain)
• Voicemail
• Contacts
• Fax
• Call History (personal)

Basic User

This user scope provides the following access:

• Voicemail
• Contacts
• Fax
• Call History (personal)

Simple User (Utilized for only Fax)

This user scope provides the following access:

• Contacts
• Fax

Call Center Supervisor

This user scope provides the following access:

• Voicemail
• Contacts
• eFax
• Call History
• Time-Frames (self owned)
• Queue Management
• Agent Management
• Call Center Reporting
• Answering Rules

Call Center Agent

This user scope provides the following access:

• Voicemail
• Contacts
• Queue Login / Logout
• Personal Statistics
• Call History (personal)

2. Listen, Whisper, Barge

The CallHarbor Listen, Whisper, Barge feature, also known as call monitoring, is an included feature that allows office managers, supervisors, and team leads to monitor the phone conversations of an employee via the CallHarbor user portal.

Whether you are utilizing Listen, Whisper, Barge to ensure quality of customer service, to coach a new agent during a conversation, or to interrupt a call to step in, we give you the advanced functionality of a large call center, at the tip of your fingers.

Listen, Whisper, Barge Features

Listen
A third party such as an office manager, supervisor, or team lead can silently listen in on a call made by or answered by a CallHarbor user (such as an agent or employee) on a conversation with an external party (such as a customer or client). The third party cannot be heard by either of the people on the original party, and are unaware there is another party on the call.

Whisper
A supervisor can silently monitor a call between an employee/agent and a customer, like Listen. They can also privately speak to the employee without the customer hearing what the supervisor is saying. This is one direction only audio from supervisor to agent. The customer will not hear the whisper from the supervisor, but both the supervisor and agent can hear the customer

Barge
A supervisor who is silently monitoring a call by using the listen or whisper feature can then decide to enter the conference bridge, joining what then becomes a full three-way conference call, where all three parties can hear each other and speak to each other.

3. Call Recording

Setting up our call recording feature is done with ease through the Customer Portal as well. You can simply log into your portal to enable (and disable) call recording for specific users, ring groups, or call queues. If you want to enable call recording for every user on your account, that option is available as well.

You also have the option to record calls on the fly. To start recording on a call, you can simply dial *1 while on the call. There will not be any indication or announcement, so the other party will not know you are recording unless you notify them verbally. Dialing *1 at any time on a call will prompt a start recording event. To stop the recording, dial *2 while on the call. Again, there will not be any indication, but dialing *2 will prompt a stop recording event.

How do I access a call?

On the main menu click on the call history icon(1). This will open up your call history. By default, it will show you every call made today, but you can change this by clicking on the filter button(2).

This will open the call history filter window. This allows you to change what calls are displayed. You can change the date range (1). limit it based users, department, or site (2). You can filter by caller number for calls that originate outside your system (3) and by the number dialed as well(4). The drop box at the bottom lets you see only inbound, outbound or missed calls(5).

How do I listen to or download a call recording?

When you find the call you want to listen too you just need to press the Speaker button. To download, you’ll press the little Download icon next to the Speaker on the right hand side.

How long are recordings kept?

Recordings are kept for 30 days. To keep recordings for longer you will have to download them to your own storage, or pay a small additional charge for more storage.

Check out our blog article for more info on why your business should utilize call recording.

4. Reporting & Analytics

Reporting and analytics are very important when it comes to the success and productivity of a company. CallHarbor offers detailed reporting and analytics with your platform. Our easy to digest reporting and analytics make it easy for an administrative employee of any level to gather and assess info. Admins can see where the company is at in terms of call volume and service level. They can view online agents/employees, missed calls, outbound marketing calls, and more. Having the ability to easily and readily get these analytics will help the company to stay on top of things.

One of the reasons why VoIP is the best phone system today is because it can provide these analytics and data. Nowadays, it’s very important for administrative staff and business leaders to keep tabs on call data. This allows them to continue to set and meet goals, as well as improve their customer experience overall. Using VoIP’s call analytics and data regularly can help your company boost call quality, customer satisfaction, customer retention, and determine ways for your business to improve over time.

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