Hold Assist/Hold for me

[BrynLoftus]

It would be great if we could have a feature like iPhone's Hold Assist, or Android Hold for Me, where when you call a company and get put on hold, it will notify you when you are off hold.

Ideally so a user could park the call, and we can set a notify target for it when it comes off hold (back to the user, or a queue/ring group).

 

[VoIPTools]

I suppose that depends on how much money it is worth to monitor these calls. Here is one possible approach:

1. Matthew is on hold after wiggling his way through the maze of IVRs and AI assistants and has arrived at the right place
   
   
2. Transfer the call to a voicebot
   
   
3. Log that Matthew transferred the call to the bot
   
   
4. Stream the audio through the voicebot
   
   
5. The bot listens for a voice
   1. Is it a human?
   2. Is it an automated message that says "Your call is important to us..."?
   3. Was the call disconnected?
      
6. If a human answers, instruct the bot to say "thank you for taking my call. I'm been holding for Matthew. I'll get him on the phone now. Just a second".
   
   
7. The bot performs an attended transfer back to Matthew's extension
   
   
8. If Matthew answers the bot's call, play message "your call is now available, transferring now"
   1. Transfer the call
      
9. If Matthew is busy or does not answer, or it goes to voicemail
   1. Play message to human "I'm sorry, Matthew is no longer available. Good bye."
   2. Hang up the call
      
10. If the call was terminated by the other party
    1. Call Matthew and inform him that the call was terminated by the other party

Understand that you are likely going to be charged by AI for every minute you were on hold. That may be very expensive. I would have to investigate if there are ways of mitigating those costs. But we would have to keep a connection open with AI the entire time. What if, for example, the system says "If you would like to continue to hold, press 1"? Without AI listening to the call, you are not going to know that you need to press 1.

Also note that there are a number of steps in this process that could potentially be handled programmatically without AI, but many of the steps would benefit from AI managing the steps.

Another possibility is that if you get disconnected, perhaps we could train the bot to call the number back and wiggle through the IVRs and AI assistants for you. I don't know how feasible that is, but my guess is that it would be possible.

This is a very complicated process and is likely outside the scope of something 3CX would implement, but I can't speak for 3CX and their future plans.