Putting the Finesse in Cisco Finesse
The Office of the Registrar Student Services team spent the summer months transitioning our phone response technology to Cisco Finesse. Following in the footsteps of the Office of Admissions, the DoIT Help Desk, the Office of Student Financial Aid and the Bursar’s Office, who have also implemented this technology, we were very excited to utilize the advanced capabilities Cisco Finesse offers.
Prior to Finesse, we were limited in our ability to track any sort of call volume or statistics, team members phone availability was not visible and there was no capability to program frequently used phone numbers for ease of transferring calls. The expanded abilities from this new technology will improve the support for our team, in turn making a better experience for those we serve. The ability to customize many different messages and easily update or make changes to the messages and menu options, provides us with the flexibility needed for the breadth of questions we receive. Additionally, using Cisco Finesse allows our office to better support our own team and onboard student employees. This system provides us with statistics and reporting – how many calls we receive, call wait times, etc. These analytics will help us understand the volume of calls our front line student services receive, while balancing day-to-day operations and project work. This understanding helps by creating more visibility each day among team members call volume and availability.
This transition was made possible by closely partnering with DoIT voice services to understand capabilities, create queues and workflows, running tests, training team members, and troubleshooting and consulting on various instances. Our office started by creating both a records and enrollment queue and residency queue, but intend to incorporate Credit Evaluation Services (CES) in the future.
The student services team members have had some positive experiences since Finesse was implemented:
“I’ve really appreciated being able to see when others are available/update my status. It saves the confusion of missed messages or checking calendars when someone needs to step away. It’s also really neat and helpful to see the statistics at the end of the day. Not only does it help monitor how busy/quiet it’s been, it also provides some material satisfaction for all the hard work you put in that day!”
“I’ve appreciated being able to see the status of my coworkers, as well as just general statistics for calls throughout the day. I also love having that address book; it makes transfers super easy.”
“I love that, for the first time ever, we can actually track call volume!”