How does the telephony/softphone work & what are the rules?

Please observe the following rules when using the phone: (Note: The use of the softphone is constantly controlled).

1. The softphone may only be used for customer tasks and customer support. Costs are incurred for each call. Private use is therefore not permitted. If possible, always speak to your customers via video telephony (Skype, Zoom, etc.). This strengthens the personal bond and saves telephone costs.
2. If a task requires more than a quarter of the work time (e.g. more than 15 minutes per work hour) to be spent on the phone, the customer must cover the costs of the call. It is your responsibility to select the appropriate work area in this case and to ensure that the telephone costs are covered by a factor in the task. In the back office there are these two areas: Backoffice Telephony DE and Backoffice Telephony EU. Inform the customer about the incurred telephone costs in the task chat with the template “Telephone factor DE” or “Telephone factor EU”. If a customer wants to integrate his phone number into our system or install an answering machine for a larger phone task, please contact me.

  In the task chat and the key data, you can see what time the customer has made available to you. Convert it so that this time also appears under “real work time” (key data). To recalculate: 3 hours effective working time = 180 (minutes) x1.3 (factor telephony EU) = 234 minutes or 3:55 hours budget. In the sales department, the specialist clarifies all questions regarding the telephone system with the customer. If you need less than 15 minutes of telephony per work hour for a task, there are no extra costs for your customers. Up to 15 minutes of telephony per work hour are covered by the regular hourly rate.

The following factors apply to telephone tasks:

• Backoffice telephony DE: Factor 1.2 for the customer and 1.0 for you
• Backoffice telephony EU: factor 1.3 for the customer and 1.0 for you
• Sales telephony DE: factor 2.0 for the customer and 1.5 for you
• Sales telephony EU: Factor 2.1 for the customer and 1.5 for youBackoffice telephony DE: Factor 1.2 for the customer and 1.0 for you

Softphone is available in the my-vpa app for making phone calls. No additional installation is required to use Softphone. Login is done using the same credentials as in the my-vpa app. Please use the Chrome or Opera browsers for phone calls with Softphone.

The softphone works as follows:

1. Click on the softphone icon in the menu at the top right (next to ownCloud)
2. Log in with your known credentials
3. Click on “Go to softphone”
4. Select the destination country
5. Enter the number (without 0) and click on “Call”.

Outgoing calls are made using the phone number of the my-vpa head office +49 221 82829-980, i.e. this phone number is displayed to those you call. Incoming calls arrive on the answering machine and are sent as an audio file by e-mail to a central mailbox. Calls for you are forwarded to you by the management team. VPAs who regularly work on sales projects or receive a lot of incoming calls are assigned an individual number by the management team. Do you have to make a lot of calls for a customer and need your own number? Then get in touch with us.