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Business Continuity Planning: Planning for Disruptions
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Overview

Planning for disruptions helps you keep your contact center running smoothly even when unexpected issues arise. Technology incidents can happen at any time, but with the right preparation, you can minimize their impact on your agents and customers. By identifying your most critical workflows, defining fallback options, and knowing how to reroute or communicate during an outage, you ensure your team stays productive and your customers stay supported—no matter what happens behind the scenes.

 

Talkdesk Academy Resources

To check our complete Talkdesk Academy course on Planning for Disruptions, please click the link below:


Local Internet Access Outages 

Because the Talkdesk platform works by using Voice-over-IP (VOIP) technology, your Contact Center agents are dependent on internet connectivity to service your customers. If your agents lose internet service, they will be unable to log into the Talkdesk platform

Agent connectivity is monitored via regularly scheduled heartbeat signals. When the first heartbeat is missed, the agent will be marked as unavailable. In the event that all agents lose connectivity, after no more than 10 minutes, all agents will be marked as unavailable. You have a few options:

  • Take no action. If you take no deliberate action, all inbound voice calls will exit through the no-match exit of the Assignment & Dial component in Studio. Depending on how you have this exit configured, this may be a suitable situation. 

  • Have your agents switch to a mobile device using the Conversations Mobile app, using a mobile service provider for internet connectivity instead of your usual Internet Service Provider (ISP). 

 

Customer (BYOC) Carrier Outages 

Talkdesk invests significantly in providing reliable, high-quality voice telecommunications services with built-in redundancy. In many cases, Talkdesk can route around individual carrier failures. If you choose to bring your own telecommunications carrier services to the Talkdesk platform via a “Bring Your Own Carrier (BYOC)” integration, this carrier service and network may become a single point of failure in your CCaaS environment. Consider the following strategies to mitigate this possibility:

  • Backup Numbers: Consider purchasing one or more numbers through the Talkdesk Numbers application to serve as a backup to numbers provided by your carrier. Numbers purchased through Talkdesk are automatically configured to be routed by preferred carriers and can serve to offer a level of carrier redundancy when used in this way.
  • Redundant Carriers: In this scenario, you purchase and configure services through two separate telecommunications carriers, both of which are separately integrated into the Talkdesk platform through a BYOC connection. If one carrier experiences an outage, the phone numbers routed by the other carrier will not be impacted. 

 

Conversations Mobile Application 

In some cases, it may be desirable to allow your agents to access the Conversations Mobile app as a fallback mechanism when connectivity via the desktop or browser-based applications is unavailable. This can be especially useful when your agents work in rural areas where local ISPs provide less reliable connectivity. It may also help to mitigate internet outages for agents who work remotely and rely on their residential internet connection for access to work resources. 

As with any continuity plan, configuring your agents to fallback to their mobile devices will be more successful and effective when you prepare ahead of time, before an incident impacts their connectivity. If you wish to use Conversations Mobile as a fallback method, ensure your Administrators and Agents have taken all necessary steps for setup prior to an incident occurring. 

The Knowledge Base Guide for Conversations Mobile provides guidance on enabling this feature for both iOS and Android devices.

Best Practices 

  • Train and familiarize your agents on how to use the application. This is especially important for agents who only use the mobile app as a fallback method.
  • Communicate a plan for when your agents will fall back to using the mobile app. This may be a centralized decision or one that is delegated to individual agents based on their current connectivity experience. 

Note: Conversations Mobile App is available on select plans. For more information, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager or submit a request to Talkdesk Support.

 

Platform Service Disruptions 

The Continuity Settings feature provides the ability to configure external forwarding and audio messages for inbound calls if your standard Talkdesk call routing features are unavailable due to a platform incident. The Knowledge Base Continuity Settings guide provides detailed configuration information. 

 

Enabling Continuity Settings 

There are multiple channels available to enable, disable, and manage the Continuity Settings for your account: 

Enable Button Button in Talkdesk Workspace (Admin > Continuity Settings) that allows the user to enable and disable the Continuity Settings for your account manually.
Fallback Experience API A generally available API endpoint that allows you to enable, disable, and manage your Continuity Settings programmatically. See the Talkdesk Developer Documentation.
Support Request When neither of the above is suitable, submit a request to Talkdesk Support asking Talkdesk to activate Continuity Settings on your behalf.

 

Effective Outage Messaging 

Caller experience during a service outage can be improved by customizing your Continuity Settings outage message. While your message will be unique to your Contact Center, an effective outage message typically includes the following elements: 

1. Branded Greeting Confirm that the caller has dialed the correct number by stating your organization’s name in your greeting. Without this information, many callers will assume user error and make unnecessary repeated dial attempts.
2. Outage Statement Briefly state that you are experiencing unexpected issues. There is no need to include event-specific details; a generalized message will apply more broadly and require less frequent updates.
3. Alternative Channels

Alternative Channels 

Contingency method, for when neither of the above is suitable. Submit a request to Talkdesk Support, directing Talkdesk to activate Continuity Settings on your behalf.
4. Callback Prompt Voice outages are typically brief. Prompt your callers to try again after a short waiting period.

Best Practices 

  • Update Continuity Settings whenever you add, remove, or change your Talkdesk phone numbers. 
  • Store your forwarding mapping in a .csv file. When you need to make updates to Continuity Settings, use the Import feature to upload a new version of the file. 
  • Test Continuity Settings regularly. The recommended cadence is at least once annually, even if no apparent changes have been made. Testing is the only way to verify that your external forwarding will work in an emergency scenario. 

 

Contingency Routing in Talkdesk Studio 

Continuity planning doesn’t end with disruptions to your telecommunications services. Cyber attacks, critical system outages, natural disasters, and other external threats could all impact your business operations, and often call for changes to your call routing plans with little or no notice. For example, consider what would happen to your Contact Center in the following scenarios:

  • A Denial-of-Service attack impairs your agent’s ability to access your enterprise network.
  • Outages of key business systems that reduce your capacity to service customer interactions.
  • A fire, flood, or other natural disasters that impact your agents' physical work locations.

Configuring a Studio Contingency Routing plan allows you to quickly bypass your normal call routing during events that adversely affect your business. See the Studio Guide for Configuring a Contingency Routing Plan for additional information.

 

Enhancing Your Contingency Routing Experience 

To further minimize the impact of disruptions, consider expanding the capabilities of your contingency routing Module. In place of a Voicemail component, you can configure additional self-service options that your customers can access when agents are unavailable, such as:

  • Informational messages (business hours, locations, and directions).
  • Automated, self-service processes (such as booking appointments, making payments, or checking the status of orders).
  • Routing options that forward calls externally to non-impacted business units or partners
  • Interactions powered by Talkdesk Autopilot, which do not rely on reaching a human agent.

 

Activation via API 

For a more flexible approach, you can activate your Contingency Routing programmatically, from an external system, rather than making a direct change to a Studio Module. This can 

  • Provide your existing IT or Operations staff with the ability to enable or disable your Contingency Routing plan through their existing ITSM tools.
  • Expose control of your Contingency routing plan to additional responders without requiring them to have a Talkdesk license.
  • Allows you to enable or disable your Contingency Routing during an outage of your Single Sign-On (SSO) service provider.

You can configure this solution by using the Execute Action or Salesforce Data Dip components to retrieve your current emergency routing status (enabled or disabled) from an external system. A Conditional Statement can then be used to route your interactions based on the value that was returned.

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