Adding voicemail features to Amazon Connect

By Erin Hall, Solution Architect, Amazon Connect at AWS
Frank Boosman, Principal Business Development Manager at AWS

Amazon Connect is an easy to use omnichannel cloud contact center that helps companies deliver better customer service at a lower cost. Today, thousands of businesses use Amazon Connect to serve millions of customers daily. Capital One uses Amazon Connect to support tens of thousands of customers every day. Intuit relies on Amazon Connect to support a peak volume of over 100,000 calls on Tax Day.

True to our goal of delivering enhanced functionality for our customers to provide better service to their customers, today we are launching a Voicemail for Amazon Connect solution. This solution will help businesses using Amazon Connect in enabling their customers to leave voicemails for agents.

Businesses may encounter situations in which it would be helpful to offer callers the option of leaving a voicemail. This is useful when a caller needs to reach a specific agent for continued assistance or case history. In another scenario, when a caller may reach a contact center after hours or when it is closed, having the option to leave a voicemail may prove beneficial.

With the Voicemail for Amazon Connect solution, businesses can address similar voicemail-related use cases. This solution is available in two forms:

1. An AWS CloudFormation template that allows you to add a voicemail functionality in your Amazon Connect instance in a matter of few clicks.
2. An open source code of the solution available via a GitHub repository. This allows you to customize the existing solution to enhance or adapt it based on your use case.

The Voicemail for Amazon Connect solution is straightforward to install and configure. You can follow the steps provided in our solution guide and have it up and running in as little as half an hour. We have also provided a web portal for managers and administrators to easily configure the solution. This includes the capability to add extension numbers for agents, select the format of recordings on a per-agent basis, and choose whether voicemails should be converted to text using Amazon Transcribe.

There are no additional fees for using the Voicemail for Amazon Connect solution, beyond the underlying services we use to implement the functionality. You only pay for the services you use.

Solution overview

The Voicemail for Amazon Connect solution allows customers to leave voicemails for an agent based on the agent’s extension number. When a customer calls a business, they are prompted for the extension number of the agent they want to reach. If the agent requested is available, the customer is connected directly to the agent. Otherwise, the customer reaches the agent’s voicemail where they can record a message of their choice.

After the customer leaves a message, an email and/or SMS notification containing and/or linking to the contents of the voicemail is sent to the agent. Emails are delivered to the agent through Amazon Simple Email Service and SMS messages are sent using Amazon Simple Notification Service. The contents of the notification are configurable by an administrator, which includes the capability of adding a transcription of the message and a .wav file of the recording.

This diagram shows the user experience from a high level. To see a detailed architecture diagram, view the Voicemail for Amazon Connect implementation guide.

Figure 1: User flow diagram

The web portal is an Amazon CloudFront hosted website for managers and administrators to use to configure settings for their voicemail system and each individual user. The following features can be configured using the solution:

1. Add extensions to agents which is necessary to identify an agent when a customer calls in.
2. Configure whether an agent receives a .wav file of the audio message recording or an encrypted Amazon S3 URL version of it in the notification.
3. Configure whether the audio message should be transcribed and attached to the notification as well.

There are two user roles created as a part of this portal: Manager and Administrator. A Manager can configure settings for each agent individually, while an Administrator can configure global settings in addition to individual agent settings, and can download the Amazon Connect contact flows used when the customer calls in.

Figure 2: Administrator portal for Voicemail for Amazon Connect solution

The Voicemail for Amazon Connect solution is quick to install and configure, incurs no fees beyond underlying service usage, and provides businesses using Amazon Connect with another method to improve service to their customers. To learn more and test this solution for yourself, visit the Voicemail for Amazon Connect solution page.