Retaining caller ID for external call transfers in Amazon Connect

In the context of a transfer call scenario from a contact center, the company’s provisioned phone number is typically the outbound caller ID. However, certain scenarios require preserving the original caller ID throughout the transfer process, allowing the receiving party to identify the initial caller. Amazon Connect provides flexible outbound calling capabilities through queues. The default configuration allows configuring a single static phone number. To enable more dynamic caller ID adjustments for different use cases, this blog offers guidance on a solution to retain the originally dialed caller ID when transferring calls. With some additional configuration, customers can build on the robust foundations of Amazon Connect and customize the outbound experience to suit their requirements.

Consider a scenario where a company may use separate Amazon Connect instances to manage contact centers for multiple business units. Transferring a customer call between the business units is a common use case, where preserving the caller ID is essential for performing Automatic Number Identification (ANI) lookups and delivering a personalized customer experience. The proceeding architecture diagram demonstrates a use case where an agent initiates a call transfer from business unit-1 to business unit-2.

Solution overview

1. The customer places a call to business unit-1 first, by calling the customer service telephone number.
2. The customer is connected to an agent from business unit-1.
3. After assessing the customer’s needs, the agent decides that they should be transferred to business unit-2 for additional assistance and initiates the transfer.
4. Subsequently, the call is transferred to business unit-2 and the caller ID is updated to reflect the customer’s phone number.
5. Once connected to the business unit-2, the customer’s caller ID is maintained, allowing it to be utilized for caller lookup purposes.

Walkthrough

Businesses can leverage the robust Amazon Connect platform to customize outbound calling experiences on a per-interaction basis. This solution utilizes queue type quick connect instead of external type quick connect when transferring calls. Doing so enables directing the transfer through a Connect flow where the caller ID can be configured via the transfer to phone number block. By following the steps outlined here, businesses can configure caller ID on a per-transfer basis to maintain context for call recipients.

To demonstrate this solution, you will need two Amazon Connect instances. The instances can be in the same or different regions:

1. An inbound call will be made and connected to instance-1. The caller chooses option 1 to get connected to an agent.
2. The inbound call will be routed to an agent logged in instance-1, say Agent1.
3. Agent1 will initiate a cold/blind transfer to a queue type quick connect, named qc_instance_to_instance_xfer.
4. Once Agent1 clicks the Call button in CCP, cf_Instance1_Xfer_To_Queue Connect flow will be executed to ensure that the correct caller ID is set.
5. The call will be received in Amazon Connect instance-2 and cf_Instance2_Inbound Connect flow will be executed.
6. If the caller chooses option 2, the call from instance-1 will be transferred through the Connect flow cf_Instance1_Inbound to instance-2 retaining the same customer ANI. The call will be received in Amazon Connect instance-2 using cf_Instance2_Inbound. This exhibits an Interactive Voice Response (IVR)-to-IVR transfer retaining the same customer ANI.
7. If caller ID is not set using the process specified in the blog, the outbound caller ID set at the queue level will be used for the transfers. If you need additional details on how to set outbound caller ID, please refer to set up outbound caller ID.

Prerequisites

1. An AWS account with administrator access.
2. Two Amazon Connect instances in a region where Amazon Connect is supported.
   • If you do not have an Amazon Connect instance already, follow the steps to create an Amazon Connect instance.
3. User should have Administrator access to both the Amazon Connect instances.
4. Working knowledge of the following Amazon Connect resources/configurations:
   • Contact Control Panel (CCP)
   • Connect flows
   • Import/export Connect flows
   • Queues
   • Quick connects
   • Routing profiles
   • Users

Deployment Steps

Download the following Connect flows.

1. cf_Instance1_Inbound
2. cf_Instance1_Xfer_To_Queue
3. cf_Instance2_Inbound

Deployment activities for Amazon Connect instance-2 (Target Amazon Connect instance):

1. Go to the Amazon Connect console.
2. Sign in to your Amazon Connect Instance-2.
3. Navigate to the Routing section in the left sidebar, then choose Flows.
4. Click on Create flow button at the top right to create a new connect flow.
5. Once the flow opens, go to the top-right corner (near the Save button), click on the dropdown menu and choose Import (beta). For more information refer to import flow.
6. Click the Choose File button, then browse your computer to find the cf_Instance2_Inbound connect flow that you downloaded earlier.
7. After the flow opens, click on Save, and then proceed to click on Publish.
8. Assign the number to the cf_Instance2_Inbound flow by following these steps (For more information, refer to Set up phone numbers):
   1. Go to the Channel section from the left sidebar, then choose Phone numbers.
   2. Click on Claim a Number.
   3. Select Direct Inward Dialing (DID).
   4. Choose the appropriate country according to your preference.
   5. A list of phone numbers will be displayed. Select the one you prefer. Please make note of this phone number, as it will be necessary for setting up the configuration in Amazon Connect instance-1 Connect flows.
   6. From the Contact Flow/IVR drop-down, choose cf_Instance2_Inbound flow.
   7. Click Save to complete the process.

Deployment activities for Amazon Connect instance-1 (Source Amazon Connect instance):

1. Go to the Amazon Connect console.
2. Sign in to your Amazon Connect instance-1.
3. Navigate to the Routing section in the left sidebar, then choose Queues.
4. Click the Add new queue button and set up two queues with the names q_instance_to_instance_xfer and q_inbound. For more information, refer to How to create queues.
5. Navigate to the Users section in the left sidebar, then choose Routing Profiles.
   1. Create a routing profile called rp_instance1.
   2. Add the q_inbound queue with a delay of 0 and priority of 1.
   3. Set the same queue as the default outbound queue. For more information, refer to Create a routing profile.
6. Create a user named Agent1 by following the steps outlined below: (For more information, refer Add users to Amazon Connect )
   1. Go to the Users section in the left sidebar and select User Management.
   2. Click on Add new user, fill in the required fields. Login field should be Agent1.
   3. Be sure to make note of the password.
   4. From the Security profile dropdown, select Agent. For more information, refer to Security Profile
   5. From the Routing profile dropdown, choose rp_instance1.
   6. Click Save to create the Agent1 user account.
7. Navigate to the Routing section in the left sidebar, then choose Flows.
8. Click on Create flow button at the top right to create a new connect flow.
9. Once the flow opens, go to the top-right corner (near the Save button), click on the dropdown menu and choose Import (beta).
10. Click the Choose File button, then browse your computer to find the cf_Instance1_Inbound connect flow that you downloaded earlier.
11. After the flow opens, click on Save, and then proceed to click on Publish.
12. Repeat the steps 7-9 to import cf_Instance1_Xfer_To_Queue connect flow, which you downloaded earlier.
13. In the two Connect flows, cf_Instance1_Xfer_To_Queue and cf_Instance1_Inbound, update the phone number you claimed in step 8 of the Amazon Connect instance-2 setup by following steps outlined below.
    1. Open the cf_Instance1_Xfer_To_Queue Connect flow.
    2. Locate the Transfer to Phone Number block.
    3. Update the phone number to the one claimed in step 8 of Amazon Connect instance-2 setup.
    4. Click on Save, and then proceed to click on Publish.
    5. Repeat the same steps for the cf_Instance1_Inbound Connect flow.
    6. Make sure to Save and Publish your changes after updating the phone number in each Connect flow.
14. Set up a queue type Quick Connect named qc_instance_to_instance_xfer. Configure the q_instance_to_instance_xfer queue as the destination and use cf_Instance1_Xfer_To_Queue as the Connect flow. The configuration should resemble the following:
    • Queue Type: Quick Connect
    • Queue Name: qc_instance_to_instance_xfer
    • Destination Queue: q_instance_to_instance_xfer
    • Connect Flow: cf_Instance1_Xfer_To_Queue
15. Associate the quick connect named qc_instance_to_instance_xfer with the q_inbound queue.
16. Assign the number to the cf_Instance1_Inbound flow by following these steps (For further assistance, refer to Set up phone numbers):
    1. Go to the Channel section from the left sidebar, then choose Phone numbers.
    2. Click on Claim a Number.
    3. Select Direct Inward Dialing(DID).
    4. Choose the appropriate country according to your preference.
    5. A list of phone numbers will be displayed. Select the one you prefer.
    6. From the Contact Flow/IVR drop-down, choose cf_Instance1_Inbound flow.
    7. Click Save to complete the process.

Testing Steps

1. Login to the Connect instance- CCP as the Agent1 that you created during Connect instance-1 deployment step-6, the URL will be https://<name of the Connect instance-1>.my.connect.aws/ccp-v2/ . For more information, please refer to Launch the CCP.
2. Make sure that the agent is in Available status.
3. Place a call to the phone number that you created during Connect instance-1 deployment step-16.
4. Press 1 when prompted by the IVR and it will connect you to Agent1.
5. Once the call is connected to the agent, make note of the incoming phone number, i.e. caller ID, displayed on the CCP.
6. Transfer the connected call to the quick connect named qc_instance_to_instance_xfer by following the steps outlined below.
   1. Click on Quick connects button on CCP.
   2. Select qc_instance_to_instance_xfer.
   3. Click on the Call button.
   4. Once the call starts connecting, click on the Leave Call button in the CCP to complete the transfer.
7. The call will be transferred, and the IVR will play a message indicating that the call has reached instance-2 and then disconnects.
8. Login to Connect instance-2 and use the Contact search to locate the call. Verify that the customer phone number field displayed in the contact matches the one received & noted by the agent in step 4. This ensures that the original caller ID is preserved when the call is transferred to a different instance.

Clean up

To prevent incurring charges, please take the following steps:

1. Release the phone numbers that were claimed as per the instructions in this blog. One was claimed during the Connect instance-2 deployment (step 8), and the other during Connect instance-1 deployment (step 16). For more information, refer to Release the number.
2. Alternatively, if you created new Connect instances to test this blog, refer to delete the Connect instances for instructions on how to delete them.

Conclusion

In this blog post, you learned how to retain the caller ID for calls transferred between Amazon Connect instances using Queues, Queue-type quick connects, and Transfer-to-Queue Connect flow. This solution empowers personalizing the caller ID on a per-transfer basis to dynamically meet communication needs.

Additionally, contact attribute(s) can be added in the Transfer-to-Queue Connect flow and leveraged to build custom reports and gain insights into call transfers. For more information on reporting using custom attributes, see the following blog posts:

• Analyze Amazon Connect Contact Trace Record (CTR)
• Analyze Amazon Connect Agent Event Stream (AES)

About the Authors

Harshvardhan Bhatt is Specialty Consultant with Amazon Web Services. Harshvardhan specializes in designing and developing contact center applications for different domains e.g. finance , insurance , travel & hospitality etc.

Sanjeet Sanda is an Amazon Connect Specialty Consultant at AWS Professional Services with over
20-years of telecommunications & Contact Center technology experience. He specializes in designing and delivering customer-centric solutions with a focus on integrating and adapting existing enterprise call centers into Amazon Connect environments. Sanjeet is passionate about streamlining adoption processes by leveraging automation wherever possible. Outside of work, Sanjeet enjoys hanging out with his family, having barbecues, and going to the beach.

Rijeesh Akkambeth Chathoth is a Professional Services Consultant at AWS. He helps customers in achieving their desired business outcomes in the Contact Center space by leveraging Amazon Connect, Amazon Lex and GenAI features.