Question Prompting Assistant

The Question Prompting Assistant is a web trinket developed by Dozerfleet Labs, and designed for use in call centers. It is an accessory to CSRs that allows for a more natural call flow that covers all bases in a call, without having to be strictly linear when inappropriate. An edition of it was released in June of 2011. The original client issued a gag order on public release details, so there shall be none listed here.

In March of 2012, a draft was rendered for a private sector edition; one that could be tweaked and skinned for any company or corporation.

Structure
The QPA may be a widget on a page, or it may take up an entire page by itself, the latter form being default style. There are two components to the structure of every QPA: skin and skeleton.

QPA Skinning involves the background and a few other features pertaining to color and appearance being altered in CSS files. A QPA CSS file may be customized based on the call center that needs a QPA. It may be themed accordingly. It can involve simple border coloring, or can go as high as putting a shadow on text and making text area boxes glow various colors on hover. It can also be multi-layered, so the skin displays different attributes depending on which browser it's viewed in.

QPA Skeletons are the page layouts and special symbols that are used next to every input box, text area box, radio button field, and checkbox field. These items may also be highly stylized, depending on organization and internal needs/wants. PNG files may be used for symbols, but HTML and Dingbats are preferred because they can be embedded directly without lengthy base-64 codes. The fonts for appropriate Dingbats are Webdings and Wingdings.

Usage
A CSR loading the QPA will receive a call. After greeting, the CSR uses the QPA to make sure that the caller as listed all possible criteria for the call. The CSR than advises said caller on a course of action based on input. The interface gives a suggested order for asking questions in, but allows the CSR to address a caller's concerns in a non-linear fashion as well. This eliminates the need for memorizing strict scripts, which rob the CSR of his soul and annoy the caller just to make the supervisor's job easy. It also makes sure the CSR doesn't have to ask a question twice.

Veskinsya example
In the infobox image above, a rough draft exists for what could become the Veskinsya Resort Information Center QPA. Veskinsya is the home village of Ivan from Ride of the Three Bulldozers, and Veskinsya Resort would be a Disneyworld-like park themed after the franchises of Dozerfleet Productions.


 * 1) The CSR will try to acquire the caller's name.
 * 2) After the name is verified, the CSR will ask where the caller is from.
 * 3) The CSR will also ask if the caller has a park membership, or if anyone in the caller's party does.  And if so, which one.
 * 4) The CSR will then ask if the caller wants general information about a specific part of the park or hotels, and will write down what it is that the caller wants to know about.
 * 5) If the caller wants general information, it's provided.  Otherwise, the caller is asked if they want to book a reservation for the hotel or purchase tickets for park entry.  There is also the possibility for a caller to cancel a hotel reservation if their trip plans are altered.  If they'd already paid, they can be redirected to another line for discussion of refunds.
 * 6) For callers that want to reserve a hotel room or gain entrance to the park, the CSR can then go over who all is in the caller's party.  If just self, the "Self" icon is checked.  Categories for who is in a party are "Self," "Spouse/Lover," "Whole family unit," "Other adults," "Other children," and "Pets included."  If pets are included, special advice is given on where pets are allowed vs. not.
 * 7) If the caller wants tickets and/or a reservation, the CSR will verify the party information and numbers and then inform the caller of how much it will cost for everyone, along with listing a total price.
 * 8) If the caller wants to book a reservation, the CSR verifies it and transfers the caller to the booking line.
 * 9) The complaint box is for exactly what it sounds like: a place where callers may state their complaints about some aspect of the park or hotels.  CSRs may then copy what is said to the complaint box, then copy and paste that data to another file for filing end-of-day reports.  Supervisors will receive the complaint reports and redirect them to whomever they concern.
 * 10) When the caller hangs up or is transferred, the CSR will refresh the page and wipe the entire form clean to handle the next call.

Refreshing may be done via either F5, the refresh button on the web browser, or a special "nuke" button on the page. Not all QPAs are designed with nuke buttons.