Purpose of the Lifeline

The Service Desk has a special, unpublished Lifeline number that rings on all the Service Desk phones at once. It allows the caller to speak directly with the Service Desk Supervisor on duty, but anyone in the Service Desk is able to answer it if the Supervisor is not available. 

This Lifeline is used in several situations:

• Service Owners may call the Lifeline during an IT Outage, when there needs to be rapid and direct communication between the Service Desk and Service Owners.
• ATLs or Desktop Support techs may call the Lifeline for help (usually accounts through CAMP) when they are working with a customer on the spot. 
• Service Desk staff may call the Lifeline to speak to a supervisor during the day, for example if something comes up and they have to miss part of a shift in the Service Desk.
• The Lifeline is not intended to be shared with end users and it is not intended as a way to bypass the regular Service Desk number for routine support questions.

The Service Desk Supervisors have Lifeline numbers for other departments to be used in similar situations, when the Service Desk needs to speak quickly to another department, usually about an outage or particular customer support issue.

Answering the Lifeline

The Lifeline is a special kind of phone line.  It is automatically a conference call, so if several people answer it at once, they can all hear each other.  And the Lifeline doesn't work the same for transferring calls to and from either.

Working on-site in the Call Center at 1 Leavitt Lane

Staff will hear the Lifeline ring on all phones at once, but normally will not answer:

• The SD Supervisor is responsible for answering the Lifeline if possible
• If not possible, other Supervisors or the Team Lead will answer instead
• If none of them are possible, whichever staff person is available should answer
  • Know that this will not be a normal SD call
  • Find out who it is, take a message, and give the information to a supervisor as soon as you can. 
  • Write down a call back number so the supervisor can reach them if they have additional questions.

If someone else walks into the room who needs to be part of the conversation, they can join the Lifeline call by just clicking on the Lifeline button on any call center phone.  It will automatically conference them in.

Working from home using Avaya One-X Communicator

Because staff are logged into Call Center phones when working from home, they will still hear the Lifeline ring on their phones, but it is harder to tell since you cannot hear it also ringing on all the other phones at the same time.

A Lifeline Call shows on the Avaya Caller ID display as: (26998) Unknown

• Please look at the display when answering calls in Avaya. If you notice the Lifeline number in the Caller ID, please do not answer it right away. 
• If the Lifeline rings more than 4 times, then go ahead and answer it assuming the Supervisor is not available.
  • Know that this will not be a normal SD call.
  • Use Teams Chat to see if a supervisor is available to pick it up also. If they do start to talk through Avaya, then you can safely hang up.
  • If no supervisor is available, find out who the caller is, take a message, and give the information to a supervisor as soon as you can. 
  • Write down a call back number so the supervisor can reach them if they have additional questions.

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