Handle calls like a boss with 3CX!

One of AI's biggest promises is that it can act as a personal assistant, taking on mundane chores on your behalf, and that promise is coming true with 3CX V20 Update 8. Not that this development will be a surprise to anyone familiar with the sophisticated phone system that has walked away with the PC Pro Business Software of the Year award for three years running.

A key reason for 3CX's success is its never-ending desire to improve. Most developers wait until major releases to make major changes, but as you will see from this latest update -- number eight since V20 was released two years ago -- 3CX wants to ensure that its customers are always abreast, even ahead, of the latest technology.

With Update 8, that means many AI enhancements, but let's start with true agentic AI: your own PA to handle calls.

Like a boss

Handling calls is one of the toughest tasks out there. You need to know who's calling: what's their exact relationship to the person they're trying to reach, as there's a big difference between a cold caller and their partner.

3CX V20 Update 8 introduces a Boss-Secretary call-handling feature. It's designed for executives and PAs who need more controlled management of incoming calls, and offers granular control. For example, you can enable certain external calls to always bypass the Boss-Secretary, along with calls from internal numbers.

You're also in full control over the hours of operation. For example, if "the boss" is away on a lunch or an extended business trip, then it activates. Effectively, this is a golden Do Not Disturb sign -- but one that activates only when you want it to.

The 3CX Personal Assistant can:

• Answer and screen calls for "the Boss"
• Access the Boss' personal phonebook
• Respect department, status and profile availability
• Transfer calls only to the Boss
• Reject transfer requests to other destinations
• Take messages and send them to the Boss or direct callers to voicemail

And this is just the start, with many more capabilities to come in future releases.

How does this work in practice? One key feature is that the AI agent can retrieve company-specific information during calls, in a very similar way that an experienced employee knows who does what and is therefore best placed to answer a query. And this can all be controlled by your admins, with supported file formats including txt, md, pdf, docx, csv, json, html, pptx and xlsx.

What's more, anyone having an extension with a role of manager or above can enable and configure the 3CX Boss-Secretary themselves. For example, they can manually switch the secretary on or off, set out-of-office hours and choose what types of calls are allowed through. Specific direct callers, too.

Note that the Boss-Secretary feature is exclusive to users with an 8SC+ PRO, Enterprise/AI or Enterprise Plus licence. We cover more on licences in the box on the right.

AI Receptionist becomes brainier

Three months ago, PC Pro covered the introduction of the AI Receptionist to coincide with the alpha release of Update 8 (see issue 376, p44). Powered by OpenAI – you'll need an account – this can use context from the natural language of the caller to direct them where they need to go, whether that's direct to someone they name or, for example, to the sales team as it recognises that the caller could be a lead.

Now the AI Receptionist has become even brainier, with the capability of switching languages as required. Its ability to check caller IDs now extends to all phonebooks together with CRM lookups, Google Workspace and Microsoft 365. All of which makes it much easier to identify trusted callers.

The AI agents are now "department aware" too, so if someone says "I want to speak to Sam in Finance" they won't be put through to Sam in Customer Support.

There are also two other handy upgrades to mention. First, the AI Receptionist can now route the caller directly to voicemail if appropriate, and it can also take a message from the caller and send it as a chat directly to the relevant team member.

More accurate call transcripts

3CX has offered AI-generated call transcripts for some time, but one of the silent improvements in Update 8 – by which we mean one that it will silently improve everyone's life even if they don't realise it! – is to the Stereo Mode.

We've covered this before, but it's worth repeating that by separating the audio from two people in a call -- typically the caller and the member of staff taking the call -- you will receive a far more accurate transcription. With this latest improvement, you also get precise timing information for each sentence.

This will make it easier to read longer calls in particular, and allow your team to pinpoint key moments. This might prove particularly useful for audits and training.

One final note: if you're using an Enterprise Licence of 3CX (including 3CX Enterprise Plus mentioned in the box above) then you can choose to host the 3CX Transcription Engine Server on-premise or in the cloud. That's particularly key for organisations that handle sensitive data that they need to control for compliance reasons.

Many more improvements

Along with features that callers and wider staff will appreciate, it seems that every update to 3CX brings enhancements for admins too. For example, new Yealink IP phones will often come with firmware that hasn't been tested and approved for use with 3CX. With Update 8, those phones can download and install the 3CX-approved firmware version automatically during the provisioning process.

It's also easier than ever to synchronise users from Microsoft 365 as this can be done based on departments rather than individuals. That means only relevant users are imported, and they're automatically mapped into departments that match their group memberships. What's more, any changes are kept in sync.

We covered the new PowerBI dashboards three months ago – these make it easier to analyse call data – but as "one last thing" we wanted to mention the new VoIP Provider Checker. This means that admins can instantly check if their preferred VoIP provider is 3CX-compatible. One less thing to worry about!

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Two new 3CX editions

To coincide with Version 20 Update 8, 3CX has introduced two new editions

3CX Enterprise Plus

Before now, only organisations on 3CX Enterprise licences with 32 simultaneous callers (32SC) or more could take advantage of 3CX's online transcription process. That all changes with 3CX Enterprise Plus, which opens this up to smaller installations with 8SC, 16SC and 24SC licences (32SC licences are covered too).

It's far more cost-effective than alternatives based on OpenAI and there's no need for local hosting. 3CX will handle all the configuration in the cloud, and you shouldn't run out of minutes: the 8SC bundle includes 30,000 minutes of transcription, and 16SC doubles that to 60,000 minutes. And voicemail cloud transcription isn't metered, so won't consume any of your minutes.

You still have full control of what's transcribed, and this can be set down to departmental or individual extension level. 3CX Enterprise Plus is available now so check the pricing of the package you need.

3CX Basic Edition

If your organisation isn't interested in advanced features such as AI or full CRM integration, then 3CX is now offering a version that focuses on dependable voice communication. You get all the core features – intercom, paging, busy lamp fields, user synchronisation with Google or Microsoft, basic reports and single sign-on capability – but an even more aggressive price than the PRO Edition.

That means you can benefit from an 8SC licence, enough for up to 40 users, for only £250 a year. If you have 25 users, for example, that works out at £10 per user per year, which will be tough to beat! And the numbers aren't limited: the Basic Edition extends all the way up to the 1024SC version, with a maximum number of 8,192 extensions.

Again, you can check the latest pricing here. And don't forget that 3CX will always be free for very small businesses. Try it for yourself.