Use cases
A virtual office for remote call center teams: the supervisor desk you can knock on
Most of a supervisor's work happens between calls: the 10-second question after an agent hangs up, the huddle that opens and closes the shift. Remote, each one becomes a chat message or nothing. Hotori is a place for those moments. Calls, recording, and quality monitoring stay in your phone system.
What should I know first?
- It does not connect to your phone system. No status changes when a call starts or ends.
- After 5 minutes without input, a member is set to Away and the mic turns off (not during a conversation). Hiding the tab or minimizing the window also sets Away. An agent working in the phone system has not touched the office and may show as Away while on a call. A status is not an attendance record.
- If agents use the same headset for calls, test it at a real desk. Check that they can tell customers from teammates. On some setups, the phone software and the browser can compete for the microphone.
- Keep the office mic off on calls, so what you tell a customer does not reach the people near you.
- It is built for computers, in a browser with nothing to install. Phones are still being tested.
- Servers are in Japan. Voice works best in Japan, across Asia-Pacific, and on the West Coast of North America. On the US East Coast you may notice more delay. It is not offered in the EU, the EEA, or the UK for now.
What goes where?
| What you need | Where it happens |
|---|---|
| Customer calls and call recording | Your phone system |
| Listening in for quality | Your phone system, or how you do it today |
| Clocking in and out | Your attendance system |
| Quick questions between calls | Hotori: walk up, knock, or raise a hand |
| Huddles, coaching, and role-play | A Hotori meeting room |
Voice, video, and chat are not saved on our servers, and there is no recording feature. There is no report of how long anyone was inside, and no screen where an admin can see one person's time. Tell agents on day one that this is not a monitoring tool; questions come more easily that way.
How does an agent reach a supervisor?
The knock replaces turning around to ask. An agent who cannot tell whether the supervisor is free knocks and adds a short note: "Customer wants a refund over my limit. Can I approve?" If the supervisor accepts, both move to a private booth. If not, they tap "Later", and the agent knows an answer is coming.
It works the other way too. A supervisor who wants to debrief after a hard call knocks rather than walking up, because the agent might be mid-call, and a knock reaches a focus desk where a voice does not.
How do you show "on a call"?
Each member has one of four statuses, and none of them says "on a call". Your team decides what each one means. One reading that works:
| Status | What it means on this floor | What the supervisor does |
|---|---|---|
| Available | Between calls, or after-call work that can be interrupted | Walk over and talk |
| In a meeting | On the phones (an inbound or outbound block) | Knock, do not approach |
| Focusing | After-call notes, a training video, a new script | Leave it unless urgent |
| Away | On break, or stepped away | Wait |
A status someone picks by hand (other than Available) does not change automatically, so picking In a meeting for a phone block keeps it from flipping to Away. If phone blocks run on a schedule, each agent can register a calendar's private iCal URL, and the status changes to In a meeting during those events.
How do you seat the floor?
| Place | Who and when | The rule |
|---|---|---|
| Agent desks, one cluster per team | Agents between calls | Mic off on calls |
| The supervisor desk, 4 or more tiles from the clusters | The supervisor | Walk over only to talk |
| Focus desks | A call that needs quiet, or after-call notes | No voices reach you; a knock still gets through |
| Booths | One-on-one debriefs | A knock ends up here |
| Meeting rooms | Huddles, coaching, role-play | Agree on the times |
Voice reaches 3 tiles, so the supervisor is visible and reachable from 4 tiles away but in nobody's ear.
How do I try it with one shift?
- Start with one supervisor and 3 to 5 agents from a single shift.
- In the first huddle, agree on three things: the office mic stays off on calls, what each status means, and every knock carries a note.
- Check that it connects on the computer and network each agent will actually use. Company networks can block voice and video.
- Work a real shift on the headset agents use for calls.
- After a week, ask one question: is it easier to get a supervisor's attention than it was in chat?
What does it cost when agents work in shifts?
Hotori charges per space, not per person. Register as many members as you like and pick a plan by how many can be inside at once: Standard for up to 25 (US$39 a month) or Business for up to 50 (US$69 a month). Prices are in US dollars for customers outside Japan, and the final amount is shown at checkout. With shifts, count the people inside at the same time, including handover. The first 30 days are free with no card, for up to 50 people at once.
For more detail, see Virtual office for remote call center and BPO teams. To see other tools side by side, see Compare pricing.