rostrvm OutBound utilises standard PABX/ACD features to provide automated dialling facilities directly via your existing switch or via a Voice over IP (VoIP) infrastructure.
The following sections give a brief overview of the key features of rostrvm Outbound:
| • | Handling Inbound calls; |
| • | Configuration and Management; |
| • | Outbound reporting. |
The key reason for utilising rostrvm OutBound is to implement some form of automated dialling. In general terms automated dialling seeks to maximise agent utilisation by minimising the time an agent wastes whilst physically dialling numbers and waiting for an answer that may never come.
Dialling Modes
rostrvm OutBound provides three automated dialling modes, i.e. preview, progressive and predictive dialling.
| • | Preview dialling provides automated dialling, combined with call progress detection. This method provides a predetermined period of preview time during which an agent can examine a customer's details prior to a call being launched to them. Once a customer dialling record has been presented to an agent, and reviewed for a supervisor-defined period of time, the rostrvm OutBound software then dials the customer phone number. During this preview time the agent can decide to cancel the account or cut short the wait and dial-now. The rostrvm software then monitors the progress of the outbound call. Calls that do not result in a contact, e.g. busy and unobtainable, are disconnected immediately, and no answers are disconnected after a supervisor-defined number of seconds. Preview dialling is most suitable for complex calls where time is required to review the existing customer situation, e.g. mortgage queries. Typical contact rates achieved using preview dialling are 6 - 11 contacts per agent, per hour. |
| • | Progressive dialling provides automated dialling and call progress detection. Once a customer dialling record is presented to the agent, the call is dialled immediately. The progress of the call is then monitored by the OutBound system software in conjunction with the switch. Calls that do not result in a contact, e.g. busy and unobtainable, are disconnected immediately, and no answers are disconnected after a supervisor-defined number of seconds. The system then automatically generates a call to a different customer for the agent. This method of dialling achieves high contact rates. It is suitable for a wide variety of calls - e.g. calls to consumers and/or businesses, and calls of any call length. Typical contact rates for progressive dialling are 20 - 25 contacts per agent, per hour, dependent upon the average call length. |
| • | Predictive dialling also provides automated dialling and call progress detection. Calls are originated periodically on behalf of a group of agents as opposed to a specific agent, with the intention that an agent will have become available to handle the call at the point when the customer answers the call. There is no preview of the data, as the agent who is to handle the call is not known at the time the call is launched. Agents are only required to handle calls that have been answered either by a customer or an answering machine. This method of dialling generally achieves the highest contact rates. Typical contact rates are in the order of 30+ contacts per agent per hour. |
Account Ordering
The order of dialled accounts for ALL agents regardless of campaign type will be:
| 1. | Priority account; |
| 2. | Nuisance call account (dialled progressively) ... [only applies to predictive agents]; |
| 3. | Agent specific callback (dialled progressively); |
| 4. | Agent specific normal accounts (dialled progressively); |
| 5. | Agent any callback (includes accounts requiring a specific skill); |
| 6. | System callback or unused account (includes accounts requiring a specific skill, based on weighting); |
If an agent specific normal account becomes a callback through redial rules then it will become an agent specific system callback unless the rule explicitly specifies otherwise. This is effectively treated as an agent specific callback (as opposed to a normal system callback).
Multimedia
rostrvm OutBound also provides the ability to send multimedia messages (Text Message and email) to your target audience as an integral element of your campaigns.
It is possible to attach an inbound (or agent initiated outbound) call to the dialler so that it treats it as a dialler initiated outbound call. This is achieved by providing through the CLIPboard the account Id of the account to attach to the call. Once an account has been attached to an inbound call the agent can set callbacks and activity codes (for redial rules) in the same way as for a dialler initiated outbound call.
All such calls are recorded in the dialler specific MIS tables as Inbound dialler calls.
When can an account be attached to a call?
If the agent is handling an inbound call (i.e. they are connected to the customer) then a new account can be attached regardless of whether one is already attached.
If the agent is in wrap-up after handling an inbound call then a new account can only be attached if currently there isn't one.
Accounts can never be attached to a dialler initiated outbound call.
Accounts can never be attached to a non-connected (alerting) inbound call.
MIS Restrictions
Reports are provided to distinguish between inbound calls that have had an account subsequently attached to them, and dialler initiated outbound calls. It multiple accounts are attached to the same inbound call however, although all are counted, only the last one is recorded in detail.
OutBound Campaigns
One of the key components of rostrvm OutBound are its campaigns. An OutBound campaign can be considered as a process of sustained outbound contact with regard to a specific business objective. The business objective may be, for example, a sales promotion or a debt recovery exercise or the issuing of premium renewal reminders. In other words the general reason behind all calls generated within a campaign will be the same. As a consequence of this, the agents who receive a particular campaign's calls will almost certainly need to have similar skills and so are consequently regarded as an agent group. For this reason an agent group and a rostrvm campaign are often regarded as one and the same thing.
As calls made on different campaigns are likely to be being made for different reasons it makes sense to make it possible to generate and manage different campaign calls in different ways. Consequently rostrvm OutBound allows system administrators to set up numerous campaign specific parameters. For example it is possible to configure one campaign for predictive dialling and another campaign for preview dialling. Similarly one campaign can be configured for making calls say, during working hours and another campaign can be configured to only facilitate calling in the evenings.
There are many other configurable parameters associated with campaigns and much of this manual is concerned with the meaning of these parameters and how they can be configured. The primary tool available with regard to campaign management is the rostrvm Manager application.
Contact Lists
Another of the key components of rostrvm OutBound are its contact lists. Contact lists are groupings of customer data records, all of which generally have something in common. For example all the customers in a specific list may live in the same geographic region, or they all may have policies due for renewal in the forthcoming month or they may all have a debt that has been outstanding for more than 6 months. Whatever the reason, all customers in a list will generally have something in common.
Having said that, this does not necessarily mean that the customers in two different lists will be intrinsically different, it may be the case that two lists exist because putting all the relevant customers in one much larger list would be impracticable for efficiency reasons.
Each customer record within a list will contain information regarding that customer that is important to the business unit utilising the OutBound system. There are certain key pieces of information that must be defined such as the unique Customer Reference and at least one Telephone Number that can be dialled, but apart from these, the record can additionally contain anything that is of importance to the business. (There are obviously certain space constraints in this respect but in essence the point stands).
A contact list on its own is of no use unless it is first imported into the rostrvm OutBound system and then associated with a campaign. Once these two steps have been completed then the system is well on the way towards being ready for dialling.
OutBound Agents
In order to associate a particular agent with a particular campaign they must be configured in rostrvm to log only into the Agent Group that is associated with the campaign. Agent identifiers and Agent Group details need to be set up.
Agent to Agent Group associations may need to be changed on a frequent basis, dependent upon the contact centre’s business requirements.
This process of agent (user) configuration must be completed before agents attempt to log on. Similarly any changes made to an agent’s configuration whilst they are actually logged on, will not be registered until they have logged off and logged on again.
OutBound Agent Licences
There is a limit on the number of agents of each campaign type (preview, progressive, or predictive) that can use the system at the same time. This limit is provided on system installation as part of the rostrvm licence/installation key. If the number of licences is exceeded then the agent is unable to logon to the campaign (unless allow breach has been included in the licence).
It should be noted however that a preview agent will use a progressive or predictive licence should there be no more preview licences available. Similarly a progressive agent will use a predictive licence should there be no progressive licences available. The reverse however is not applied (i.e. a predictive agent cannot use a progressive or preview licence, and a progressive agent cannot use a preview licence).
One should be careful when exceeding a licence in this way as when different licence types are being used for a preview or progressive agent there is no guarantee which type of licence is released once an agent logs off.
rostrvm provides a range of real-time WEB-based graphical reports. These provide analysis of campaigns, lists and agents within a campaign.
Historical reporting on the effectiveness of campaign activity is also made possible as campaign dialling statistics are also stored within the rostrvm ODBC compatible database.