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Sponsored by
The Inner Circle Guide to Outbound &Call Blending
2
“The Inner Circle Guide to Outbound & Call Blending”
© ContactBabel 2016
Please note that all information is believed correct at the time of publication, but ContactBabel does not
accept responsibility for any action arising from errors or omissions within the report, links to external
websites or other third-party content.
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CONTENTS
Contents ........................................................................................................................................................ 3
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................................. 6
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 8
Background to Outbound ............................................................................................................................. 9
The Role of Outbound in Businesses Today ............................................................................................ 10
Inbound and Outbound Activity ......................................................................................................... 10
The Nature of Outbound Activity ........................................................................................................ 13
Outbound: Vertical Markets ............................................................................................................... 15
Outbound: Contact Center Size .......................................................................................................... 15
Drivers of Outbound Automation ............................................................................................................... 16
Efficiency & Productivity ......................................................................................................................... 16
End-user question #1: ......................................................................................................................... 17
Apart from increasing the number of outbound calls being made, what benefits can automated
outbound solutions provide? .............................................................................................................. 17
Flexibility ................................................................................................................................................. 20
Customer Experience .............................................................................................................................. 20
Agent Engagement .................................................................................................................................. 22
Salaries and Bonuses for Outbound Agents ........................................................................................... 23
Agent Attrition ........................................................................................................................................ 24
Agent Absence ........................................................................................................................................ 26
Recruitment Costs ................................................................................................................................... 27
Outbound Automation: Implementation and Usage .................................................................................. 28
Outbound Dialling Practices .................................................................................................................... 28
Use of Diallers ..................................................................................................................................... 28
4
Dialler modes ...................................................................................................................................... 30
Outbound Outcomes .......................................................................................................................... 35
Agent Utilisation Rates (UK) ................................................................................................................ 39
Dialling activity: time of day (UK) ........................................................................................................ 41
Dialling activity: maximum number of attempts (UK) ........................................................................ 45
Ring time and connection time ........................................................................................................... 47
Dialling activity: the role of mobile ..................................................................................................... 48
End-user question #2: ......................................................................................................................... 49
We’re interested in increasing productivity, but concerned about agent burnout and increased
attrition. Do you have any pointers on best practice? ....................................................................... 49
Answer-Machine Detection ................................................................................................................ 54
Use of CLI / CLID .................................................................................................................................. 57
The Use of IVM (Interactive Voice Messaging) ................................................................................... 58
Use of broadcast messaging ............................................................................................................... 59
Compliance with Regulations ................................................................................................................. 60
End-user question #3: ......................................................................................................................... 61
What impact does current and future legislation have on outbound, and how do your solutions
address this? ....................................................................................................................................... 61
Complying with Regulations ................................................................................................................... 63
Call Blending ............................................................................................................................................ 67
Multimedia Blending ........................................................................................................................... 68
End-user question #4: ......................................................................................................................... 70
What benefits are there from call blending? What effects can we expect to see on productivity and
agent engagement? ............................................................................................................................ 70
Multichannel Outbound Strategies and Techniques .............................................................................. 73
End-user question #5: ......................................................................................................................... 75
5
Are outbound and call blending solutions separate from other multichannel interaction, or has
there been any move to integrate these channels together? ............................................................ 75
The Role of Scripting ............................................................................................................................... 77
End-user question #6: ......................................................................................................................... 81
Have you noticed any changes in how scripting is being used? How do businesses tend to use this?
............................................................................................................................................................ 81
Call-Back & Call-Me requests .................................................................................................................. 83
Outbound in the Cloud ........................................................................................................................... 90
End-user question #7: ......................................................................................................................... 92
Has there been much uptake of cloud-based solutions? Is this mainly down to cost, or are there
other benefits as well? ........................................................................................................................ 92
The Future of Outbound ............................................................................................................................. 94
End-user question #8: ......................................................................................................................... 96
Are you seeing a change in the nature of outbound calling? How are your solutions developing to
address this and what can we expect to see in terms of future functionality from outbound
solutions? ............................................................................................................................................ 96
Supplier Directory ....................................................................................................................................... 98
About ContactBabel .................................................................................................................................. 105
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LIST OF TABLES
Figure 1: Inbound and outbound activity by contact center size, end-2014 .............................................. 10
Figure 2: Outbound agent positions (equivalent), by contact center size, end-2014 ................................ 11
Figure 3: Outbound agent positions (equivalent), by vertical market, end-2014 ...................................... 12
Figure 4: Outbound activity ........................................................................................................................ 13
Figure 5: Outbound activity by contact center size .................................................................................... 15
Figure 6: Salaries by contact center activity type ....................................................................................... 23
Figure 7: Agent attrition rate by contact center activity type .................................................................... 24
Figure 8: Historical mean agent attrition by contact center activity type (with 2018 projection) ............. 25
Figure 9: Short-term absence by contact center activity type ................................................................... 26
Figure 10: Historical mean agent absence by contact center activity type (with 2018 projection) ........... 26
Figure 11: Cost of recruiting a new agent, by contact center activity type ................................................ 27
Figure 12: Use of automated outbound dialers, by contact center size ..................................................... 28
Figure 13: Use of dialing modes, by contact center size (outbound operations only) - UK ....................... 31
Figure 14: Use of dialing modes, by outbound activity (outbound operations only) - UK ......................... 32
Figure 15: Proportion of calls answered, by outbound activity type (UK) .................................................. 35
Figure 16: Proportion of calls answered, by size (UK) ................................................................................ 35
Figure 17: Of the calls that were answered, how many were by a consumer? (by outbound activity type)
(UK) ............................................................................................................................................................. 36
Figure 18: Of the calls that were answered, how many were by a consumer? (by contact center size) (UK)
.................................................................................................................................................................... 36
Figure 19: Of the calls that were answered by a consumer, how many were hung up by the consumer
when an agent was available? (by outbound activity type) (UK) ............................................................... 37
Figure 20: Of the calls that were answered by a consumer, how many had a recorded message is played
as no agent was available (by outbound activity type) (UK)....................................................................... 37
7
Figure 21: Of the calls that were answered by an answerphone, where a recorded message is played, by
outbound activity type (UK) ........................................................................................................................ 38
Figure 22: Average outbound agent utilization rates (UK) ......................................................................... 39
Figure 23: Cumulative opening and closing hours, Mon-Fri (UK) .............................................................. 41
Figure 24: Cumulative opening and closing hours, Sat (UK) ....................................................................... 42
Figure 25: Cumulative opening and closing hours, Sun (UK) ...................................................................... 43
Figure 26: Call attempts by activity type (debt collection) (UK) ................................................................. 45
Figure 27: Call attempts by activity type (warm calling – sales calls to existing customers) (UK) .............. 46
Figure 28: Call attempts by activity type (cold calling – sales calls to new prospects) (UK) ....................... 46
Figure 29: Minimum mean and median ring time before call termination, by outbound activity type (UK)
.................................................................................................................................................................... 47
Figure 30: Use of answer machine detection (AMD) .................................................................................. 55
Figure 31: Use of call blending by contact center size ................................................................................ 67
Figure 32: Average speed to answer, by call blending environment type ................................................. 68
Figure 33: Use of multimedia blended agents by contact center size ........................................................ 69
Figure 34: Use of automated outbound communication for proactive customer service ......................... 73
Figure 35: Use and type of scripting, by vertical market ............................................................................ 77
Figure 36: Use and type of scripting, by contact center size ...................................................................... 78
Figure 37: Use and type of scripting, by contact center activity ................................................................ 78
Figure 38: Reasons given for dislike of contact center queuing ................................................................. 83
Figure 39: Types of telephony call-back offered to customers .................................................................. 85
Figure 40: Use of website and queue call-back options and queue position announcements, by contact
center size ................................................................................................................................................... 86
Figure 41: Proportion of customers in telephony queue offered call-back ................................................ 87
Figure 42: Effectiveness of telephony call-back functionality .................................................................... 88
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INTRODUCTION
“The Inner Circle Guide to Outbound and Call Blending” is the 8th in the Inner Circle series of
ContactBabel reports. Other subjects include Cloud-based Contact Centers, Multichannel, Self-Service,
Interaction Analytics and PCI DSS Compliance, and can be downloaded free of charge from here.
The Inner Circle Guides are a series of analyst reports investigating key customer contact solutions. The
Guides aim to give a detailed and definitive view of the reality of the implementing and using these
technologies, an appraisal of the vendors and products available and a view on what the future holds.
The Inner Circle Guides are free of charge to readers. Research and analysis costs are borne by sponsors
- solution providers in the specific area of study - whose advertisements, case studies and thought
leadership pieces are included within these Guides.
Solutions providers have not had influence over editorial content or analyst opinion, and readers can be
assured of objectivity throughout. Any vendor views are clearly marked as such within the report.
As well as explaining these solutions to the readers, we have also asked the potential users of these
solutions whether they have any questions or comments to put directly to solution providers, and we
have selected eight of the most popular to ask to the report’s sponsors. These branded Q&A elements
are distributed throughout the report and give interesting insight into real-life issues.
Please note that statistics within this report refer to the US industry, unless stated otherwise (the
section on outbound outcomes is based on UK figures, as there are no equivalent US statistics available).
There is a version of this report available for download from www.contactbabel.com with UK statistics
throughout.
NB: “Small” contact centers are defined in the report as having 50 or fewer agent positions; “Medium”
51-200 agent positions; and “Large” 200+ agent positions.
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BACKGROUND TO OUTBOUND
The traditional outbound call was simply about selling more products to new and existing customers.
However, legislation and customer pressure impacted on cold calling, and the past years have seen an
increasing proportion of outbound calling being made to existing customers, either to deliver customer
care or to inform them proactively about events and circumstances which affect them, as well as
providing call-back functionality. Debt collection also still forms a key part of the outbound industry.
Outbound calling is fundamentally different from inbound, and - facing significant and growing cultural
and legislative issues - must be managed sensitively:
the nature of outbound is intrusive and usually driven by the needs of the business rather than
the customer (except in cases of call-back requests and for proactive outbound service)
this means that customers are more likely to be defensive and wary of the purpose of the call.
Trust needs to be built very quickly in order to overcome this negative start point: having the
right information about the customer to hand will improve the experience for both agent and
customer
outbound work can be very hard on agents: few people actively welcome most outbound calls,
and persistent refusal, lack of interest and rudeness can be very wearing for agents, especially if
productivity-enhancing technology such as dialers are being used over-aggressively.
Management should consider ways of alleviating agent stress, through sensible scheduling and
call blending, judicious use of technology, focused training and improving working
environments, amongst other ways
especially where the technology exists to do so, it can be tempting to treat outbound calling
campaigns as an exercise in maximizing call volumes and (theoretically) revenues. However, this
can result in brand damage and high staff attrition rates through over-pressured and exhausted
agents delivering poorer quality interactions
there has been a tendency to use offshore contact centers for low-value outbound sales
campaigns which would otherwise be unprofitable to run. However, the same high standards of
training and support are needed by offshore agents to do their job properly: too many
businesses simply put the agents on a dialer with an inflexible script in front of them and then
wonder why their customers and prospects become negative towards their brand
tough legislation has emerged which is reducing the amount of cold calling which businesses can
do. Cold calling is illegal in Germany, and the Do-Not-Call register in the US and the Telephone
Preference Scheme (TPS) in the UK allow customers to opt out of receiving any sales calls at all
in theory.
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THE ROLE OF OUTBOUND IN BUSINESSES TODAY
INBOUND AND OUTBOUND ACTIVITY
In past years, there had been a strong positive correlation between the size of the contact center and
the proportion of outbound activity, with larger contact centers carrying out a higher proportion of
outbound activity than smaller ones. It may have been the case that larger operations had more scope
and investment to have dedicated outbound sales teams and to be able to afford the outbound
automation technology which makes this so much more efficient.
In more recent years, the greater availability of affordable automation for smaller operations, added to
the wider use of digital outbound marketing, the effect of legislation, the impact of offshoring and the
general negative cultural attitude towards cold calling has meant that massive outbound cold-calling
‘factories’ are much less prevalent than had been the case, although there is still a slight positive
correlation between size and outbound activity.
These figures do not include outbound calls made from offshore locations into the US market, nor do
they include automated ‘robo-calls’.
NB: the term “outbound agent positions (equivalent)” describes the number of exclusively-outbound, full-
time agents required. In practice, not all outbound work is done by outbound-only agents, hence the
need for “outbound agent equivalents”.
Figure 1: Inbound and outbound activity by contact center size, end-2014
Agent positions
% of inbound activity % of outbound activity
11-24 agent positions 77.2% 22.8%
25-50 agent positions 79.2% 20.8%
51-100 agent positions 78.0% 22.0%
101-250 agent positions 77.2% 22.8%
251-500 agent positions 74.5% 25.5%
501-1,000 agent positions 74.6% 25.4%
1,000+ agent positions 74.3% 25.7%
Mean average
76.3% 23.7%
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Figure 2: Outbound agent positions (equivalent), by contact center size, end-2014
Size band (agent positions)
Outbound agent positions (equivalent)
11-24 agent positions 60,500
25-50 agent positions 82,750
51-100 agent positions 101,750
101-250 agent positions 171,500
251-500 agent positions 114,750
501-1,000 agent positions 139,750
1,000+ agent positions 142,000
Total
813,000
The outsourcing and telemarketing sector is a key part of the US’s outbound activity and is the largest
exponent of outbound calling, with campaign-based outbound for sectors such as communications,
retail and utilities still very important. It also does a significant amount of client satisfaction checking
and market research, all of which are outbound activities.
The finance and insurance vertical markets have large numbers of outbound agents, involved in debt
collection, renewals, persuading customers to change financial products (e.g. credit cards) and
increasingly, cross-selling and up-selling to existing customers. Businesses are aware that one of the key
moves towards increased profitability is to get customers purchasing multiple products, e.g. a personal
loan, a current account, a credit card and insurance from the same provider. However, the sector is
seeing an increased use of cross-selling on inbound calls, as well as direct mail and web-based
marketing, rather than an increase in outbound telephony, with offshore playing a significant role too.
The services and communications sectors carry out a high proportion of outbound activity, especially
around sales.
The retail & distribution sector uses outbound as a sales tool, calling existing customers, as well as
providing information about deliveries. However, the proportion of activity that is outbound is below
the industry average.
There is a low level of outbound calling in public services, as many of these operations are non-sales,
reactive helpdesk environments, which answer the public’s queries. As such, proactive outbound
campaigns are needed less than in most commercial environments.
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Figure 3: Outbound agent positions (equivalent), by vertical market, end-2014
Vertical market
Proportion of outbound agent equivalents
Outbound agent positions
(equivalent)
Outsourcing and Telemarketing 41% 189,625
Finance 21% 105,500
Communications 25% 92,500
Retail and Distribution 22% 83,000
Services 26% 76,000
IT 29% 73,250
Insurance 19% 46,000
Public Services 14% 43,125
Manufacturing 20% 31,000
Transport and Travel 16% 25,250
Healthcare 17% 25,000
Utilities 14% 22,750
Total 23.7% 813,000
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THE NATURE OF OUTBOUND ACTIVITY
The traditional outbound activity of trying to sell to prospective customers (rather than those who have
already done business with you), is still in #1 position, at 21%, alongside proactive customer service,
which is a strong brand builder as well as an effective call avoidance tactic.
In total, the three sales-related activities - to potential customers, cross-selling and upselling to existing
customers, and renewals to existing customers - account for 44% of outbound activity, compared to less
than 40% in most of the previous years.
Sales to both new and existing customers are obviously still key reasons why companies carry out
outbound calls, and the hybrid method - customer service leading to a cross-sell/up-sell opportunity - is
seen a good way of circumventing the increasing numbers of people joining TPS. However, businesses
must be careful not to pester customers or abuse the relationship they have built up with frequent calls
about products and services that are not tailored to the customer. Increasingly, turning an inbound
service call into a cross-sell or upselling opportunity has become a widely-used tactic.
Figure 4: Outbound activity
Sales calls to potential new customers (cold
calling)21%
Proactive customer service (e.g. notification
of deliveries, delays, etc)21%
Renewals (sales calls to
existing customers)
12%
Cross-selling or upselling to existing
customers (warm calling)
11%
Debt collection6%
Customer satisfaction surveys
4%
Other25%
Outbound activity
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15
OUTBOUND: VERTICAL MARKETS
Of those vertical markets that provided enough responses to this question from which to draw some
conclusions, the B2C sectors (the services and TMT – Technology, Media and Telecoms – B2C sub-
sectors, as well as retail & distribution) were more involved in sales calls to new prospects, as were
outsourcers.
B2B sectors (manufacturing, TMT and Services B2B sub-sectors) were more involved in proactive
customer care, as was insurance, the latter of which has to keep customers informed of claim progress
and collect required information.
OUTBOUND: CONTACT CENTER SIZE
It is noticeable when considering outbound activity by contact center size that small (sub-50 seat)
operations seem more likely to carry out cold calling, whereas larger operations are more focused on
renewals (sales calls to existing customers).
Debt collection is also more likely to be carried out in larger (200+ seat) operations, as well as cross-
selling and upselling to existing customers. For larger operations, proactive outbound customer service
via telephony seems to be much less prevalent, as the volumes of calls required that are non-revenue
generating would be a significant cost. Such operations may prefer to use email, SMS or automated
broadcast calls to carry out this activity at a lower cost.
Figure 5: Outbound activity by contact center size
26%
15% 21%22%
23%
28%
17%
22%
7%10%
20%
13%
9% 11%
17%
12%
3% 2%
11%5%
4% 4% 7% 5%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Small Medium Large Average
Outbound activity by contact center size
Customer satisfaction surveys
Debt collection
Cross-selling or up-selling salescalls to existing customers
Renewals (sales calls to existingcustomers)
Proactive customer service (e.g.notification of delivery, delays,problems, etc)
Sales calls to potential newcustomers
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DRIVERS OF OUTBOUND AUTOMATION
EFFICIENCY & PRODUCTIVITY
Automated dialing solutions, especially in predictive mode, have traditionally been about reducing the
time between the agent making live contacts, by eliminating manual dialing time, the time spent waiting
for the customer to answer the call and eliminating calls passed through to answer phones.
It is interesting to note that industry statistics on dialing mode efficiency suggest the following to be
reasonable estimates, if the list quality and time of day that calls are made were the same in each
instance:
• manual dialing: 12 minutes of talk time per hour (20%)
• preview dialing: 18 minutes of talk time per hour (30%)
• progressive dialing: 25 to 35 minutes of talk time per hour (42% - 58%)
• predictive dialing: 35 to 45 minutes of talk time per hour (58% - 75%).
In reality, each dialing mode will be used in different circumstances, making direct comparison very
difficult. The following section, on implementation and usage, gives an explanation and greater detail
into the advantages and disadvantages of each dialer mode, and how they are typically used.
Productivity is not simply about maximizing live contacts: the effectiveness of the results is of course of
the utmost importance. Automated outbound solutions allow the business to analyze the most effective
times of day to call customer segments, tailor their scripts in order to increase positive outcomes, and
even to ascertain whether voice, text or email is the correct channel for the specific customer or
campaign. This management information also identifies the agents’ effectiveness, identifying training
requirements for underperforming agents, and providing opportunities to share best practice from the
top performers.
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END-USER QUESTION #1:
APART FROM INCREASING THE NUMBER OF OUTBOUND CALLS BEING MADE, WHAT BENEFITS CAN AUTOMATED OUTBOUND SOLUTIONS PROVIDE?
Beside the higher volume of calls, professional automated outbound solutions
provide the opportunity to be proactive with your customers and should be a core
part of any organization’s go-to-market strategy. By growing and strengthening
customer relationships and uncovering new sales opportunities you can turn every customer
conversation into a fruitful one. Answering and fax machines can be detected and not delivered to the
agent so they can focus on value calls. Automation allows agents to have information on the customers
before they are connected, ensuring they are prepared and adding a personalized approach. From a
legislation point of view, with an automated outbound system it is much easier to count and control
your end customer contact attempts and follow the regulations requirements regarding call attempts
and rest period. As part of our outbound solution you are able to obtain more information about
conversation content, agent voice quality and speed.
In the inContact solution, our patented no-pause predictive dialing allows agents
to immediately be connected with the customer so there is a natural
conversation. This leads to fewer hang ups and more positive outcomes. In addition, our conversation
detection feature enables reduced abandoned rates because the agent is present from the first “hello”.
Automated calls make it easier for call center managers to access data that
improves both the quality and quantity of calls agents can make.
By automatically tracking metrics, such as best time of day to call and length of time spent on the phone
by each agent, contact centers have the information needed to get the best and most effective ROI,
reducing agent downtime and ensuring the best quality leads are matched with the strongest
performing agents.
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An outbound solution delivers a lot more than simply increasing the number of
outbound calls being made. It also provides the tools to target activity and deliver
the management information needed to measure outbound business benefits.
rostrvm Outbound enables you to contact your audience:
at the right time – the best time to call;
with the right message and channel – modern campaigns mix telephone, text messages and email;
and the right people – making sure your calls are handled by appropriately-skilled agents.
Outbound solutions routinely collect data such as the number of call attempts that don’t get answered,
connections to live callers etc. They also capture information that will give you insights into campaign
success and whether your contact is proving to be effective.
These solutions not only improve contact rates - they also support agents with integral agent scripting
systems to help them do and say the right thing, capture the relevant information and provide links to
supporting IT systems.
Today’s outbound solutions are highly flexible and user friendly, whatever you use them for, from
following up on abandoned inbound calls, upselling/cross-selling, customer satisfaction surveys etc.
They can ensure that real progress is made and customers feel appreciated.
Aside from increasing the throughput of outbound calls and maximizing agent
productivity, outbound dialing solutions automate and add intelligence to the
dialing process, so agents are presented with all the information they need to handle a call effectively.
Far more efficient than manual dialing because of the speed, increased number of calls made, and
streamlined management of responses and call reporting, automated outbound dialing can create a far
more efficient and compliant contact center environment. With less time spent dialing, and less errors
made by automated dialers, agents are able to spend more time handling the actual call, giving a better
end customer experience.
New technology in answer machine detection can also further increase contact center productivity.
Considerably more advanced than traditional cadence AMD solutions, new algorithm based technology
available today has much higher accuracy rates (99.9%) and can enable an uplift in staff productivity of
over 10%. The call connection delay and false positives associated with cadence AMD can also be
avoided and organizations using these solutions are able to stay well within Ofcom’s 3% abandonment
threshold.
With lower cost of integration, greater flexibility, and infinite capacity to respond to changing campaign
demands, the benefits of automated dialing go way beyond simply the quantity of calls made possible.
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20
FLEXIBILITY
Call blending - the process by which agents are switched between inbound and outbound queues
depending upon the operational requirements of the contact center - offers businesses the opportunity
to deploy their resources flexibly to meet service levels. This capability can be enhanced by
automatically providing the relevant customer data to the agent desktop - whether in inbound or
outbound mode - reducing the need for manual searches of information, reducing handle time and
maximizing productivity.
In terms of workforce management, real-time adherence and intraday functionality will mean that the
dynamic nature of much contact center work will not impact upon the accuracy of management
information systems, being able to track and allocate resource to the necessary activity without
requiring significant amounts of manual reallocation.
Over many years of research, ContactBabel has analyzed key performance metrics in operations that use
blended agents or dedicated outbound, and has found that there is often a direct correlation between
superior KPIs and a blended environment. This is investigated in more depth within the Call Blending
section of this report.
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
The idea of outbound calling being beneficial for the customer experience goes against the old-
fashioned view of outbound as making cold calls to sell home improvements or encourage PPI or
litigation claims.
In fact, the following section on outbound activity shows that proactive outbound service - keeping
customers informed - has grown very strongly over the past few years. Increasing volumes of outbound
calls are being made at the request of the customer, whether through a website ‘call-me’ button, or as a
result of a callback request being made while within the inbound telephony queue. In all cases, these
forms of outbound communication are positive for the customer experience, and when aligned with a
judicious mix of non-voice outbound communication, such as email or SMS, goes a long way to
improving the customer experience while deflecting significant volumes of inbound calls from
otherwise-frustrated customers.
The section on call-me and callback outbound activity later in the report gives more detail on the
importance of this variety of outbound in improving the customer experience.
Why be reactive when you can be proactive with Outbound Contact Center technology?
Waiting for your customers to contact you and only servicing them when they do is unproductive, unpredictable and creates issues with managing resources
Typically the relationship with your customers involves a series of events over time. Some of these events are unpredictable in their nature but many are not,
and it is these that provide the opportunity for you to be proactive in your customer engagement.
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“With the centralization, Teleperformance is now able to move agents between project
locations independently, which leads to better utilization of the local dialers and reduced
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22
AGENT ENGAGEMENT
As well as improving certain key performance metrics, call blending seems to have a positive impact on
agent attrition rates. More information is given in the dedicated Call Blending section of this report, and
it can be hypothesized that a greater variety of work can improve agent engagement and thus reduce
staff attrition. It should also be noted that the outbound sector has experienced a significant and
ongoing drop in agent attrition rates over the past few years, and this may be linked to a reduction in
repetitive, highly-scripted calls, in favor of more personalized customer service and sales calls.
By removing the tedious elements of manual dialing, outbound automation can improve the agent
experience by providing more live contacts and thus more opportunities to make sales or otherwise
reach performance targets. Of course, overly aggressive use of predictive dialing for long periods can
exhaust agents, which will quickly have a very negative effect on job satisfaction.
23
SALARIES AND BONUSES FOR OUTBOUND AGENTS
Outbound contact center employees tend to get paid relatively less than their inbound equivalents,
mainly because the former will tend to receive a much higher performance-related bonus. As in previous
years, agents in either inbound or mixed environments will tend to receive fairly similar basic salaries.
Figure 6: Salaries by contact center activity type
$30,225
$36,425
$47,341
$71,885
$32,535
$39,106
$46,804
$68,111
$28,000
$34,333
$38,200
$51,000
$30,631
$36,818
$46,627
$69,605
$ $10,000 $20,000 $30,000 $40,000 $50,000 $60,000 $70,000 $80,000
New agent
Experienced agent
Team leader
Contact center manager
Salaries by contact center activity type
Average
Outbound
Mixed
Inbound
24
AGENT ATTRITION
Conventional wisdom states that outbound customer contact is a very difficult, high-pressure job, which
leads to stress and burnout, and thus high levels of attrition. Statistics from these studies used to bear
this theory out, although recent years’ findings have seen a reduced difference between exclusively
inbound and outbound operations.
This year, although the medians are very similar, the mean average for outbound is considerably higher,
indicating a small number of very high attrition rates within this sector which drag the mean upwards.
Figure 7: Agent attrition rate by contact center activity type
28%30%
40%
29%
19%17%
21%
18%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
Inbound Mixed Outbound Average
Agent attrition rate by contact center activity type
Mean Median
25
Since 2007, when this figure started to be tracked, outbound operations have seen higher levels of
attrition, and the gap between inbound and outbound contact center attrition rates has been significant
in each year.
2013/2014 figures – indicating little difference between inbound and outbound operations’ attrition
rates – seem to be likely to indicate something more structural and long-term: although 2015’s
outbound figure is higher than the mixed / inbound attrition rates, the previous chart showing little
difference in median (typical) attrition across activity types suggests that the days of very high attrition
in outbound operations have come to an end for many.
Figure 8: Historical mean agent attrition by contact center activity type (with 2018 projection)
Contact center activity type
Q2 2007
Q3 2008
Q4 2009
Q3 2010
Q1 2012
Q1 2013
Q1 2014
Q1 2015
Q1 2018
Inbound 31% 32% 30% 20% 23% 25% 24% 28% 22%
Mixed 29% 42% 23% 45% 24% 32% 38% 30% 32%
Outbound 44% 87% 62% 56% 49% 28% 21% 40% 34%
Mean 33% 42% 34% 32% 27% 27% 27% 29% 26%
Median 27% 30% 24% 20% 16% 21% 19% 18% 17%
26
AGENT ABSENCE
Conventional wisdom would expect to find that those in high-pressure outbound jobs would have higher
unauthorized absence rates. This is much less the case again this year than in some previous years, and
ties in with the reduction in agent attrition in outbound operations that has been seen recently,
suggesting the nature of the role has changed somewhat.
Figure 9: Short-term absence by contact center activity type
Contact center activity type
Agent absence rate (mean)
Agent absence rate (median)
Inbound 9.6% 6.0%
Mixed 6.8% 4.8%
Outbound 9.8% 6.5%
Average 8.9% 5.5%
Figure 10: Historical mean agent absence by contact center activity type (with 2018 projection)
Contact center activity type Q2
2007 Q3
2008 Q4
2009 Q3
2010 Q1
2012 Q1
2013 Q1
2014 Q1
2015 Q1
2018
Inbound 6.3% 8.7% 7.5% 5.7% 6.0% 7.7% 9.8% 9.6% 7.4%
Mixed 9.5% 9.5% 5.5% 6.6% 7.3% 6.5% 12.4% 6.8% 7.8%
Outbound 8.7% 10.3% 12.7% 7.6% 7.5% 12.1% 10.6% 9.8% 9.2%
Mean 7.0% 8.9% 8.2% 5.6% 6.4% 7.9% 10.4% 8.9% 7.6%
Median 5.2% 7.0% 5.5% 5.1%
27
RECRUITMENT COSTS
When looking at contact center activity type - inbound, mixed, or outbound - a more definite pattern
begins to emerge, with outbound operations tending to spend far less on recruitment, than inbound or
mixed respondents.
Greater attention should be paid to median averages than mean, due to a small number of extremely
high costs being quoted.
Figure 11: Cost of recruiting a new agent, by contact center activity type
Contact center activity type
Mean Median
Inbound $4,004 $2,100
Mixed $5,017 $3,250
Outbound $1,075 $750
Overall $4,012 $1,900
28
OUTBOUND AUTOMATION: IMPLEMENTATION AND USAGE
OUTBOUND DIALLING PRACTICES
USE OF DIALLERS
Automated outbound dialers are almost ubiquitous in large operations which carry out reasonable
amounts of outbound work, as the efficiencies over manual dialing are so considerable that it will often
make commercial sense. Outbound automation in the cloud is very popular, and this means the barriers
to usage are even less.
While smaller operations may not see the same scale of cost savings, over one-fifth of these
respondents have implemented outbound automated dialing technology.
Figure 12: Use of automated outbound dialers, by contact center size
21%
24%
40%
28%
17%
23%
13%
10%
3%
6%
7%
62%
52%
26%
47%
8%
3%
6%
6%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Small
Medium
Large
Average
Use of automated outbound dialers, by contact center size
Use now, no plans to replace/upgrade Use now, looking to replace/upgrade Will implement within 12 months
No plans to implement Don't know / NA
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30
DIALLER MODES
The following definitions of automated dialing are provided as guidance, although there is an
acknowledgement that some in the industry may refer to these modes differently.
Preview dialing: once an agent has indicated that they are ready for a call, information about the call is
presented to them. The number is then automatically dialed after a predefined period; the agent is
given time to preview the customer details before the call is launched. Calls where agents need to be
familiar with the context of the call or the customer history, or where the call may be of a more complex
and personalized nature are particularly suitable for the preview dialing mode.
Progressive dialing: once an agent has indicated that they are ready for a call, information about the call
is presented to them and the number is then dialed immediately. Call progress is monitored by the
dialer technology. Calls that do not result in 'ringing' are automatically and immediately disconnected,
whilst 'no answers' are disconnected after a predefined number of seconds. This dialing mode enables
contact centers to avoid abandoned calls, and may be used in conjunction with predictive dialing in
order to keep abandoned call rates within acceptable boundaries.
Predictive dialing: a predictive dialer launches calls at a rate such that the system connects to live callers
as soon as an agent completes the previous transaction, meaning that agents do not need to listen to
engaged tones or answer machines. The dialing rate for each campaign is controlled by a pacing
algorithm, which automatically monitors activity, and calculates when the next contact should be dialed.
The dialing rate is automatically adjusted to maintain a contact rate that is theoretically synchronized
with operator availability. The accuracy of predictive dialers improves as more agents are using the
system, as it means there are more data from which to estimate average call length. As such, the best
results are often seen in larger contact center operations where efficiency and cost per live call are of
key importance to profitability.
31
NB: the following sections (on dialing modes, call outcomes and dialing activity) are based on a survey of
UK-based outbound contact centers. There is no US equivalent survey, and has been included here in
case it is of interest to the readership.
The chart below shows that in surveys carried out with UK-based outbound contact center operations1,
it was found that larger operations (200+ seats) are more likely to be using full predictive mode (73% of
their outbound activity), as they will tend to have the agent and data pools deep enough to make better
use of this, although the gap between small and large operations’ use of predictive is not as wide as
might be thought, and is perhaps more dependent on the type of calling being made. (It should be noted
that these figures apply to the outbound sector of the industry, not the entire contact center industry).
Figure 13: Use of dialing modes, by contact center size (outbound operations only) - UK
1 ContactBabel research on behalf of Ofcom, 2015
42% 43%
73%
55%
22%28%
16%
21%7%
15%
6%
8%16%
10%
4%
10%13%
5% 1%6%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Small Medium Large Average
Use of dialling modes, by contact centre size
Manual
Other
Preview
Progressive
Predictive
32
When considering dialing mode by activity type, warm sales and debt collection are somewhat more
likely to have been calls made predictively, with customer surveys and service being less so.
Figure 14: Use of dialing modes, by outbound activity (outbound operations only) - UK
14%4% 8% 4%
50%
11%13%
6%
8%
21%17% 35%
28%
64% 62%55%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Service Sales Debt collection Customer surveys
Use of dialling modes, by outbound activity
Predictive
Progressive
Preview
Manual
33
In interviews with outbound contact centers, respondents were asked why they used particular modes
of outbound dialing.
Preview dialing was stated to be chosen in cases where:
there was a danger of breaching regulations through imperfect use of predictive dialing
campaigns were small and/or where data was of high worth
activity involved handling callback requests, where the customer and their requirements could
be checked before the call was placed.
Progressive dialing was more often used where:
there is a blended environment which may need rapid changes between inbound and outbound
work, and which thus risk high spikes of abandonment as agents move between inbound and
outbound more quickly than a predictive dialer can handle
campaigns are smaller than those which typically use predictive dialing, but management still
wish to gain efficiencies.
Predictive dialing is said to be chosen where:
there are very high volumes of data in the campaign
the campaign or data is in a late stage and is the most efficient way to contact hard-to-reach
customers
where data quality is low, so it screens out unusable numbers
where there is a pressing need to speak with customers quickly (for example, to stop them
falling down the debt chain), where non-predictive calling would not support this.
Other automated dialing:
‘ratio’ dialing2 is used by a small number of respondents, when calls are very short and
predictive dialing will slow things up especially at the start of the day when contact rates are the
best. This method is said to allow a quicker response to increases in call drop rate.
2 Ratio dialing: a ratio of lines-to-agent is set, i.e. for each agent, the dialer will have been told to place a number of calls, so a
3:2 ratio will have 3 calls placed for 2 agents. This is a simple method of automated dialing as it does not need a pacing algorithm, but needs close monitoring by the dialer manager as the ratio will not alter unless it is manually changed and risks making abandoned calls if it is not regularly updated.
34
While the productivity benefits possible through predictive dialing are considerable, businesses need to
be aware that unless managed correctly, predictive dialers can quickly lead to high levels of call
abandonment and silent calls as there are not enough agents available to handle the live contacts. UK
regulations currently state that no more than 3% of callers can be abandoned in this way, and there is
currently at the time of writing (March 2016) an extensive ongoing review into how silent and
abandoned calls can be minimized further.
Additionally, overuse of aggressive predictive dialing algorithms can put extreme pressure on agents,
leading to burnout and high levels of agent attrition and consequent recruitment costs, as well as
generally lower levels of service quality.
35
OUTBOUND OUTCOMES
A series of questions was asked to respondents from outbound contact centers about the typical results
that they had from their ongoing outbound activity and/or campaign. Slightly over half of calls made
were answered - either by an answer phone or by a person - with those carrying out debt collection
activities having the lowest answer rate and those carrying out customer service activities the highest.
Figure 15: Proportion of calls answered, by outbound activity type (UK)
Outbound activity type
% of calls answered
Customer service 68%
Customer surveys 65%
Warm sales 60%
Cold sales 59%
Debt collection 44%
Other 62%
Average
53%
Large operations were less likely to have their calls answered – they are more likely to call for longer
hours rather than just the peak hours.
Figure 16: Proportion of calls answered, by size (UK)
Contact center size
% of calls answered
Small 60%
Medium 51%
Large 47%
Undisclosed 51%
Average
53%
36
Of calls answered, responses showed that 49% were answered by a person and 51% by an answer
machine / voicemail.
Figure 17: Of the calls that were answered, how many were by a consumer? (by outbound activity type) (UK)
Outbound activity type
% of calls answered, that were answered by a consumer
Customer surveys 85%
Customer service 64%
Cold sales 57%
Debt collection 41%
Warm sales 38%
Other 65%
Average
49%
Figure 18: Of the calls that were answered, how many were by a consumer? (by contact center size) (UK)
Contact center size
% of calls answered, that were answered by a consumer
Small 51%
Medium 53%
Large 45%
Average
49%
37
1 in 8 of the calls that were answered by a consumer were then hung up by that consumer, rejecting the
call. This is far higher in those carrying out debt collection and cold sales activities.
Figure 19: Of the calls that were answered by a consumer, how many were hung up by the consumer when an agent was available? (by
outbound activity type) (UK)
Outbound activity type
% of calls answered by a consumer, that were hung-up by a consumer when an
agent was available
Debt collection 22%
Cold sales 10%
Warm sales 2%
Customer surveys 1%
Customer service 0%
Other 3%
Average
12%
In 1.1% of cases where the call was answered by the consumer, a recorded message was played as no
agent was available, with this figure being the highest in the heavily-predictive worlds of debt collection
and cold sales.
Figure 20: Of the calls that were answered by a consumer, how many had a recorded message is played as no agent was available (by
outbound activity type) (UK)
Outbound activity type
% of calls that were answered by a consumer, and an agent is
not available, where recorded message is played
Debt collection 1.7%
Cold sales 0.9%
Warm sales 0.8%
Customer surveys 0.3%
Customer service 0.0%
Other 0.3%
Average
1.1%
38
15% of calls answered by an answer machine ended in a recorded message being left on the answer
machine. Those carrying out debt collection and warm calling activities appear to be the only activity
types doing this of the survey respondents.
Figure 21: Of the calls that were answered by an answerphone, where a recorded message is played, by outbound activity type (UK)
Outbound activity type
% of calls that were answered by an answerphone, where a
recorded message is played
Debt collection 25%
Warm sales 17%
Cold sales 0%
Customer service 0%
Customer surveys 0%
Other 0%
Average
15%
It is interesting to note that 85% of respondents answering this question did not play a recorded
message to an answerphone. The majority stated that they did not use AMD and therefore the call will
be passed through to an agent who would either leave a message or hang-up depending on the business
requirements.
39
AGENT UTILISATION RATES (UK)
The majority of respondents calculate agent utilization rate as a proportion of the time spent talking to
end-users, divided by the amount of time available to talk. For example, if an agent spends 30 minutes
in the hour talking, and they are logged in to the system for 50 minutes (with a 10 minute break), then
the majority of contact centers calculate this to be a 60% utilization rate (30/50).
Most respondents do not include spending time before the call looking at contact data, or adding wrap-
up notes after the call to be a part of agent utilization, stating that utilization rates are only calculated
based on the % of time spent in a 'talk' state on the dialer as a % of the total time the agent was
working, and does not include any time updating customer records or waiting for calls.
However, most of the higher (70%+) results in the chart below also include wrap-up time (e.g. Talk +
Wrap, as a % of Talk + Wrap + Idle). For most respondents that split out wrap-up time from call time,
wrap is usually between 15-20% of the call time.
Figure 22: Average outbound agent utilization rates (UK)
Agent utilization rates
1st quartile 70%
Median 56%
3rd quartile 42%
Mean 56%
30% or lower5%
31-40%14%
41-50%25%
51-60%20%
61-70%13%
71-80%16%
Over 80%7%
Average agent utilisation rate
40
AGENT UTILISATION RATES AND DIALLING MODES (UK)
Analysis of agent utilization rates were carried out against the main dialer mode employed by
respondents, in order to investigate whether any dialing mode has a correlation with agent utilization.
For example, as predictive dialing is a highly automated process, it might be expected that this mode
would clearly yield the highest utilization rates.
However, there are more variables than just dialer mode that will affect utilization rates, and which
themselves may encourage an outbound operation to use one mode over another. For example,
respondents state that predictive dialers are more likely to be used than other modes in cases where
data quality is low, and there have already been multiple attempts made to contact a customer.
Different businesses will have their own views on the balance between efficiency and quality, and the
amount of wrap-up time that may be required by various business activities will be different, and will
affect utilization as well (if included in the utilization calculation).
The overall agent utilization rate (i.e. all responses, regardless of dialing mode and method of
calculation) is 57%, or 34.2 minutes per hour.
When considering only those respondents who consider talk-time, but not wrap-up in their
calculations, this figure is 51% (30.6 minutes per hour)
For respondents who include both talk time and wrap-up in their calculations, the utilization
rate is 68% (40.8 minutes per hour).
In order to see whether and by how much dialing mode can be said to affect agent utilization, the
utilization rates were calculated for respondents using particular dialing modes. It was found that
amongst contact centers which calculated utilization through only talk-time and which used mainly
predictive dialing had an average utilization rate of 62% (37.2 minutes per hour), compared to the
respondent base as a whole, who had a 51% utilization rate. This implies a clear increase in agent
utilization time through predictive dialing.
It is interesting to note that industry statistics on dialing mode efficiency suggest the following to be
reasonable estimates3, ceteris paribus:
manual dialing: 12 minutes of talk time per hour (20%)
preview dialing: 18 minutes of talk time per hour (30%)
progressive dialing: 25 to 35 minutes of talk time per hour (42% - 58%)
predictive dialing: 35 to 45 minutes of talk time per hour (58% - 75%)
It should also be noted that many respondents stated that predictive dialing is very likely to be used for
more difficult ‘end of project’ calls where customers have been called many times already, with the
initial attempts made using IVM, and high quality data being originally called in preview or progressive
modes. As the quality and age of the data is different depending on the mode used, the fact that there
are numerous variables changing should strike an even greater note of caution.
3 ContactBabel estimates, based on a mix of secondary research with dialer manufacturers and primary ContactBabel research
41
DIALLING ACTIVITY: TIME OF DAY (UK)
Contact center respondents provided information about the hours in which they carry out outbound
calling, and indicated the peak times where they were making most calls.
In the working week, calling tends to start at 0800 or 0900 and carry on for 12 hours until 2000 or 2100.
Calling before 0930 was almost always carried out for debt collection.
By 10am, 85% of respondents are making outbound calls, with 72% finishing by 8pm. By 9pm, all
respondents have finished calling.
Figure 23: Cumulative opening and closing hours, Mon-Fri (UK)
29%31%
71%74%
85%88%
91% 92%
99% 99% 100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%
0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1%4%
7%10%
12%
25%
29%
72%
76%
100%100%100%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0800 0830 0900 0930 1000 1030 1100 1130 1200 1230 1300 1330 1400 1430 1500 1530 1600 1630 1700 1730 1800 1830 1900 1930 2000 2030 2100 2130 2200
Cumulative opening and closing hours Mon-Fri
M-F start M-F end
42
Figure 24: Cumulative opening and closing hours, Sat (UK)
Only around 30-40% of outbound respondents stated that they called on Saturdays.
Saturday calling was usually carried out in the morning, tailing off after 1pm. By 9am, most respondents
were calling, with around one-third stopping by 1pm, with a gradual tailing-off of activity throughout the
afternoon, with debt collectors the most active. By 6pm, almost all outbound calling had stopped.
20%
27%
80% 80%
100%100%100%100%100%100% 100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%
0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
7%10%
37% 37%
47% 47% 47% 47%
60% 60%
67%
73%
93% 93%97% 97% 97% 97%
100%100%100%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0800 0830 0900 0930 1000 1030 1100 1130 1200 1230 1300 1330 1400 1430 1500 1530 1600 1630 1700 1730 1800 1830 1900 1930 2000 2030 2100 2130 2200
Cumulative opening and closing hours, Sat
Sat - start Sat - end
43
The great majority of respondents do not call on Sundays. Of those that do, calling begins at 10am and
tends to finish between 2pm and 6pm.
Figure 25: Cumulative opening and closing hours, Sun (UK)
When looking at peak calling hours, this differs somewhat depending on the type of calling being carried
out:
Debt collection respondents state that they have an outbound calling peak in the early evening,
between 5.30pm and 8pm, with many operations also stating that there are peaks in the morning as
well, particularly between 10am and 12 noon.
Amongst respondents that carry out sales to existing customers (for example contract renewals, cross
selling and upselling), an evening peak is even more noticeable. Many respondents report the period
between 4.30pm and 7.30pm has more volume, with very few reporting significant sales call volumes
before 12 noon.
For respondents carrying out cold calls, there were less obvious peaks, with calls spread out across the
day, perhaps as for these types of sales campaign / outbound activity, there are likely to be more targets
to aim for.
0% 0% 0% 0%
100%100%100%100%100%100% 100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%100%
0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
33% 33%
50% 50%
67% 67% 67% 67%
83% 83% 83% 83% 83% 83%
100%100%100%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0800 0830 0900 0930 1000 1030 1100 1130 1200 1230 1300 1330 1400 1430 1500 1530 1600 1630 1700 1730 1800 1830 1900 1930 2000 2030 2100 2130 2200
Cumulative opening and closing hours, Sun
Sun - start Sun - end
44
Different segments of the contact list are likely to be available at different times: at the simplest level,
retired people are likely to available all day, and people of working age during lunchtime and the
evening. Of course, for anything remotely associated with B2B, evenings and weekends should not be
considered. Published research4 suggests that the best time for B2B cold calls is the early morning
(before 9 am) and towards the end of the working day (4-5pm), outside of core meeting hours.
It is important to take into account external events, such as sporting events within a city (for example,
calling specific demographics during an important football match is unlikely to yield anything positive),
and if at all possible, getting the customer to state their preference early in the business relationship in
terms of availability and preferred channel will be positive for all concerned. ‘Warming them up’
through an earlier SMS message is also a tactic to be considered.
To make the customer segmentation strategy really work requires considerable amounts of data on
customer demographics, purchasing history and preferred channels and contact times, and businesses
should look to extract such information from their sales intelligence application and match it with
outbound calling outcomes and if possible, the elements of dynamic scripting that tend to work best
with such customers.
4 Sung Hyun Kwan Business School in association with Kellogg School of Management
45
DIALLING ACTIVITY: MAXIMUM NUMBER OF ATTEMPTS (UK)
As might be expected, the maximum number of attempts made to contact a customer or prospect
differs significantly depending upon the activity being carried out. Sufficient data on three outbound
activities - debt collection, warm calling (sales to existing customers) and cold calling (sales to new
prospects) were available to allow detailed analysis of call attempts and the time left between calls.
Those involved in debt collection, as we might expect, are determined to speak to specific individuals,
and almost half of them make multiple calls on the same day (with a few making as many as six calls per
day to the same individual). In the main, they will wait a minimum of four hours between calls, although
several mention that if an engaged signal is received, they will ring back within 15-30 minutes as the
chances of successful connection is higher. There are instances of respondents making up to 100 calls
per month to a specific number, although on average, making two or three calls per week is much more
common. Several respondents pointed out that if a message is left or a call dropped, they would not call
back within 72 hours.
Figure 26: Call attempts by activity type (debt collection) (UK)
Maximum calls per
consumer per day
Length of
campaign / live data
(days)
Maximum calls
in total campaign time
Time left between
calls (if engaged tone) - hours
Time left between
calls (if no engaged tone) -
hours
1st quartile 3 28 20 2.25 72
Median 2 21 10 0.5 4
3rd quartile 1 7 6 0.38 4
Mean 2.2 21 18 1.3 24
High 6 90 90 4 72
Low 1 2 3 0.25 2
46
Those respondents involved in calling existing customers, for example in order to cross-sell, upsell or
renew contracts, are less likely than debt collectors to call as many times, although they have a higher
average attempt per customer per day figure (although the research base for this was only 6
respondents, so should be treated with caution).
Typically, calls will be placed every two or three days for a three- or four-week period, with around 8
calls over this period being average. Having said that, some respondents do indicate that they call more
frequently, although none make more than 12 calls in total.
Figure 27: Call attempts by activity type (warm calling – sales calls to existing customers) (UK)
Maximum calls per
consumer per day
Length of
campaign / live data
(days)
Maximum calls
in total campaign time
Time left between
calls (if engaged tone) - hours
Time left between
calls (if no engaged tone) -
hours
1st quartile 3 28 10 n/a 14
Median 3 28 8 0.5 4
3rd quartile 3 18 8 n/a 4
Mean 3.5 22 8 0.5 9
High 8 35 12 0.5 24
Low 1 3 3 0.5 3
Respondents carrying out sales calls to new prospects will call multiple times in a week - around three or
four being average - with a couple of respondents carrying out very significant focused calling, with
around 10-15 calls being placed to the same potential customer.
Figure 28: Call attempts by activity type (cold calling – sales calls to new prospects) (UK)
Maximum calls per
consumer per day
Length of
campaign / live data
(days)
Maximum calls
in total campaign time
Time left between
calls (if engaged tone-hours)
Time left between
calls (if no engaged tone -
hours)
1st quartile 3 32 18 n/a n/a
Median 3 28 10 0.38 4
3rd quartile 2 11 3 n/a n/a
Mean 3 25 18 0.38 3.4
High 3 56 100 0.5 4
Low 2 5 3 0.25 2
47
RING TIME AND CONNECTION TIME
MINIMUM RING TIME
The survey showed that the mean average ring time industry-wide is 22 seconds, with cold selling
tending to ring the longest and ‘other’ the shortest. It can be seen that the small sample size of some
outbound activity types of skewing the mean results somewhat (particularly in the case of customer
surveys), so median averages have been included as well for greater clarity. It seems fair to note that
those involved in sales to new customers (i.e. cold calling) are more likely than other sectors to let calls
ring longer.
Figure 29: Minimum mean and median ring time before call termination, by outbound activity type (UK)
Outbound activity type
Mean minimum ring time before
call termination (seconds)
Median minimum ring time before
call termination (seconds)
Cold sales 26 25
Customer surveys 23 15
Debt collection 22 24
Customer service 21 20
Warm sales 20 21
Other 17 18
Average
21.9 20.0
The majority of respondents who stated why they set a particular minimum amount of time before call
termination explained that there was a sweet spot around 18 - 20 seconds: they referred to the UK
regulator’s policy on calls ringing for a minimum of 15 seconds, and many answer machines kick in after
21 seconds. It was also noted that studying historical maximum wait times indicated that ringing for
longer than 20 seconds rarely results in much improvement, and increasing answer machine rates would
also ‘lock out’ the record with regard to redial rules.
48
DIALLING ACTIVITY: THE ROLE OF MOBILE
The majority of mobile users have access to a smartphone, meaning a large proportion of customers will
want to contact businesses through these devices, whether via the telephony element of the device, or
via the company’s website or mobile app. Taking into account the use of tablet computers to access the
Internet, the ‘mobile channel’ may actually be the first port-of-call for many customers, especially those
in the younger demographics.
The dual, mutually-supporting drivers of high-speed mobile networks and the proliferation of
smartphones means that provision of services via a mobile channel offers businesses and consumers the
opportunity to make a step-change in the way that they communicate with each other. This new world
of communication allows businesses to consider whether functionality such as multimedia streaming
and videoconferencing could give them a competitive advantage in the customer service world.
Gathering, understanding and using the contextual data that can surround the mobile consumer will be
key to pushing the uptake and functionality of this channel forward. The plethora of channels
immediately available to the mobile consumer - including voice, web browsing, SMS, social media, and
web chat - encourages the customer to act immediately for all their service or information
requirements, rather than waiting until they are in front of a desktop computer.
In the US, the majority of current call plans make the recipient pay for an incoming call, which means
that the caller has to be sure that the recipient actually wants to receive the call. Survey respondents
make 28% of their outbound calls to cellphones and this figure will certainly rise further over time.
Respondents in a 2015 survey reported paying a mean average per-minute rate of 2.16c to call a
landline, against 2.37c per minute to a cellphone (medians are 1.9c and 1.98c respectively).
The same double pricing structure is also applied to SMS messages, meaning that the current low usage
of business-to-customer SMS (and the lack of interest in growing this channel) is very understandable,
with SMS being perhaps best suited to proactive customer service, where being sent information such as
notification of travel delays or a danger of being overdrawn is actually worth a customer paying for. It is
worth noting however, that respondents stated that their SMS volumes are expected to rise
significantly.
Further information about servicing the Mobile Customer can be found in “The Inner Circle Guide to
Multichannel Customer Contact”, and “The Inner Circle Guide to Self-Service”.
Both reports are available free of charge from www.contactbabel.com.
49
END-USER QUESTION #2:
WE’RE INTERESTED IN INCREASING PRODUCTIVITY, BUT CONCERNED ABOUT AGENT BURNOUT AND INCREASED ATTRITION. DO YOU HAVE ANY POINTERS ON BEST PRACTICE?
One best practice is to treat each agent uniquely and not as one-size-fits-all.
Some agents excel in one subject or type of interaction or another by having the
ability to deliver different interaction types. Agents who want variety have the ability to do different
things and agents who are very focused on sales have the chance to do what they are best at doing.
Some customers tend toward having everyone do everything which leads to agent turnover. A second
best practice is to empower agents to have a more active role in deciding how to best satisfy a
customer’s needs. When agents have been properly trained, they should have the flexibility and power
to act in the best interest of the customer.
1) Ensure that your KPI’s filter down from the organization’s mission
statement – If your key focus is delivering excellent Customer service, then AHT
should not be an agent KPI. They should indeed be focused on metrics associated with delivering
excellent customer service. Also ensure that the real-time data displayed encapsulates this – you would
want the data to motivate your agents as opposed to ‘turning them off’.
2) Reward and recognize your people – Gamification can help with this. Introducing the concept of
gamification into your contact center can enthuse and motivate your people. Create a fun and
competitive environment to keep your agents motivated, focused and challenged.
3) Empower agents - They are your front line and a subject experts. In the age of strict regulations,
agents need to feel valued and have the ability to apply their own knowledge and personality to calls in
order to service the end customer. Give them the power and ability to deliver excellent customer service
as opposed to them having to refer to Team Leaders all of the time.
4) Care about your agent’s wellbeing – When agents feel valued and looked after, they perform better.
Think about ‘time out’ zones/areas. Invest in training. More and more contact centers are providing
amenities such as discounted gym passes or indeed an on-site gym for their agents.
5) Ask your agents – Do you really know how happy your agents are? If not why aren’t you asking them?
This can be done in a number of ways including an on-line survey. The important thing is to invest the
time and find out what they really think. How can you make plans to improve and change things if you
don’t ask? Make sure this is taken seriously and that agents feel that they can be honest (use a 3rd party
to engage). Then use this information to make changes.
50
If you just turn up the productivity dial agent burnout can be a problem. To avoid it,
make sure that you keep a close eye on effectiveness as well as productivity – for
example, if you are making lots of calls but not reaching your target audience then
your agents will be unhappy.
Use the data management tools incorporated in modern outbound and blending systems: these help
you address the right audience at the right time and be able to mix your communication channels to
give you agent productivity, the right business outcomes and a work blend that avoids agent burnout.
The role of the contact center agent is undoubtedly a demanding one. With
targets to meet, increasing numbers of interactions to handle, new channels to
master and customer experience always the top priority, managing contact center staff to avoid stress
and burnout is critical for business success. There are many strategies that contact center managers can
use to improve agent engagement. Here are a few ideas to keep contact center staff happy and
productive, without pushing stress levels up, and motivation levels down.
Focus on quality, not quantity
Placing more emphasis on KPIs such as customer satisfaction scores and first call resolution rather than
focusing on cost per call and average handle time can help to make the role of advisors more rewarding
and varied. Empowering agents to solve a customer’s issue in the first call itself, regardless of whether
that call then takes longer, can give the agent a far greater sense of achievement than making several
repeat calls, it also increases customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Use technology to lighten the workload
Leveraging technology and automating processes helps drive efficiency levels as well as ensuring call
volumes are maintained. With automated predictive dialing, every time a call is made, a screen pop of
the required script and customer details appears, enabling agents to have the right information at their
fingertips to handle the call successfully and maximize the chance of a positive outcome.
Use call scripting effectively
Providing agents with call scripts is an easy and efficient way to keep them on track and to speed up
their call handling time. Providing training to enable agents to balance the use of call scripts with their
own unique interactions can help to make the role of the agent more rewarding, and the customer feel
that they are being listened to.
51
Working closely with our customers, Enghouse Interactive continues to invest in
design and the ease of use of its solutions including the development of new
applications and integration to key systems. One of the best practices for agents is
to use the live analytics client alongside their outbound solution to ensure they self-coach, making each
interaction count, and helping the agent to remain motivated.
54
ANSWER-MACHINE DETECTION
Answer Machine Detection (AMD) is a type of technology that allows dialers in predictive mode to
recognize calls that are picked up by an answer machine, and stop the outbound agent taking that call,
keeping them free to speak with actual customers. The purpose of this was simply to present agents
with the greatest number of live contacts. The negative experience of the customers answering the
phone that were incorrectly identified as being answer machines and then hung up on (‘false positives’)
was rarely considered.
Most AMD solutions usually work by:
Detecting a long string of words in one burst such as “Hello, we’re not available, please leave a
message after the tone …”, deducing from the patterns of noise and silence on the line whether
an automated message is being played when a call is connected. This is known as the ‘cadence’
method, but there are other ways in which AMD can work5
Identifying a live caller who may answer by saying “Hello?” and then waiting for a reply.
However, AMD may cause problems and is not 100% accurate:
There will be a pause or delay while the system tries to connect an agent, which may lead to the
called party hanging up
the AMD solution may incorrectly flag a live person as being an answering machine, hanging up
the call. The effect of this ‘false positive’ is that the customer will effectively get a silent call
which can be frustrating and worrying for the majority of the public who are unaware of how
outbound technology works.
The FCC has responded to increased numbers of complaints about silent and abandoned nuisance calls
made as a result of AMD: as a result, a set of rules was designed in order to reduce the number of
abandoned or silent calls.6
Cadence AMD – analyzing from the patterns of noise and silence on the call whether an answer phone
message is being played – relies upon an accurate assessment of whether a call has been answered by a
human or answer machine within the two-second window currently allowed by the FCC, which does not
give enough time to both detect 100% of answer machines and exclude all live contacts, leading to silent
and abandoned calls. In order to remain compliant with the FCC (and prove it), there is also a great deal
of management and reporting to be carried out, reducing the productivity benefits.
The rate of silent calls - where AMD falsely detects that an answer machine is present – can by their
nature only be estimated, otherwise they would not have been abandoned. This requires companies to
5 See http://www.ultracomms.com/products/amd for an example 6 https://transition.fcc.gov/cgb/policy/Telemarketing-Rules.pdf
55
test their systems and analyze recordings to estimate the rate of silent calls, which gets taken from their
overall abandonment rate, which is a maximum of 3% of calls, meaning the dialer can only be run at a
maximum rate of 3% minus the estimated false positive rate, further reducing productivity gains. An
alternative solution to trying to detect every answering machine is only to remove calls if the systems is
100% certain of that an answer machine is present.
Of those US outbound respondents that use AMD, one-third employ it all of the time, particular the case
in large operations. Only a small minority pick and choose the times they use it (some contact centers
only employ it in peak calling times, where customers or prospects are most likely to be available, so as
to maximize live contacts). A very substantial proportion of outbound users do not have AMD
functionality in their solution, especially those in small and medium operations.
Figure 30: Use of answer machine detection (AMD)
As part of a ContactBabel survey of UK outbound contact centers, respondents were asked what their
experience had been when they had restricted or switched AMD off and on to see what the impact upon
productivity and compliance had been. It was generally felt that there was a significant improvement in
life contact rates when AMD was in place, and that agent morale and performance dropped
considerably when AMD had been turned off, due to a large increase in the instance of answer phones
presented to agents. Some respondents noted that they used AMD only at specific times during the day,
and when the data that they were calling on was of questionable quality. However, there was a general
acknowledgement that the nature of most AMD solutions will produce false positives, and that
legislation requiring recorded messages and/or an IVR option to speak to an agent would assist the
customer experience without damaging productivity.
15%
33%
50%
33%
4%
3%
3%
4%
6%
3%
4%
4%
3%
3%
63%
56%
27%
47%
11%
6%
13%
11%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Small
Medium
Large
Average
Use of answer machine detection (AMD), by contact center size
Yes, and we always use it Yes, and we sometimes use it Yes, but we rarely use it Yes, but we never use it No AMD functionality Don't know
--- Thought Leadership ---
There’s more to outbound diallers than just higher call volumes – are you making the most of yours?
Outbound diallers can achieve far more than just increasing the throughput of calls. The latest features in cloud-based solutions can help to create a far more efficient, economic and compliant contact centre environment, while ensuring customer experience is not compromised.
This may not just mean actually increasing volume, but instead, a better quality of call for both the recipient and the agent. For instance, recent technology developments have made answering machine detection (AMD) a far more exact science than the hit-or-miss cadence solutions that contact centres have been using for years.
AMD is very topical in 2016, since Ofcom’s recent consultation on its ‘persistent misuse’ policy has put the spotlight back on nuisance or abandoned calls and how contact centres can best manage outbound dialling without infringing Ofcom guidelines. This has led to a re-focus on the effectiveness of AMD solutions, which were originally introduced as a means to improve efficiency, although ironically this has not necessarily been the case and can make Ofcom compliance an administrative headache.
On one hand, automatically connecting agents to more customers helps to streamline the whole outbound process; on the other hand, the more calls an operator makes, the greater the chance they will connect to answer machines when using traditional cadence AMD systems. The resulting impact on call abandonment is something Ofcom has been watching closely in order to protect end consumers. Their recent consultation on silent and abandoned calls invited comment from the industry and the results of the consultation are eagerly awaited.
Cadence-based AMD has always been limited by the inherent inaccuracies of a machine assessing whether or not a call has been answered by a human within Ofcom’s two-second permitted window. This, together with the testing, monitoring and reporting required by Ofcom outweighed any potential productivity gains, thus leading many organisations to cease using AMD altogether.
While it may be difficult to predict any future regulatory requirements, the fact is that AMD technology has developed considerably in recent times, meaning that contact centres can have the best of both worlds: an increase in outbound calls reaching real recipients, while at the same time, staying well within Ofcom’s guidelines, without onerous testing and reporting procedures too.
With much higher accuracy rates (99.9%), new algorithm-based technology (developed by Ultracomms) can enable an uplift in staff productivity of over 10 per cent, since agents reach fewer answering machines and have more valuable conversations with customers. The call connection delay and false positives associated with cadence AMD can also be avoided with the right technology.
The net effect is that abandoned calls from false positives are almost entirely eradicated, making it easier for contact centres to comply with Ofcom guidelines whilst still filtering out a considerable proportion of wasted agent calls.
Call blending comes into its own
Another area of innovation in outbound dialling is the evolution of call blending. While not new, this technique has really come into its own since the advent of cloud-based solutions, by removing the challenges of sharing workloads between diverse departments and different locations. With cloud based call blending solutions, the geographical limitations of remote management are removed while complete control of customer experience and advisor activity is retained.
Call blending gives contact centres the flexibility to deliver both inbound and outbound calls seamlessly to appropriately skilled agents, based on call traffic at any time. When inbound call volumes are lower, the dialler will generate more outbound calls depending on the number of available agents, and when inbound traffic increases, the dialler will automatically reduce the number of outbound calls in order to ensure agents are available to take inbound calls.
Using the dialler’s complexed algorithms to adjust to the flow of call traffic dynamically enables contact centres to increase agent productivity by using the same teams to handle both inbound and outbound calls. This can help to improve customer service by reducing call queuing, provide a more varied and challenging experience for the agent, as well as ultimately reducing operating costs for the organisation.
With developments in AMD, call blending and other areas of outbound technology, call centre organisations are in a strong position to improve the way they work, have more meaningful conversations with customers, improve the agent experience and reduce unnecessary costs. Outbound diallers have become a de facto tool in the contact centre and it is easy to take them for granted: so for anyone who has not taken a fresh look at what their outbound dialler is able to achieve, 2016 could the time to do so.
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USE OF CLI / CLID
The presentation of CLI / CLID (calling line identification) is required for US telemarketers, and it is illegal
to ‘spoof’ CLID (make it appear that the call is originating from a different number).
In the UK, DCMS (the Department of Culture, Media and Sport) want to make outbound callers provide
an accurate CLI and the ICO (information Commissioner’s Office) supports this, so it is likely to become
law at some point in 2016.
CLI is in any case presented by 93% of UK respondents to ContactBabel’s outbound survey, so any
change to regulations is likely to affect rogue calling organizations. Some respondents, often from the
debt collection sector, mentioned that localized CLI (i.e. those that appear to have originated from the
same town or city as the called party) tend to have improved answer rates, and that calls clearly
originating from UK operations are also likely to have improved results.
Around a third of UK outbound contact centers use multiple CLIs, which allow them to route a customer
calling back to a specific department, client, product, brand or campaign, and also to provide local
support. Some of the debt collecting respondents state that debtors learn to recognize specific CLIs, and
that alternatives are used to improve answer rates.
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THE USE OF IVM (INTERACTIVE VOICE MESSAGING)
Interactive Voice Messaging (IVM) is often used alongside live outbound calling, with an automated
message inviting the recipient to enter into conversation, either now or at a later time.
Around a third of outbound contact centers in the UK use IVM, with those in the debt collection industry
most likely to do so. Respondents within the industry state that they use this in order to give as many
people as possible the chance to be connected to an agent before the downstream collections process
takes over: unlike calls to new customers (cold sales) for example, there is a limited time period for a
debt to be settled at a specific stage before it is escalated. It is also seen as a way to clean lists and
collect the easiest debts before the respondent switches dialing mode to predictive dialing.
By far the most prevalent use of IVM is where a recorded message is played that asks specifically by
name for a particular customer, asking them to press 1 if it is them in order to be transferred to an
agent. If no key presses are detected, a message will be left with the caller’s name and telephone
number, asking them to call back. This may be looped to avoid partial recordings being made. Businesses
will ask the customer to identify themselves through their date of birth or account number before any
information is shared with them.
Some contact centers state that they will make sure an agent is available to take the call if 1 is pressed,
others that any IVM returns that are abandoned will not be called for another 72 hours at which point a
live agent will be made available.
IVM is seen as less intrusive than live outbound dialing. It can be personalized, and the customer can
choose to interact with the company at that time, advise a better time to contact or simply hang up. For
the debt collection industry, a significant proportion of customers that enter collections are able to
make a payment to bring their account up to date, exiting the collections process within the same
month. IVM enables companies to automate outbound interactions with this segment of customers and
thus enable live call center resources to focus on speaking to customers with more serious financial
difficulties or more complex arrears queries, which is beneficial to both customer and company.
IVM is less expensive than employing agents and can be particularly useful in small teams where
predictive dialing is not possible due to the risk of high call abandonment rates. IVM is also effective at
cleaning data, for example, when attempting a phone number for the first time, IVM helps cleanse the
database of bad or dead numbers and provides an instant ‘opt-out’ process for removal of Do Not
Contact numbers.
It also allows customers to know who the organization is that are trying to contact them, and to press 1
to speak to them which is especially useful in the case of false AMD detection. IVM can also be used to
assist with fraud prevention and credit card checking, as it is a timely and rapid method of informing the
customer that there is a potential problem.
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USE OF BROADCAST MESSAGING
Automated messaging or ‘broadcast’ messages are calls made with the sole purpose of making a
recorded announcement, rather than to connect a consumer to a live agent immediately. Examples
include a recorded sales or marketing message, or a recorded information message which is not an
‘Agent Unavailable’ message.”
Broadcast messaging is carried out by far more of the large operations than smaller ones. Debt
collection operations respondents in particular stated that they use broadcast messaging to drive
inbound call volumes, as it is seen as another approach to take with customers who are difficult to
contact directly.
60
COMPLIANCE WITH REGULATIONS
The US has a vast number of regulations regarding outbound calling, depending upon the type of
outbound activity carried out, the vertical market in which the activity is carried out, whether
automated or broadcast dialing is used, and even the time of day or day of the week that calls are made.
There are also specific state regulations to consider as well as overall federal laws.
The outbound industry has had increasing regulations applied to it over the years, with the Telephone
Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) at the forefront of regulation. It restricts making telemarketing calls,
using automatic telephone dialing systems and artificial or prerecorded voice messages (also referred to
as robocalls), and sending unsolicited faxes.
An excellent summary of the TCPA changes and additions over the years can be found here.
The telemarketing sector is also ruled by the Federal Trade Commission Telemarketing Sales Rule (FTC
TSR) which can be found here. It includes information on specific abandonment rates, caller identity
requirements, and Do Not Call lists.
For debt collection, the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA) regulates outbound activity, and
includes the use of illegal contact, harassment and threats and other legal issues. The regulation can be
found here.
At a state level, there are often requirements to register as a telemarketing organization, and to follow
specific state regulations. This is a useful point of reference.
Whether a call is placed to a landline or cellphone is also an issue. Information can be found here and
here.
There are also rules about recording calls which differ between states and depending upon the nature of
the business. There are good backgrounds to these issues here and here.
61
END-USER QUESTION #3:
WHAT IMPACT DOES CURRENT AND FUTURE LEGISLATION HAVE ON OUTBOUND, AND HOW DO YOUR SOLUTIONS ADDRESS THIS?
The use of automated dialing is falling under increased scrutiny from OFCOM
and organizations are having to adapt their use of technology to stay within the
guidelines. Noble participates in OFCOM consultations and are an active member of many industry
groups (such as the CBI, Direct Marketing Association, etc.), this ensures that we understand what
legislation is being proposed and ensure Nobles suites of products have the necessary tools to enable
Contact center to continue to utilize the productivity gains of automated outbound systems whilst
ensuring they are operated within legalistic guidelines.
At the time of writing the consultation phase of Ofcom’s “Review of how we use our
persistent misuse powers: Focus on silent and abandoned calls” has just ended.
Assuming that the final guidance will reflect information contained in the
consultation, Rostrvm Solutions supports the review and the clarification that it will provide.
We particularly welcome the added guidance on Interactive Voice Messaging (IVM) which, if used
sensibly, extends managed-contact opportunities with customers.
The detail in the consultation document suggests several changes to be taken into account. In reality,
any contact center that is following the current (2010) guidelines – and the spirit of them too - shouldn’t
be overly concerned. That said, contact centers operating outside, or even on the outer limits of, the
current guidelines need to take a long, hard look at their operational practices. The rostrvm dialer has all
the controls you need to achieve Ofcom-compliant dialing.
There are other regulators to consider such as the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Any
outbound system needs to manage data-related issues. Again rostrvm includes the facilities you need to
comply – checking your lists against Telephone Preference Service, de-duplicating data and managing Do
Not Call lists.
Also, dialer managers need to consider carefully their campaign strategies and, if they haven’t done it
already, move from the old 1990s-style ‘load-up-the-dialer and step-on-the-accelerator’ techniques and
adopt a more precise and targeted approach – we call it Precision Contact.
Precision Contact uses the available tools to target your audience
at the right time – the best time to call;
with the right message and channel – modern campaigns mix telephone, text messages and email;
and the right people – making sure your calls are handled by appropriately-skilled agents.
62
Legislation provides necessary guidelines for operators and service providers to
the industry, ensuring acceptable standards of conduct are maintained and that
end-consumers’ interests are protected, and their views are heard.
Ultracomms has been working with contact center organizations in the UK, monitoring and examining
the dialing activity of clients and advising on all areas of Automated Calling System (ACS) use, from
productivity improvements to operating within the regulatory guidelines relevant to their industry
sectors for over a decade. Ultracomms’ campaign support team proactively advises clients on how to
ensure their dialing activity remains in line with the relevant regulations, and the unique patent pending
answer machine detection solution, AMD+ enables clients to increase productivity, without infringing
Ofcom’s guidelines on call abandonment. With much higher accuracy rates (99.9%), the new algorithm-
based technology can enable uplift in staff productivity of over 10 per cent, since agents reach fewer
answering machines and have more valuable conversations with customers. The call connection delay
and false positives associated with cadence AMD can also be avoided; ensuring users remain well within
Ofcom’s permitted 3% abandonment rate.
Enghouse Interactive outbound solution, offers customers a very strong system
with a wide spectrum of finely graduated settings for contact center operations.
We always support our customers with all questions around compliance and
legislation standards and offer advice to observe country specific rules. Enghouse Interactive is active in
the relevant OFCOM consultations and the software can be used in a fully compliant way.
The climate of legislation in Outbound has been confusing due to varying
interpretation and confusion in updates to the law. As for the future, we hope
that clarification will bring more certainty and comfort within the industry. Unfortunately, the changes
in the law have negatively impacted the good actors instead of targeting the bad actors that give the
industry a bad name. inContact maintains close ties to industry groups and specialty law firms so we can
keep abreast of upcoming changes.
63
COMPLYING WITH REGULATIONS
Outbound contact centers were asked to give their opinions of the reasons for non-compliance with
regulations, and what they considered to be the main drivers of silent and abandoned calls.
A top-level categorization of drivers is shown below (placed in order of frequency):
poor dialer management
rogue operators
agent behavior
targets and KPIs
poor data.
Poor dialer management
Outbound contact centers note that abandoning calls can happen as a result of dialer pacing being too
aggressive, or agents spending too long in unavailable time, in conjunction with too little monitoring and
slow dialer readjustment. It is recommended that the dialer is warmed up in preview mode before
moving to full predictive mode, to avoid causing dropped calls at the start of the shift due to the mass
logging-in of the resource pool. This should ensure that dropped calls are low from the outset, and
abandonment rate will be under the threshold throughout the shift rather than having to try to recover
this in a suboptimal way towards the end of a shift.
Overdial settings should only be used where dialer managers are confident that the creation of high
connect rates can be sustained by agents. Where an outbound-only campaign is taking place, agent
levels can be fairly well predicted, but in a blended inbound/outbound environment, the necessity to
balance the outbound abandonment rate while reacting to inbound call spikes requires very careful
management, and the introduction of minimum agent volumes for the outbound campaigns can assist
with this process.
It is also important to have a sound understanding of the data that is being called, and wherever
possible analyze the correct calling periods for this. Understanding the customer prospect list to
optimize the contact preferences and availability times if possible can greatly assist with contact rates.
Moving between pools of variable data quality can very quickly increase call abandonment rates, so
extra management time at these threshold points is crucial.
64
Rogue operators
It is an unfortunate fact that some companies blatantly ignore regulations, withholding CLI in order to
obviate complaints from consumers. Proposed regulations around the accuracy and ubiquity of CLI aim
to reduce these issues, although rogue operators calling from offshore are unlikely to be deterred by
this. The planting of monitored /seeded telephone numbers and the aggressive tracing and investigation
of any contact center calls that have failed to present a valid CLI will assist in identifying the rogue
operators who are responsible for considerable proportion of nuisance calls.
Agent behavior
An increase in abandoned calls can be in part attributable to agent activity, for example not adhering to
correct procedures when logging out for breaks (closing the application rather than requesting the dialer
to log the agent off means that the dialer algorithm is working off incorrect assumptions). This can be
exacerbated by the lack of constant monitoring, and unfocused dialer and line management.
Targets and KPIs
Judging the success or otherwise of cold calling or marketing campaigns through assessing volumes or
call attempts per day can lead to overly-aggressive dialer management, which is likely to push up the
abandonment rate considerably. There can be pressure put on operational and dialer management if an
outsourcer is rewarded solely through results rather than agent hours billed, for example: the risk is that
the focus changes to call throughput rather than call outcome. This is a particular risk in organizations
which are calling large volumes of untargeted data, for example generalized PPI or personal injury
campaigns. Low contact rates can also occur if there has been a long period of time since customer
consent was given, or if consent was assumed rather than stated explicitly.
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Many outbound solution providers offer their customers a set of tools to offset risk and ensure
compliancy. Detection tools can apply different outbound strategies automatically depending on
whether a landline or mobile number is being called, the time of day, day of week and any public
holidays.
Some countries specify the maximum number of attempts that can be made to reach a customer in a
specific timescale, and any dialer solution should have this functionality. A multichannel solution can
identify and deliver campaigns based on the customer’s original opt-in information and observing
behaviors such as a consumer replying to SMS messages but not to mobile calls.
It is also necessary to be able to screen against national Do Not Call databases, data expiration dates and
to comply with state and regional dialing rules. The increased use of mobile and smart phones means
that it is possible to reduce or eliminate the number of calls made to a device that is any different time
zone, for example when the customer is on holiday.
Web: www.enghouseinteractive.com Tel: +1 602 789 2800 E-Mail: [email protected]
increase in agent productivity using outbound
contact center technology - so spend less time dialing, and
more time speaking.
of people base their decisionto buy solely
on the ogranization’sreputation for
customer service.
The single most popular outbound activity in
contact centers is proactive customer service - a strong
brand builder as well asan effective call
avoidance tactic..
67
CALL BLENDING
Call blending is an element of outbound calling which has had to fight against the conventional wisdom
of the traditional contact center industry, which implies that the more one can segregate the contact
center into a series of production lines, the better-run the operation will be.
A contact center handling different processes involving customer service, sales orders, and outbound
telemarketing will have different groups of agents with specific skills for these areas. Some agents are
more capable and adaptable than others, and can be used as blended agents. For example, these agents
may have a primary responsibility to handle inbound calls, but when the inbound call volume drops, the
dialer will send a message to these agents indicating that they have been switched to outbound mode
and start offering outbound calls to them. Where relevant, systems will prompt a script for the
outbound calls to run on the agent desktop and depending on the call volume in the inbound queue, the
agents will be switched automatically, improving productivity. Results can include increased agent
productivity, streamlined staffing, and improved customer service. However, this process needs to be
understood and managed carefully, as not all agents are adept at dealing with both inbound and
outbound calls, and if there is a constant switching from inbound to outbound and back again, the agent
may lose concentration and the productivity may go down.
A structured blended environment, where agents are moved seamlessly and dynamically between
inbound and outbound, is used in only 16% of this year’s respondents’ operations. As usual, large
contact centers are far more likely than smaller operations to use this type of approach. Small
operations are more likely to operate blending on a manual, ad-hoc basis. A substantial proportion of
both medium and large operations use dedicated teams to handle only either outbound or inbound.
Figure 31: Use of call blending by contact center size
7%
38%
16%
77%
60%
24%
53%
17%
40% 38%30%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Small Medium Large Average
Use of call blending by contact center size
No, we have dedicated and separateinbound and outbound agents
Yes, but in an informal, manually-assigned way
Yes, in a formal and structured way(automatically switching based oncall volumes)
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It is interesting to put the use and type of call blending against key contact center performance and
operational metrics, such as average speed to answer, which is - as usual - somewhat less in formal,
blended environments than in dedicated and more ad-hoc environments, as agents are moved between
tasks quickly and seamlessly.
Figure 32: Average speed to answer, by call blending environment type
Call blending environment
Average speed to answer (seconds)
Blending used in a formal and structured way 24
Blending used in an informal, ad-hoc way 30
Dedicated and separate inbound and outbound agents 32
Not applicable - no outbound calls made 55
MULTIMEDIA BLENDING
When considering call blending, it is also worth looking at how non-voice interactions can fit into a
blended environment too.
There is no general agreement within the industry on how best to deal with email, although there are
genuine reasons to encourage email/voice blending. On one side, there is a case made that letting
agents answer email makes the job more interesting for them, lowering attrition and improving skills.
The other side to this says that the skills required by email agents are different from voice agents, and
that it is difficult to find the agents to do both jobs. Both sides make sense logically, and historically, of
those contact centers which use voice/email blending, only around 1 in 5 have experienced problems
finding the right staff for these types of role, a figure that decreased each year that it was surveyed.
The great majority of respondents in most sectors allow at least some of their agents to carry out both
email and telephony. However, email requires certain skills, including grammar and punctuation, which
not every agent has, even with assistance from an email management system's response template.
On average, 59% of agents in a blended multimedia environment are allowed to do both email and voice
work, a figure which had been growing year-on-year, but which has steadied recently.
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Those in small and medium operations are much more likely to use the same agents to handle email and
telephony, probably because there is not the option to have the specialized teams found in large contact
centers, which are much more likely to have a dedicated group handling email.
Figure 33: Use of multimedia blended agents by contact center size
Contact center size
Respondent contact centers
allowing multimedia blending
Proportion of agents answering both voice and email (only where applicable)
Small 96% 76%
Medium 85% 45%
Large 64% 39%
Average
83% 59%
Simply because a contact center uses the same agents for email and voice does not mean that all
operations use the same level of multimedia blending. For some operations, multimedia blending is a
strategic decision which has been invested in with the right levels of technology and training being
provided. For others, it is a necessity, with agents encouraged to answer emails in slack call times. Small
and medium operations - which in the past may not have had sufficient email volumes or the
investment available to formalize the blending by forming a universal queue to deal with all types of
interaction - are now as likely to use a universal queue as the ad hoc method. Many larger contact
centers prefer to use dedicated email groups.
However, this preference of many larger contact centers to form specialized multimedia groups may not
provide the same levels of service. Past data has indicated a formalized blending environment, such as a
universal queue, has a beneficial effect on email response times. Respondents using a formal blended
environment reported that 45% of emails are handled within 1 hour, with a further 44% being dealt with
inside a day.
The ad-hoc approach is less successful at very rapid response, with only 15% of emails having had an
average handle time within 1 hour, although a further 65% were handled in a day.
Dedicated email-only agents of the kind used in many larger contact centers answered an average of
19% of emails within the hour, with a further 65% handled within a day.
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END-USER QUESTION #4:
WHAT BENEFITS ARE THERE FROM CALL BLENDING? WHAT EFFECTS CAN WE EXPECT TO SEE ON PRODUCTIVITY AND AGENT ENGAGEMENT?
Blending helps to ensure that every opportunity to please customers, boost
productivity and optimize resources is taken by prioritizing contact to suit demand
and resources. Being able to choose what you blend enables greater output to be
gained from the same number of staff, as they can be switched to different tasks.
Call blending generally takes a couple of forms:
Blending customer contact by direction - most typically increasing outbound calling when
inbound traffic is low, to ensure that agents are always active.
Blending different communication channels – for example combining telephone activity with
handling emails, text messages and social media.
Both forms of blending lead to increased agent activity and ‘raw’ productivity gains. But experience
shows that translating those gains into clear business benefits requires consideration of your audience.
Simply increasing outbound calling when inbound traffic is low will enhance agent productivity but
won’t result in successful contact if you’re calling at the wrong time. Usually, the best time to make
outbound contact with your target is the same time as your inbound call peaks.
The most effective blending is achieved with a mix of contact channels. For example, during an inbound
call volume trough, send text messages or emails to attract more inbound calls. At the same time ensure
that your dialer campaigns are targeting the right audience, such as segmenting your audience towards
retired people during the day.
Blending ensures real progress is made, customers feel appreciated and ‘idle time’ is a thing of the past.
Organizations often need to share workload between departments and run into
limitations around the geographical location of staff, capacity into sites, or
simply the technology platform's ability to manage the pacing and connection of inbound and outbound
calls. This can lead to call abandonment and poor customer experience, resulting in many organizations
avoiding this potentially beneficial way of working.
Call blending, properly implemented, gives contact centers the flexibility to deliver both inbound and
outbound calls seamlessly to appropriately skilled agents, based on call traffic at any time. When
inbound call volumes are lower, the dialer will generate more outbound calls depending on the number
of available agents, and when inbound traffic increases, the dialer will automatically reduce the number
of outbound calls in order to ensure agents are available to take inbound calls.
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Using the dialer’s complex algorithms to adjust to the flow of call traffic enables contact centers to
increase agent productivity by using the same teams to handle both inbound and outbound calls. Many
Ultracomms clients have found that they’re able to reduce their overall advisor head count as the
efficiency gains of an intelligent call blending implementation far outweigh the costs of idle advisor
hours. This can also help to improve customer service by reducing call queuing, provide a more varied
and challenging experience for the agent, and reduce operating costs for the organization.
Call blending enables you to handle outbound and inbound calls in one common
context, giving agents a seamlessly ability to regulate outbound call volume based
on inbound traffic. For example: when inbound traffic is low, outbound calls are
automatically generated for a specified campaign without the need for the agent to change campaign
login or move campaigns. This reduces failure rate and increases agent productivity time as they don’t
need to logoff, login, change, or move campaign. The software is easy to operate which means lower
training costs. Having blended environments means, there are no issues with data synchronization
between both inbound and outbound. Results can include increased agent productivity, streamlined
staffing, and improved customer service.
The main goals of contact blending are:
The ability to handle inbound spikes with fewer staff
Drive consistency and ownership for outbound and inbound contacts through intelligent, shared
routing.
Providing for varied work for the agents who thrive on different experiences.
Increased agent productivity by sharing selected agent resources when SLAs allow.
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In the blended contact center, both inbound and outbound contacts (telephone
calls, emails, chat, text, social media, etc.) are routed to the same agent pool
(with inbound calls taking precedence over outbound activities).
Call blending gives contact centers the ability to deliver both inbound and outbound calls seamlessly to
agents. When inbound call volumes are low, outbound calls can be automatically generated. When
inbound traffic volumes increase, the dialer dynamically slows the number of outgoing calls to meet the
inbound service level.
The blended environment offers business benefits which can include - operational effectiveness, such as
staffing (which has a direct impact on service levels and satisfaction) and agent burnout, as well as
providing a more holistic service experience to the customer. Blended environments can also offer
optimized productivity and service levels as well as a consistent level of service offered to all customers.
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MULTICHANNEL OUTBOUND STRATEGIES AND TECHNIQUES
Around 90% of outbound calling is done by agents, with 10% via automation. The opportunity exists for
automated outbound service to expand - such as sending reminders and notifications to customers
through an automated process - thus significantly reducing the cost to the business while improving the
overall customer experience. Many customers will choose to seek clarification or a status update at
some point in the buying process through making an inbound interaction. By sending a pre-emptive
outbound message, the business is proactively assisting the customer to manage their interaction.
57% of US contact center respondents do not use recorded messages for any purpose, whereas SMS
messages are used by around half of respondents, mainly for notifications and reminders. Only 39% of
respondents do not send automated emails at all. Email is used particularly for outbound customer
satisfaction surveys, with recorded messages being used most often for reminders, as are SMS
messages.
Figure 34: Use of automated outbound communication for proactive customer service
Businesses should consider how customers prefer to receive information: for example, SMS messages
for delivery notifications or appointment reminders may be preferred, whereas email may be more
suitable for order updates. Live outbound calls might be reserved for circumstances requiring immediate
action or for more complex situations.
25%
18%
7%
57%
16%
10%
6%
51%
30%28%
42%
39%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Reminders (e.g. appointments,contract renewals)
Notifications (e.g. deliveries) Customer satisfaction surveys No automated interactions throughthis channel
Use of automated outbound communication for proactive customer service
Recorded messages SMS Emails
--- Thought Leadership ---
The contact centre’s purpose has changed from transactional activity to one where your customers can
contact you for a wide range of reasons and through a variety of communication channels – you can talk
to your clients on the phone, by email, text message, chat, social media … the list goes on.
Your customers are demanding choice but your contact centre needs to balance meeting their wishes,
satisfying service needs and optimising costs.
Let’s take an example: your customer sends you an enquiry by email; how do you respond? If you focus
on the channel then it would seem obvious to reply by email. Whilst this may be an effective response
channel for a simple enquiry, when you are dealing with customer- and case-specific enquiries an email
response may open the door to a time-expensive series of emails. Text based ‘conversations’ with your
customers pose other problems: If your client tweets about your business how do you respond
professionally and effectively in 140 characters in a public environment? How do you verify the identity
of a web chat caller? How do you link text messages to clients in your Customer Relationship
Management System?
The answer is often to shift the channel back to the telephone. If your client writes to you with a
complex question then the most effective customer service response is to pick up the phone and talk.
All multichannel contact centres need a dialler and blending
Diallers in contact centres used to be about mass contact – for example using a predictive dialler to
support debt collection.
Today’s precision dialling technology means that requests for contact such as emails, tweets and chats
can be fed into the dialler to deliver a fast, personal response to customers whilst managing and
monitoring your most important resource – your agents.
rostrvm OutBound lets you blend SMS (text message, web, social, chat and email contact with your
OutBound dialling campaigns
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END-USER QUESTION #5:
ARE OUTBOUND AND CALL BLENDING SOLUTIONS SEPARATE FROM OTHER MULTICHANNEL INTERACTION, OR HAS THERE BEEN ANY MOVE TO INTEGRATE THESE CHANNELS TOGETHER?
We are certainly seeing a move towards the integration of outbound and
blending solutions with other multichannel interactions, however, the desire to
do so, and the success of the implementation depends on largely on how the integration of these new
channels with the organizations current infrastructure is handled.
Certain types of contact require specific agent skills, and the ability to switch between handling, say an
outbound sales call, and customer query via webchat successfully is dependent on the level of
knowledge of that particular agent.
Whilst technology advances and customers use of smart devices drives the need for organizations to be
able to handle multiple forms of inbound and outbound communication, we have learnt from our own
interactions with our customers that relationships are still built on the telephone or face to face. The use
of web-chat, social media, SMS and email have an increasingly important place in the mix, but are
mostly used for more transactional communications, such as gaining information or making complaints.
At the moment, for companies the voice call is still the most accepted and used
way to communicate with their end user / customers. The multichannel contact
center is growing rapidly as all industries tackle the world of communications
from email, SMS, webchat, voice to social media. This has mainly been within inbound environment but
we are seeing this cross into outbound as well.
However, interestingly, outbound and call blending solutions tend to stand alone in a call center
environment; this is less because of technical reasons and more to do with cultural reasons. Outbound
calling activity typically requires a certain kind of agent – which are always managed, trained and
incentivized very differently to inbound customer service agents. The integration of all multichannel is
available but if looking at predictive outbound dialing this requires a very focused way of working. The
processes, reporting and management information system may also differ but can be integrated into the
overall system to be consistent across all channels and traffic.
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InContact uses a multi-channel queue to blend different types of interactions:
inbound voice, outbound voice, Chat, email, SMS, social media and work items.
Our customers are increasingly moving toward a multi-channel strategy where patrons are given the
choice of how they want to be contacted.
Depending on the tool you use, Noble Systems have solutions that blend
inbound and outbound calls, but contact centers can also choose add-ons that
make it easier to manage wider multi/ omni-channel activities.
These include tools that bring social media communications and live chat under the same umbrella as
telephone and email.
Modern outbound and call blending solutions incorporate multichannel
interactions. Increasingly dialer campaigns combine telephone calls with text
messages and emails to cover the complete customer journey and experience. For
example, if your customer calls after receiving your email your contact center agent needs to be able to
see the email concerned at the time of the call. Breaking down channel silos is a key component of
customer satisfaction.
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THE ROLE OF SCRIPTING
The variable capability of agents is a contributory inhibitor to quality improvements, and the increasingly
complex and variable nature of agents’ work means that rigid, linear scripting is no longer appropriate
for many contact centers. One possible solution is to look at dynamic scripting applications within an
overall unified desktop environment, as well as understanding agent training needs through call
recording and analysis, and delivering the right training and in-call information.
Scripting has a mixed reputation, rightly or wrongly, with inflexible outbound sales scripts being
particularly disliked. However, a dynamic scripting environment, sometimes referred to as a workflow -
where the help provided on the agent's screen changes depending on who the customer is and what
they actually want, applicable to both inbound and outbound work - can be beneficial to agent and
customer alike, supporting complex interactions where multiple systems and media are required.
Applications that define each step of the call interaction flow and present the relevant data to the agent
allows agents to take advantage of pull-down menus, on-screen buttons, pop-up windows, inheritance
mechanisms, and fill-in-the-blank parameters. Workflows guide agents dynamically through dialogues
with customers which change as required, while managing contacts, controlling interactions, and
updating databases. In a large operation, there may be distinct groups of agents (e.g. a large dedicated
sales outbound team) that use scripting whereas inbound agents may not. Large contact centers, by
their nature and also because of generally higher attrition rates, may have more requirements to help
new agents learn the ropes.
Insurance, finance and outsourcing respondents are amongst the greatest users of scripting, although
not necessarily for 100% of calls, or agents: scripting may be used widely in the financial industries for
legal disclaimers, terms and conditions, etc.
Figure 35: Use and type of scripting, by vertical market
50%
38% 36%33%
25%
14%
27%
50%
63%
9% 11% 13%7%
16%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Use of static and dynamic scripting, by vertical market
Static scripting Dynamic scripting
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Small contact centers are less likely to implement dynamic scripting, and as agents in smaller operations
will tend to have to handle a wider range of queries - as agent groups tend to be less specialized than in
larger contact centers - it could be viewed that the relatively low use of flexible scripting is
disadvantaging them. As might be expected, larger, outbound operations are the most likely to use
dynamic scripting, particularly in the outsourcing industry.
Figure 36: Use and type of scripting, by contact center size
Figure 37: Use and type of scripting, by contact center activity
22%
52%
27%
4% 5%
35%
16%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Small (<50 seats) Medium (50-200 seats) Large (>200 seats) Average
Use of static and dynamic scripting, by contact center size
Static scripting Dynamic scripting
25%
33%
5%
27%
12%
20%
75%
16%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Inbound Mixed Outbound Average
Use of static and dynamic scripting, by contact center activity
Static scripting Dynamic scripting
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Those respondents who used scripting were generally enthusiastic about the benefits they had received.
In particular, the assistance with compliance that scripting provides was particularly well-thought-of, as
was the consistency of data capture (as the same information is collected each time, with no short-cuts
or missed questions). Many respondents found that scripting was effective or very effective at
standardizing interactions with customers - of course, this only helps quality of the 'average' interaction
is high to begin with.
Secondary benefits around reducing call handling times (through a structured call flow) and particularly
as an agent training tool were also reported, with around half of respondents also saying that scripting
was an effective tool for assisting with cross-selling and up-selling. Using scripting to facilitate call wrap-
up was still a net positive, but is seen as being less useful than other factors.
It seems fair to say that while overly-scripted conversations are frustrating for both caller and agent, a
dynamic script or prompt which guides an agent through a conversation and provides relevant
information and suggestions is certainly worth considering and tends to yield positive results,
particularly if the level of ‘hand-holding’ that the script provides can be tailored to the experience of the
agent.
Despite these positive responses from users, scripting has had a bad name, engendered by the
uncomfortable-sounding scripts often used by outbound sales agents, particularly those from offshore.
Part of this problem is that the agent can sound robotic after delivering the same spiel dozens of times,
but perhaps as important, there is also the fact that outbound sales calls are generally not well-received
by customers, so anything that is associated with them (be it scripting, offshore agents, silent calls, etc.)
will have a negative connotation to overcome in any case.
One of the biggest objections to scripting is that every conversation is different. While this is certainly
true, readers should be aware that contemporary solutions offer a whole spectrum of scripting, from
tight to loose, with the latter simply offering checkpoints within the conversation: much of the
negativity around scripting comes from familiarity only with the tight, constrained version, and as this
chart shows, contact center management strongly believe that neither customers nor agents like
scripting (and seemingly, neither do the people at the top of the organization, who appear to hand
down non-scripting edicts).
Scripting is much more than a series of dialogue prompts, as it is now more about designing the
customer experience and journey for a particular type of interaction - for example, making an insurance
claim - using design sessions fitting together workflow, data sources and dialogue. People with less
experience of modern-day scripting often think the robotic ‘scripted conversation’ experience is what
scripting creates, and indeed, many of the respondents to this questionnaire believe that there are too
many variables to anticipate within a conversation and that letting agents make the best decision about
the conversation is really the only way to handle things. However, real-time decision engines are an
example where online resources can be leveraged to work within the contact center as well: real time
responsiveness in an online environment is achieved through automated decision-making built on a set
of business rules which identify pre-defined customer profiles and the solutions, products and data that
are suitable for presentation to the customer.
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The design environment that new scripting solutions provides can use existing back end resources
without further development, so scripts no longer have to anticipate every possible alternative. Data
gathered during conversations, combined with customer profiling, trigger appropriate responses which
can be immediately presented to the customer, which is beneficial for customer and agent alike. As
such, dynamic scripting can be considered as one part of a group of solutions aimed at reducing the
complexity of the agent's desktop while improving the quality of the interaction. The next section looks
at optimizing the quality of customer interactions through a unified agent desktop, a key supporting
feature of which is the ability to define call scripts, either as a flow of data capture screens, or as a set of
actual words or prompts. Simple, non-technical tools enable supervisors and managers to define these
call flows, the data required and the scripts/prompts to be used.
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END-USER QUESTION #6:
HAVE YOU NOTICED ANY CHANGES IN HOW SCRIPTING IS BEING USED? HOW DO BUSINESSES TEND TO USE THIS?
Mostly scripting is used to provide detailed best practice workflow to agents to
ensure efficient and complete call process. The ability for scripting to be used
along with integration with your customer backend CRM systems provides an
efficient way to create and operate campaigns without complex data import and export processes.
Making speech analytics part of your outbound solutions continues to help shape the script both in real
time and historical to improve agent efficiency and wording.
Businesses desire to have a unified agent experience that incorporates the agent
script. The evolution is inContact’s MAX (My Agent eXperience) agent interface is
to provide the necessary context of the interaction so that the agent can focus on the necessary
information for that contact. This allows the customer to drive what information is available throughout
each contact. We find that our customers are relying less on a fully produced script and instead are
using scripts to cue agents in guiding customers to a more natural interaction.
Over the past 10 years businesses within the financial sector as an example
have become increasingly regulated. This has had an impact on what an agent
can and cannot say during a call. Scripting therefore has to satisfy these regulatory boards e.g. Ofcom,
FSA etc. Naturally, the scripts also have to then consider how to service the customer in the most
natural way.
Best practice would be to write scripts with the customer in mind (and any regulatory requirements)
whilst still enabling your agents to feel empowered and be subject experts. Avoid ‘entire scripting’ at all
costs. The conversations need to be natural and flow easily.
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Thankfully scripting has moved on a long way from stilted word-for-word speeches.
Today’s ‘scripting’ systems support contact center agents by providing guidance on
what they are expected to achieve and presenting relevant data at the right time. Of
course there are times in the process when exact scripts need to be used – such as compliance
statements in a financial transaction; graphical script presentation allows mandatory statements to be
highlighted.
Modern scripts also capture extended Management Information without adding overhead to the agent’s
core task. This means you can use champion-challenger techniques to identify the best routes through a
call to achieve your business aims.
Call scripting is an essential element of any outbound campaign. With often just
one opportunity to get important information across to a call receiver, the
content of your call script and ability to adapt quickly to differing campaign requirements can be crucial
to ensuring successful call outcomes.
The Ultracomms cloud platform has been developed with call scripting functionality built in. Depending
on the nature of a contact centers’ requirements, scripting can follow defined templates which are held
in the platform, or be tailored by the development team to suit individual campaigns. The inherent
flexibility of the cloud solution means that call scripts can be simply and quickly amended should clients
need to adapt a campaign, and for clients with their own development functions, scripting can be
managed in-house, enabling them to make immediate changes and respond to changing demands
instantly.
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CALL-BACK & CALL-ME REQUESTS
ContactBabel carried out a large-scale survey of the public that explored why customers notoriously
hate queuing to speak to a contact center agent, yet seemed far more acceptant to wait in an actual
physical queue, often for a longer time.
Figure 38: Reasons given for dislike of contact center queuing
Reason for disliking queue
Average score from 10 where 10 is “extremely frustrating”
% of public scoring this at a maximum 10
Not knowing how much longer you'll have to wait
8.7 61%
Repetitive announcements
8.0 45%
Having to restate account information already given earlier in the call
8.0 45%
Can't do anything else in the meantime
7.9 46%
The music you have to listen to
7.3 39%
Apart from the fact that customers have a lot of strongly felt reasons for disliking phone queues, the key
finding from this table is that 61% of the public hate not knowing how much longer they will be waiting.
This is less of a problem when waiting in a shop to speak to an assistant, as although they cannot give
you an exact statement of when someone can help, the queuing system allows a customer to see how
many people are ahead of them, to estimate their own wait time, and exercise some level of control
over the situation. This makes queuing psychologically easier for the customer, even if the actual
waiting time is significantly longer than it would be in a contact center queue.
The phenomenon of 'Dentist-Chair Time' - time which seems to stretch out to infinity - is very much
active in the contact center world. ACD statistics from thousands of contact centers over many years
indicate that an average wait time is around 20-30 seconds. However, when the public was asked to
estimate the time they usually (not exceptionally) spent waiting to speak to a contact center, the
average answer was 11½ minutes - 27 times longer than the reality.
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Clearly, trimming 10% off a queue time isn't going to make a lot of difference to the perception of the
caller, even though it may be a very difficult task for the contact center to carry out. If customers aren't
informed of wait time, they may become discouraged and frustrated as hold time drags on. This can lead
to increased abandonment and even if the caller does decide to hold on, this experience starts the call
off badly leaving the agent with a lot to make up. Customers waste time complaining about their
experiences and may even ask additional questions on the call so that they ‘get their money's worth’.
If customers are given the estimated wait time, they may decide to abandon immediately or may judge
that the wait is acceptable and remain on the line to speak with an agent. This alleviates some customer
frustration but means that some of the callers which abandon may not call back - ever - and it doesn't
solve the fact that customers are still having to wait. One solution is to implement a virtual queuing
system, which not only provides customers with information about current queue conditions but also
presents them with various active options, such as remaining on hold or choosing to be called back
when it is their turn.
There are several different varieties of virtual queuing systems: the "First-In, First-Out" (FIFO) system
keeps the customer's place in line by monitoring queue conditions until the estimated wait time hits a
set target, at which point it intercepts incoming calls before they enter the queue, informing customers
of the likely wait time and offering the option of receiving an outbound call in the same amount of time
as if they had personally waited on hold.
At this point, customers choosing to remain on hold go directly into a queue. Customers who opt for a
call-back are prompted to enter their telephone number and possibly some extra details that can be
used for agent selection and skills-based routing, and are then asked to hang up. Virtual placeholders
keep the customers' places in line and the virtual queuing system launches an outbound call to the
customer at the agreed time. When the call-back is answered by the customer, the system checks the
right person is on the line and ready to talk. If this is the case, the call is routed to the next available
suitable agent, who handles it as a normal inbound call.
By replacing real hold time with this virtual version, customers are free to do other things, thus
removing four of the five problems that they have with queues - unknown queue times, hold music, the
inability to do anything else and repetitive announcements.
Scheduled call-back options differ from a FIFO experience, in that customers do not keep their place in
queue, but are called back at some time in the future that is more convenient for them (for example,
when they know they will be back at their desk and available to take a call).
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There are several types of scheduled virtual queuing:
Datebook-type scheduling systems allow customers to schedule appointments for days in the
future, with times blocked-out that are unavailable for scheduling, and limiting the number of
call-backs available. This system also allows customers that reach a contact center out-of-hours
to schedule a call-back during normal working hours
Timer scheduling systems promise a call-back after a specific amount of time, regardless of
queue conditions. While this ensures an on-time call-back for the customer, a surge in call
volume or staff reduction due to a shift change can create problems for the contact center's
queue, lengthening wait times for other callers
Forecast-based scheduling systems offer appointments during times that are expected to have
low call volumes. These times may not be convenient for the customer, and the contact center
runs the risk that their scheduling may be inaccurate.
Respondents were asked to state which types of call-back were presented to callers. The majority of
respondents that offered call-back functionality allowed callers to request a FIFO call-back (i.e. acting as
a placeholder in the queue), with a minority allowing customers to specify a scheduled time.
Figure 39: Types of telephony call-back offered to customers
Type of call-back
Proportion of respondents offering call-back that use this
FIFO (first-in, first-out) - holds the caller's place in the queue, then calls once they are at the front
72%
Forecast-based (called back at a time to suit the contact center) 33%
Datebook (caller can specify a day to be called back on) 28%
Timed (called back at or before a specific time, regardless of queue conditions)
17%
As a whole, respondents who offered call-back found that there was roughly a 50-50 split in the
requested call-back types (i.e. FIFO placeholder versus a type of delayed call-back). On analyzing the
contact center activity type (i.e. sales or service), those callers making sales enquiries were far more
likely to want a placeholder-type of call-back. This could possibly be explained by the differing states of
mind of customers calling to purchase something, or to make a query or payment. The former are more
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likely to have chosen to call the contact center to make a purchase that they are enthusiastic about,
and/or which is time-sensitive, and as such, want to speak to the business as soon as possible.
The use of a website 'call-me' button (which initiates an outbound call at a time specified by the
recipient) is weighted towards operations that carry out significant sales, but is present only in the case
of 7% of this year’s respondents. We would expect to see this increase significantly, and play an
important part in providing customer support via mobile / smartphone channels. To be fully effective,
callback requires the context of who the customer is and what they’ve been trying to achieve, as well as
not inconveniencing the customer too greatly by demanding that they use different channel to suit the
processes of the business.
22% of respondents offer a telephony queue call-back option, with this being particularly the case in
large operations with high call volumes.
The proportion of respondents announcing the position of the call in the queue has stayed around the
25-30% mark this year. Again, large contact centers seem far more likely to use this functionality.
Just over 30% of respondents use screen-popping functionality, putting information about the caller and
possibly their requirements on the agent desktop as the call is delivered.
Figure 40: Use of website and queue call-back options and queue position announcements, by contact center size
19%
22%
13%
3%
43%
14%
14%
10%
36%
46%
39%
11%
31%
28%
22%
7%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
Screen-pop from IVR or ANI information
Announcement of queue position or likely wait time
Call-back option in phone queue
Call-back button on website
Use of call-back options, queue position announcements and screen pop, by contact center size
Average
Large
Medium
Small
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Respondents indicate that telephony call-back tends not to be universally available to callers, with
businesses only offering it after a certain period of wait time or once the queue becomes so long that it
triggers the functionality to be offered.
Of those who are offered a call-back, respondents report around 50% of callers chose this option,
although the research base for this question was too low for any deeper analysis.
Figure 41: Proportion of customers in telephony queue offered call-back
Virtual queuing and call-back, when implemented - and explained properly to customers - can be a win-
win for both business and customer by:
Increasing customer satisfaction
Reducing average speed to answer
Reducing call abandonment rates
Reducing call lengths as customers should spend less time complaining and adding-on
unnecessary queries "while they're on..."
Reducing toll-free costs, as virtual queuing time does not incur telephone charges.
Fewer than 10%53%
10-25%23%
More than 25%12%
Don't know12%
Proportion of customers in telephony queue offered call-back
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Respondents offering telephony call-back functionality stated clearly that is was most useful for
managing call volumes and spikes in busy periods, and thus improving customer satisfaction and
experience. Being able to spread calls out over the day and allow callers to keep their place in the queue
- without actually having to queue – is seen by users as being of great use to both company and
customer.
Figure 42: Effectiveness of telephony call-back functionality
Although the number of responses received to a similar question about website call-back was too small
for confident analysis, it is worth noting that respondents believed web call-back was most useful for
improving the customer experience and for maximizing sales opportunities.
Respondents did not tend to believe that telephony call-back made much of a positive impact on sales
opportunities, so businesses may consider implementing a website call-back option to capture more
revenue.
75%
75%
19%
19%
13%
19%
19%
38%
31%
56%
6%
6%
25%
50%
31%
19%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Managing call volumes (e.g. managing & avoiding spikes)
Improving customer satisfaction & experience
Reduce toll-free costs
Maximizing sales opportunities
Reducing agent stress and pressure to achieve KPIs
Effectiveness of telephony call-back functionality
Very useful Somewhat useful Not useful Don't know
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Queue management and call abandonment rates
Offering an in-queue call-back option seems to have a positive effect on call abandonment rates, with
those doing so having an abandoned call rate around 20% lower than those who do not offer this
option, similar findings to previous year’s figures.
However, announcing the position of the caller in the queue seems to have much less of a positive
outcome, with very similar call abandonment rates.
A tentative conclusion can be drawn that call abandonment rates can be reduced best through actual
actions that benefit customers, such as calling then back. Simply providing them with more information
about the queue situation (which may be negative) could encourage customers to abandon the call and
ring back later. However, having this knowledge and actively being able to choose what to do may well
make the customer think more positively about the company (in that they haven’t had to waste any
great amount of time) but without a call-back option the customer will not have managed to do what
they set out to.
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OUTBOUND IN THE CLOUD
While the pay-as-you-go, or monthly rental model which was one of the main attractions of cloud /
managed services is still an attractive proposition, it is far less important today than it was three or four
years earlier. Solution providers point out that CPE deployments can now often be paid for in an Opex
model, and that the movement to cloud is more about the functionality, agility and scalability that this
model offers.
It is also the case that operations have generally become more complex, certainly in the number of
channels offered and the proportion of interactions going through them. It is no longer possible for
many companies simply to focus upon voice, and the attendant need to provide a single view of
customer regardless of channel acts as an inhibitor to the siloed approach.
Looking at inhibitors to cloud-based solutions, concern over data security is still one of the most
important factors holding back the movement to cloud, although solution providers point out now that
the concerns that potential customers hold seem to be much more specific to their business, rather than
being a wide-ranging, generic fear of losing control.
One of the main differences to have occurred in the past three or four years is that cloud is now seen as
a genuine alternative to CPE for even the largest of enterprises, not just smaller operations. Some
solution providers have stated that they originally focused their product and marketing efforts on the
small and medium contact center sectors, but have been surprised by the interest shown by those with
many hundreds (if not thousands) of agents, and have changed their strategy and marketing approaches
appropriately. There is an increased familiarity and trust in cloud-based solutions, both in decision-
makers’ personal (i.e. non-business) lives, and in the prevalence of cloud-based enterprise applications,
which is meant that cloud is no longer a particularly tough sell.
Solution providers note that there has been great growth in cloud solutions that support outbound sales
activity, where the pay-as-you-go model allows outsourcers to have some control over their profit
margins depending on the amount of work that they have, as well as benefiting from the immediate use
of added functionality that cloud-based solutions provide. It is common for cloud providers to tightly
integrate with CRM and contact management packages (e.g. Salesforce.com), and adding dialing
functionality supports the consultative style of selling, giving agents the opportunity to read up about
customers before they dial. This is not just the case for traditional contact centers, but also for
organizations which may not see themselves as having a contact center, but which carry out large
amounts of sales communication with customers and prospects, albeit in perhaps a more informal
environment. Cloud-based solutions offer such enterprises the benefit and efficiency of the contact
center world, without the high levels of sunk cost and operational and technical expertise that a CPE
solution would demand.
In the US, 29% of respondents using dialers have a cloud-based solution, which is expected to rise to
46% by 2018.
--- Thought Leadership ---
3 Best Practices for Boosting Your Outbound Results with the Cloud
Outbound dialing technologies have undergone a recent revolution to accelerate sales, boost agent productivity,
and increase customer satisfaction – and cloud contact center solutions are leading the way. If you’re looking to
improve your results, here are three best practices to consider implementing for outbound dialing:
#1: Utilize No Pause, Predictive Dialing: You might assume that simply making more calls is the answer for
increasing sales. However, it won’t help if you’re using a traditional outbound dialer with the tell-tale, two second
pause.
Often these types of legacy dialers result in more hang-ups than connects. A better approach is using a cloud contact
center solution’s no pause, predictive dialer which eliminates awkward delays in greeting the customer. Agents are
connected before the customer answers, which helps start the call off positively and increases connect rates.
#2: Give Customers Truly Useful Information: Consider your goals with outbound calls – are you giving customers
useful information, or are you only pitching products? Successful contact centers are taking the first approach, such
as proactively contacting customers to let them know, for example, their balance is two days overdue. With a cloud
contact center solution you can also take an omnichannel approach to customer communications, such as sending
them helpful information via text.
#3: Use Your CRM to Drive Your Dialer: Rather than using your dialer to manage call records, why not integrate it
with your CRM for an up-to-date, closed loop system? In this approach, the CRM sends customer records to the
cloud contact center solution’s dialer, and as agents enter updated call information, the data is fed back into the
CRM for a single source of truth about each customer.
This is especially useful for ensuring changes to customer records are taken into account before calls are made. For
instance, if a customer makes a payment early in the day, the CRM won’t send their contact information to the
dialer for an afternoon collections reminder call.
Cloud Contact Center Solutions: Scalable and Cost-Effective
If you’re using an on-premise system, it might sound daunting to implement these changes. A cloud contact center
solution, however, is cost-effective and scalable making it easy to implement and roll out these features without
purchasing additional hardware. Isn’t it time to take your outbound campaigns to the next level?
About inContact inContact (NASDAQ: SAAS) is the cloud contact center software leader, with the most complete, easiest and most reliable solution to help organizations around the globe to achieve their customer experience goals. inContact continuously innovates in the cloud and is the only provider to offer a complete solution that includes the technology – customer interaction platform as a service – as well as an expert service model and the broadest partner ecosystem. Recognized as a market leader by Gartner, Frost, Ovum, IDC and DMG, inContact supports over 6 billion interactions per year for enterprise, midmarket, government organizations and business process outsourcers (BPOs) who operate in multiple divisions, locations and global regions. To learn more, visit www.incontact.com. Media Contact: Gavin Gustafson [email protected] (801) 320-3323
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END-USER QUESTION #7:
HAS THERE BEEN MUCH UPTAKE OF CLOUD-BASED SOLUTIONS? IS THIS MAINLY DOWN TO COST, OR ARE THERE OTHER BENEFITS AS WELL?
Yes. Cost is certainly a driver because the customer can expand and contract as
needed with the CAPEX model. In addition, customers are buying cloud-based
solutions for security, easier maintenance, high availability and redundancy, scalability and single system
image.
The demand for cloud services over the past few years has exploded.
Cloud services now contribute to the majority of enquiries we get as a business, which although price is
a factor, the speed of installation and the reliability/ security of the Noble Systems data centers are a big
factor as well. For example, with the Noble Inbound 100 solution clients now get peace of mind with
100% SLAs, including 100% uptime.
Cloud-based solutions are proving to be very popular. In Rostrvm Solutions’ case the
majority of new customers have employed cloud-based systems over the past year.
However, the reasons for selecting cloud aren’t usually cost – indeed cloud is often
more expensive over the long term.
Key benefits of cloud are:
It’s quick and easy to turn on – so users can prove the business benefit of innovative contact
strategies without expending too much time or money.
It’s flexible – for example location-independent, work-from-home strategies are easy to set up.
It’s up to date – cloud systems always make the latest software and services available to users,
giving a competitive advantage.
But cloud isn’t appropriate for everyone; for example, contact strategies that demand real-time
integration with on-site databases may not be suitable.
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Cloud based solutions are now widely used in the contact center industry,
enabling organizations to utilize their flexibility, capacity, resilience and financial
benefits rather than investing in an on premise technology with a limited shelf-life and expensive annual
maintenance and upgrade costs.
There are many benefits of cloud solutions beyond reduced cost of implementation. The flexibility built
into cloud solutions means they can be seamlessly integrated, whatever existing infrastructure is in
place, and without the capex implications of costly (and often complicated) hardware upgrades.
The dynamic nature of cloud platforms also means that they are infinitely scalable, giving organizations
the ability to add or reduce capacity as required, per campaign, or at peak times. All the very latest
features and upgrades can be deployed simply and quickly, and calling patterns and service levels can be
monitored remotely to ensure accurate reporting for management, and also for regulatory compliance.
Actually SaaS / Cloud based solutions are the business with most accelerated
growth. Beside cost benefits we determine other important advantages:
One common managed system for multiple call centers
Opportunity to combine disparate small call centers and large virtual call center centrally
Offer a full operation to our customers without the need to manage the technology and just pay as
you go
Flexible working time and location (home office) for agents
Provide high level of process standards
Increased resilience
More efficient use of admin staff because the platform administration and maintenance is being
looked after by the vendor, not the call center.
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THE FUTURE OF OUTBOUND
While predicting the future with any sort of accuracy is by its nature impossible, there are various
ongoing themes and drivers that seem to point the outbound industry in a specific direction:
Driven by consumer complaints, there is likely to be a greater focus and regulation on reducing
or eliminating abandoned calls and enforcing accurate CLI/CLID. The forthcoming EU GDPR
(General Data Protection Regulation) is likely to make outbound more difficult through
restricting access to personal information
The boundary between inbound and outbound is likely to merge even further, with outbound
(including email, SMS and smartphone notifications, as well as telephony) becoming an integral
part of customer care
Outbound has already moved a long way away from the traditional cold calling model, and
increased knowledge of customer preferences and personalization will be vital to outbound’s
rehabilitation with customers. While the majority of businesses currently use some form of
contact list segmentation (for example, looking at gender, age and customer status), increasing
amounts of customer data and the analysis of call outcomes means that customer segmentation
techniques will become more sophisticated and effective
There is likely to be a greater emphasis placed upon the automation of outbound contact:
understanding and analyzing the perfect time to communicate with customers and their
preferences for channel may mean that the right agents are either unavailable or that this is an
unsuitable way to communicate with these customers
Although for many businesses it can be enough of a challenge simply to pair a live agent with a
live contact, we would expect to see leading-edge adopters consider personality matching
techniques in the future. Solutions exist where the personality profiles of customers and agents
can be identified, and the resulting customer and agent segmentation can allow the business to
have certain types of agent calling customers with the same personality type, increasing
empathy, customer satisfaction and revenue. We would also expect to see a greater increase in
personalized service by pairing agents and customers who have spoken together before
As more people use a smartphone as their primary means of communication, businesses must
continue to re-evaluate the best means of communicating with customers based upon the
individual requirements and activities. An omnichannel approach, which can detect the time and
method by which the customer has contacted the business previously, can analyze and predict
the most successful ways of doing so in the future. It is likely that a multiple channel approach
will become popular, such as sending an email or SMS first, seeing whether the customer
interacts with it, and then placing an outbound call at an appropriate time
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The analysis of big data and the attendant timely recognition of potential opportunities and
triggers means that outbound communications can become welcomed as adding to the
customer experience: in effect, the business provides the customer with information or an
opportunity to communicate before they realize they even need it. This proactive approach will
be driven by a more sophisticated understanding of the customer’s thought processes and
closer analysis of customer preferences and the results that similar groups of customers have
experienced through this method before. Analysts talk about “the moment of opportunity”, and
although identifying and acting upon this with the right resource will be a difficult journey for
organizations to fulfil, it leads to potentially great benefits for both customer and business
The inbound contact center world has changed greatly over the past decade, with the former
focus on call duration having been moved very firmly into the background, with a focus now
being on customer satisfaction and first contact resolution. This change has been as a result of
many of the low value calls having been shifted to self-service (whether via phone or web),
leaving the more complex, high-value, high opportunity calls. We would expect to see a similar
pattern develop within the outbound industry: not only are there far more personalized
customer service calls being made, but also the opportunity now exists to make personalized
outbound sales calls as well. The wealth of information potentially available about the customer,
their likely intentions and even their type of personality gives salespeople greater opportunity to
engage successfully and make a sale. In tandem with sophisticated customer profiling and
solutions that screen out unanswered calls or voicemails, the opportunity exists for outbound
calling to be less of a scattergun, high-intensity approach, and more about delivering relevant
services and offers to the customer at the correct time. Conjecturally, this may already be
happening, as it is noticeable that the agent attrition rate in outbound contact centers
(historically extremely high), has seen a considerable decrease in both the UK and US over
recent years, suggesting that the nature of the work has changed
There are great opportunities to improve the dynamism of scripting depending upon the
direction of the conversation and the customer profile. Static scripts should perhaps now be
used only for the most inexperienced of agents, and the success or otherwise of specific
dynamic scripts should be assessed and fed back into the system, allowing a greater
understanding of what works, to whom, and when
There will be greater sophistication in the monetization and quantification of proactive
customer contact. Not only does the proactive engagement of the customer or prospect reduce
inbound call volumes and costs, but it also has a positive effect on revenue and customer
loyalty. At the moment, this can be difficult to quantify but we expect large organizations to be
able to analyze and justify in terms of profitability what can be a considerable expenditure.
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END-USER QUESTION #8:
ARE YOU SEEING A CHANGE IN THE NATURE OF OUTBOUND CALLING? HOW ARE YOUR SOLUTIONS DEVELOPING TO ADDRESS THIS AND WHAT CAN WE EXPECT TO SEE IN TERMS OF FUTURE FUNCTIONALITY FROM OUTBOUND SOLUTIONS?
We are seeing a change in the way customers are being contacted, outbound
voice calls are still the most commonly used channel but we are seeing the
use of other channels such as SMS and email becoming more common place. This is all to do with
improving the customer journey. This starts with understanding your customers and ensuring you
contact them on their preferred channel. Solutions are adapting to this by providing multichannel
communication options funneled into a universal agent view.
Outbound calling used to be a ‘numbers game’ - make more calls and you’ll make
more sales, collect more debt etc. Outbound calling is changing to improve
customer contact and is incorporating Precision Dialing, which uses intelligence
gained about contacts to optimize dialing activities. Precision Dialing gives you the optimum chance of
making contact with your customers because you dial:
at the right time – the best time to call;
with the right message and channel – modern campaigns mix telephone, text messages and email;
and the right people – making sure your calls are handled by appropriately skilled agents.
To use intelligence you’ve gained about each customer to program your dialer you need good
management reports and records. Look at individual customer records and use your information about
when inbound callers called you to decide when to call them. Think about it – if a person calls you at,
say, 4pm it’s a good bet that they will be receptive to you calling them around that time.
One thing about outbound that’s unlikely to change any time soon is that, no matter how a person
contacted you – Twitter, email etc. – if it’s a complaint it’s ALWAYS better to respond using the phone –
social media is too public and a call resolves the issue faster than email.
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We are certainly noticing that clients are using their outbound dialing strategies
to better manage the whole customer experience, for example, to focus on
quality of calls and not quantity. In some sectors quantity will always be king, for example PPI and debt
collection, but in other sectors the quality of the call, from speed of connection to an appropriately
skilled agent to a follow-up SMS confirming a transaction or appointment, could be the difference
between repeat business or a customer lost to a competitor.
One of the key benefits of cloud based solutions for outbound dialing is that they can be adapted to
changes in demands from customers very quickly, and new features deployed seamlessly as needs
change. Proactive campaign monitoring and advising clients on how to optimize their dialing activity is
becoming increasingly important in differentiating one cloud offering from another, and this has been
one of the underpinning strategies for Ultracomms. The flexibility of cloud solutions means that they can
be developed and tailored to each individual client’s needs, rather than a client buying an ‘off the peg’
solution and making it fit their infrastructure and campaign requirements.
The use of real-time data feeds from CRM and sales platforms are also increasing and this can
significantly improve the quality of customer interactions and help increase the overall productivity of
individual calls as time isn’t wasted updating records or searching for historic contact information.
Certainly as technology advances, we expect to see further integration of multichannel functionality to
help deliver a more rounded customer experience. The possibilities are endless when it comes to cloud
based solutions and we will continue to develop our platform and services based on collaboration with
clients, to help them stay at the forefront of their respective sectors.
Outbound dialing is getting more sophisticated regarding legislation and user
behavior. People now have more than one phone number and more than one way
to contact you. Therefore, it´s a challenge for an outbound dialing solution
provider to place the personal voice call in the right position in the mix of different contact possibilities.
Users are becoming more careful in the use of data, and tend to increase retry periods in order to
reduce the nuisance to customers. The future of outbound communications is all around being pro-
active, using big data to help guide to guide targeted conversations, for example contacting customers
to alert them to a potential problem or inform them of a development or issue.
We are seeing outbound change from a lead generation and sales channel to a
proactive outbound notification. Being proactive in outreach allows companies to
reinforce the positive relationship by providing what the customer needs before they have to ask. This
trend is driving a better customer experience and brand loyalty, while improving the sentiment toward
outbound contacts.
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SUPPLIER DIRECTORY
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Aspect Software helps companies around the world deliver remarkable customer experiences across
every conversation and every channel by helping them align their engagement strategy with today’s
growing consumer expectations. We do this by creating greater customer understanding and simpler,
more engaging transactions and interactions that drive deeper customer loyalty—all through a single
software platform. As the global leader in customer engagement solutions, our unified interaction
management, workforce optimization and back-office solutions seamlessly orchestrate people,
processes and touch points for today's top brands in aviation, financial services, healthcare,
manufacturing, telecommunications and retail.
Wherever you're looking to remove communication and workflow barriers or automate more
productive business processes, Aspect solutions allow you to build on your existing customer contact,
workforce optimization and enterprise technology investments so you can put the contact center
squarely at the center of the customer experience.
Contact Aspect Software for more information:
Website: www.aspect.com
Call: 1-888-791-5931
Email: [email protected]
Follow Aspect on Twitter at @Aspectsoftware
Read our blogs at: blogs.aspect.com
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Enghouse Interactive Outbound Capabilities
Introducing Enghouse Interactive Outbound Communicator for proactive customer engagement
For many businesses, proactive outbound customer communication is a key factor for success. Automated
management of outbound calling campaigns provides a powerful tool for streamlining those critical, high
volume business processes. With an advanced solution for outbound communications, organizations can grow
and strengthen their customer relationships and uncover new sales opportunities - turning every customer
conversation into a fruitful one.
Why be reactive when you can be proactive?
Waiting for your customers to contact you and only servicing them when they do is unproductive,
unpredictable and creates issues with managing resources through peaks and troughs of traffic.
Typically, the relationship with your customers involves a series of events over time. These events can be
customer driven, such as new purchases or requests for support. Other events - contract renewals,
appointments, and service outages - may be triggered by your organization. Some of these events are
unpredictable in their nature but many are not, and it is these that provide the opportunity for you to be
proactive in your customer engagement.
ncrease your productivity – Agent productivity could be increased by as much as 200%. Your agents spend
less time dialing, and more time speaking.
Be compliant – Variable limits provide compliance with all national and international regulatory rules
including OFCOM
Delivers a high level of accuracy with an award winning answer machine detection
Allows you to flexibly implement complex communication processes and events into your customer
communications
Increase profitability – Short set-up time for new campaigns giving you lower costs and greater flexibility.
This gives agents more time to call and make money!
German engineering at its best
Enghouse Interactive’s award-winning Outbound Communicator with predictive dialer technology offers high
performance, extraordinary flexibility and user-friendly operation for your dynamic outbound campaigns. The
software allows you to quickly set up and implement tailored campaigns without extensive programming skills,
and complete them successfully while making the most efficient use of available resources, saving time and
costs.
Make every call a success
Enghouse Interactive has a full range of solutions to support all your communication requirements - combining
market-leading technologies with a thorough understanding of our customers’ needs across hundreds and
thousands of successful implementations.
Contact us to find out how we can help you.
Web / Telephone: +1 602 789 2800 / E-Mail: [email protected]
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inContact is the cloud contact center software leader, with the most complete, easiest and most reliable solution to help organizations achieve their customer experience goals. As a cloud technology pioneer exclusively in the cloud since 2005, we operate in North America, Latin America, Europe/Middle East/Africa and Asia Pacific countries. Our customers are from small-medium sized businesses, large enterprises, business process outsources and government, including over 110 Fortune 500 and Global 2000 customers. With unparalleled customer satisfaction, we assist more than 175,000 agents with over 6 billion interactions per year.
inContact helps turn the customer experience into a competitive advantage by delivering a purpose-built cloud suite that helps organizations achieve their business goals with greater ease and reliability.
inContact helps you:
1. Make your customer experience a competitive advantage
Customer experience is the new battleground. We’ll help you understand exactly what your customer wants and help you get there faster and easier, with greater flexibility and confidence than ever.
2. Achieve your performance goals
Our purpose-built solution and deep expertise help you reach your customer experience goals and meet the broad, evolving business objectives of the modern contact center.
3. Unlock the true potential of the cloud
Only inContact uses the latest cloud technology to unify omnichannel routing and workforce optimization, creating a single, proven solution that’s as reliable and scalable as it is cost-effective and flexible.
inContact’s cloud contact center solutions include:
o Customer Interaction Cloud, including:
Automatic Call Distributor (ACD)
Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
My Agent eXperience (MAX)
CRM Integrations
Personal Connection™ Outbound Dialer
Supervisor On-The-Go™
Blended Predictive Dialer
Network Connectivity
Reporting & Analytics
inCloud Apps
Workforce Optimization (WFO)
Workforce management (WFM)
Quality Management
Customer Satisfaction Surveys
inView™ Performance Dashboards
Workforce-Intelligent Contact Center
Speech & Desktop Analytics
o Expert Services
o Partner Ecosystem
inContact (NASDAQ: SAAS) is the cloud contact center software leader, with the most complete, easiest and most reliable solution to help organizations around the globe to achieve their customer experience goals. inContact continuously innovates in the cloud and is the only provider to offer a complete solution that includes the technology – customer interaction platform as a service – as well as an expert service model and the broadest partner ecosystem. Recognized as a market leader by Gartner, Frost, Ovum, IDC and DMG, inContact supports over 6 billion interactions per year for enterprise, midmarket, government organizations and business process outsourcers (BPOs) who operate in multiple divisions, locations and global regions. To learn more, visit www.incontact.com.
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Noble Systems is a global leader in the customer communications industry, providing innovative
solutions for Unified Communications, Business Process Management and Analytics.
Tens of thousands of agents at 4,000+ client installations worldwide use Noble platforms to manage
millions of customer contacts each day.
Noble offers a unified suite of multi-channel inbound, outbound and blended contact processing,
strategy planning, and resource management tools for companies of all sizes.
Our CPE, CaaS and innovative premise/cloud hybrid platforms include ACD, predictive dialling, blended
processing, recording and monitoring, IVR, messaging, interaction analytics and workforce management.
Contact:
Lee Allum
t: +1 (404) 851 1331
w: www.noblesystems.com
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Rostrvm Solutions is a British software company. We design, develop and support rostrvm, a modular
suite of applications for managing and blending all of your inbound and outbound communications, with
clear and accurate reporting, available on any device.
For multichannel, blended contact
rostrvm provides intelligent, data driven, skills-based routing for your contact center. Whether it’s
precision dialing, effective call queuing or multi-site, multichannel contact handling, everyone is looked
after.
To track your progress, rostrvm’s performance management tools deliver contact center and back office
performance metrics. You can see business outcomes and real-time and historical management
information across all contact media and supporting business processes. Added to that is call recording
for quality assessment, training and compliance.
Another key rostrvm feature is Desktop optimization. Streamlined desktops with integrated functions
save time and money. Our applications for the contact center and back office will ensure your operation
is totally efficient.
The rostrvm suite is a truly integrated platform that supports increased functionality. It will overlay your
existing systems both in the Cloud and on your site so you don’t have to throw away your investment
but can enhance it cost effectively and with minimal risk. We provide support and improve any IT
environment and telephone system.
Our commercial frameworks will really benefit your business; rostrvm works on site or hosted in the
cloud and can be acquired on a capex, opex, subscription or pay-per-use basis. It’s completely scalable
and facilitates requirements like remote working.
As a privately-held company Rostrvm Solutions maintains a strong culture of independence, which is
increasingly rare in our market sector. We see our independence as a major benefit to our customers
and partners - it guarantees the openness of our technology and the objectiveness of our approach and
advice
Our dedicated team of experts, based in Woking, Surrey, have over 30 years’ experience in the field and
are skilled in delivering tailored solutions and a unique combination of benefits that leave our
competition standing.
As a result, we have very loyal and long-standing customers, who rely on us for the provision and
support of their core contact handling and process management functions.
Find out more
Visit www.rostrvm.com to read our case studies and learn more about our products, services and
customers.
Or why don’t you drop us a line or give us a call to arrange a meeting? We’ll make it worth your while!
Call us on +44 (0)1483 494 690. Email: [email protected]
Rostrvm Solutions Limited, Dukes Court, Dukes Street, Woking, Surrey GU21 5RT United Kingdom
104
About Ultracomms
As the first cloud-based contact center technology and services provider in Europe, Ultracomms
provides customers across the UK with outbound, inbound and blended contact center solutions. From
inception in 2004, our unique approach has been based on continual collaboration with customers and
partners to develop feature-rich platforms, ensuring clients remain at the forefront of the rapidly
evolving contact center market, as well as helping them comply with industry standards and regulations.
From our offices on the south coast of England, our in-house R&D and support teams provide clients
with access to the very latest technology and the highest levels of support, to ensure they get the best
possible results.
Our healthy financial track record has enabled us to invest in a robust cloud infrastructure across three
geographical locations, ensuring the customers receive a reliable and consistent experience with
Ultracomms.
Contact:
w: www.ultracomms.com
a: The Granary, Cams Hall Estate, Fareham, Hampshire PO16 8UT (UK)
t: +44 (0) 207 965 0207
105
ABOUT CONTACTBABEL
ContactBabel is the contact center industry expert. If you have a question about how the industry works,
or where it’s heading, the chances are we have the answer.
The coverage provided by our massive and ongoing primary research projects is matched by our
experience analyzing the contact center industry. We understand how technology, people and process
best fit together, and how they will work collectively in the future.
We help the biggest and most successful vendors develop their contact center strategies and talk to the
right prospects. We have shown the UK government how the global contact center industry will develop
and change. We help contact centers compare themselves to their closest competitors so they can
understand what they are doing well and what needs to improve.
If you have a question about your company’s place in the contact center industry, perhaps we can help
you.
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.contactbabel.com
Telephone: +44 (0)191 271 5269