Key considerations

  • Ensure sufficient agents

If you use a dialler, ensure that you always have an available agent to pick up a connected call.

  • Provide appropriate training

Ensure that you have sufficient time to fully train agents to work on your campaign before any work starts.

  • Schedule call times sensitively

Schedule call times to allow the best chance to reach your target audience.

Calling customers at inappropriate times may cause resentment and render your future calling ineffective.

  • Honour consumer preferences

Clearly, it always makes sense to note your customer’s calling preferences, where these are forthcoming.

  • Work around topical events

Take topical events into account, such as national emergencies (storms or flooding, for example), when deciding whether to start or continue any outbound calling activity. Limit activity to unaffected parts of the country.

 

Reasonable hours

  • Respect reasonable hours

Do not make sales, marketing or service calls during hours that are unreasonable to your customer.

  • Research demographic preferences

Recognise that what is regarded as reasonable can vary in different locations and in different types of households or businesses.

  • Avoid Sundays and holidays

While it is not illegal, many consumers consider it unreasonable to be called on a Sunday or on a national or religious holiday.

  • Reasonable hours

Generally, reasonable calling hours are:

Monday to Friday: 8am to 9pm

Saturdays: 9am to 9pm

 

Ring time

  • Define acceptable ring time

Consider the length of time you allow calls to ring before being terminated due to no answer

  • Measure from customer’s perspective

Measure ring time from the point that the call starts ringing on your customer’s phone, not from the point at which your call is launched. This is particularly important when calling mobile phones where the delay between dial and ringing can be more than a couple of seconds. Where the point at which the call starts ringing on the recipient’s phone cannot be determined, a reasonable extension to the ringing time should be introduced to allow for this unknown.

  • Ring time factors

The factors that a contact centre must consider when setting the ring time include:

  • Minimum ring time allowed – under Ofcom regulations.
  • Customer demographics – for example, elderly customers may need more time to get to the phone.
  • Your team size and answer success rate – both of which may limit the impact of a higher ring time.
  • Manage agents’ time effectively

A higher ring time can increase your agent wait time between calls.

In high wait-time situations where you are using predictive dialling, your agents may become distracted between calls if they have no visual or audible indication of ongoing dialling activity

  • Answerphones

Some telephone networks provide answerphone and voicemail capabilities that cut in after a standard delay – for example, BT 1571 answers after 20 seconds.

  • Set dialler functionality

Understand any dialler functionality that mitigates longer ring time

For example, call cancelling over Ofcom minimum ring time, where calls are automatically terminated if leaving the call ringing would result in an abandoned call.

  • Test ring time factors

Test with a higher ring time and plot answer count versus ring time for calls answered by customers and by answer phones to identify the appropriate ring time for your campaign.

Strike a balance between:

  • Ringing too long
  • Hitting a high proportion of answer machines
  • Inconvenience to the customer caused by stopping too early
  • Provide ring time measurement mechanism

In preview dialling mode, if your dialler does not automatically hang up calls, provide your agent with a mechanism to measure the ring time to ensure that Ofcom regulations are met.

 

Call retrying

  • Spread retries

Use retry strategies that spread dialling attempts between morning, afternoon, evening and weekends.

Where possible, use dialler retry rules to avoid retrying numbers at the same time each day.

  • Reset after live calls

Reset your retry count to an individual number or customer account following a call that is answered by the customer.

  • Equip agent with all information

If you use predictive or progressive dialling, make sure your agents can see:

  • The name of your customer and the reason for your call within one second
  • The reason for your call only needs to be shown if the purpose of your calls varies within your campaign
  • All relevant facts within two seconds
  • Prepare agents for each warm calling

When warm calling, it is very important that your agent has all relevant facts to hand concerning your customer’s account. Your customer will expect your agent to know why they are calling and to be fully conversant with all relevant account details.

  • Take time to understand inbound calls

When customers call inbound, they appreciate that the agent may need a little time to familiarise himself or herself with the customer’s account, its status and so on.

 

Nuisance calls

  • Frequent retries can be a nuisance

Frequent retries can cause a high level of nuisance to customers.

Even when your customer’s experience of talking to your agent is perceived as good, a high level of retries will be seen by many customers as harassment.

  • Missed calls can be nuisance

Nuisance will occur primarily when you dial mobiles or landlines with call history display functionality.

  • Calls are not typically anonymous

If you use predictive dialling, you must present a caller line identification (CLI), so unsuccessful dial attempts are not anonymous.

  • Be wary of brand damage

When cold calling, you may consider the nuisance to be low enough to not adversely affect your brand. But be cautious in this regard, particularly when warm calling active customers.

  • Avoid causing unnecessary worry

In the worst scenarios, there is the possibility that you could cause your customer high anxiety.

For example, your customer might be left fearing that there is a major problem if they find a series of missed calls from your organisation, but on attempting to call back only reach an automated message stating that your contact centre is closed but had been attempting to call concerning their account.

  • Nuisance call rules of thumb

The following recommendations are an initial ‘rule of thumb’ – but you need to be aware of, and have a clear policy regarding, retry management:

  • Limit the three redials per day

When your outbound call attempt finds no answer, or an answerphone, limit to three dial attemptsper day for any individual customer

  • Minimum redial intervals

The following minimum redial intervals are recommended:

  • Busy 10 minutes
  • Number unobtainable 120 minutes
  • No answer 120 minutes
  • Answerphone 120 minutes

 

Call-backs

  • Brief campaign timings to agents

Brief your agents about the times during which your campaign will be undertaken.

Ensure your agent knows not to (or cannot) arrange call-backs with your customer for any time when the call-back cannot be performed.

  • Redialling missed call-backs

If your call-back is not successful at the date and time requested, attempt same day redials.

If these are still unsuccessful, redial your customer at the original call-back time on the following day.

Switching call-backs to a different number

  • Switching call-backs to a landline

With the increase in outbound dialling to mobile phones, make sure your agent knows how to handle the scenario of a customer wishing to talk on a landline rather than the mobile number originally dialled.

  • Call-backs on a different number

Where your dialler equipment does not directly handle immediate call-backs, make sure your agents understand the process used to redial customers if your customer wishes to discuss the matter on a different number to the one originally dialled.