How To Use The Predictive Dialer

Predictive dialers automatically dial a set of phone numbers and route calls to available collectors when what the dialer system perceives as live human connections are made on the phone. Busy signals, no answers, operator intercepts, and what are perceived by the dialer system as answering machines are call result logged.

The objective of a dialer system in predictive mode is to have a live-voice call available for a collector when that collector is statistically likely to be available to take it.

The dialer is constantly computing stats while the campaign is running, making adjustments in how many lines are dialing per head of collector on the campaign, speeding up/slowing down its pacing, clocking and revising how long it takes to get a live-voice on the phone and factoring into its computations the average call times of each collector. With all these parameters and calculations in place, the dialer will determine how far in advance it should be actively dialing numbers to have a call ready at the statistically anticipated time of availability for each collector signed into the campaign.

The quality of your data that you are uploading to a dialer system greatly impacts the success and efficiency of the campaign, which in turn impacts the revenue generated from use of call campaigns.

If bad/confirmed wrong numbers are not be removed from the phone fields on the accounts, then the resource time is being mismanaged (as well as that of the collectors) because the same numbers are being repeatedly called after verified as bad. If you lists are very long, that can mean that every day, there are numbers not being dialed because the list keeps restarting from the same order as the last download - numbers in the lower part of the list are never being attempted.

To ensure optimized inventory penetration rates, it is important to segment and rotate your call lists so that all callable files are being actually dialed.

Reviewing your call results is important. They will show you with hard numbers and percentages what days and times of day your call lists are reaching the most people.

The quality of your data will impact the success and effectiveness of your call campaigns. Whether you use a premise dialer product or an off-site provider, it should be possible to obtain a variety of analysis reports that provide you with details about your campaigns separate and apart from straight call results such as busy, no answer, passed to live collector/agent. Campaign stats generally will show you hard numbers/percentages in summary, then with detail breakdown of those summary figures for categories such as # contacts, # no answers, # busy, # operator intercepts, # machines detected, # live contacts passed to agent, # wrong numbers (if you agents press a key for this call result). It should be possible to get account number and phone number details in the summarized categories. Using these reports to keep your data clean so that your future call lists will be better aimed at right party contacts will continually raise your campaign success ratios and actual inventory penetration rates.

The following are areas where if detailed reports are available, assigning admin/clerical staff to review and update files will contribute to your call campaigns being better each time.

1. Operator Intercepts. If you have the manpower to support it, having someone manually dial these numbers to confirm whether they are a true NIS or possibly a Phone Number Has Changed is useful. There will always be many more NIS numbers than forwarder moves but the percentage of free locates that easy can be worth the verification step. Making sure that NIS numbers are removed from phone fields so that they don't waste future dialer time.
2. If your collector has entered a "wrong number" code into the dialer prompt after a live-voice contact has confirmed that that the number is wrong for the debtor on file. If the collector forgets to remove the number in the heat of the campaign, then the same uninvolved consumer will continue to be called and this can spark a harassment complaint. Make sure that wrong numbers confirmed get removed from your phone fields. If you extract from the Phone Tab into your call lists, it is recommended to have your staff use the Active Yes/No field so that selection of phone numbers from this tab are only those that are deemed Active Yes.
3. Accounts with no phone numbers that are being included in your lists. You may wish to devise an inventory strategy to segregate uncallable/skip files from the pools you are sourcing for your call lists. How many head of collector needed versus skip tracing decisioning can be made from accurate stats in these areas. Many premise dialer systems and off-site providers automatically discard no phone records when they build the call list. If you are not aware of what percentage of your lists are not callable, your staffing and locate work plans may not be aligned with the actuality of your inventory.

The basic predictive dialer operation is a three-step process:

1. Send a list of phone numbers to the dialer to dial.
2. Wait for calls, and as calls are made Collect! pops up the file being called.
3. Import the completion status of calls made or attempted by the dialer.

Send Call List To Dialer

First, you must send a list of phone numbers to the dialer to dial.

You do this by exporting a list of accounts that you want dialed out of the Collect! system. You can use the export module to create such a file; or, you can also use the report system to generate an appropriate list and then save that list to a file.

Collect! searches on the File Number to pop up accounts.

The format of this list is completely up to your dialer manufacturer. Please contact your dialer manufacturer for more information.

We have included a sample report for the TCN Module, which exports a file listing of accounts that have "TCN" in the Status field. This can be used with any Predictive Dialer dialing software.

Contact Controls

If you have created Contact Controls for Phone types, then your export report should reference the @CCCALLOK command to prevent numbers from being sent to the dialer that should not be called. Please refer to the Help topic How To Use The Report Writer Commands for more information.

Wait For Calls From The Dialer

Wait for calls, and as calls are made, Collect! pops up the file being called.

Sign in to your database, select the Tools menu, and choose the Predictive Dialer Link option. This pops up the Predictive Dialer Link form, and Collect! is ready to receive calls from the dialer.

Your dialer manufacturer must set up each workstation properly to allow Collect! to communicate with the dialer.

You can create an Operator ID where the Operator type is 'Dialer Operator'. Then, upon signing on, Collect! will go directly to the Predictive Dialer Link screen, waiting for calls. This type of Operator cannot do anything but receive predictive dialer calls.

Import Completion Status

Import the completion status of calls made or attempted by the dialer

At the end of the call campaign, you can load the call results in to the Collect! system by running an import program to import. Set this program to import any call result logs generated by the dialer during the campaign.

Setup Predictive Dialer With Dynamic Data Exchange

Collect! supports the following Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) scenario:

Connection

Connect using:

Service: 'collect'
Topic: 'dialer'

Command Line Startup Options

Turn on DDE by using /z in Collect!'s Command Line Startup Options.

Right-click the Collect! icon on your Desktop, choose Properties, and add the /z option to the Target line.

Example: Target: X:\Collect\bin\cv13.exe /z

Ready Indicator

The interaction between Collect! and a Predictive Dialer system relies on the Collect! session sending out a "Ready" signal when the collector is available for a call or a "Busy" signal when the collector is on a call or otherwise unavailable to the dialer.

It is the DDE Request command that manages these "Ready" and "Busy" signals.

DDE Execute Command

We use the DDE Execute command in the following format.

[open(debtor,file,FileNumber)]

Where the strings 'open', 'debtor' and 'file' are string literals, FileNumber is the ASCII representation of the file number of the Debtor Collect! is to display. Brackets are used as shown.

Example DDE Execute String: [open(debtor,file,1438)]

The result of this command is that the Debtor screen pops up and the collector can edit the file. During this time, the DDE Request commands return the string 'Busy,' as the collector is handling the call.

When the collector closes the Debtor by clicking OK, Collect! returns to the Predictive Dialer waiting for file screen. Now the DDE Request command returns the string 'Ready'.

If the file number is invalid, the collector will receive a message that the file could not be found in the database. Collect! DDE functions return a DDE_FACK, to acknowledge receiving the number. An invalid file number passed via DDE should not occur and indicates a serious campaign build issue on the predictive dialer side. If a collector were to see such a message, they should immediately contact their system administrator.

If the format of the command is incorrect, the DDE return value is DDE_FNOTPROCESSED. If this error occurs, please check the format of the Execute command you are sending. This error indicates that the Predictive dialer software has a problem.

If, for any reason, Collect! is not in the correct state for the DDE Execute function to succeed, the DDE return value is DDE_FNOTPROCESSED. The DDE caller should respond by trying again later.

DDE Functions And Callbacks

Collect! uses a limited subset of DDE command to enable predictive dialer links.

DDEInitialize - using the following parameters:

• APPCMD_FILTERINITS
• CBF_SKIP_CONNECT_CONFIRMS
• CBF_FAIL_SELFCONNECTIONS
• CBF_FAIL_POKES

DDECreateStringHandle: 'collect'

DdeConnectList: establishes a conversation with all server applications that support the 'collect' Service and 'collect' Topic names.

The data format we use is CF_TEXT - i.e. the standard text format.

Collect!'s responses to the following commands:

XTYP_CONNECT: Returns TRUE.

XTYP_ADVREQ: Returns "Ready" or "Busy".

XTYP_REQUEST: Returns "Ready" or "Busy".

XTYP_ADVSTART: Checks that the format is CF_TEXT and checks if the hszItem is the same as the application name "collect". Returns TRUE if the condition fails and FALSE if the condition succeeds.

XTYP_EXECUTE: If Collect! is busy, it returns DDE_FBUSY. If it doesn't understand the command/syntax, it returns DDE_FNOTPROCESSED. If it gets a file number, it returns DDE_FACK.

XTYP_REGISTER: Returns a DdeConnectList, then posts a DDE ADVSTART Transaction.

STYP_DISCONNECT: Returns a FALSE.

Setup Predictive Dialer With URL Strings

Collect!'s Web Predictive Dialer enables you to easily integrate your Predictive Dialer with VoIP and IP-PBX dialing systems. You simply start Collect! with the /w2 Web Host mode, start Predictive Dialer in Collect! and wait for calls. Collect! pops up the Debtor on your screen. If several accounts are found with the same phone number, Collect! returns all results in a Find by Phone list.

This feature requires that you have confirmed that your predictive dialer provider can communicate with your browser and send URL requests to it. Also, you must have licensed the Predictive Dialer module in Collect!.

Using the existing Predictive Dialer functionality, a dialing system can connect to Collect! via HTTP and pass a URL string containing a phone number.

Collect! listens in a special Web Host mode for HTTP requests and processes dial strings in the following formats.

Your dialing service must be able to pass the URL string in one of these formats. Collect! can process numbers with or without dashes. It is most efficient if you store numbers in the same format that your dialer uses.

Collect! Startup Parameters

Collect! Startup Parameters: /s80 /w2

Collect! Startup Parameters for Background Mode: /s80 /w2b

Regular mode requires that you select the Predictive Dialer option under the Tools menu. Background mode will enable the predictive dialer at all times. This is designed to allow incoming calls while working the Work in Progress.

Phone Number

Syntax: http://ipaddress/dialer?phone={phone_number}

Examples:

File Number

Syntax: http://ipaddress/dialer?file={file_number}

Example:

SSN

Syntax: http://ipaddress/dialer?ssn={ssn_number}

Examples:

Email

Syntax: http://ipaddress/dialer?email={email_address}

Example:

Client Account Number

Syntax: http://ipaddress/dialer?acct={acct_number}

Example:

Collect! will search the database for the value against the specified field and if a match is found, display the debtor. If multiple matches are found for different debtors, a list of matches is presented instead.

If required, you can add ss to the W2 command to enter in SSL mode (EX: /w2ss). Please note that this requires a valid SSL certificate in the bin folder. Please refer to the Help topic How To Setup Web Host for more information.

Using The Predictive Dialer

Start Collect! from a shortcut with the special arguments outlined above.

Select Tools->Predictive Dialer to start the Predictive Dialer. Collect! will display a message box and begin waiting for phone number packets to arrive via HTTP.

You can use /w2b to start the Predictive Dialer in background mode. This will allow you to work your To Do List while waiting for calls.

Waiting for Calls

As soon as a match is encountered, Collect! will display the Debtor.

If multiple matches are found, Collect! will display the list of matches.

Multiple Matches Found

If your Operator is Type Dialer, then when you sign in to Collect!, the system will start waiting for calls automatically.

Testing

To test, run the Predictive Dialer, "Tools->Predictive Dialer".

Then open up a browser and type http://ipaddress/dialer?phone=phone number where ipaddress is the IP address of your machine.

You should be able to just type 127.0.0.1 if you are testing from the same machine.

Examples:

If collect is operating in "Secure Web Dialer" mode, then use "https" instead of "http."