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DSC Tech Library
This section of our technical library presents information and documentation relating to Predictive Dialers and Auto Dialer software and products.
The PACER and Wizard phone systems are PC based call center phone systems that are recognized as premier inbound and outbound computer telephony systems. Features such as automatic call distribution (ACD), Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and call recording have added a new dimension to the predictive dialer and auto dialer capabilities of these systems. These computer based dialing systems can perform various types of auto dialing campaigns simultaneously. These types include Predictive Dialing, Progressive Dialing, Preview Dialing and Dial on Demand.
Counting Abandoned Contact Center Calls
By Kimberly Hill
Forrester Research Extract
The following is an extract written by Kimberly Hill, CRM Daily, from a recently released Forrester Research paper regarding the accounting methods used for abandoned calls. This is the result of new FCC regulations that dictate performance measurements and minimun standards for call centers when contacting households using auto and predictive dialers as well as IVR and automated answering systems.
"One of the primary measures used to gauge contact-center effectiveness is the rate at which customers abandon calls. Contact-center managers employ a variety of techniques, such as pre-recorded messages, on-hold updates, and interactive voice response (IVR) prompts to get callers to stay on the line and wait for a live agent to help them.
Measuring the call abandon rate seems like a pretty straightforward affair -- count the hang-ups. But such is not the case, according to Forrester Research's Chip Gliedman. In fact, he explains, contact centers go to great lengths to make those numbers look better than they may really be.
Paper Versus Reality
Some contact centers -- those associated with internal help desks, especially -- have pre-established service-level agreements with their clients. A tech support operation, for example, might guarantee that a call will be answered by an agent within 60 seconds.
Thus, some contact centers do not count a call as abandoned until after the 60 seconds has expired, Gliedman says. This makes the abandon rate look better, but it also can mask the fact that the service level agreement is set at too long a period for many customers' patience.
Other operations do not count a call as abandoned until a customer interacts initially with an IVR system and then hangs up. Someone who does not respond at all to the IVR may have gotten a wrong number, or so the logic goes.
Once again, counting calls in this way can reduce the abandon rate on paper, but it also could cover up some serious customer-service issues. The company could have confusing or ineffective
IVR menus in place, says Gliedman, so customers hang up rather than try to make their way through the maze.
Getting Real
Some companies place a pre-recorded message at the beginning of each call to alert customers to a system-wide outage or other widespread problem. Those customers that hang up after the message are not considered to have abandoned their calls but rather to have gotten the information they needed. Still others do not count a call as abandoned if the customer calls back within a certain period of time -- 15 minutes, say.
All these techniques are ways to make abandon rates appear better statistically than they really are, asserts Gliedman. Until contact-center managers get real about their abandon rates and investigate the reasons that customers are hanging up at all points in calls, they will not be able to improve customer service."
Predictive Dialer Software and Call Center Predictive Dialers - Database Systems Corp. provides CRM call center software plus CTI phone systems, predictive dialers, IVR systems, ACD systems, Voice Broadcasting systems.
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