Autodialer Software

CallFire’s AutoDialer is a robust system that can streamline your calling campaigns. Within the AutoDialer is a powerful telephony infrastructure suitable for any task, no matter the quantity or complexity. It is responsible for reporting the status of a campaign, the disposition of individual calls, tracking and for optimizing communication. CallFire's AutoDialer software allows you to design how the infrastructure works best for your needs, giving you the flexibility to connect the way you see fit.

What is AutoDialer Software?

CallFire's AutoDialer Software is a system which can initiate a phone call without human intervention (autodial) and convey a set of information to the receiving party, pre-recorded or live, using a telephony infrastructure. It comprises the creation of a campaign, which consists of a list of phone numbers to dial followed by a pre-recorded message or live conversation with built-in scripts designated by the campaign manager. The lists will commonly include specific information, such as the target contact's name/address or other relevant demographic information. When using our AutoDialer Software, it's easy for campaign managers to 'scrub' their phone lists against the FCC's Do Not Call Registry to eliminate numbers that have Opted-Out of receiving telemarketer phone calls.

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AutoDialer Components

Conceptually, an autodialing system requires three components:

Phone Lines

The technology used to run phone lines hasnt changed much since the first AutoDialers were introduced in the mid 70s. We refer to standard phone lines and the network that runs them as POTS (Plain Old Telephone System).

Voice Over IP, VoIP, threatens to entirely replace the existing POTS infrastructure. A revolutionary technology, VoIP allows higher quality sound at lower costs. Though VoIP can work with standard phone lines, it does not need a phone line to function, users can just easily communicate directly using computers or devices specifically manufactured for the purpose, such as IP Phones.

A more rigorous treatment of VoIP can be found at the wikipedia voip article.

Server

A computer needs a few basic parts to work with audio content and to interface with phone or VoIP lines. Perhaps the most important is a Digital Signal Processor (DSP) - a device that converts audio content (analogue) to a digital format (and vice-versa) so a computer can manipulate and understand it.

AutoDialer machines have historically been built using embedded DSP (Digital Signal Processing) systems such as those developed by Dialogic (now a subsidiary of Intel). These processors are dedicated to nothing else but the conversion of analog to digital.

Though hardware DSP is highly effective and does its job very well, it is expensive to deploy and maintain.

Recent advancements in Intel based computing have allowed for the availability of powerful inexpensive systems which can function on par with hardware DSP technologies using Software based DSP.

Asterisk, and in turn CallFire use the DSP work of Steve Underwood whose website can be found at www.soft-switch.org.

Using DSP, the computer is able to detect human vs. answering machine, playback messages and properly report back to the user the various possible codes that it encounters.

AutoDialer Software

The software that manages the computer and phone lines is at the heart of any autodialing system. It is responsible for reporting the status of a campaign, the disposition of individual calls and for optimizing connections.

Depending on how robust the software is, it can also dynamically alter its dialing habits to fit the list for example if the system encountering a large number of busy dispositions, it dynamically increases the total quantity dialed or alerts the campaign manager.

In larger systems, the software is also responsible for intelligently distributing calls among possibly hundreds of computers. Though this introduces huge amounts of complexity it is often necessary for hosted or large applications.

When connecting call center agents to consumers, the software is also used to optimize the total amount of time the agent is on the phone as opposed to on hold. For example, if a call center with 100 agents wants to keep as many agents as possible talking to potentials, the AutoDialer software will need to call more than a one to one ratio.

It will need to factor in the quality of the numbers being dialed, the average duration of a call and a multitude of list related factors. All this while guaranteeing that interested potentials do not have to wait on hold unnecessarily.

In fact the FCC mandates that an AutoDialer maintain a less than two percent ‘drop rate.’ (The percentage of calls an AutoDialer can dial and not connect to an available live person within 2 seconds)

Conventions / Assumptions / Definitions

For the purposes outlined above, we define AutoDialer Software as a system which can initiate a phone call without human intervention and convey a set of information to the receiving party using a telephony infrastructure.

Campaign

A campaign consists of a list of phone numbers to dial and a group of message(s) to play to the receiving party. Designing effective campaigns is not a topic we will cover here.

List

The list of phone numbers to dial.

A list will commonly also include number specific information such as the target contacts name / address or relevant demographic information.

Message

Arguably the most important component of a campaign, the message is the content that is to be delivered to whoever picks up the phone on the other end.

Messages range from reminders for upcoming appointments to solicitations for bill collection and a multitude of applications in between.

DNC

The Do Not Call registry is an opt-in list run by the FCC. The FCC mandates that calls made to consumers by telemarketers be scrubbed against this list. Multiple rules and regulations are defined that all telemarketers must adhere to: https://telemarketing.donotcall.gov/

Scrub

Scrubbing is the act of removing numbers from a list using another list. For example say we have two lists, if we scrub 'List 2' against 'List 1', the resulting list would be 'List 3'.

In general, scrubbing is either used as a way to refine a list to get higher quality numbers for whatever campaign you are running, or to remove individuals that have opted out of being called.

AutoDialer Pricing As Low as $2 per Hour

If you’ve done your research, you know that many autodialer solutions will cost you anywhere from $500-$1000 per agent just to get started. CallFire has a much more affordable pay-as-you-go system, with no monthly commitments or start up fees. Just choose one of our 3 affordable plans: Lite ($2/hour), Standard ($3/hour), or Pro ($4/hour) – all billed to the nearest minute. To see the differences between plans, please visit our Cloud Call Center pricing page.

Getting Started

1. Click "Sign Up" at the top right of this page.
2. Set up your automated attendant and start taking calls!