Autodialer software involves several components. This article discusses all the relevant pieces
to making autodialing work for your organization.
Conceptually, an autodialing system requires three core parts:
- Phone lines
- A tool that plays messages to the phone lines (most often a computer)
- A software to manage the messages played and to give the user a way to communicate with the
system.
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) http://dialogic.com/. 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 atwww.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. See
Hosted Dialer.
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)
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.
Simply put Autodialer software tells a computer to call a number and playback a
message.
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.
Here are some sample messages:
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:
List 1
2121111111
2122222222
2123333333
2124444444
2125555555
2126666666
2127777777
List 2
21233333333
21266666666
If we scrub list 2 against list 1, the resulting list, ‘List 3’, would be:
List 1
2121111111
2122222222
2124444444
2125555555
2127777777
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.
Disposition
The status of an individual phone call is referred to as the disposition. For example, if the
line was busy when the system attempted to call, the disposition would be simply busy. Disposition
can also indicate live answer, answering machine, bad lines, errors and a variety of logistical
terms.
