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Dialing Modes

Interaction Dialer has several dialing modes that determine how contacts are dialed. A different Dialing mode can be selected for each campaign, and the dialing mode for a campaign can be changed on the fly in many cases.

NOTE: If you are running Interaction Dialer using the Manual Calling feature license, then the only dialing mode that will be available to you is the Preview Dialing Mode. However, the Preview Countdown feature is not supported on a Manual Calling Server.

The dialing modes are:

Most Aggressive			Least Aggressive
Predictive	Power	Precise		Agentless	Preview
Predicts when agent will be available	Waits for agent to become available	Used within Predictive and Power Dialing		Play messages, send faxes, use outbound IVR	Agent is presented with contact's info for review
Dials multiple numbers before agent becomes available	Dials multiple numbers when agent becomes available	Sets agent aside for call to assure the call is not abandoned		Can transfer from IVR to inbound Queue	Agent presses dial when ready
Uses call analysis to detect live person	Uses call analysis to detect live person	Uses call analysis to detect live person		Uses call analysis to detect live person	Agent performs call analysis

IMPORTANT: Power and Predictive dialing modes use CIC's ACD subsystem to route calls. If agents do not have an ACD Access License, Dialer will not route calls to those agents. To receive calls in Predictive or Power Dialing modes, your agents must have an ACD Access License assigned to them. Specifically, in Interaction Administrator, the ACD Access License box must be checked on the Licensing tab of a user configuration. See Dialer Access Licenses and information available online at http://license.inin.com.

Predictive Dialing Mode

Predicts agent availability and number of calls needed to keep agent busy
Places calls in parallel before agent becomes available
System uses call analysis to determine dial result

In predictive dialing mode, the server predicts agent availability and places calls based on internal statistics. The server predicts the number of calls that must be made in order to provide each agent with a targeted party at the moment the agent becomes available.

Predictive mode is similar to Power mode, except that Dialer tries to predict when an agent will be idle and places calls before that, so that by the time the call has been answered by a customer, a Dialer agent will be just becoming available.

Predictive mode tracks how long agents spend on calls, so it can make an accurate prediction. This mode requires at least 7 agents to be logged on, preferably more than that. The larger the agent pool, the more accurate the predictions can be, minimizing idle time even further than in Power mode and decreasing the likelihood of an abandon.

Power Dialing Mode

Predicts number of calls needed to keep agent busy
Places calls in parallel once agent become available
Uses call analysis to determine dial result

Power mode dials from the campaign list only when an agent is available to process the call. This mode waits for an agent to become available before placing outbound calls. It calculates the number of calls to place in order to reach a live party.

When an agent becomes available, Dialer sends a number of calls to Telephony Services to be placed from the system queue. The number of calls to place is determined by a calculation that Dialer makes based on previous calls, with the goal of one of the initiated calls being answered by a live person. This number can be limited by the Dialer configuration. For example, if Dialer calculates that the current campaign has a 20 percent connect rate, it will try to place 5 calls for every idle agent to ensure a connection. Once a live caller is returned by Telephony Services, Dialer hands the call off to an ACD queue or an ACD group, to be routed to an agent who is logged into the campaign. Note that the call is not necessarily assigned to the agent whose idle event caused the call to be placed. This mode requires at least 5 agents to be logged into a campaign for best effect and to minimize idle time and abandons.

Precise Dialing Mode

Used within predictive or power campaign via contact policy
Sets agent aside while placing call to assure call is not abandoned

Used within Predictive or Power campaigns, Precise mode is entered per call via a contact policy. This mode sets an agent aside for that call to guarantee that the call cannot be abandoned. Once the call is finished, places agent back in pool of all idle agents.

Agentless Dialing Mode

Does not require call center agents
System uses call analysis to determine dial result

Agentless campaigns do not connect parties with an agent. Instead, Agentless campaigns can play a .wav file to answering machines; send faxes to fax machines, and route calls answered by live recipients to an Attendant profile.

Interaction Attendant is an easy-to-use graphical interface used for inbound IVR and auto-attendant menus and for outbound IVR and messaging applications. Using an Interaction Attendant profile allows in-house development of simple messaging applications or more complex outbound IVR menus, giving called parties the option to talk to an agent, remove their name from a list, and so on.

Agentless campaigns respond appropriately to live persons, to answering machines, and to fax machines by playing an audio file, transferring the call to an Attendant profile, sending a fax, or by hanging up.

NOTE: Interaction Dialer Manager does not allow a campaign's calling mode to be changed from agentless to another mode, while the campaign is active.

Preview Dialing Mode

Presents contact to agent before dialing
Agent dials call and performs call analysis

Preview dialing mode presents agents with information about the targeted party before the call is actually placed. When ready, the agent manually starts the call by clicking a button in the predictive client application. The agent can be given the option to reschedule the call, or skip to the next data pop.

In Preview Mode, Dialer presents a Scripter pop to an available agent and places a call object in an Initializing state on the agent's queue. The agent will then review the information for the customer record and decide whether to place the call or skip to the next record. Once the call is placed, it is placed from the agent's user queue and no call analysis is done (the agent will hear all pre-connect audio). This is the slowest of the Dialing methods, but it prevents any chance of an abandon. This mode is typically used for high value contacts.

Special considerations apply to contact policies in this dialing mode. See Policies in Preview dialing mode.

NOTE: Preview Dialing is a non-ACD dialing mode. When preview dialing is used in a blended ACD environment, there is a chance that agents will be routed an ACD interaction at the same time a Preview call is assigned to the agent's queue. Once the agent is placed into a Campaign Call status, ACD server will not route ACD calls to that agent. However, that small window of time the agent is available could be enough time to receive a Dialer and ACD interaction at the same time. For this reason, it is not advised to run a Preview dialing mode campaign with blended ACD agents.