Ofcom has powers to take action if a person ‘persistently misuses an electronic communications network or service, most commonly manifested in the current 3% abandon rate limit that is imposed on UK contact centres for daily dialling.
The consultation ending on 24th February 2016 will seek to determine which of the following new measures Ofcom will impose upon UK Contact Centres, outside of the existing 3% abandon rate limit:
- The ability to take enforcement action where a caller makes more than three abandoned calls
- A complete ban on Silent Calls with a zero tolerance policy
- Reducing the allowed drop call rate from 3% either to a lower percentage or a flat number in a given 24-hour period
- A ban on AMD (Answer Machine Detection)
- A ban on Local Number Presentation (Localised CLI)
- A cap on the amount of times you can call a client
- Defining the times you are allowed to call clients.
The extent and number of which features will be implemented is yet to be known, however, the Genius predictive dialler not only has a self-regulating algorithm to ensure automatic adherence to the 3% abandon call limit, it also has control mechanisms in-built to control every single one of the seven independent measures above, ensuring future proof compliance in any such scenarios above.
For each measure, the our cloud dialler system control mechanisms are outlined below and how they are currently administered day to day by Genius clients:
The ability to take enforcement action where a caller makes more than three abandoned calls
In our hosted dialler you can easily cap the number of calls to a particular call outcome by setting a maximum number of recorded attempts. You can set the limit per outcome (or at account level) as well as set the time intervals for the specified retry attempt, if the maximum dial count has not been reached:
“Automate every element of your dialler retry strategy, maximise productivity and Ofcom & ICO compliance”
All such settings are at individual campaign level, catering for different retry management regimes with varying tolerances levels for different campaigns.
A complete ban on Silent Calls with a zero tolerance policy
Our cloud predictive dialler can be set to run in any mode: preview (with an optional force dial tolerance also after X seconds), progressive (1 to 1 dialling), or predictive. These settings are specific to individual call campaigns, giving the flexibility to tailor each campaign to the relevant settings and demands of the activity. As well as setting the Predictive dialling mode to 0%, which defaults the cloud dialler back into Progressive dialling mode, the abandon rate can also be set at a sliding percentage level such as 1%/2% target rate (which also satisfies point 3 also):
“Our simple interfaces allow the user to manage predictive dialler abandon rate, ring time and maximum dial attempts in line with Ofcom and ICO rules”
A ban on AMD (Answer Machine Detection)
As default, our predictive dialler runs with Answer Machine Detection disabled.
By having AMD switched off as default, all Answer Machines are classed as live connects, allowing the dialler to run faster as this gives a favourable weight to the abandon rate calculation.
A ban on Local Number Presentation (Localised CLI)
Our hosted dialler management application gives the user an ability to quickly apply and append in multiple CLI batches to display and rotate. Access to this feature is immediately configurable in the administrator panel, should any Ofcom view on this change, to immediately disable it from all end user access:
“CLIs can be easily managed using our simple one-click dialler management interface”
A cap on the amount of times you can call a client
As well as having the ability to configure the retry management regime and maximum number of call attempts per outcome, our hosted dialler can also cap it at account level and set a maximum number of dial/retry attempts, regardless of what those are.
Again, these settings are all configurable at individual campaign level, allowing for varying levels of dialling dynamics, per campaign, per client, per market segment:
“Manage dialler abandon rate, dialler ring time, dialler maximum call attempts, all automatically using our simple cloud interfaces”
Defining the times you are allowed to call customers
The Genius cloud dialler has an inbuilt level of dialling dynamics which allows dialling by pre-defined call window segments. If we take the example of Morning, Afternoon, Evening or Anytime records if we assign values to the records, i.e. M1 versus M5, with 1 being the most likely to connect in the given segment, if we give the accounts 5 dial attempts overall, see 6. above, we may say an M1 has 5 dial attempts, but all in the morning, but because an M5 if still likely to connect in the morning, but less likely than an M1, it has 3 morning attempts, before 2 afternoon, creating not just defined times, but also individual workflows per account, taking it way beyond where any regulatory compliance may ultimately get to in terms of defining acceptable call windows for dialling particular customer segments which will almost certainly not be a uniform segmentation either. More importantly this allows the user to develop the simplest, or most complex dialling strategy rules to maximise contact rates.
Outwith time windows alone, complex dialling intelligence can be driven as below, with combinations of single or multiple database criteria:
“Manage your data and dialling strategies in real time, using intelligence at the touch of a button in our dialler”