The Consequences Of Silent Calls – The Stakes Have Been Raised

30/04/2010

By Trevor Richer, Marketing Director EMEA, Empirix

The Government's recent decision to take more agressive action against companies making silent calls has captured the attention of businesses throughout the UK. Most notably, fines have skyrocketed from £50,000 to £2m. Against this backdrop, organisations are assessing their strategy for using predictive dialling to ensure that the technology adheres to the Government's regulations while also making a positive impact on the company's bottom line and reputation.

Let's start with an explanation of silent calls. Organisations use predictive dialling to automatically generate just enough calls to keep every outbound call centre agent busy. However,...

...they do so by over dialling, which causes silent calls (calls that are dropped because there is no agent available to take the call).

These devices can also incorporate answering machine detection (AMD) in an attempt to distinguish between an answering machine and a real person, connecting only real people to agents and hanging-up on answering machines. However, there are a couple of potential problems. First, the limit for silent calls is only 3% which is not very high. Second, the AMD may mistakenly conclude that an answering machine has picked up the line when, in fact, it is a real person. It will then drop the call, also creating a silent call. The regulations state that silent calls created by over dialling and AMD must not exceed the 3% limit.

No one likes silent calls. They are a nuisance and often a cause of anxiety for consumers. And for the businesses placing the calls, the risk of alienating customers is unacceptable. Nonetheless, predictive diallers are here to stay. Despite the challenges mentioned above, predictive diallers offer the potential for an organisation to increase productivity by up to 300% over... continued on page two >

 

 

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