3 Percent, 2
Seconds And 1 Chance To Do It Right: Using The Predictive Dialer In An Age
Of Government Regulation By James F.
Mitchell, Concerto Software
You might not know it from the national news headlines, but there's more to
the federal government's most recent telemarketing regulations than a
'do-not-call' registry. As the dust settles from consumers' rush to sign up
for the list, it has become clear that making calls with a predictive dialer
will never be the same again. Maybe that's not such a bad thing: leveraging
the predictive dialer within the new federally mandated standards will help
contact centers boost their productivity and gain competitive advantage,
while helping to improve the reputation of the telemarketing industry.
The Predictive Dialer Is A Technology
Why does the predictive dialer matter? It can simultaneously place hundreds
or even thousands of calls and filter out no answers, busy signals and an-swering
machines, thus allowing only real people to be routed to agents. This makes
it an indispensable tool for reaching out to large volumes of customers and
prospective customers in a relatively short timeframe, and with a personal
touch. For marketing departments, it builds brand recognition; for CFOs, it
generates revenue streams. As a result, the predictive dialer has evolved
into the centerpiece of any outbound marketing campaign, and is a key
ingredient in a well-rounded contact center. However ' and this is going to
be a recurring theme ' the predictive dialer is a technology. It is a means
to an end, and a tool. Unfortunately, some tools have been used unwisely at
one time or another.
Most organizations leverage their dialers intelligently, to support a
business strategy and drum up sales. Still, overly aggressive dialer tactics
by some parties have become a concern, because setting the pacing on a
dialer too fast often results in 'abandoned calls.' (Abandoned calls are
instances where the dialer is turning up live contacts more rapidly than
agents can handle them, leaving an empty line when a consumer picks up the
phone.) Abandoned calls tend to irritate consumers, and this aggravation was
one of several drivers behind the dialer provisions in the recent
telemarketing regulations. It's important to understand why the dialer
regulations came about in order to understand better how to appropriately
and safely leverage dialers today.
In addition to helping companies comply with the mandate that only three
percent of calls can be abandoned, the dialer is important when considering
how to comply with regulations on the transmission of caller I.D.
information, reporting and even the much ballyhooed 'do-not-call' list. In a
perfect world, you would flip a switch on the dialer and ' presto! ' achieve
instant compliance with the regulations. Reality is slightly more complex.
The predictive dialer is a technology, and for technology to be worth its
weight, it must support an overarching business strategy. To truly comply
with new dialer rules, organizations must make proactive, top-down
appraisals of their businesses and the dialer's role in achieving business
objectives.
A Culture Of Compliance
'Top-down' is the key here: predictive dialer compliance is executed in the
contact center, but it begins in the boardroom. There is little room for
error in dialer compliance ' mistakes will lead to hefty fines ' and
management participation is integral to avoiding such penalties. All levels
of management must be involved in evaluating and modifying corporate
strategy to ensure that the dialer is in line with regulations and ethical
business practices. Management must lend palpable support to teams that deal
directly with dialers, and work to create a cohesive culture of compliance.
In addition, managers must take it upon themselves to continually monitor
abandonment rates and ensure they are within the dictated three percent
limit.
To create a culture of compliance, management must instigate strategy
changes in two key arenas: personnel and sales. On the personnel front,
organizations must provide proper training and guidance to contact center
supervisors (or whomever sets dialer pacing) on how to configure the dialer
in order to keep the abandoned call rate below three percent. Organizations
must also train agents regarding how to behave in view of the regulations.
This includes providing guidance on how to handle 'do-not-call' complaints,
as well as situations in which a consumer says 'no' to an offer or asks not
to be contacted in the future. Agent compensation should be reviewed also to
encourage appropriate behavior.
When it comes to sales, management must re-orient their view of how outbound
dialing fits into the mix. Foremost, organizations probably will not be able
to deploy the dialer to cast a wide net across customers, as they have in
the past. Moving forward, predictive dialers will be used to contact a
target group of consumers who do not mind telephone sales pitches, or
consumers with a prior business relationship. Whereas the dialer has been
the driving force behind sales efforts for some organizations, in the new
regulated environment, companies must diversify their sales strategy, honing
dialer outreach and expanding direct mail, direct response and e-mail
marketing efforts. These alternative marketing angles can be leveraged to
drive inbound calls or gain consumers' permission for direct phone contact.
Technology Fixes
In short, organizations must first comply with the spirit of the law by
calling only those consumers who have given their permission or have an
existing business relationship. Then, once companies have created a culture
of compliance, there are a number of technology details to bear in mind. As
mentioned earlier, setting the pacing on the dialer at the appropriate rate
is critical for compliance with the new acceptable abandonment rates. Pacing
will vary from enterprise to enterprise, but managers need to determine the
rate of dialing that ensures that agents are available to handle live calls.
In general, though, dialing rates will have to slow down across the industry
to adapt to the new abandonment rules, and 'machine-gun' dialing will soon
become the relic of a bygone era.
It is also important to note that calls are considered abandoned if an agent
is not transferred to the line within two seconds of a consumer's greeting.
Therefore, to conform to the new regulations, dialers must be able to
distinguish a live party on the line and route an agent to that call in less
than two seconds. For the latest breed of dialers, meeting this sanctioned
time limit is possible, even while high-end features like answering machine
detection are enabled. However, over the years, the predictive dialer has
proved to be a remarkably reliable technology and many contact centers have
not updated their dialers in quite some time. In fact, many dialers in use
today can take as long as four to five seconds to transfer an agent to a
live call ' a blatant infraction of the new legislation. Organizations with
older models must review their dialer performance to ascertain whether their
technology can meet the challenges created by the regulations.
On the other hand, if no agent is available to handle a live call,
organizations can comply by playing a recorded message to identify the
organization making the call and outline the reasons for calling. The
ability to play a recorded message is critical to reducing the number of
abandoned calls and remaining within the acceptable limit, because it allows
contact centers to staff a call even when all agents are occupied.
Obviously, this type of automated messaging is beyond the scope of
predictive dialing; however, in order to aid compliance today, dialers must
have the flexibility to either easily integrate with messaging or IVR
(interactive voice response) systems, or be part of a unified platform that
innately offers these functionalities together.
Another key component of the dialer regulations with respect to abandonment
rates is reporting. While consumers' complaints will be the primary tool for
the federal government to police the industry, companies will need to keep
detailed, real-time reports in case government auditors come knocking. The
government now demands increased diligence and more meticulous reporting
across the industry. Consequently, organizations must develop exacting
processes for keeping track of dropped calls, including a more robust
reporting structure. In so many words, once again, the predictive dialer is
a technology. While technology is certainly helpful in this effort and
dialers will need to include advanced reporting functionality moving
forward, creating a culture of compliance through training is of utmost
priority when updating reporting procedures.
Mr. Unavailable
Although the three percent abandonment rate and the two-second rule are the
aspects of the new telemarketing regulations that deal primarily with
predictive dialers, other facets of the legislation affect how the industry
can leverage dialers. The government now stipulates that telemarketers must
transmit their information to the caller I.D. services or devices that are
prevalent in many American households. Yes, it's true'Mr. 'Unavailable' has
been legislated into extinction.
However, this portion of the revised Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) poses a
problem for some service bureaus that make outbound calls on behalf of
several clients concurrently, because under the new regulations service
bureaus are obligated to transmit separate identification information for
each organization they represent. Unfortunately, existing communications
hardware often hampers efforts to enable dialers to transmit the requisite
information. Many companies are connected to the outside world via a T1
line, which allows the transmission of only one set of contact information.
Therefore, organizations needing to display contact information for multiple
sources will have to switch to an integrated services digital network
(ISDN).
Customer Information Is King
Predictive dialers also play a role in safeguarding customer information and
ensuring compliance with the 'do-not-call' registry. The bottom line is that
organizations can no longer use dialers as repositories for customer
information. Companies that have not made the move to top-flight billing or
CRM systems for housing customer information should seriously consider it.
The regulations mandate renewed vigilance when it comes to customer
information, and keeping detailed records of customer interactions can help
avoid costly fines. To function within the confines of regulations, dialers
need to be fed numbers from advanced information storehouses that are
cross-checking contacts against the 'do-not-call' list and previous
interactions. In turn, data must be sent back to the warehouse for use
across the enterprise after a dialer call wraps up. Again, this is not a
case of how you deploy the dialer, but making sure the dialer connects to
other technology that aids in the quest for compliance.
A Well-Stocked Stream
Once organizations have revamped their business strat-egies and adapted
their technology to support this strategy, where does this leave them? What
does the industry gain from the labor of compliance? Indeed, smart
organizations could stand to attract new business and profit by adhering to
the regulations. The tightening of abandoned call rates will help contact
centers better plan and forecast their agent usage, making sure that calls '
opportunities to generate revenue ' do not go unanswered. In other words,
the regulations will force outbound dialing operations to create a more
productive workforce.
The national registry will also trim out consumers who are unwilling to
purchase products or services via the telephone. Instead of fishing in an
ocean, telemarketers will now be casting into the waters of a stocked
stream, calling a more qualified pool of prospective customers. Thus,
combined with an optimized workforce, telemarketers should be able to
convert a higher percentage of calls to sales, as compared to a setting
where upwards of six percent of calls are abandoned. In short, the
regulations will create more effective and lucrative outbound dialing
operations.
While compliance with the regulations can have financial and productivity
benefits for individual organizations, it will also benefit the industry as
a whole. Telemarketing has gotten a bum rap over the past several years, due
mainly to an extreme minority of fraudulent operations and aggressive
dialing tactics. Heeding this round of regulations will help clean up the
perception of the industry and demonstrate its respect for consumer wishes.
Additionally, compliance now may prevent future legislation in other types
of indispensable outbound operations, such as collections. Also, as the
charlatans are weeded out, the regulations will also help convince the
public that telemarketers are legitimate business people, selling legitimate
products and services. After all, the practice does generate billions of
dollars in revenue annually!
The Next Frontier: Proactive Customer Care
The regulations will also encourage organizations to find alternative
functions for the predictive dialer to complement telemarketing and expand
revenue opportunities in new ways. Of these future applications of the
dialer, proactive customer care should be on the top of the list. Limited in
the ability to reach out to non-customers, organizations should increasingly
leverage dialers to contact existing customers, not only to upsell and
cross-sell them, but also to offer top-notch customer service. For example,
if an airline has a flight delayed, it can proactively call passengers to
alert them of the delay. Utilities can call customers to alert them of power
outages and blackouts. Retailers can deploy the dialer to follow up with
customers who have just purchased big-ticket items to make certain they are
satisfied. Banks and other financial services companies can reach out to new
account holders to welcome them aboard. As you can see, there is a universe
of applications for dialers in addition to telemarketing ' and with a little
creativity, dialers can continue to generate revenue and drive customer
loyalty in the future.
Parting Thoughts
One caveat as companies draw a roadmap to telemarketing regulations
compliance and think about how they will now deploy dialers: consult your
legal counsel. The government has written many complex new rules to govern
telemarketing. While I've outlined some suggestions for dialer compliance
above, it is necessary to sit down with your organization's lawyer to get a
firm interpretation of the laws and to understand how they apply to your
business. Ideally, consultation with legal experts will also help
organizations formulate their cultures of compliance. Remember: the
predictive dialer is a technology ' it can't read the law books or implement
the strategy for you!
One final pearl of wisdom: treat people with respect or it will only get
worse. There were several drivers behind these regulations, but foremost
they were a reaction by consumers to perceived privacy violations by
telemarketers. Whether these abuses are real or imagined, it is apparent
that the best way to make a sale is to abide by consumers' preferences.
Aggressive dialing and abandoned calls are not part of a smart sales
strategy. A sound strategy, the right technology and respect for customers'
wishes will help close deals and clean up the industry's public image.
James F. Mitchell is senior vice president and CTO of Concerto Software,
Inc. (www.concerto.com), a provider of
customer interaction management solutions for contact centers. As a
co-founder of Concerto Software, then called Davox Corp., Mitchell helped
pioneer and proliferate predictive dialing technology.
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