System governed outbound telephony in Telia ACE consists of three separate function packages; callback, preview campaign and dialer campaign. All to be configured via ACE Admin.
Callback is the kind of outbound telephony used when customers themselves request to be called again at a later occasion. A callback record is created via an IVR dialogue, from a web page or through a call with an agent. Information about the call to be made is saved by ACE as a callback record. This callback record contains the customer’s telephone number and the time when the customer is to be called. When the time has come to call the customer, the callback record is routed to a queue or waiting list, is accepted by an agent and ACE then dials the telephone number seen in the callback record.
With the Callback appointment scheduling function, the customers calling for e.g. counselling can in an IVR dialogue choose an exact time to be called back, and the agents handling the counselling get a preset duration time for each appointment.
ACE also offers an automatic callback function named Outbound survey. An automatic service connected to ACE Survey calls the customer, asking questions after the customer’s contact with the customer service has been ended.
Campaign is the term for outbound telephony used e.g. for sales through telephony or for a customer poll. A campaign can be seen as a list with records – facts about customers to be called for a special purpose. Campaign records are entered into ACE by a couple of different methods and the resulting calls are dialled out in two technically different methods named preview campaigns and dialer campaigns.
To comply with the data protection directives regulated by the Personal Data Act (PUL in Sweden), all searches for callback and campaign records done via Telia ACE are logged. So, accredited personnel can afterwards, up to six months later, see who has searched for what, and when the search was done.
Outbound telephony as the agents see it
For the agents all types of outbound telephony result in very similar procedures.
A callback call in ACE Agent is processed in the following order:
- To begin with, the agent either selects a callback record from waiting list or waits for a callback record to be routed via a callback queue.
- When the callback record is routed to the agent, the Accept button flashes and information about the delivered callback record is shown in the area for contacts in progress. Unless Accept contact automatically is activated in the client settings the agent has to click on an Accept button for the call to be dialled out.
- The call is made, and the agent speaks with the customer.
- ACE Agent will consider the call to be ended when the agent has given feedback, i.e. selected from a list of default feedback choices to indicate the outcome of the call.
Depending on the campaign type, campaign calls are handled in slightly different ways. If the campaign calls are made with ACE Agent the campaign is of the Preview kind. A preview campaign distributes call records via a queue or a waiting list and the agent will handle these calls in exactly the same way as callback calls. See above.
If the customers are to be called via a specific IVR machine named ACE Dialer, the campaign is of the Dialer type. The major difference from other services is the login procedure to ACE Dialer. Another notable difference is in processing general campaign records, where the customer is called without the agent having accepted the ring out and that the agent does not see contact data until the customer call is connected.