Develop and deploy auto dial application

Posted on February 11, 2011 | By Voicent News

I have been asked to develop an autodial application for over 25,000 calls per day. I need to know how you would recommend I configure the applicarion, web front-end, data integation from the web page to the application, and especially the server requirements and the telecom requirements. Do I need a Mitel, Cisco or some other switch to process the calls for the application to the telecom lines? Do I bundle lines and set up as hunt groups, etc.?? I really like the application and it fits our requirements, but I am not sure how to setup the environment to operate standalone.

Assuming you need one minute for each phone call and 8 hours for calls, you will need about 50 to 100 lines/channels to accomplish that call volume. You have two choices for setting up these telecom lines: one is use a SIP trunking service that can provide you the required channels, and the other is to use a SIP compatile PBX system. If you use SIP trunking service, you can simply configure the software to utilize its service. If you use a PBX system, such as Mitel or Cisco, you can configure SIP extensions from the PBX and configure Voicent software as extensions. To test, we recommend you configure one or two lines using callcentric.

To use Voicent software for this purpose, all you need is a powerful server computer and enough internet bandwidth. You need 128Kbps per line/channel. For server computer to run 50 or more lines, you need the best computer you can buy. You need a computer with multiple Xeon processors, each processor with multiple cores, and at least 8G of memory.

We recommend you take a look at not only Voicent BroadcastByPhone auto dialer but also Voicent IVR Studio. IVR Studio has builtin support for database, website, email, and external programs. Use this tool to design your interactive call message.

We also recommend you utilize a relational database to keep track of all the call information for your website and Voicent programs. For example, once a call list is uploaded to your website, you can save it to the database, then launch Voicent auto dialer through command line. The command line can specify which call message/application to use and to update the database whenever a call is finished.

Posted in Auto Dialer, Developer |

Setup call center service for doctors

Posted on February 11, 2011 | By Voicent News

We are a startup looking to provide technology services to Dr. offices/hospitals/local businesses/etc. in various geographic areas. Essentially we want to add not only the ability to leave pre-recorded messages at the patients’ customers’ contact numbers, but we are considering a mini (4-12 agent) call center to add value such as collections or appt. rescheduling, etc. At this point I am looking for technology recommendations as well as ballpark pricing:

1. Is your solution premise or hosted or both?
2. What is the general pricing for approx. 24 simultaneous outbound calls? General pricing needed for growth as well…
3. We have some past experience with Dialogic-based IVR servers….what underlying technology do you use and how customizable is your system? How, for example, can we administer adding new messages, database additions, etc. Windows or Linux- based? GUI?

Voicent software is premise based and we have a few products that you can choose from. The pricing depends on the products and configuration. To get a general idea of pricing, please take a look at our online store. For setting up a service, you will need enterprise editon so you can use the command line or web interface of the software. You can take a look at the following products:

Voicent AutoReminder is an appointment scheduler with automated phone reminders. (Email and SMS capabilities will be added very soon). The tool has command line and web interface so you should be able to drive it from other applications or web sites. The tool also supports multiple users (doctors) so each appointment reminder message can be different. For a single location doctor office, this tool is all you need. But for service providers, you’ll need IVR Studio for added customization.

IVR Studio is a GUI based application design tool for interactive voice and SMS applications. It has built-in support for relational database, website, email server, and external programs. For example, you can construct a call message such that at the end of the call, the status is automatically saved to your scheduling database. For appointment reschedule, your call message can set press a key to transfer to agent for reschedue.

Voicent software does not use Dialogic board. The software can be configured to use your existing PBX systems or VOIP services (such as SIP trunking service). With VOIP, you have the flexibility of how may lines/channels to use, where to install the server software, and switch to different providers to take advantage of lower prices.

There are a lot of considerations for setting up a call center for hospitals and doctor offices, so the best way to get started is download the software and give it a try. The downloaded shareware edition has no time limit. The main limitation is that Voicent trial message is included in each phone call. We also have many knowledge base articles for software integration, just check the developer category here.

Posted in Appointment Reminder, Developer |

Improve audio quality

Posted on February 7, 2011 | By Voicent News

I have been using the software for some time and it has been working well. There are two issues I am hoping you can help me with:

1- We have recorded several voice messages to be played. Your software would only accept 8-bit recodings which are very “tin-like” and have a lot of background noise. I tried both the the Sound Recorder in Windows XP as well as Audacity, both produce noisy 8-bit recordings. What do you suggest we do to improve the quality of the recordings?

The audio format: PCM 16KHz, 8bit, mono is the standard phone audio. Any other format must be converted to this format in order to be played over the traditional telephone network (PSTN). The noisy part is usually not related to the 8 bit format, but to your recording equipment and environment. Our sample message is recorded in a professional recording studio and it does not contain any background noise. For more information on recording, please see audio FAQ.

2- We use a combination Voice Recording and TTS in our messages. Our contacts complain often that the TTS segment runs too fast and becomes un-intelligible. How can we slow the TTS down? Does BBP accept other TTS software? Thanks

Yes, the best solution is to have a better TTS engine. Voicent software accept any SAPI compatible TTS engine (most of the commercial ones are). When getting the TTS engine, try to get the 16Khz voices. You can also save money by getting a single-channel, none-server TTS engine since multi-channel features are impleted in Voicent TTS Plug-in already.

Posted in Appointment Reminder |