EGS was running a campaign which would contact their debtors multiple times in the same day, moving the user from one campaign to another. Voicent software does not have any restrictions on the number of times you can call someone, nor does the Voicent software know if you are a debt collector. Clearly the campaign that EGS was running that generated them revenues of $1.2 billion in 2011, was successful at collecting the debt, however there are other legal ways of getting a positive return.

Voicent’s Call Center Dialer / Agent Dialer / Predictive Dialer has an integrated alternate-phone system allowing you to specify multiple phone numbers for a single campaign. In some states(Contact your local attorney for FCC/FTC laws in your area) you are allowed to use multiple contact methods to attempt to reach the person you want to collect debt from, which in most cases will double, or triple your return rate.

In the above picture, you will see some Alternate Phone options. They are:

• Call Failed
• Call answered by answering machine
• Call answered but there is no response or confirmation
• Always call alternate number

The above options, will let the Dialer escalate the calls from one to another depending on what you check. If you want the system to call alternates in the case a call fails, or one is answered by an answering machine, or call is answered but there is no response or confirmation. Lastly, you can tell the Dialer to always call the alternate number. The Alternate phone system is part of our Call Center Suite, specifically a feature within the Voicent Agent Dialer.

Hello Voicent, I run a debt collection organization and currently collect debt from 5 states. I would like a dialer that offers the ability to dynamically change the Caller ID on an outbound phone call to try and match the area code of the number you are dialing, does Voicent software support this? If they do, how does it work and what will it require from me?

Voicent’s Call Center Manager with Rules Engine is an extremely powerful tool part of the Predictive Suite. The Call Center Manager is the tool that will let you:

1. Track your agents progress, statistical reports of agents events, and real time reporting.
2. Track your campaign progress, statistical reports of campaign events, and real time campaign reporting.
3. Real time tracking of your Line usage, Agent Status, and Dropped Call Ratio.
4. Real time whisper coaching
5. Define easy rules to route outbound calls to specific agents, or dynamically change outbound caller ID based on the number you are calling

An example of this within Call Center Manager with Rules Engine:

1. Step 1: Open Call Center Manager
2. Step 2: Navigate to the top left, and select “Manage”
3. Step 3: Under “Rules Engine” select “Set Line Usage Rules”
4. Step 4: Select “Add…” to add a new rule
5. Step 5: Give it a Rule name, and use the code below as an example to build yours

For the “This rule applies to calls that satisfy the following condition” use:

(__Call__.Phone.length() == 10 && __Call__.Phone.substring(0,3) == '408') || (__Call__.Phone.length() == 11 && __Call__.Phone.substring(1,4) == '408')

For the “Apply to lines that satisfies the following condition” use:

__Line__.Number == 1


Above, the __Call__.Phone.Length() will let you check to see the length of the phone number you are calling, if it does not have the country code, like “1″ for example being United States & Canada, you will need to check a 10 digit number. We check 11 digit and 10 digit numbers for this example.

The __Call__.Phone.substring(0,3) is going to check the first 3 digits of the phone number, so a number without a country code(10 digits) would have its first 3 digits be the area code.

__Call__.Phone.substring(1,4) will skip the first number on the phone number and check the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th number on the number that you are dialing.

Use substring(0, 3) as the leading 1 country code is not always used.

After the system matches those, we will tell it to use our 1st phone line which has a caller ID originating from the ’408′ area, by saying:

__Line__.Number == 1

More information on the rules engine can be found here along with documented syntax:

http://voicent.com/predictive-dialer/blog/index.php/call-center-software/378/call-center-manager-rules-engine

Luckily, our Call Center Manager with Rules Engine can accomplish this.

The steps to utilize this feature are outlined below:

*Required: Call Center Manager with Rules Engine

1. Open Call Center Manager
2. Go to “Manage”
3. Go to “Rules Engine” -> “Set Line Usage Rules”

An example rule is as follows: If you are calling a telephone with the area code 408, it will only use channels 1 to 9 to make the call. The first 9 channels have a caller ID associated with 408.

Rule Name:

AreaCode408

Condition:

(__Call__.Phone.length() == 11 && __Call__.Phone.substring(1,4) == '408') || (__Call__.Phone.length() == 10 && __Call__.Phone.substring(0,3) == '408')
Apply to lines:

__Line__.Number < = 10

Explanation:

__Call__.Phone.length() == 11

Will check the length of the telephone number.

__Call__.Phone.substring(1,4) == '408'

Will grab the second, third, and fourth letters of a telephone number. It will ignore the first number which is usually a country code.