A waiting period for a contact is an interval of time, during which, the automatic callers (progressive, preview or any of the call robots) will not call that contact. A waiting period might begin because:
- The contact didn't answer
- Their line was busy
- The agent selects an outcome which has a waiting period defined for it.
As an Admin, you can define which of these triggers a waiting period, and how long the period lasts.
Waiting periods and agents
Before setting waiting periods for call outcomes, it is useful to understand their impact on agents.
- The automatic dialers will not call a number which is currently on a waiting period.
- Agents can still call the contact, either by making a Manual call, dialing the contact from the Contact List tab, or picking the contact from the History page and calling from there. (Depending on the project settings, these options may not all be available).
- In the Contact List tab (if enabled for your agents), contacts on a waiting period are shown with a yellow background. This will revert to normal when the waiting period ends.
Waiting periods after unanswered calls
If a call is not answered the first time you place it, you probably do not want to call again immediately afterwards. For each outbound project, you can define how long you should wait before calling again.
You can specify this behaviour when you create a project, or update it at any later point. In your Admin account:
- Go to the Projects page.
- Go to the Project List subpage.
- To create a new project, click Create. You may be prompted to select which type of Project to create. If so, for outbound calling, select Call center project.
Alternatively, to edit an existing project, find it in the Project List and click its name. - Scroll down to the Call results section.
In the Call results section you can manage how the campaign handles unanswered calls.
You may want to wait a relatively short time after the first unanswered call to a number, but if the call is unanswered again, you may want to wait longer. The first two settings lets you do this.
- Define waiting period for unanswered numbers. Type a number of minutes to wait after the first unanswered call.
- Define waiting period for repeatedly unanswered numbers. Type a number of minutes to wait after subsequent unanswered calls.
If the contact is busy and unable to answer at a particular time of day, you may want to avoid calling at the same time again, or near it.
- Define a daily calling time restriction for an unanswered number. Lets you choose a number of hours to avoid either side of a time you had previously called.
For example if you set this value to 2 hours and a call at 1117 was not answered, the next call attempt will not happen between 0917 (two hours before the previous unanswered call) and 1317 (two hours after the previous unanswered calling time).
Sending a message
If your agent is using the Talk interface (not including Legacy Talk), you can also send an SMS message to any contact who doesn't answer. Just above the Waiting period settings, you can select to Send message when contact doesn't answer.
- Click the Message templates drop-down list and select the template to send. Note that only SMS templates appear in this list.
Waiting periods after Busy
The Busy outcome is a special global outcome which will be given to any attempted call which received a busy signal. You can set waiting periods for this.
In your Admin account:
- Go to the General Settings page.
- Go to the Global outcomes subpage.
- Find the Busy outcome in the list and click the edit button
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- Define a Waiting period for called number.
- Define a Waiting period for repeated outcome to determine how long the waiting period should be if you get repeated busy signals.
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Define a Waiting period for contact's other numbers. If the contact has multiple phone numbers you can set a different waiting period for them.
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You can also define a daily Calling time restriction for called contact. If set, the contact's numbers can only be called during the specified period.
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Click to tick Move number in front of the call queue when waiting period is applied to it if you want the contact prioritised for calling once the waiting time has elapsed.
- Once done, click the Save button
Sending a message
One additional consideration is you may wish to send the contact a message, typically an email or an SMS, after attempting the call.
- Click the Message templates drop-down list and select the correct template.
- Optionally, click the Automatic sending check box. This will send the message without requiring input from the agent.
Sending an email template requires the contact to have an email address.
Waiting periods after other outcomes
The options described above for the Busy outcome are also available for other outcomes, for both global and project-specific outcomes.
For example, let's say you speak to a contact who seems interested but says they "can't talk to you today."
You could create an outcome called, say, 'Not Today' which:
- Sends Message templates to summarise the outcome, for example an SMS which says, "Thank you for talking with me today, as agreed I will call back in a few days and we can discuss this opportunity further."
- Sets a Waiting period for called number to at least 1 day.
If the agent selected the 'Not Today' outcome, the contact would not be called for at least 24 hours.
For more information about outcomes see Call results - Creating and editing outcomes.