During the course of attempting to call a contact, you may need to call several times before the call is answered. If you have several unanswered calls in a row, you might want to think about a different calling strategy. For example you might want to:
- Wait a longer time before the next attempt.
- Try the next call in the morning.
- Try calling from a different outbound number.
These settings can all be handled using outcomes for consecutive unanswered calls.
Consecutive unanswered calls
You can create or edit these outcomes when you create a project, or at any point after that. 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.
Alternatively, to edit an existing project, find it in the Project list and click its name. - Scroll down to the Results section.
The settings for handling unanswered calls can be found under Consecutive unanswered calls.
Adding ranges
By default, the Consecutive unanswered calls section will include one range called Starting from unanswered call 1. The settings for this range let you define what happens after the first unanswered call, and subsequent unanswered calls.
If you want the behaviour to change if you get several unanswered calls, you can add a new range. To do so:
- Click the New range button.
- Click the drop-down list Starting from unanswered call and select the call number you want to change the behaviour for.
For example, if you want the first two unanswered calls to behave the same way, and only do something different with the third call, add a new range starting from call three.
You can add multiple ranges covering up to unanswered call 10, though keep in mind your contact list may limit call attempts to less than this anyway.
"Consecutive" unanswered calls
It is important to remember that the ranges are for consecutive unanswered calls. If the contact does answer one of your call attempts, the counter resets. If they don't answer the next time you call, this would be the first unanswered call again.
Actions for unanswered calls
Once you have defined the ranges, you can set the actions for each range separately.
Each range for consecutive calls is treated as a different outcome, and the settings available mirror those of other outcomes. For full descriptions of these settings, see the article Results - Creating and editing outcomes.
- Click to expand the range you wish to update the settings for.
- Update the settings as required.
Removing and Moving settings
The Removing settings let you finalise the contact.
- You may decide that after a certain number of consecutive unanswered calls, this contact is no longer worth pursuing. You can finalise the contact by ticking Removes contact from contact list.
- If you are using B2B, you will also have the option to remove the company from the contact list.
- The Moving settings let you change which contact list the contact is in. This includes the option to blacklist a number.
Waiting periods
If a call goes unanswered, you may want to wait before calling the number again. The Waiting period and calling time settings let you control just that.
- You can specify a Waiting period for called number, or ...for contact's other numbers.
- If you want to have the number called as soon as the waiting period elapses, click to tick Move number in front of the call queue...
- You can also restrict the next call to a certain time of day by specifying a Calling time restriction...
Outbound number
You can determine which outbound number is associated with call attempts within a range. Click the Phone number for this range of call attempts drop-down list.
- If you select Use same number, all call attempts in this range will use the same outbound number.
- If you select the option Select number based on project setting, call attempts in this range will follow the rule set in the project's Optional settings with the selection for Outbound caller id selection logic. See the article Optional settings for projects.
- If the selected phone number is no longer available because it has been deleted, the outbound number used will default to following the project's preference.