Managing the outbound numbers you use for your outbound projects can be an important part of their success. If you don't assign any outbound numbers, for example, the contacts you call will receive the call anonymously. This can lead to a reduced answer rate.
Several factors can determine which outbound number is used for calling.
- Whether you are making the first call to a contact, or making repeated calls.
- If there was a previous call, the outcome selected for it can determine the outbound number for the next call.
- Whether the agent has their own outbound number.
- Finally we can define default behaviour for calls if none of the other cases apply.
Note that the information in this article covers managing the numbers within a project. For more information about managing your outbound numbers generally, including assigning addresses and creating groups of numbers, see Outbound numbers and their addresses.
Adding outbound numbers to a project
You can add multiple outbound numbers to your project, letting you control which numbers are used for which calls.
To add outbound numbers to the project:
- In the project settings, go to the Number selection logic section.
- Click the Add numbers link.
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If you have many outbound numbers, you may have organised them into groups, as described in Outbound numbers and their addresses. The numbers in the Add numbers dialog are shown in the following order: Listed first are available numbers , then numbers already in use in a group, and without a group. In the Add numbers dialog:
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If you later want to add or change the outbound numbers selected for this project, click the Edit link after the Phone numbers heading.
If you have at least one outbound number assigned to the project, you can then make selections about which number should be used for outbound calls.
Selecting the number for the first call
To choose the outbound number used for the first call to each contact used by this project:
- Click the Number for first call drop-down list.
- Click to select the number to use. Alternatively, select Random or Regionally random based on contact field.
- Random. Each call will be assigned a random outgoing number from the list of selected numbers.
- Regionally random based on contact field. Each call will still be assigned randomly, but the randomly selected number will try to match to the region it is calling to. For more information, see below.
It is possible that a contact may have been called previously by another project. If that is the case, you may want to use the same number used in that project. If so:
- Click to tick the checkbox for Keep the number used in the previous call to a contact.
Regionally random based on contact field
If you select this option, the outbound number used for the call will try to match as closely as possible as the contact's phone number. For example consider the screenshot above:
- This project has an outbound number of Sweden (+46), the UK (+44) and Finland (+358)
- If the agent calls a contact with a UK number (+44), then the UK outbound number, which also starts +44 would be used.
The matching goes beyond country code, it will keep matching digits left to right, stopping at the first mismatched digit. Whichever outbound number matches the most digits will be used.
To extend the earlier example:
- Say you had outbound numbers for London (area code +4420) and Birmingham (+44121)
- If you called a contact with a Birmingham number like +44121 12345678, using Regionally random based on contact field would result in the Birmingham outbound number being used. It matches on more digits (+44121 instead of +44 for the London one).
Of course, many numbers you call may be mobile numbers which may not have region-bound numbers, so matching on phone number may not be useful.
Instead, when you create the contact list, you could use one of the Other info fields to hold the relevant area code. If you know this contact is in Birmingham, you could add +44121 to the Other info 5 field, say. Then when setting up the project:
- Select the Regionally random based on contact field option.
- In the Contact field drop-down list, select the Other info field where the are code is stored (Other info 5 in this example).
Then, when the agent places a call to that contact, the area code in that field would be matched even when calling a number with no area code. This means you can match to the Birmingham outbound number even when calling a +4477 mobile number.
Selecting the default logic for calls after the first
After the first call, the project's outcomes might decide which number should be used for the next call. If the previous outcome did not specify an outbound number, or if the number selected is not available to the project any more, the outbound number falls back to the default Outbound caller id selection logic.
- Click to select the Outbound caller id selection logic as follows:
- Random. Each call will be assigned a random outgoing number from the list of selected numbers.
- Different number for each contact attempt. Each call to a contact will use a different outbound number when possible.
- Regionally random based on contact field. Each call will still be assigned randomly, but the randomly selected number will try to match to the region it is calling to, as described above.
Agent outbound numbers
When creating an agent account, you can assign an outbound number to that agent (as mentioned, briefly, in Creating an Agent account). The final setting in the Number selection logic determines how that number interacts with this project.
- Click the If agent has an outbound number configured in a profile drop-down list. Select:
- Use agent number if you want the agent's phone number to override the number selection logic.
- Use project number if you want the project settings to override the agent's number when working on this project.