Blacklists are a way to store that certain numbers should not be called. Customers can opt out of receiving calls, either from your organisation, or in some regions on a national scale.
Global and sponsor blacklists
The default blacklist is global, and affects all contact lists on all campaigns.
Numbers can also be added to sponsor-specific blacklists. These are applied to all contact lists with the same sponsor, or when agents are using campaigns with the matching sponsor.
Adding numbers to a blacklist
Numbers can be added to a blacklist in several ways, described in the following articles:
- Blacklists - Uploading a blacklist file
- Blacklists - Adding, editing and deleting a blacklist number in Admin
- Blacklists - Allowing agents to add numbers to a blacklist
Numbers can also be added to a blacklist using the API, for more on that see the developer documentation page - blacklist API instructions.
When are blacklists checked?
Blacklists can restrict activity for both Admins and Agents.
Contact list creation
The primary focus of blacklists is preventing numbers being added to the contact lists you use for calling. When you upload a contact list to LeadDesk, it will (by default) not add any numbers that are found on any relevant blacklists.
In this example of creating a contact list, one of the numbers in the file being uploaded was found on a blacklist and was not uploaded.
This check is optional. For more information see Uploading a contact list in the Filtering section.
Agents placing manual calls
If you have allowed manual calling for your agents, the blacklist will be checked before placing such calls. If the number is found on a blacklist, the agent will not be able to call it.
Agents editing a number
If an agent edits a contact's phone number, either in the contact card or as part of preview calling, and the number they enter is found on a blacklist, the call will not be placed and the contact cannot be saved.
When are blacklists not checked?
Automatic calling
When agents are making normal calls through Progressive or Preview calling, no check is made against blacklists. If the number has been put onto a contact list, it is assumed to be valid to call that number.
This means that if a number was added to your contact list and then later added to a blacklist in Admin, the number can still be called. If the number was added to a blacklist by an agent, the behaviour is different, as discussed below.
Omni
Blacklists are primarily a way for people to prevent unwanted calls, and are important as such in an Outbound environment. Agents working with the Omni interface are normally working inbound, but might need to place manual calls or make callbacks to customers they are helping, even if that customer is on a blacklist for sales calls.
As such, agents working in an Omni environment are not restricted by blacklists.
Other inbound calls
Similarly, if you are working inbound in the Outbound interface, calls placed from a blacklisted number are not prevented, even if a call to that number would be.
What happens when an agent blacklists a number?
If you have a call ending reason that moves a number to a blacklist, several things will happen in the background when as agent selects that call ending reason.
- That number will be added to a blacklist specified in the call ending reason.
- Deletes the number from the contact list for the current campaign.
- Deletes any existing callbacks for that number.
- Removes that number from all contact lists associated with that blacklist. This will also delete the call history for that number.