Genesys Outbound Contact

Genesys Outbound Contact gathers customer data from host systems or corporate databases, then places outbound calls and connects callers to agents. Agent resources are expensive, and anything that automates mundane or routine tasks provides a return on investment. Outbound dialing improves efficiency by automating the dialing and call progress detection so that an agent is only required in the most critical part of the call – when a customer is connected. Outbound Contact also intelligently uses customer data to ensure that campaigns are contacting the right customers, not just a large number of customers.

The key business issues are:

•Reducing the cost of outbound interactions by automating as much as possible
•Targeting the right customers, thereby increasing the success rate of calls
•Building customer loyalty by anticipating needs and communicating with customers proactively
•Adhering to federal and state regulations for telemarketing

Outbound Contact provides automated functionality that allows switches or other hardware to place calls and handle call progress detection. This increases efficiency by saving agents dialing time and maximizing customer contact time. Additionally Genesys’ predictive dialing can run with three different pacing optimization parameters (factors that maximize the rate and efficiency of your campaign):

• Overdial Rate allows you to set the acceptable percentage of calls connected with no agent available.
• Agent Busy Factor enables you to specify the percentage of time an agent spends occupied.
• Average Wait Time allows you to base the dialing rate on the current average waiting time (the time when an agent is in ready status but not on a call).

In the predictive or progressive dialing modes, Genesys works with call progress detection hardware to determine if a (potential) customer is on the phone. When a customer is on the phone, the call will be delivered to an agent. When a customer is not on the line, the call can be dropped. This helps ensure only successful calls are delivered to agents.

The components that enable outbound calling with Genesys are collectively known as Genesys Outbound Contact. When you use Outbound Contact, it is useful to know the terminology and definitions Genesys uses.

The following outbound terms will be introduced:
• Calling list
• Records, formats, fields
• Dialing modes
• Predictive, progressive, preview
• Call progress detection
• Treatments
• Campaign

Outbound Contact provides several ways to control and manage calling lists:

•Lists can be imported and exported in the Genesys environment. Lists can also be appended to other lists.

•Treatments can be provided and maintained. Example: When a customer is called at their house and no one answers, the call can be rescheduled or a call can be placed to their business phone.

•Filters may be applied to calling lists to limit the criteria for customer selection. A filter defines the restrictive conditions for the contacts to be dialed by the campaign.Example: If a company has to recall a product, they can filter an existing customer calling list to contact just the customers who have purchased the product.

Outbound Contact is supported by

The components supporting Outbound include:

• Database – All calling lists are stored in databases. The records in the calling lists must be able to be accessed quickly to ensure a good supply of records to the dialer. If records are not available or are slow to be retrieved and presented, the dialing pace will be reduced, or possibly stopped. In this course, we will refer to the database that stores the calling list as the Outbound DB.

• DB Server – The outbound components will access the calling list database through a DB Server. The DB Server provides the translation between various types of databases and Genesys. Any DB Server, such as Log DB Server, could also be used for Outbound. In class, we will use a separate instance. It’s a Framework component, even though it’s being used by Outbound. In this course, we will refer to this DB Server as Outbound DB Server.

• T-Server – The critical gateway to the switch is provided by T-Server. There are many varieties of T-Servers to communicate with a wide variety of switches.

• Agent Desktop – Application that connects the agents with Genesys capabilities. Genesys provides a Starter Application (a sample agent application that demonstrates the toolkit’s functionality). In the classroom, we will use Genesys Agent Desktop.

• Standard reports – The reports that are provided with your Genesys solution will provide data specific to the solution. For example, Outbound Contact includes standard reports focused on contact centers with large volumes of outbound calls. It includes statistics for calculating successful outbound interactions.

• Interaction Concentrator (ICON) – ICON collects and stores detailed data from various sources in the contact center. The server application receives data from sources such as Configuration Server, T-Server, or Outbound Contact Server and, through the ICON DB Server, stores the data into the ICON database.ICON stores campaign and chain information, including both their history within a given campaign session and associations between calls and parties.
ICON can be integrated with Outbound so that the following data is stored in the ICON database for Outbound reporting:

• History of changes in campaign configuration properties and in target values of optimization parameters.
• History of chain processing and results of chain processing.
• History of changes in calling list records that OCS makes during chain processing and that ICON is configured to track.
• Results of each attempt to generate an outbound call, whether successful or not.
• CPD call results.
• Call results assigned by an agent, which are stored separately from the CPD call results and does not overwrite them.

DNC list management

There are two different types of DNC lists. Both types are required for regulations.

• Company’s DNC list – This list is built by direct customer requests to the company or the contact center to stop calling. For this, you should use Outbound Contact DNC list management functionality that can handle up to 1M DNC records

• National DNC Registry - This number of records is too large to be treated the same way as a company’s DNC list for performance. We recommend doing offline scrubbing of calling lists using database tools prior to running Outbound campaigns. That is removing numbers listed in the national registry from your calling lists right in database.

Do Not Call Features Expanded in 7.x

Outbound Contact 7.x supports do not call restrictions by phone or customer ID for a particular campaign or all campaigns. A pre-dial check can be enabled and set at different levels.

Outbound Contact Server stores records marked as NoCall in the gsw_donotcall_list. When a campaign is started, OC Server retrieves all records that are ready to be dialed from a calling list and checks them against gsw_donotcall_list. If a record retrieved from a calling list matches a record marked NoCall, OC Server does not dial this record, but instead returns it to the calling list and changes the record type to NoCall.

There is now an automated method of importing third-party do not call lists into the Do Not Call table for Outbound Contact Server. Attributes of the record distinguish internal from external records.

If the do not call list exceeds one million records, alternative methods such as using a dialing filter or running a SQL query should be used to avoid performance issues.

Agent Scripting

Genesys Agent Scripting is an option available with Genesys Inbound Voice and Genesys Outbound Voice. Genesys Agent Scripting provides screen flow and text to the agent desktop to guide agents through interactions. Scripting reduces training needs, ensures consistency with each interaction, and guides the agent to successfully address customer needs or help close business. Agent Scripting enables contact centers to elevate their efficiency and effectiveness by helping agents apply knowledge to improve interactions.

By enabling proven business practices and consistency in customer interactions, Genesys Agent Scripting reduces agent training time and interaction handling time resulting in increased sales conversion rates and higher customer satisfaction.