Blending an inbound and outbound campaign - Thoughts

[darryldale]

OK, here is my dilemna.

I currently have an inbound campaign made up of multiple did's routing through multiple call menus and it is working great.

I currently have an outbound campaign setup on manual dialing that also works great.

Since we are still relatively small (but growing) I don't really want to dedicate some people to outbound and some to inbound so tried to have everything handled by just the inbound campaign (and configured it as a blended campaign).

It seems to work but I'm having some issues. When the campaign is configured as a blended campaign I seem to lose the "pause" / "resume" buttons on the client screen. What happens is the CSR clicks on "dial next lead" and after talking to the client and ending the lead they seem to be automatically paused with no way to resume.

Here is how I would like it to work:

a) Agent logs into campaign
b) When they first log in they should not be paused and immediately able to receive an inbound call.
c) If there are no inbound calls they should be able to click "dial next lead" and make an outbound call. Once they are done with that lead (may have also dialed the two alternate numbers) and clicked "finish lead" they should be put back in a ready state and if there is an inbound call it will be routed to them immediately.

They should also be able to click on "pause" / "resume" at any time to pause inbound calls being routed to them while they go on break or lunch.

Any thoughts on if this is possible?

Darryl

[williamconley]

simpler to just change to Ratio 1:1 (Mode=ratio, dial level = 1). then the agents don't push "dial next lead" they are simply GIVEN one as soon as ANYONE answers the phone. same thing, only fully automated, no dropped calls.

[darryldale]

Will they still have the ability to "pause" themselves whenever they want and how does that impact the inbound calls? Do they get preference? I would want inbound calls to take preference over any outbound calls.

Darryl

[williamconley]

Inbound calls can be accounted for in several ways.

1) You can set priority on both Inbound and Outbound campaigns. (Recent releases, i believe, even allow for inbound to take precedence)

2) Remember that any call already in a conference with an agent no longer has "precendence" ... it has already WON. An outbound call in a conference with an agent will not be "displaced" by an inbound, but if both are in QUEUE, you can set the system to take inbound first.

3) You can also set the system to "reserve" an agent for Inbound by using the "Dial Level Difference Target" setting. You can set that to 1 agent waiting for a call and the system will "rotate" that agent. Each time another agent gets off a call, the waiting agent will get the next call and the newly available agent will become your "waiter" for inbound.

4) You'll need to test it yourself (it is evident that you have not tested by the question: "Will they still have the ability to "pause" themselves whenever they want ...".) TESTING is a huge part of Vicidial. Do not do everything with live agents and live prospect. Put your cell phone into a list, put the list into a test campaign, log in as an agent yourself, and call yourself a few hundred times until you get the hang of it. You'll learn a lot.

5) Buy the manual!! You got $10k worth (LOW estimate) of free software from The Vicidial Group (like the rest of us!). They publish a manual with tutorials and how-tos and specifications that's HUGE and cheap. Thank them and give yourself some valuable reading material!! EFLO.net I guarantee you'll learn a lot and save more than you spend.