When your agents experience long wait times in between calls, many different factors may contribute to this. It does not necessarily mean your system is "running slow" or is overloaded, most of the time this is not the case. In this article, we will go over some troubleshooting tips for understanding why your agent wait time may be high and what you can do to help!
Checking the Hopper - First, take a look inside of the hopper for the campaign(s) agents are currently logged into. Go to Campaign Campaign, and click the phone book icon under the Hopper List column. Here you will see the current leads loaded into the hopper that will be dialed by the system or your agents.
-
Check the call count - Is the call count under the Count column high? Dialing aged data with high call counts may signify it is time to try a different list or newer data with less call counts.
-
Check the phone numbers - Are the phone numbers 10 digits long? The system cannot successfully call a lead if the phone number is more or less than 10 digits. The system will attempt to call, but it will fail. (Pro Tip: Make sure to check you leads before uploading a new list to the system to prevent this. They should be formatted as a simple 10-digit number Ie. 9495551212)
-
Minimum Hopper Level vs ADL level - Does the hopper have a sufficient amount of leads? Depending on the campaign's Auto Dial Level (ADL) and the number of agents concurrently logged in, your hopper may not have enough leads to keep up with demand. Example, your campaign ADL is set to 5 and you currently have 10 agents logged into it fielding outbound calls. 5x10= 50 calls the system will be making at once. If your minimum hopper level was set to 100, this may not be sufficient enough and you may risk the chance of not having enough leads to dial (Pro Tip: Set your hopper level slightly greater than the number of leads you go through in a minute).
-
A good formula to follow for determining hopper level:
(Dial level * # of agents) * 2 = Hopper Level
Check your Reporting - Looking at your List Report and Outbound Calling Report can give you a better idea of how your leads are doing and which statuses you are receiving the most. If you are receiving a large amount of AA and NA dial statuses, this may contribute to agent wait time, as the system attempts to call leads that do not connect with a human answer.
-
Campaign List Report - Go to Campaign Campaign and click the List icon for the campaign in question. Here you can see how many dialable leads you have for the campaign, and the number of leads in the hopper (if dialable leads are low or zero, you may want to reset your current lists). Checking the dialable statuses within the active lists of this campaign can give you a good idea of how the list(s) are currently doing. You will want to look for statuses that have a high count, such as AA (answering machine auto - dialer defined answering machine) and NA (no answer autodial) in the picture below. This you give you an idea of the amount of calls that the system attempts that never reach an agent, thus increasing the agent wait time.
-
Outbound Calling Report - Go to Reports Calls Outbound Calling Report. This report will help to give you a better understanding as to the total calls placed from the campaign(s) vs total human answered, dropped and NA.
It can also show you the total number of calls made and a breakdown of call status stats. Again, comparing the number of defined call status stats such as AA and NA vs the total may be useful.
Check your phone numbers (DIDs) - A review of your numbers being used as callerIDs for outbound calls can be helpful when assessing agent wait time. If your outbound DIDs are being used frequently, then there is a strong possibility that they could be showing with a "Bad Reputation" on consumer devices, thus lowering the chances they answer the call.
-
Review the purchase date and number of outbound calls. Clicking the Numbers > Manage > "View More" button will show you the Campaigns and Outbound Calls fields. The Outbound Calls field will show you the number of outbound calls in the past 30 days placed on the DID. If your outbound call counts are in the hundreds or even thousands, then it would be a good idea to implement and run the "Number Reputation" feature on selected DIDs - and then swap those numbers.
General Suggestions
-
Aged data limit of 90 days since entry date. Generally speaking, the consumers consent to receive a phone call is limited to 90 days
-
During slow contact rates:
- Disable high volume dialable statuses like AA/NA
- Activate more lists to make up for those dialable leads while AA/NA are disabled