Best Practices for increasing the pickup rate in Call Center campaigns

In Call center campaigns, achieving high pickup rates is pivotal in measuring the campaign's success. Per the recent carrier regulations and standards, we have compiled a comprehensive guide to optimize your approach to boost response rates and enhance overall campaign effectiveness.

Below are the factors due to which the calls are marked as spam likely or are blocked:

• STIR/SHAKEN registration not done
• FCR registration not done
• Answer rate less than 30%
• High number of calls going directly to voicemail
• High number of short-duration calls (less than 15 seconds)
• More than 100+ calls/number/hr in a day
• Subscribers report the calls as spam to carriers
• Multiple retry attempts on the same day 
• No incoming callbacks for the missed calls
• New / Fresh numbers creating traffic spike
• More abandoned rate

To overcome these issues in your campaign, we have included steps that you may follow to achieve a higher pickup rate.

SHAKEN/STIR registration - 

SHAKEN/STIR is the most basic aspect of verified calling. Once you have registered for SHAKEN/STIR, all your calls will be marked "Verified" with the attestation level A over the carrier network. This increases the pickup as recipients know who is calling them and are more likely to pick up the calls. Without SHAKEN/STIR, the calls will be marked "Unknown" and will have the attestation level B. This means the calls will still be connected, but the carriers do not have any information on the originator of the calls. The calls will be marked "Spam Likely" from the first call itself.

Register with Free Call Registry (FCR) - 

While SHAKEN/STIR helps increase the pickup rate, the chances of numbers being marked Spam Likely still exist depending on the call volume. 

Hence, it is important to register all the caller IDs with the FCR by whitelisting them. This will reduce the possibility of the numbers being marked as Spam Likely or suspended.

We are working on providing the users the ability to register for FCR from the dashboard. Once this is live, the users can rent numbers in advance and get them whitelisted before they use them in the campaign.

Using the right feature in the campaign - 

The users must ensure enabling the below features to achieve a good pickup rate for their campaign.

• Spam shield
  • This will help in making sure that all the FTC complaints, the number reporting by users, and the 3rd party app are taken care of
• Inbound calls
  • Every call center campaign should have this feature enabled, the reason being when carriers see a significant number of incoming calls from the subscribers, they mark the number as legit and not spam.
• Litigator scrub
  • These are the contacts who will invite trouble for the campaign by reporting calls.

Handling Unanswered calls - 

The campaign managers must ensure that they set up the campaign such that there are not more than two retries in a day for unanswered calls. It is also important to set up a proper voicemail for unanswered calls. The voicemail should include the details of the individual/organization that called, the information they wanted to convey, and, if possible, also include additional details of contact.

This will increase the likelihood of more incoming calls as the recipients that missed the calls know whom they are calling back, leading to an effective communication.

The agents should be trained to drop voicemails on every unanswered call and not just hangup. This will ensure no calls are suspicious to the recipient, and they know whose call they missed.

Average Call duration (ACD) -

The average call duration of a campaign should be greater than 30 seconds. High number of calls below 30 seconds can be flagged by the carrier as Spam, and may result in the Caller ID being blocked.

Minimum Answer Rate -

The campaign manager must ensure the minimum answer rate of a campaign should be 30%. If the answer rate drops below this percentage, there is a high risk of the rented numbers being marked as Spam. 

Higher the Dialing speed, lower the pickup rate - 

The dial speed directly correlates with the probability of generating a surge in traffic at the carriers' end, consequently increasing the likelihood of rented numbers being flagged as potentially spam or getting blocked.

To address this issue, it is crucial to maintain the abandonment rate within the acceptable limit for the campaigns. Additionally, employing a mix of different dialers is recommended.

For engaged lists, consider using Power or Auto-Dialer in a 1:1 ratio, while for cold outreach, a predictive dialer with a low abandonment rate is suggested.