What is predictive dialer and what is Click To Call ?

Predictive dialer is such smart automatic telephone dialer system which dials out a telephone number from a list of telephone numbers in order to reduce holding time for both agent in call center as well as the person who is called from it. Though there are various techniques to implement predictive dialer, the basic aims remains same :-
1. Called party should not kept on hold;
2. Agent in call center should not waste time in hearing RBT ( Ring Back Tone) of the called number.

Click To Call and Predictive Dialer

Click To Call Service is a one to one conference where the called party ( as in above Predictive Dialer Definition) initiates the call and speaks to human agent immediately! So the immediate purpose of reducing wait period for both called party and agent is automatically achieved!

Now, does that mean that Click To Call service would (should) replace predictive dialer in order to maximize use of finite and costly resource like outbound telephone call charges as well as time of human agent ?

The first consideration is predictive dialer is not used just as a call back service where some user or web visitor will register their phone number (submit their phone number by filling up a form) expecting a call back from the website or some call center of the company who owns the web site.

Also, predictive dialer can dial from any phone list, not necessarily gathered from web site visitors, but also from off-line registrations, manual phone number collection, collecting phone numbers by door to door marketing etc., not to mention collecting of phone numbers when a user provides his phone number when registers for service, like a DTH ( Direct to Home) TV service, registering for credit card, bank account etc.

While click to call service essentially collects numbers from website visitors only. Apart from traditional Click To Call service, now a days, smart implementation of click to call where a call is imitated as soon as a web form is submitted website visitor, which acts as an additional feature of immediate call back service on an existing registration form! ( Niche Tech Service private Limited provides such customised Click To Call service. )

So, most probably, it will not be possible that Click To Call Service would replace predictive dialer!

Both Predictive Dialer and Click To call service can have options to choose the time when a person expects the call back from the website or call center.

Predictive dialer is also used to make scheduled outgoing calls which is not either standard function in a Click To Call service or available only at extra cost or when a Click To call service with IVR ( Interactive Voice Response) functionality! But now a days, many Click to Call service providers can provide complete IVR functionality or solution in a Click To Call service too.

So, a click to call system, along with smart and customizable IVR at the back end of it, can be surely a next generation of Predictive Dialer and can potentially dethrone it from future call center!

Another important point to consider is, predictive dialer can no longer be used to blast out calls to random numbers after strict implementation of “National Do No Call registry” ( NDNC) in order to stop unsolicited calls. Click To Call service facility eliminates the requirement NDNC registry before making calls. But then, spammers can surely misuse Click To Call!

I had posted about possibility of replacing predictive dialer with outbound IVR, and now I feel, and and IVR system with outbound feature and Click To Call functionality can surely replace aging predictive dialer and bring in cost saving as well as ‘Cloud Telephony’ in Call Center world!

Recently, I had a very interesting IVR enquiry. The person was looking for a hosted IVR solution for for his mobile number which will be diverted to the his ‘personal IVR’ after 9PM in the evening till 9AM in the morning. Apart from this, he also wanted the facility to divert the at will at anytime. And he does not want a mere ‘voicemail’ service which is quite common and easily available with any telephone company. Also, he wanted an SMS or Email alert for any call which a caller authenticate by entering a password ( provided by him to the caller) so that he knows it is an emergency and he may call back.

Personal IVR

I found it quite interesting IVR application. With recent availability of online ‘DIY’ ( Do it Yourself ) IVR, most probably, IVR will become a service to be used by individual people and people may start using IVR instead of ‘mere voicemail’ in near future.

Most probably, this kind of hosted IVR solution for individual would be natural extension of voice mail which is widely used in USA. Voice mail has not picked up well in India though its availability is almost as old as mobile phones. Its glamorous cousin popularly known as ‘Voice SMS’ became popular after mobile operators promoted it in line with SMS!

This kind of arrangement can easily be achieved and implemented by using call forward feature available in mobile phone. Many telephone service providers in India provide unlimited call in their home network, so if the IVR Hosting provider and the individual person are on same network, then there will not be huge call cost for the call forwarding.

The user can have his own personalised voice greetings, menu options to choose as per requirement. For example, a travel agent could store any enquiry, phone calls form the call records. He may also choose to speak to his existing clients whom he may share some passwords, of course voice mail feature is available apart from quick information.

Apart from obvious business activities, this may even be a huge deterrent from tele callers who have been on many people’s hate list now a days! It could even have some vanity values where the IVR could act as a digital secretary for an individual.

Feature-rich, personalised hosted IVR at affordable rate might bring IVR to masses to be used by everyone which voice mail system has failed to do. With availability of hosted IVR services, many web based visual IVR tools may make this kind IVR usage a reality!

Most probably, travel agents, specially the ones who provides services like hotel reservations online, must be one of those who use telephone for most of their business activities. Though the big travel portals or travel companies have call centers which operate 24 hours a day for handling right from inquiry to ticket booking as well as hotel reservation. But there are many small and medium travel agents which have good web presence, but can not afford to have a call center, or can not operate office 24 hours a day.

But with implementation of simple IVR ( Interactive Voice Response) system along with voice mail system (VMS), travel agents can easily operate 24 hours a day and increase their revenue.

Why do travel agents need IVR ?

Many travel agents already have their websites which advertise their office phone numbers. Since websites are visited by people across the globe 24 hours a day, they may get many calls from all around the world, even when it is not office hours! So, if they use IVR, they can respond to every call, and with VMS, they can record voice messages from callers and many more!

There are many people, who finalise their programs at the last moment and require to book hotels at the last moment too! These kind of business traveler try to book hotel searching in internet and by calling office numbers listed in a website of the travel agents, even at non-office hours, hoping against hopes! These kind of calls not only help convert an enquiry quickly, but also help get a good price for the travel agents.

What kind of IVR travel agents require ?

While IVR can have many features for any type of industry, but travel agents need three features which may prove to be really useful :-

a. Database Look up and playback
The travel agent IVR should be capable of looking up hotel reservation database or API to be able to provide reservation availability to any caller. This will reduce burden of manpower involved during office hours and would be useful for caller at non-office hours! Apart from this, database look up capability can detect regular client for travel agents.

b. On Demand Call Bridging Facility

The IVR should be capable of making an outbound call and bridge them together. With database look up capability, IVR would be able to detect a regular client and that is when the call can be treated an urgent call and the call can be then connected to some one responsible who can help. This will increase customer loyalty as well as reputation.

c. Voice Mail System and Email/SMS (Short Messaging Service) alert
Voice Mail System is a must for IVR for travel agents. Using this voice mail system, a caller at non-office hours can leave a voice message on the IVR. By email and SMS alert system, some one responsible will be immediately notified of the voice message, who can listen to the voice mail either by dialing or through web interface.
Normally, serious caller will only leave a voice mail. So, this facility can effectively work as a call screening during non-office hours.

So, a smart IVR can surely increase revenue for any travel agent immediately. If you own a travel company and if you do not have IVR installed, then most probably, you are losing some business!

Email has revolutonised the way people communicate, exchange messages and information. Even after many innovative applications like SMS, web-based innovations like Twitter, Social Networking Sites like Facebook, Orkut, Myspace, email was holding its forte, exchange of mails.

Techcrunch

Likewise as I wrote enhancements, innovations about voice mail systems if implemented using CTI board and smart IVR application recently on 2nd November 2009, two days later, I had found a real innovation in voice mail system on Techcrunch. Google Voice has created quite an interest in managing and using voice mail integrated with web technologies, now Ribbit Mobile says, Goodbye to Voice mail, say hello to Ribbit Mobile!

According to the article, Ribit mobile takes over the voice mail of your mobile phone and routes any voice mail to the server of Ribit Mobile, and stores there with new greetings. It also sends out email using text to speech conversion engine to the subscriber’s email id, send SMS to his mobile phone! Though, I am wondering what is the use of converting the voice to text for sending it to Email account when it can send the voice messages itself in compressed WAV format as email attachement ? Now a days, no PC or laptops comes without sound card and multimedia. Even many mobile phones can play WAV files!

So, I was just wondering, will voice mail system go email way ? Freely available and accessible on any PC/Mobile with internet connection ? Will there be another hotmail.com ? May be HotVmail.com ?

But I think, integrating IVR applications and web technologies, some ‘killer application’ could be innovated by some smart kid!

Implementing traditional voice mail using analog CTI boards is quite tricky. If the switch of EPABX does not support certain features, than it is almost impossible to implement traditional voice mail system with traditional operation. The major issue is finding out information of caller ID.

In a traditional voice mail system as I explained in the previous post, Voice Mail System and Answering Machine, it becomes difficult to provide two caller ID to the voice mail system. For example, C is the extension line to which voice mail system connected. Now if A calls B, B does not pick up so needs to transfer the call to C. So now C needs both caller ID, A and B, in order to store voice mails of B from A.

Voice Mail System using analog CTI board:

Voice mail systems are built in with EPABX or telephone exchanges. One can build a Voice Mail System using a simple 4-port analog CTI board and a PC. To build voice mail system, one will need the following hardware:-
1. A PC with one PCI slot free to install the analog CTI board.
2. Operating System to be installed on the PC as per driver availability for the CTI board. I think, only Dialogic provides driver for multiple or all operating systems for its CTI boards.
3. A database. Microsoft Access is a good option for Windows based PC and smaller voice mail systems. For large voice mail systems, either MS SQL or Oracle is recommended.
4. One 4 port CTI board
5. Four telephone lines of extension lines of EPABX
5. VMS software
VMS software is nothing but an IVR application which will record voice with caller ID and time stamp. And it will also playback the recorded voice messages as per owner or recipient of the voice mail messages over telephone. The recipient of the voice mail can also manage his messages like delete, purge etc.

Now, how to solve the the caller ID problem ?
The simplest way is to program the EPABX such a way that, when B ( as per above scenario) dos not reply, call A should be forwarded to C with caller ID of both A and B clubbed together with # as separator between the two! But, does the EPABX support this kind of intelligent programming ? If it does not, than most probably, you can not implement a voice mail system using analog card. You will have to use a digital CTI board where you will get these information easily. SS7 is the best as you get maximum information about the call.

There are few work around. For example :-

1. To ask the caller enter his number using DTMF. It may be little difficult for the caller and time consuming, but it is good option.

2. Map every voice mail account to every port of the analog CTI board. For example, port 1 of the CTI board will record messages only for B as in example above. This will requre some programming in the EPABX, but this is workable solution. The only problem will be future increase of number of users! But if number of voice mail users is large, one should never opt for analog CTI board!

Actually, implementing voice mail system using CTI board and IVR software has many advantages over built in VMS in the EPABX. For example :-

1. Customisation
Customization of voice mail system become much easier. New prompts, call flow of voice mail can be changed, upgraded much easier and quicker.

2. Many enhancements and features
Many enhancements and features could be added to voice mail system. For example, as soon as a voice mail is received for particular VMS user, SMS alert can be sent to him. Email alert along with the voice message itself could be sent to him immediately. In fact, it can be integrated with outbound IVR System which will dial out to the voice mail user, play the mail, give options to reply! This kind of simple application was marketed in India as voice SMS quite successfully by many mobile operators!

3. Stored voice mail can be hard by local LAN as well as remotely over telephone. Better MIS and usability can be increased.

So, voice mail system with CTI board and smart IVR application can add many enhancements, killer features to any voice mail system. UMS ( Unified messaging system) is an example of such application.

What is a Voice Mail System (VMS) and a Answering Machine ?

Voice mail system can be thought as a message box for phone user to store voice messages and retrieve it through telephone. User can divert all his calls to his voice mail system when he wishes so.
Main difference between answer machine and voice mail system is that voice mail system is a centralized system where voice mail boxes are managed for many users, while answering machine is an independent individual system connected to a telephone line. Many telephone instrument comes with built-in answering machine.

Typicl picture of Answering Machine

Answering machine is usually suitable for home use for single line, while voice mail system is more suitable for office use where there are multiple telephone connections as well as extensions through EPABX.

A typical voice mail system operation:
A traditional voice mail system operates in the following way :
1. A dials B.
2. B is unable to attend the call. So call from A gets diverted to voice mail box of B.
3. Caller A hears a greetings from B welcoming him to mailbox of B and asks A to leave/record his voice message after a beep.
4. Once caller A speaks to record his voice message for B, he gets option to hear what he has recorded or hang up.
5. Next time whenever B lifts his phone, he gets to hear a message that he has an unheard voice message that can be heard by pressing some key.
6. If B is out of town, B can dial his voice mail box number ( a predefined number connected to voice mail system) to check if new voice mail has arrived. Then he can browse through his voice mails, listens them, delete them.

A Typical Answering Machine Operation:
1. A dials B.
2. After certain number of rings ( programmable or configurable), answering machine attached to the telephone of B gets activated and answers the call of A.
3. Answering machine greets A and asks to leave a message for B after beep.
4. A records his message and hangs up.
5. B can see a alert text message on his answering machine that a message is stored.
6. B presses a key on the answering machine and listens to it, can delete.

Normally, voice mail system is like an IVR system, invisible to the real user and resides somewhere else, normally at Telecom operator office. While answering machine is a small device attached to the telephone line lying nearby to the telephone instrument or inbuilt into the telephone instrument itself.

Many voice mail systems offer option to reply the voice mail sender through voice again, which is not possible in answering machine! Answering machine is being replaced by voice mail system as voice mail systems offer more features, accessibility.

Recently voice mail systems has developed into a powerful unified messaging solutions integrated with many other communication media line Email, SMS, FAX etc. thanks to smart implementation of IVR systems. I will be updating about it more in my next post about building smart voice mail system using a low cost 4 port analog CTI board.

Many people seem to confuse with IVRS and Auto-attendant and Answering Machine!

Though  Auto attendant and Answering Machine may be compared, but comparing IVRS with either of them is comparing armored vehicle with F-117! ( Hope I have given the right analogy.:) ), they have similarities but they have major difference in usage, scale and features.

What is IVRS, to know one can read What is IVRS, a previous article in this blog.  Or one can search in Yahoo or Google or Wikipedia. And here are few differences I am listing:-

1. Auto Attendant attends a call, and can transfer a call to extension as per caller dialing. IVRS can do all these too. But IVRS can retrieve data and playback information which Auto Attendant can not do! Answering Machine normally has one prompt which gets played after certain number of rings if the calls go unattended, and record a message from the caller. Also it plays back the recorded messages. These are the functons of Answering Machine.

2. IVRS is very smart and intelligent system while, Auto Attendant and Answering Machines can not be said to have any intelligence! They do few things as per pre-programmed! IVRS has vast applications! It has not applications in almost every industrial sectors including pharmaceutical  research activities too.

3. IVRS can work like an answering machine or auto attendant, but they can not work like an IVRS apart from the above tasks!

4. IVRS can work like a voice portal while no one can even imagine auto attendant or answering machine to work like voice portal.

[ad#image-large]

5. Auto Attendant and answering machine are low cost equipment, normally built in phone instrument or EPABX. While IVRS requires Server Class PCs to run, costly CTI cards and costly software engineers. Also IVRS can have few dedicated IVRS blogs, while I doubt if auto attendant or answering machine will have more than 2/3 pages in some websites.

6. Auto Attendant and Answering Machine has limited configurations and limited recording options, IVRS has almost unlimited applications and configurations!

I hope these six reasons should be enough to convince anyone the difference between IVRS, Auto Attendant and Answering Machine! There is a Voice mail System too which is a CTI application again, but a single function of storing recorded message! So, one can think of Voice Mail System (VMS) as a one kind of IVR Application .