Run an Outbound Calling Campaign

Who it's for and what you get

For managers who run calling campaigns, such as a lead drive, renewals or appointment reminders, and the agents and supervisors who work them.

When it is done:

• your contacts are loaded as call activities for one campaign;
• agents sign in to the campaign, and the dialer offers each record (preview) or places the call for them (power or progressive);
• every call passes the compliance checks first: opt-outs, do-not-call registries, your calling window and dead numbers;
• agents record an outcome, and the subject flow schedules the retry or the follow-up on its own;
• reports show how far the campaign got and what the outcomes were.

Before you start

You need	Who sets it up
A phone provider and at least one number to call from	Your administrator; see Phone and SMS setup
The features Omnichannel Management, Contact Center Outbound Dialer (preview dialing), Contact Center Paced Dialing (power and progressive), Contact Center Agents, Contact Center Agent Entitlements, Telephony Soft Phone Extension, Content Transfer (to import lists) and Reports	Your administrator, in Tools > Features
A manager role with Manage subject flows, Manage dispositions, Manage campaigns, Manage the Contact Center dialer, Manage Contact Center agents and Manage activity batches	Your administrator; see Roles and permissions
The Agent role, plus Use the telephony soft phone, for the callers	Your administrator

Can't find it?

What you see depends on your role. If the menu, a button or a setting on this page is missing, ask your administrator to give you the permission listed above or to turn on the feature. Only administrators can turn features on and change site settings.

Steps

1. Get your contacts in. Set up the contact type once, then import your list under Content > Import. Pick the lead country, skip duplicates, and scrub the do-not-call registries. Check the import's result for skipped rows. See Contacts. Working with prospects rather than customers? See Turn leads into deals.
2. Create the subject. Add an Outbound subject, such as Spring lead drive, with the fields agents fill in during the call. See Subjects.
3. Create the outcomes. Add the dispositions agents can pick, such as No answer, Call back, Interested and Not interested. Add one with the Number not in service outcome so dead numbers are handled for you. See Dispositions.
4. Decide what happens next. On the subject's flow, add an action for every disposition: Finish, Try Again later, or a New Activity such as a follow-up call. See Subject flows.
5. Create the campaign. Add the campaign, and a campaign group if you want to roll it up in reports. Agents sign in to this campaign to get its calls. See Campaigns.
6. Set the calling window. Create a business hours calendar for the hours you may call. The dialer checks it in each contact's own time zone. See Business hours.
7. Choose how to dial. Create a dialer profile: the mode (Preview, Power or Progressive), the caller ID customers see, the compliance rules with your calling calendar, and, for power and progressive, attempts, retry delay and the abandonment cap. See Dialer profiles.
8. Give agents the campaign. On each agent's entitlement record, add the campaign under Allowed campaigns. See Skills and agent entitlements.
9. Load the work. Create a Dialer activity load with the subject, the dialer profile and the campaign, filter the contacts, and pick a Dial from number if this campaign should show its own number. Save, then choose Actions > Load batch, and read the load's report of what was loaded and skipped. See Load activities.
10. Agents dial. Agents sign in to the campaign from the soft phone's Work tab and set themselves Available. With preview, each record is offered with Dial and Skip; with power or progressive, the call is placed for them and the record opens as it rings. See Agent workspace and Placing and handling calls.
11. Agents record the outcome. After the call, the agent completes the activity with a disposition and notes, which ends wrap-up and runs the subject flow. See Activities.
12. Watch and adjust. Supervisors filter the live dashboard by the campaign. Managers reassign, reschedule or move work to another dialer profile in bulk, and review dead numbers. See Live dashboard, Managing activities in bulk and Numbers not in service.
13. Measure. Use Campaign summary, Subject inventory, Disposition breakdown and Agent productivity. See Reports.

Check that it works

1. After Load batch, the load's status reaches Loaded and says how many records it loaded. If it loaded none, its report says why.
2. Sign in to the campaign as a test agent and set yourself Available.
3. With a preview profile, an offer appears in the docked agent bar and My workspace: click Dial. With a power profile, a call is placed within about a minute.
4. Complete the activity with Call back, and check on the contact's List Activities page that the flow scheduled the next attempt.
5. Run the Campaign summary report for today.

Tips

• Start with Preview. It is the easiest to train, and agents see the record before every call. Move to Power or Progressive once agents are comfortable.
• The dialer does not disposition a call that rang out, was busy or reached a machine: it dials the record again after the retry delay, up to Max attempts.
• Tick Prevent duplicate activity with the same subject on the load so contacts who already have an open activity are not loaded twice.
• A call outside the calling window is not dropped; it is tried again in a later cycle.
• To text the customers you could not reach, use a workflow on the Dialer attempt completed event. See Contact Center workflows.
• Without the Contact Center Agent Entitlements feature, any agent may sign in to any campaign.