Softdial Campaign Manager™

Retry Options

The Softdial Campaign Manager™ server maintains a retry queue in the database which contains those numbers that have been called and need to be called again some time later, e.g. outcome was busy, wrong party, answering machine.

The Retry Options tab/ page (Fig. 1), together with the General Settings tab/ page, define configuration of the retry algorithms within Softdial Campaign Manager™. Records to be retried may also be filtered using the Data Selection (Filters).

CM Retry Options Web Client

Fig. 1 - Retry Options - Web client

At the top left of the Retry Options tab, Retry management can be Enabled (or Disabled)

To define retry settings for new or existing outcomes, clicking Add, or double clicking an existing outcome entry, opens the Retry Detail panel (Fig. 2)

Editing Retry Entries - Web clientEditing Retry Entries - Web client

Fig. 2 - Editing Retry Entries - Web client

If the checkbox Bad number is checked, any records that produce this outcome when called will not be retried.

For information on how the bad number mechanism works with multiple numbers, see Bad Number handling.

An agent outcome may be mapped to a switch outcome that is defined as a bad number, but this should not be used as an alternative to the Do Not Call outcome. A number being marked as a bad number is not the same as one being marked as Do Not Call as it is not entered into the Do Not Call (DNC) list.

An example of where an agent might disposition a call as a bad number is where the number called is a wrong number. If this call was dispositioned as Do Not Call, the number would not be dialed on this (and potentially any other) campaign where the called number may in fact be a legitimate contact.

There are 4 places in Softdial Contact Center™ where 'earliest and latest time to call' can be configured:

  1. Schedule Options
    See Campaign Scheduler tab. The Start/ End of Calling Day settings mean that no retries can be scheduled before or after this time. This setting also acts as a call expiry time for retries, if a retry is sitting in Softdial Campaign Manager™ or Softdial CallGem™ cache and the latest time to call is reached, those retries will be flushed back to the database and rescheduled for the earliest time to call the next day.
  2. Multiple Telephone Numbers
    See Multiple telephone numbers in the Database Input tab. This is taken into consideration for all fresh records, retries and callbacks, and applies to a particular index/ column in the database. Again, this setting means that no calls at all can be scheduled before or after this time for that particular index. This setting also acts as a call expiry time for calls to that index, if a call is sitting in Softdial Campaign Manager™ or Softdial CallGem™ cache and the latest time to call is reached for that index, those calls will be flushed back to the database and rescheduled for the earliest time to call the next day.
  3. Time Zone Bounding
    Same as Multiple Telephone Numbers - taken into consideration for all fresh records, retries and callbacks. The earliest and latest times to call are configured by the Lower and Upper Bound columns in the database. See the Time Zone Output Parameters.
  4. Per Outcome Basis
    This setting means that a specific retriable outcome will not be rescheduled before or after the earliest or latest time to call.

    This setting does not expire calls that are already in cache, as in the above cases.

  5. Combinations
    If all these settings are configured for a record, the call expiry time will be the closest/ earliest/ soonest "latest time to call" configuration. Likewise with the "earliest time to call"

    All fresh records will have a call expiry time since, even when using a single telephone number, there is an entry in the Multiple Telephone Numbers for that column, which has the earliest and latest time to call configurations.

From V10.7.1699 - Provides a rollforward mechanism for overdue retries so that on campaign start, the last campaign stop time and shift boundaries are used to calculate what to do with overdue retries. The option is enabled by default.

It provides a corrective for a variety of operational challenges, including

  1. short shifts when the operating day is long
  2. heavily-throttled retries.
  3. rollover from weekends when the campaign does not run
  4. rollover if the campaign is not run for several days at a time.

A campaign may have been closed before end of day, or opened after start of day, and have retries scheduled during periods the campaign was not run. This mechanism relocates those retries, as follows:

  1. Any retry whose due time is prior to
    • last stop time yesterday or
    • close of business yesterday if last stop time was today

    should be moved forward by 24 hours until it is due either today or yesterday after actual stop. For a campaign that has not run for several days or campaigns that throttle retries heavily, this will sweep overdue retries forward without compromising timezone boundaries.

  2. In the case of stop before close of business the previous day, any retry scheduled between campaign stop and end of day should be scheduled for Now + the time difference between campaign stop and schedule time.
  3. In the case of start after start of business day, any retry scheduled between start of business day and now should be scheduled for Now + the time difference between start of day and scheduled time.

The 'last stop time' persists in the CampaignParams.xml file so that even if Softdial Campaign Manager™ is stopped/ restarted between campaign runs, the last stop time will persist.

When the Override default fresh/ retry data mix checkbox is checked the 'retry to fresh ratio %' slider is enabled/ displayed.

The retry to fresh ratio provides the facility to throttle the level of retries pushed through Softdial CallGem™. By default, retries are made whenever they are scheduled to be made. See Retry Rules. This can mean on a campaign run over a day or more that most numbers being dialled are retries. By forcing a certain percentage of numbers dialled to be fresh (undialled) numbers, it means that connect rates don't drop too low that performance is adversely affected.

For example, by setting a retry to fresh ratio of

  • 100% (the default) - retries will take precedence over fresh data.
  • 50% - 1 fresh call will be dialled for each retry (unless we are short of either fresh calls or retries)
  • 0% -
    • prior to V10.7.1708 - retries will be postponed until all fresh numbers have been dialled
    • from V10.7.1708 - this behaviour has been enhanced for short order campaigns. See Configuration for short-order campaigns

Normally, retries should be set take precedence over fresh data, and a carefully considered policy on frequency of retry and maximum retry attempts should be established.

This retry regime, coupled with Softdial Campaign Manager™’s intelligent use of history to compute Right Time to Call (RTTC) will ensure that the chance of achieving a connect is maximised.

Unless there are clear business reasons for doing so, and you understand the consequences of your choices with respect to getting value from your dialing data, the following rules are recommended when setting retry strategies:

  1. Limit retry of not present type outcomes for a phone number to a maximum of 6 times
  2. Set time boundaries for retries according to your contact center shift hours
  3. Set a retry interval for no answers and answer machines that is 3 hours or more

In the event that Softdial Campaign Manager™ cannot make retries at or near the scheduled time due to retry throttling or lack of available agents, Softdial Campaign Manager™ will reschedule the retries to take place (by default) 1 day later, preserving the value of the right-time-to-call. Configuration for the overdue cutoff is the Reschedule overdue retries after setting and the default delay is the Time offset for overdue retries setting.

See also Linked Campaigns - Retry Throttling for advice on using this feature with linked campaigns.

The overall maximum number of retries per record. A record will never be called more times than this, regardless of the way in which the switch deems a call to have failed.

This setting overrides any outcome-specific settings listed in the Time delay for type of failure table.

Maximum number of retries per record whose outcomes are defined as not present in the Time delay for type of failure table.

As shown in Fig. 1 (Windows client on right), by default the not present outcomes are

  • No Answer
  • Fax Machine
  • Modem
  • Answer Machine

This setting overrides any outcome-specific settings listed in the Time delay for type of failure table.

For further discussion on the Time delay for type of failure table, see below.

From V10.6.890 - When using Accelerate retries... (see General Settings), this option enables more than one retry cycle.

The default value for this parameter is 1. By setting it to 2 (for example), once the first cycle is finished, Softdial Campaign Manager™ will accelerate retries again.

In the Web client, retries that fail to be placed within the period configured here after the due time will be returned to the database and rescheduled after the time configured in the Time offset for overdue retries setting. The retry count for reschedules retries is not incremented and therefore the number of overall retry attempts is not affected.

Unless you have specified very aggressive retries or are limiting the number of retries, retries will generally be dialled at or around the time they are due and the default setting of 5 minutes will be sufficient.

From 10.6.976 - this cannot be for less than 5 minutes. If less than 5 mins is specified, defaults to 1 day.

In the Web client, retries that fail to be placed in the due time (plus any delay configured in the Reschedule overdue retries after setting, can be rescheduled after this period. Note the time offset is from the original retry time (not including any delay). The default setting of 1 day helps preserve the value of right-time-to-call decisions made by the retry engine and should not need to be changed.

The Time delay for type of failure table (Fig. 2) contains retry settings specific to each kind of switch outcome failure. The Add, Edit and Delete buttons may be used to add, edit or delete the rows of this table. They may be enabled by highlighting a row.

The headings for each of the columns in the Time delay for type of failure table are explained below:

The type of outcome, as would be found in the legacy Name Space Editor.

In the case of multiple (alternate) number retries, if a call is dispositioned with an outcome that does not exist in the this table, a default outcome is used with a time delay offset of 144 minutes. The next call is determined by the multiple number strategy.

(From V10.7 - Web client only)

Sets how the delay is modified for multiple retries (Fig. 1). there are 3 options:

  1. Simple - This works as previously - the delay configured for the call outcome is always used for all retries.
  2. Set each time - It is possible to set up to 6 different delay times for each outcome / retry. If more than 6 retries occur, the delay set for the 6th retry is used thereafter (Fig. 2).
  3. Exponential - This type takes the first configured value and doubles it for each retry. e.g 1 hr, 2 hrs, 4hrs…

The amount of time after an outcome failure has been made, before the call is retried. If the resulting time happens to occur outside of the Don't reschedule before/ after times, or the call is inappropriately timed at the destination end (see Time Zone Management) then Softdial Campaign Manager™ will calculate a suitable time in which the call can be made on the following day.

The number of times a contact will be retried for the selected outcome. e.g. if a value of 3 is entered in the Answer Machine row, retries of this number will cease if 3 Answer Machine outcomes resulting from retries have occurred.

In this example, if the initial outcome on the first attempt is also an answer machine, this will result in a total of four Answer Machine outcomes.

Set to Yes only for those outcomes which imply that there is no one to answer the call. These have there own 'Not Present' maximum retries setting. See above.

Specifies the times of day in which each type of outcome may be retried. Overridden by the Don't reschedule before/ after controls.

(From V10.7 - Web client only)

When multiple (alternate) numbers are being used, each outcome can be assigned a precedence value which is used in the multiple number editing settings (see Database Input ).

Typical usage example: if we have dialed all 3 numbers for a respondent, the failure with the highest precedence can be used to select the number to be retried next; allowing outcomes like busy to override Round Robin rules.

(From V10.7 - Web client only)

These settings are used when the Type setting Set each time is used, to define the delays to be used between consecutive retry attempts (See Fig. 2, web client).

Governs behaviour if a callback fails because the respondent is not present.

If the box is

  • unchecked - the call will be set to be retried with the same agent, according to the rules set up on the Retry Options page (outcome code 32, planned not made)
  • checked - the call will be set to be retried after time offset (default - 1 day), by any agent who becomes available. If Count for retry is checked, the callback is converted to a 'retry', due immediately, and the retry count is incremented.

Governs behaviour if a callback fails even though the respondent is present.

If the box is

  • unchecked - the call will be set to be retried with the same agent, according to the rules set up on the Retry Options page (outcome code 32, planned not made)
  • checked - the call will be set to be retried after time offset (default - 5 minutes), by any agent who becomes available. If Count for retry is checked, the callback is converted to a 'retry', due immediately, and the retry count is incremented.

Governs behaviour if a callback is setup for a specific agent at a specific time, then at that time, the agent is not logged in.

If the box is

  • unchecked - the call will be set to be retried with the same agent, according to the rules set up on the Retry Options page (outcome code 32, planned not made)
  • checked - the call will be set to be retried after time offset (default - 1 day), by any agent who becomes available i.e. the callback is converted to a 'retry', due immediately

The amount of time after an outcome failure has been made, before the call is retried. The drop-down offers selectors for number of days/ hours/ minutes/ seconds.

Time offset

Fig. 3 - Time offset

These can be combined, e.g. retry in 1 day, 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Retries can be made using an alternative number or numbers and the priority of each number to be used for retry can be preset. Where multiple numbers are to be used for retries these can also be selected using various retry schemas, e.g. Round Robin, X calls for each number, etc.

The retry settings for multiple numbers is contained on the Database Input dialogue via the Multiple telephone numbers button.

In support of UK legislation changes introduced in 2006, the default delay before retrying an abandoned call has been set to 72 hours. This delay may be changed by the user to any value, however retries of abandoned calls made within 72 hours from the initial call will only proceed if an agent can be reserved for the call.

Softdial Campaign Manager™ achieves this by attaching the Abandon Retry (AR) parameter to the Make Call [MC] message. Softdial CallGem™ then reserves an agent before launching re-dialing the call.

From 10.6.914 & 10.7.1086 - Calls that have expired, either as a result of

  • reaching expiry time, or
  • being a cached retry that has gone overdue

...are rescheduled according to the following rule:

If the record is

  • fresh - put back to an undialed state
  • retry or has a scheduled time - apply the overdue retry offset and then run this through the retry algorithm, to take into account shift boundaries, timezone, RTTC.

Softdial Campaign Manager™ makes an assumption that Softdial CallGem™ will typically take about 5 minutes to work through its FIFO cache of numbers, so the retry is placed into Softdial CallGem™'s cache 5 minutes before it is due. For this reason, in the case where was the cache is depleted, the retry may be dialed slightly earlier than scheduled.

The retry algorithm seeks to avoid placing repeated retries at the same time of day, in order to maximise the chances of a contact. The way this works is that the day is divided into 24 hourly timeslots. The Out of Shift and Out of Timezone hours are marked as Unavailable. The times of any previous retries are also marked as Unavailable. The algorithm takes the current time and adds the retry interval for the specific type of retry. It then checks whether the hour timeslot where the retry has been placed is available. If not, the retry is moved to the next available timeslot (i.e. add 1 hour).