What is the optimum number of outbound agents?

[BTR]

To get the best performance from the Genesys outbound dialler – what should the minimum number of agents be?

What are the other factors outside of number of concurrent agents that would impact best dialler performance?

[cavagnaro]

It must be asked in the other way, how many calls you want to do.
It impacts conversation time, agent availabilty, number of agents, ringing time on called side, availabilty of ports, treatments, filters, quality of dialed numbers (no wrong numbers).

[BTR]

Thanks,

My reason for asking is we typically only have 18 agents assigned to a campaign and this seems a very small number for such a dialler as Genesys.

Can we expect a good pacing or optimum performance from the dialler with such a low number of agents?

[cavagnaro]

Again, what is your goal? To what do you say low?
How is the data in you calling list? your filters? calling home/cells/work with a criteria?

[Gulden_NL]

Cavagnaro is on the right path.

But........ sorry to say, if your company has spent the tremendous amount of money to buy, install and configure a dialer - one would think that you have a business manager that understands outbound pacing.  18 agents means nothing.

I could send a blast of calls out across 24 outbound trunks in the USA at Noon Eastern Standard Time on a weekday, and if your agents are not going to leave messages on answering services, then probably 80% of them will be idle.

It's not the number of agents.  It's a blend of who you are calling, when you are calling, what country/region you are calling, why you are calling (debt collection companies must provide their name in ANI info in the USA, you're not going to get people answering live....) etc.

So there is absolutely no way to answer your question here.  You require business consulting that understands your business as well as having a long history in Outbound calling.

I could bill you US$1,000/day, but it would be a waste.  You really need to have your business people engage with someone locally that knows: 1.) your outbound legal restrictions, 2.) your industry, 3.) outbound dialing campaigns.

Sorry to be so blunt/strict in my native English language, but that's the reality.  It is not a technical question.  I or anyone here will be happy to point you toward a trustworthy company to help you, if that is what you require.

Best regards

[bcyk]

Above comments are absolutely correct; business requirement is the key factor to determine dialing pace.

Now, if business requirement is given and confirmed, what are OCS options for controlling dialing pace?

Final dial pacing is dynamic because of a number of un-predictable runtime results
Many factors are stated in previous replies. Partial factore are [1] quality (e.g. dead / wrong numbers) of contact numbers and [2] dialing time (e.g., daytime to home number may likely return "No answer").

For instance, it is expected the average agent waiting time is 30 seconds (average ready time for agent to received next predictive outbound call).

One of configurations for target Average Agent Waiting Time is to, in OCM, set
  - Dialing mode = Predictive
  - Optimized parameter = Average Waiting Time
  - Target value = 30

Other feasible tunning options are [b]predictive_max_overdial_rate[/b] and [color=red][b]small_group_size[/b][/color].
The latter may be the option you are looking for.


[b]predictive_max_overdial_rate[/b]
Specify the maximum allowed over-dial rate for dialing in predictive mode
Checking is performed separately from optimization parameters in predictive mode
If set to 0, OCS does not perform separate control of the over-dial rate
default value: 0

Example: if this option is set to 5 (five percentage) and over-dial is set to 10, the effective maximum number is restricted to 5%.

The option must be set in regions that enforce legal law or telemarketing "Code of Practice".
Dropped calls (connected calls but no ready agent and dropped by dialer) may be routed to voice mail system or announcement, depending on user requirementd and local legal law.

If there is no such restriction in your local region, this option should be kept to zero.
The "Target value" in OCM can then be increased to improve average agent waiting time.
Please note that number of rescheduled records increases due to higher overdial/dropped call rate.


[b]dialing_rate_limit[/b]
Specify maximum number of dialing requests per seconds; if set to 0, OCS does not dial!
default value: 100
Note: This option is normally left as default.



[color=red][b]small_group_size[/b][/color]

Starting from Outbound Contact Server 7.1, the option small_group_size extends the use of the small-group predictive algorithm from 7 or less agents in a group up to a maximum of 50 agents in a group.

The new option is: small_group_size
    -  min value: 0 (zero)
    -  max value: 50
    -  default value: 7

Description: If the current number of agents is less than or equal to this option's value, OCS uses a small-group predictive algorithm. This [color=red]algorithm works for the [b]Overdial Rate [/b] optimization parameter only,[/color] and it gives better optimization results than the general predictive algorithm, in some campaigns.

Note: The new option can be configured on both the Application- and individual Campaign-levels.
The Campaign-level option takes precedence over the Application-level. (ER# 5764119)


[u]Additional info[/u]

Small Group Pacing Algorithm is used by OCS if there are 7 or less agents in the Campaign Group and Overdial Rate is used as an optimization parameter.

Small Group usage can be extended by option small_group_size for groups with up to 50 agents.

OCS dials if two conditions are satisfied:
    - Dialed Calls in Buffer= 0, and
    - Number of Ready agents > 0.

"Dialed Calls in Buffer" is equal to "dialed but not queued outbound calls" + "queued but not diverted outbound calls" + "queued but not diverted inbound calls".

Advantages of the Small Group algorithm:
    - For groups with a small number of agents, this algorithm may give higher Busy Factor with low Overdial Rate.
    - It automatically adjusts to some unexpected situations like call duration fluctuations.

Disadvantages:
    - OCS stops dialing for some time if a call stays too long in the states dialed and/or queued.
    - OCS has slow dialing, if routing point receives inbound calls which are transferred to agents that do not belong to the group running a campaign. These calls affect the "Dialed Calls in Buffer" parameter.


campaign-level configuration
/Configuration/Resources/Campaigns/[campaign-name]
    [campaign-name]--(properties)->Annex->OCServer->small_group_size=20


------- sample OCServer debugging log file --------------------------
StatServerDBID: 118; Overdial Limit:  5.00;
        CPD Ports: 48; Number of Free Ports: 44; Total channels: 40; Free channels: 36;
Predictive data
    Calls predicted: 0; [b]Pacing algorithm: [color=red]Small Group Enhanced[/color][/b]    Expected values:  Busy Factor= 0.747; Abandon Rate= 0.050; Wait Time= 52.134;
    Real values:      Busy Factor= 0.829; Abandon Rate= 0.000; Wait Time= 26.861;
    Current Statistics
    Agents/Places - Total:    30; Ready:  4; Engaged:  0; BusyOut:  17; BusyInB:  0;
                    BusyPaper: 0; BusyInt: 0; BusyRing: 0; BusyDial: 0; NotReady: 2; NotAvail: 7;
    Calls Outbound - Dialed: 4; Queued: 0; Established: 18; Chained: 0;
    Calls Callback -            PersonalClbk: 0; CampaignClbk: 0;
    Calls Inbound  -            Queued:  0;  Established: 0;
    Chains - Created: 301; Deleted: 160;    Records - Created: 301; Deleted: 160;
    History - Hit Ratio: 0.660;
        Durations - Out: 153.70; In:  0.00; Total: 153.70; Dial: 16.31; Dial NoContact: 22.61;
        Traffic  - Out: 0.107; In: 0.000; Other: 0.000;  Last Forecast: 0; Really Dialed: 0;
        Inbound Calls  - Completed: 0; Abandoned: 0;
        Outbound Calls - Total: 182; Established: 111; Completed: 92; Counted: 45;
                        NoContact: 67; NoContactCounted: 67; Abandoned: 0; AbandonedCounted: 0;
                        Error: 0; Stale: 0;
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Hope these information help

regards

[BTR]

Many thanks for your very detailed response.

[Dionysis]

I can add a couple of points for the options recommended above:

All good ideas and correct, but here's a couple of things to be aware of.


[quote]
dialing_rate_limit
Specify maximum number of dialing requests per seconds; if set to 0, OCS does not dial!
default value: 100
Note: This option is normally left as default.[/quote]

Be very careful with this option.  This is the maximum number of calls an OCS can make per second, per CAMPAIGN.  So if you leave it to the default value and have 10 campaigns, your OCS will attempt to make 1000 calls per second!  You will very quickly end up with "No Progress" call results (I think it's no progress), which begins a vicious cycle of OCS hit rate plummeting and therefore dialling more, causing more No Progress results.  This depends on the capacity of your OCS, you TServer, and most importantly the CTI link itself.  Using an old MeridianLink on a Nortel for example you can only handle 18 calls per second, in total!  So you need to tune this option according to your environment, I would NEVER leave it as default unless I was running no more than 1 campaign.


[quote
small_group_size

Starting from Outbound Contact Server 7.1, the option small_group_size extends the use of the small-group predictive algorithm from 7 or less agents in a group up to a maximum of 50 agents in a group.

The new option is: small_group_size
    -  min value: 0 (zero)
    -  max value: 50
    -  default value: 7
[/quote]

I have done extensive testing with this option across many types of data and times of the day and have never once seen efficient dialling when running in "Small Group Enhanced" mode.  Of course it may work well for some but make sure you analyse your results very carefully when testing it.

On the subject of numbers.  Personally, if I were to run an outbound campaign with 18 agents with a target wait time of 30 seconds between calls, assuming a sales campaign dialling both mobile and landlines with am detection set to "accurate_am_detection.  I would run Predictive and use Agent Busy Factor as the optimisation parameter, set to somewhere around 80%.

In my experience the biggest gains to be made in Outbound efficiency is pushing agent consistency and somehow taking "Sale" calls (being the longer AHT calls) out of the equation as far as OCS is concerned.  I can't tell you how to do this part as it varies depending on your PABX setup etc.

Hope this helps.