Genesys & Blaster Campaigns

[amarceau]

All -
I've searched everywhere can can't seem to find a solution to this issue.

I current am running Genesys Outbound Solution.  I don't have IVR or GVP.  But I still need to run outbound blaster campaigns.    Here's my setup so far.

Campaign with two treatments applied to Calling List - one treatment for Answer and second for Answering Machine Detected.  Each of those treatements point to a VDN Route Point on my Avaya Switch which play a pre-recorded announcement to the customer.  Pretty straightforward and nothing too complex here.....

Here's my issue -- I cannot get this Campaign to dial in a predictive at an acceptable pace to get all my records called in a day that I need to get called.  So I have an Agent Group assigned to the Campaign and I have it running in Predictive Mode - I've tried all pacing modes available and it still won't call more then one record every 10-15 seconds.  Ideally I need this campaign to call 5-10 records at once.  Or anything more then one record at once woudl be acceptable.

Any idea's on how to accomplish this?  Anyone running these blasters/virtual Campaigns out there that have founda  solution? 

I'm looking for any suggestions - I've reached the end of things I can try besides setting up 100+ agents on my switch that stay auto-in all the time therefore are always statused "ready" -- There must be some way for OCS to be configured to dial at a pace necessary.

Any thoughts?

[tony]

Just to clarify - are you asking how you power dial / over dial?

TT

[amarceau]

I guess Power Dial would be a good way to describe it if that's the Genesys word to describe it...

[tony]

Thanks for the clarification.

Unless I am mistaken, I have nothing further to add to this thread.

TT

[cavagnaro]

I have done something similar doing this:

1. Create Agent Group with like 10 agents.
2. Create a Softphone application that once receive the call (Established) it only releases it (hang-up)
3. Create your campaign and launch it on Predictive way with Agent Busy Factor = 100%
4. Be sure to have at least 20 free ports for dialing.
5. Enjoy.

[Fra]

1. How many outbound ports have you got?
2. what's the average hit ratio? (i.e. are there many bad numbers)
3. do you use pre-dial checks (i.e. DNC list)
4. have you checked the OCS logs to verify what happens during those 10-15 secs?
5. what OCS version are you running?

Fra

[amarceau]

If I'm understanding this right - I'm creating 10 (or however many I want) agents on my PBX since I'll need LoginID's for them, etc.... We use GAD as our softphone.  So would I need to physically log these agents into the GAD application?  And if so - I need to log them into a Place - so essentially I would need not only 10 login's but also 10 extensions....

Or maybe I'm missing something in your explanation?  That's how I'm currently running it.  I log one of my "Test" agents into our GAD application and put them avail and then load my Blaster Campaign.    But I was hoping to not have to have that much intervention.    If Supervisors have to log 10 or more agents into a GAD application in the morning in order to start their campaign, I don't see that as a viable solution.  I can get away with telling them they have to log a "Blaster" agent into GAD to kick off the Blaster, but then I still need a way to increase that pacing so it dials faster.

As for questions by Fra

1.  We don't have dedicated outbound ports.  We use whatever's available on the PBX.
2.  Very few bad number - maybe 5% or so
3.  We do pre-dial check the DNC list
4.  I have looked at OCS logs, but as far as I can see - since it's only recognizing 1 agent available for my Blaster camapign it's pacing itself according to that one agent.  Even if I put the Over Dial rate at 200-300 it still does not change the dial rate
5.  OCS Version 7.6.101.06

[cavagnaro]

On OCS you can't use "virtual" agents alone, you can do via IVR integration for example but something needs to receive the call. If you don't have such kind of integration then you need to use 10 physical extensions and 10 agents on your PBX. Now, the fact that you use GAD is a huge limitation, I was talking about a custom softphone that you build, so on 1 computer you run 10 instances of this and logs 10 agents or they stay logged in forever. When a call arrives to this custom softphone it just hangs up.

[tony]

Forgive my ignorance - what is a "Blaster" Campaign, please?

TT

[amarceau]

Thanks for all the info.  My company is fairly new with Genesys.  Our first install was in November.  We are finding more and more limitations on functionality we weren't expecting when we choose the software platform.    Don't get me wrong - I think the overall capabilities of Genesys are fantastic.  Everything is just so darn complicated 

But we are learning.  Back to the drawing board on this one I guess

ADDITION:  Blaster Campaign in my terminology is an "unmanned" campaign that dials customers and leaves pre-recorded messages....i.e.  "Your account is past due - please call us ASAP....".  We use this since we don't have an outbound IVR.    There is no agent interaction to this campaign.  No calls will ever be presented to physical agents.  That's a Blaster to me.    It's the only term I've ever heard in call centers for 20+ years.

[Fra]

[quote author=amarceau link=topic=6127.msg26637#msg26637 date=1296047850]
1.  We don't have dedicated outbound ports.  We use whatever's available on the PBX.
[/quote]

Not correct - Genesys-wise, you are limited by the number of outbound ports that you have purchased by Genesys and that are hardcoded into the license.dat file. OCS will dial at its best as many calls as the number of outbound ports licensed.

[quote author=amarceau link=topic=6127.msg26637#msg26637 date=1296047850]
4.  I have looked at OCS logs, but as far as I can see - since it's only recognizing 1 agent available for my Blaster camapign it's pacing itself according to that one agent.  Even if I put the Over Dial rate at 200-300 it still does not change the dial rate
[/quote]

That's your problem: regardless of the parameters you set, if OCS sees only one available agent, it will never ever overdial, or potentially switch to predictive; one of the input parameters of the OCS pacing algorithm is the number of logged in / ready agents. You need to have more than 10 agents to have it run decently and after a specific number of calls (there's an OCS option for that), will effectively switch to predictive mode.

Fra

[amarceau]

[quote]
That's your problem: regardless of the parameters you set, if OCS sees only one available agent, it will never ever overdial, or potentially switch to predictive; one of the input parameters of the OCS pacing algorithm is the number of logged in / ready agents. You need to have more than 10 agents to have it run decently and after a specific number of calls (there's an OCS option for that), will effectively switch to predictive mode.
Fra
[/quote]

So if I only had only one agent logged into this Campaign - would there be any way to change to settings in the Campaign Group Level OCServer Annex options so that it paces based on that one agent?  I've tried playing with the small_group settings and it doesn't seem to do anything.  Maybe I'm not setting those right?

[tony]

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/08/tsr.shtm

Relevant?

TT

[amarceau]

[quote author=Tony Tillyer link=topic=6127.msg26646#msg26646 date=1296053377]
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/08/tsr.shtm
[/quote]

I don't think so - this seems to focus on Telemarketing calls.  We are not a telemarketing call center.  These are all our customers that owe us money

[tony]

Ah - ok - thanks for the clarification.

TT