How to reduce silent calls in an outbound contact centre

A silent call and an abandoned call are mutually exclusive in the statement. Silence means the person hears nothing from you: no agent and no message. An abandoned call means you dialled in order to connect a live agent, no agent was connected, and a recorded information message was played, or would have been played had they hung up. The abandoned call rate leaves silent calls out, so report them beside it. The formula is in what is a good abandoned call rate?.

Ofcom says silent calls from an automated calling system often happen because the system has over-dialled: every agent is busy when the person answers, and the system disconnects. The direct control is the dial ratio against the number of people who are actually free, not the number who are logged in and still in wrap.

Predictive dialling places calls ahead of free agents. That is why it cuts idle time, and why it is the mode that produces abandoned and silent calls when the answer rate beats the team. On 626Dialler, pacing eases off as the abandoned-call rate approaches the target you set. Set the target at a level the shift can answer, and lower it when people go on a break rather than leaving the morning ratio running. Progressive dialling places one number per agent who is already free, so a live answer has someone waiting. It is on Growth and Enterprise. If a particular list cannot tolerate a dropped answer, put that list on progressive or preview. The collections comparison is a worked example of that split.

Where there are not enough agents, Ofcom expects an appropriate information message. The call is still abandoned, and making abandoned calls may still be persistent misuse. The message is how you avoid the further harm of silence. It should identify the party on whose behalf the call was made, explain that they tried to contact the person, and give a basic-rate or free number so the person can decline further calls. It should not include marketing. A return call to that number should not be used to market without consent.

Ofcom may consider whether the person is connected to the message as quickly as possible, and no longer than two seconds, after the phone is picked up. Where the message waits for the technology to recognise a voice before it classifies the call, the two seconds run from when the person begins to speak. A long pause while the system decides, with nothing said, is the silent call you are trying not to make. Check the recording, not only the setting.

Ofcom says answer-machine detection can generate silent calls by mistaking the person who answered for a machine and disconnecting. A slow greeting looks like a machine. A machine that says “hello” looks like a person. On 626Dialler, answerphone detection can be tuned per campaign. Tuning it is not a one-off. Listen to a sample of calls the system classed as machines and a sample it classed as people, on the campaign you are running this week.

If the false classifications are clustering on a particular list, loosen the detection or turn it off for that list and let agents hear the machine. The time you lose is real. The silent call you avoid is the category Ofcom says is likely to be its highest priority.

A withheld number makes a silent call worse. Ofcom says it will usually treat a withheld CLI as aggravating the harm, particularly on a silent call, because the person has no idea who rang and may think the call is malicious. Misuse of CLI in the statement includes a withheld number on a marketing call, a number that is not authentic, and a number that does not connect to an agent or a message when the person calls it back.

PECR regulation 21 says a person must not make direct marketing calls, solicited or unsolicited, unless they present the calling line identity or a line on which they can be contacted. The ICO's live-call guidance says the same thing in operational language: display your number, or another number on which you can be contacted, and do not withhold it. 626Dialler places calls with the numbers you configure, including numbers you port in or bring on your own SIP trunk. Use a number that returns to a message or a person, not a number that rings out.

Ofcom says one way it may assess repeated misuse is whether further silent or abandoned calls are made to the same number within 72 hours. If the further call is itself a silent or abandoned call, it considers the circumstances and whether a live agent was available for the repeat. If not, the repeat is likely to be an aggravating factor. A retry policy that calls the same person again in the next hour, still without an agent waiting, is the pattern the statement describes.

Hold that record until a session where an agent can take the answer, or move it to progressive. Keep the daily figures. The statement expects organisations to be able to show what they did, including abandoned calls and live calls. 626Dialler can report the abandoned call rate per campaign, per day. Read it with the silent calls beside it, every calendar day, not as a monthly average.

On one campaign, check the dial mode and the target, listen to calls classed as answer machines, read the information message, call the CLI back, and look for any number that got more than one agent-less call inside 72 hours. TPS and CTPS screening will not by itself stop a silent call. The TPS and CTPS guide covers the registers. Alveus hosts 626Dialler for every customer. Book a demo to go through the settings, or see pricing for dial modes. This article is not legal advice. The statement is on Ofcom's review page.