Fine Tuning your Operation for Total Ofcom Compliance What the Ofcom Silent Calls Revision Means for your Business Cirquent UK March 2011 From 1 February 2011 Ofcom has acquired new powers to monitor and punish persistent misuse of electronic communications device, network or service. This report provides an examination of the newly released Ofcom Silent Calls Regulations and techniques to ensure 100% compliance.
Foreword by Jim Casey Contact Centre Line of Business Head, Cirquent UK Today we live in such a fascinating commercial time, a time where technology can give new power and new freedoms to help propel businesses forward. I am of course talking about the significant array of means by which a human being can now be contacted at any given moment. The world s most successful companies understand this exact science and many of today s high-achieving organisations have managed to get the communications balance right between their internal operations and the consumer. However there remains a plethora of organisations which, whilst seeking to leverage operational effectiveness and efficiency through various forms of media contact, require guidance, advice and support in what is rapidly becoming a very scientific topic for numerous sales, marketing and customer service operations worldwide. The privacy of the individual must always be of paramount importance to business, yet many consumers do not object to proactive communications provided they are affected in a controlled, respectful and pleasant manner. Ultimately this comes down to approach and application of the full use of a company s ICT investments whether they utilise basic or advanced functionality in simple to complex environments. In light of the revised Ofcom regulations recently published, companies are now going to have to more clearly define their internal communications strategies and ensure t h a t the correct approaches are taken at all times within their outbound campaigns, as the forfeit for non- compliance across their outbound campaign operations now holds a significant seven-figure penalty. Here at Cirquent, we can help apply the right technologies to ensure your total compliance with these new regulations. Our proven expertise shall ensure that you build a superior contact centre operation in the future, demonstrated through our longevity and referenceable experience with technology, process and most importantly, people. I wish you all success for the future of your customer contact operations. Regards, Jim Casey
What are Silent and Abandoned Calls? Silent and/or abandoned calls usually occur when automated calling systems, known as diallers, make an outbound call on behalf of an organisation that is looking to market its products or services to someone s home. An abandoned call is where a connection is established but terminated by its originator after the call is answered by a live individual. This usually happens when there are not enough call centre agents available to answer every call made by a company (i.e. a call is dropped as a result of over-dialling). A silent call is a type of abandoned call where the recipient hears nothing upon answering the phone and has no means of establishing whether anyone is at the other end. A silent call can be the result of a company not including an information message for the calls that it drops or as a result of answer machine detection technology. Silent and abandoned calls are annoying, irritating and can be very frightening, particularly for people who live alone. Ofcom received over 9,000 complaints about silent calls last year, with around 70% of complainants saying they received two or more silent calls in a day from the same company, often over a period of days or even weeks. In October 2010, Ofcom confirmed new rules to prevent consumers being harassed by repeated silent calls but felt it had not gone far enough in protecting consumers, therefore on 1st February 2011, Ofcom introduced revised amendments to those subsequent policies. Ofcom Soundbyte The watchdog s chief executive, Ed Richards, says: Ofcom has given sufficient warnings to companies about silent calls and is ready to take appropriate action against those companies who continue to break the rules with fines of up to 2 million. What s New in the Revision? From 1st February 2011, new rules designed to prevent consumers being harassed by repeated silent calls from the same company came into force. Ofcom has warned the industry to comply with these new regulations to clamp down on silent calls or face enforcement action, which could include fines of up to 2 million. The new rules will prevent a company using answer machine detection equipment more than once a day if an answer machine is detected on the first attempt. How does this Affect your Business? The significant increase in penalties in this area, combined with a more stringent policing of UK outbound environments, reflect Ofcom s considerable concerns in this area. The enforcement action taken by Ofcom (which is based on hard factual evidence that this persistent problem exists) presents an immeasurable threat to outbound business operations and should therefore be taken very seriously. The long accepted phrase of business as usual will no longer apply. There are no shortcuts or easy ways around this regulatory stance. Simply put, organisations must rely more heavily on current technologies available in the marketplace or employ more staff to generate alternative therapies, which will cause a drop in productivity, output and ultimately, profitability.
What you can do: Proven Solutions for Compliance Call Progress Analysis Call Progress Analysis (CPA), also called Call Progress Detection (CPD) or Answering Machine Detection (AMD), is a generic term for signal processing algorithms that operate on audio during the call setup. The goal of CPA is to determine the nature of the recipient or the outcome of the call setup to an external network (traditional or IP). Specifically, when a call or session is being established, the caller or initiator is interested in knowing if someone answered, if the line is busy, etc. When the caller is an automated application, such as a predictive dialler, CPA algorithms are used to perform the classification automatically. Sangoma Technologies' NetBorder Call Analyzer (NCA) software is designed to specifically perform CPA for automated diallers. It's Call Progress Analysis engine quickly and accurately determines the outcome of call attempts. Whether it's voice mail, a live human, or a special intercept tone that answers the call, NetBorder Call Analyzer functions much like a human brain: it adapts to a wide variety of noise conditions, ringing patterns, and telecom network conditions. The methodology employed centres around accurate and immediate diagnosis of false positives (instances where a call is not actually answered directly by person). The NetBorder Call Analyzer ensures fast and accurate automated call classification which automatically translates into higher agent efficiency and customer interaction quality. Removing Latency from Traditional AMD Live Sampling In addition to the significant benefits of ensuring compliance to the new Ofcom enforced regulations, Sangoma NCA records and archives all connected activity, providing a simple - and effective way of authenticating false positives, alleviating any need for labourious number-dial re-checks (often a considerable nonproductive expense to any outbound operation). Sangoma Soundbyte NetBorder Call Analyzer functions much like a human brain (it) ensures fast and accurate automated call classification which automatically translate into better efficiency of agents and a higher quality of customer interactions. Benefits Summary No added server load Faster analysis time than built-in options Can analyse early media Up to 90-95% accuracy on AMD detection Answering machine, fax, modem, and voice detection at the same time Lowered answered/drop percentage, which is very important to Ofcom calling regulations Very fast AMD to lower the number of answering machines sent to agents Reduced processing time Reduced CPU load because the AMD process is taking place on another machine Dual Benefits: Driving Performance, Lowering Costs In addition to ensuring total Ofcom regulatory compliance, NetBorder Call Analyzer can literally save millions of pounds in yearly annual operating costs by making the best use of agent time and system resources.
Guaranteed Compliance: How it Actually Works The below illustration depicts the unprecedented accuracy of the Sangoma CPA to determine the nature of the recipient or the outcome of call setup to an external network (traditional or IP). Call progress confidence measures enable the system to adapt according to contact centre operating conditions. The Sangoma N e t B o r d e r Call Analyzer calculates two probabilities after a call has been connected the probability of the call being answered by a human and also the probability of the call being answered by an answering service. If, as in the diagram, a human answers the call, the system is aware that no answering service will behave like this so shortly after the single word, therefore the probability of an answering machine presence starts to drop and that of a human contact increases. Sangoma allows the probability threshold to be set on both outcomes out-of-the-box NCA is set to a high value of 92%. It can be seen that as the probability of one increases, the other decreases. When one or other probabilities reach the threshold, the CPA engine returns a call result. The lower the threshold is set, the faster a call result is returned. In the example, if the threshold for human is set to 0.7, then a HUMAN call result will be returned after 0.337 seconds. Ofcom requires that a call is answered by an agent within 2 seconds of the called party answering. In this case, if the threshold for human is set at 0.7 then that will leave 1.4 seconds to route the call (since the human greeting is about 0.3 seconds). How Cirquent can Help Here at Cirquent, we are experts not only in the dialler market but right across business process flows and into the wider operational business environments. Get in touch and find your true relationship partners today. Visit http://www.bettercrm.org or call us at: +44 (0) 203 217 1360.
Ofcom Consumer Advice Consumers experiencing silent calls can complain to Ofcom via an online complaints form (found at www.ofcom.org) and should report the name and number of the company that has made the silent call, plus any other details they may have. Ofcom continually monitors complaints about silent calls, and may investigate any company which it believes may not be complying with its guidelines. Further advice for consumers on what to do if they receive silent calls can be found at: http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/files/2009/07/nuissance.pdf