When calling with any VoIP vendor, it is important to stay within the line regarding ASR & ACD and your calling reputation. This ensures a great calling experience for yourself (or your team) and the leads you are reaching out to.
The Technical Lingo
When making business calls, carriers have ways to measure the quality of calls. This is done to reduce/eliminate possible spam or nefarious calling within the operation. We can look at two specific metrics Answer Seizure Ratio (ASR) & Average Call Duration (ACD).
ASR is the percentage of successfully connected calls versus the number of attempted calls. (a connected call is one where the call goes to voicemail, IVR, or the end-user answers the call).
ACD is the average duration of connected calls in a certain period. The longer the conversations, the better ACD rating you will have.
The Myphoner approach
In Myphoner, we have built a simple mechanism to help manage the reputation of accounts. We simply do not allow hanging up a call the first 20 seconds it's ringing. This will prevent agents with autodial enabled from hanging up immediately when looking at a lead. If you do not intend to ring, don't - disable the autodialer.
If/when the call is answered the hangup buttons are enabled immediately.
Best Practices
When looking at your ASR, it's important to consider what experience you want to have while calling leads and what experience you want your leads to have.
ASR Best Practices
Ensure that your call lists are accurate and that the numbers are valid before calling. If a number comes back as invalid, remove the number from your database to ensure you don't call it again. (hint: using archive disposition is great for this).
Do not call the same number too frequently; this is up to debate, but think about how you want to be treated. You wouldn't want to receive a call five times within a few minutes, so your leads wouldn't want that either.
Allow calls to go to voicemail - if a call goes to a voicemail, that counts as a connected call. (Check out our voicemail drop feature for further lead nurturing).
Call within appropriate business hours; this will carry dependant on region & legislation. However, generally speaking, ensuring you are calling at a time most advantageous to the lead will mean a higher chance of the lead answering.
Leave adequate time between calling a lead previously on the phone; this is where Myphoner scheduling/follow-up can be helpful.
Ensure that you do not calls leads registered on do not call registries (these differ from country to country.)
Consequences
Great Versus Bad ASR
Knowing where you stand in ASR is important, so let's look at what is considered a good and a bad ASR.
Great = 60%+, any number above this means most calls lead to a connection.
Good = 40 - 60 %, this is a healthy ASR; closer to 60+ is better, of course.
Bad = Below 40%, most calls aren't connected, & you are a suspected spam caller.
If you hit below 40%, this means that you are flagged for review and may be subject to sanctions.
Great Versus Bad ACD
Call centres may only expect to see average call durations of 60-120 seconds (1-2 minutes). Lower ACD traffic is generally indicative of bad lead data quality and lower profit.
Great = 60+ seconds, any number above this means most connected calls lead to a conclusive conversation.
Good = 45 - 60 seconds, this is a healthy ACD; closer to 60 is better, of course.
Bad = Below 45 seconds, most connected calls aren't conclusive, & you are a suspected spam caller.
If you hit below 45 seconds, this means that you are flagged for review and may be subject to sanctions.
Other Useful Tips
Below are some tips to help you run a more successful calling campaign.
Call with a Caller ID or DID number - calling with a business number can build trust and confidence with leads.
Call leads with local numbers; leads will trust a local number more than an international number.
If purchasing leads, ensure they are from trusted 'high-quality sources; go the extra step and use number verification services to wash your lists.
If calling within the US, register with the free call registry.