Personalization has become a consistent need for customers in any interaction. Whether it’s a call, email, or SMS, tools have made it extremely easy to customize messages. One common way of executing it is through agent-based campaigns. These are essentially carried out through a campaign management software that is capable of handling outbound interactions. It enables one-to-one, personalized service by mapping one agent exclusively to one customer. This keeps agent productivity at peak levels when specific callback records are depleted or the outbound calling strategies have changed.

Here are a few use cases that truly highlight the power of agent-based campaigns.

Insurance

In an initial contact outbound campaign, agents reach out to customers and speak to them regarding new insurance schemes in the market. When they reach a prospect who’s interested in investing in the service, the agent takes control of the record in the CRM and follows the customer through the application process to completion. Typically, this process is how agent lead distribution is done.

The main drawback of this outbound agent-based campaign is that agents use the dialer only during a prescribed time of the day. It could range between an hour or two. The remaining hours are spent handling inbound calls and following up on named customers. This means some agents are calling customers at appropriate contact times while the others aren’t, thereby affecting the lead distribution and reducing the overall Right Party Connect (RPC) rate.

With agents spending more time doing manual work than answering inbound/outbound calls, time accountability is minimum. By utilizing agent-based campaigns, an agent can be connected to the dialer for an extended duration. They can take calls in a predictive or progressive environment and their personal calls in a preview mode (which gives them time to review the record before the follow-up). Ideally, an agent should be on the dialer the entire day taking inbound calls, making outbound predictive calls, and doing personal callbacks. This provides a single-source reporting environment and maximizes agent performance.

Collections

Agents use the dialer for campaigns roughly 50% of their day. Most of the campaigns have very limited success (typical hit rates on agency calls are around 1-2%). Usually, when they get in touch with a debtor and commit a payment arrangement, it is the agent’s responsibility to closely monitor the debtor to ensure payment. A significant part of the agent’s compensation is based on the actual payment, so the completion of the payment arrangement is critical.

Much like the insurance example, the drawback here is that agents aren’t making calls throughout the day but only at certain intervals. These affect their ability to get RPCs and subsequent payment arrangements. But the bigger issue here is efficiency as collection agencies are driven by cents. Therefore, any second spent not dialing is lost productivity and lost revenue.

By applying agent-based campaign management to agents (say 50 all day instead of 10 x 5 different shifts), it dramatically increases dialer efficiency and drives down idle time. This covers additional amounts of work that’s equal to the work of five to ten agents across a 16-hour work day. Even at a 1-2% hit rate, it achieves higher RPCs and payment arrangements. During this time, agents can still manage follow-ups in between predictive dialer calls or inbound calls. This helps improve month-over-month results.

While the above examples are elementary, the overall theme is to ensure agents are using the dialer at all times. Thus, with agent-based campaigns, businesses can have the best of both worlds – efficient dialer-driven agent performance with the individualized attention of agent-owned calling.