A possible solution to answer machine detection

Answer machine detection is again in the news and many call centres now feel they cannot comply with Ofcom’s silent calls ruling and have switched off their devices.

This has had a dramatic effect on their productivity as agents now have to listen out for answer machines.

Silent calls are created when the call is answered by a person, but the AMD equipment falsely identifies the recipient as a machine.  However, using Intelligent Voice Messaging (IVM) an answer machine can be detected without the risk of making a silent call. The system assumes that the call has been answered by a person, and starts the dialogue with the customer, whilst continuing to check whether a machine has answered the call.  When an answering machine is detected, the system stops the interactive script and leaves an appropriate message, identifying the caller and asking the customer to ring back. This effectively solves the problem of AMDs creating silent calls.

Adrian Adams

Adrian Adams, marketing director of Qire, said, “call centres that have moved to IVM are now returning to their previous level of productivity and avoiding silent calls”.

Adrian added “There are other benefits of IVM which could further improve the efficiency of call centres. The beauty of IVM systems is that they don’t just ‘push messages out to customers’, they interact using ‘real voice’ prompts and recognise voice responses, creating a conversation with the customer. For example, this dialogue can be used to verify that the right person is on the line – or even ask for that person to be brought to the phone – before the call is passed to a live agent. This can produce important gains in agent productivity, motivation and right-party contact rates without any investment in equipment.”