| REQUIRED USER ROLE Administrator | PERMISSION OVERVIEW View permissions by role |
Create a Proactive Voice Campaign to automatically call your Customers and provide updates through your Voice Channel.
Before you start
Before you configure a Proactive Voice Campaign, we recommend that you first review the following:
Read what Proactive Voice is.
Understand how Proactive Voice works.
Have the recording/message ready that will be used in the IVR for the Campaign. This is the message your recipients will hear.
There are three main parts that make up a Proactive Voice Campaign:
IVR used for a Campaign.
The Campaign (the subject or reason for your outreach).
The outreach made (recipients called) for each Campaign.
Create a Proactive Voice IVR Campaign
This is the IVR that the Campaign will use to relay your recording/message to the Customer. If you have multiple Campaigns, each Campaign should have its own IVR setup.
Click
.svg)
on the top left corner of the screen.Click Settings.
Under the Channels category, click IVR.
Click Create New IVR and enter a name for the IVR. Use a name that will help you relate the Proactive Voice Campaign to the IVR, then click Create.
From the blank IVR page, click Start Building.
From the modal, click the Proactive Voice template under the Templates section, which automatically populates the IVR with the necessary nodes.
Edit the following nodes:
Variable Match – Do not update this node. It's already configured to detect if an answering machine or person answers the call.
Message (Match) – Might be named as "Voicemail Message" or Machine Detected." This is the node that kicks in if an answering machine/voicemail is detected.
Click on this node to open the node-specific settings on the right side. Scroll down to the Message section and choose to use Text to Speech or Recording.
Text to Speech – On the Text field, enter the text you want the system to read as a message and leave it as a voicemail.
Recording – Click Select Recording to upload an mp3 audio of the message you want to leave as a voicemail.
Message – Might be named "Greeting," This is the node that kicks in if the Variable Match node detects that a person picked up the call.
Click on this node to open the node-specific settings on the right side. Scroll down to the Message section and choose to use Text to Speech or Recording.
Text to Speech – On the Text field, enter the text you want the system to read as a message for the person that picked up the call.
Recording – Click Select Recording to upload an mp3 audio of the message for the person that picked up the call.
Menu – Once the message (Text to Speech or Recording) is played to the Customer, this node notifies the Customer that they can press 1 to speak to an Agent.
Exit – If the Customer presses 1, the call is routed to an Inbox.
You can find the _dial on the Entry Points page and determine if you need to create an exception to send the call to the appropriate Inbox.
Click Publish.
Provide a short description of the changes that you made, then click OK.
Remove nodes you don't need
If you only want to play a message and not give additional options (e.g., to connect with an Agent), then you can delete the Menu and Exit node.
You can give Customers the option to connect with you via SMS by adding the SMS node after the Menu node.
Once your IVR is created, next, you will need to create the Proactive Voice Campaign.
Create a Proactive Voice Campaign
Set up the reason for the Campaign along with the settings required to begin the outreach to recipients.
Click
on the top left corner of the screen.Click Settings.
Under the Proactive Conversations category, click Proactive Voice. The Proactive Voice page will list the Campaign(s) that have been created.
From the Proactive Voice page, click Create Campaign.
Enter the following information about the Campaign:
Name – Enter a name that helps you identify what the Campaign is for.
Description – Provide a brief description of what the Campaign is for.
Phone Number – Select the "from" phone number the Campaign will use to make the automated outbound calls.
IVR – Select the IVR you built specifically for the Campaign.
Simultaneous Calls – Indicate how many calls you want to make simultaneously. The maximum number of calls the system can make simultaneously is 30.
Tip – Because a Campaign could encourage Customers to ask additional questions, keep a level number to prevent overwhelming your team with questions about a Campaign.
Tip – You can change the number of simultaneous calls while a Campaign is in progress. Do note that the system can only make up to 30 calls every five minutes until all the recipients have been contacted.
Campaign Schedule – Enter a time frame when Campaign outreach calls are allowed to occur. If the Outreach Date and Time (configured in the Recipients page) of a Campaign fall outside the Campaign Schedule, then outreach will begin on the next calling window.
Closed checkbox – Check the Closed box if you don't want emails sent on a particular day. The Closed is checked by default, so uncheck the Closed box to allow emails to be sent on a particular day.
Click Create Campaign. This will take you back to the Proactive Voice page where you'll find the Campaign you just created.
Once your Campaign is created, next, you'll need to add the recipients that will be contacted as part of the outreach for the Campaign.
Add Recipients
Add recipients that will be part of your Campaign's outreach.
To the right of the Campaign you created, click
, then select Add/Edit Recipients.
From the Campaign outreach status page, click Add Recipients and add the following information:
Campaign Details – This section shows the details of the Campaign.
Recipients – Click CSV Template on the description to download a CSV template to add your recipients. The template is pre-populated with five sample rows with sample timezones and phone numbers in the correct format.
Edit the CSV template:
Edit the CSV template:
Enter the recipient’s timezone* in column A based on their primary location.
Enter the recipient's phone number (1+area code+number) in column B.
Enter the recipient's name in column C.
For column A/timezones, use the TZ database name found here.
For column C/name, the name is used to create a new Profile if one doesn't exist.
Save the CSV as Comma Separated Values.csv or CSV UTF-8 only and use a name that allows you to easily identify the recipient list.
Once your CSV is saved, click Upload CSV to upload your recipient list (CSV).
Outreach Date/Time – Because you can create a Campaign ahead of time, you can select a date/time when you want your Proactive Voice Campaign to begin. For example, If you are setting up your Campaign on the 3rd of the month but want to start the automated calls on the 15th of the month, select the 15th as the start date. You can choose a time and any month in the future.
Should outreach end on a certain date/time? – Check this box If you want the Campaign to end on a specific date/time. Without an end date/time, a Campaign will be marked as "Completed" once it goes through the entire recipient list.
Note – If the Outreach Date/Time falls outside the Campaign Schedule, outreach will begin on the next window. A Campaign could also end without contacting all the recipients if the recipient list is too large and the Campaign ends before the list is contacted.
Click Send. The outreach will begin on the Start Date/Time you selected.
Specify the correct timezone on the CSV
When entering the timezone on the CSV, use the TZ database name found here. The default timezone used to call Customers is set by your organization's time. Because the Customers you call may be in different time zones, you will need to specify a timezone for each recipient on your list. Know where your Customers are to avoid calling them at odd hours. For example, if your organization's timezone is America/New_York (EST) and your Calling Hours begin at 9 AM, if you have Customers on your recipient list that lives in Los Angeles (America/Los_Angeles) AND you don't enter their timezone as America/Los_Angeles, you'll be calling them at 6 AM.
You can have multiple outreach lists for each Campaign
A Campaign can contain one or multiple recipient outreach lists. For example, you may create multiple lists to group recipients so they are contacted on different days.
CSV upload error
If your CSV cannot be uploaded due to an error, you may see an error message with a link to download the error log. Click Download error log to view the CSV log.
Look under column A in the error log to see what caused your upload to fail.
Invalid Timezone
Make sure you are using the correct timezone format using the TZ database.
Wrong Number of Fields
There should only be two columns in your CSV –timezone, and phone_number. Remove any extra columns.
Make sure your phone number has the correct format –1+area code+number.
Save the CSV as Comma Separated Values.csv or CSV UTF-8 only.
Upload errors with no download log
For errors without a downloadable error log, the most common reasons include:
Improper CSV format - make sure to follow the format on the downloadable template.
Exceeding the maximum number of recipients per CSV - Make your recipient list is under 3,500 contacts or less.