How to add Answering Machine Detection (AMD) to an Outbound IVR
What is Answering Machine Detection?
Intelligent Contacts' Hosted Contact Center Answering Machine Detection (AMD) service can determine if an outbound call was answered by a person or picked up by an answering or fax machine, and route the call appropriately. This results in more Agent-to-Consumer contacts and less time wasted on answering machine responses.
With the addition of AMD to an outbound IVR, you can configure the response to an answering machine however you desire - calls can be hung-up automatically, messages can be left, and more.
To add Answering Machine Detection to your Outbound Campaigns you will need the following:
1. An Outbound Campaign (Can be Power Dialing, Predictive, Intelligent Queue or Messaging).
2. A Phone Number set up for internal use. (See How do I add a new Phone Number?; We recommend labeling it "OutboundAMD")
By default, your Hosted Contact Center should already include an Outbound IVR called "Campaign w/ AMD" which is routed to via the number "OutboundAMD". It will look something like this:
If you do not already have a "Campaign w/ AMD" IVR, please create one like the above.
The key step is the "IsMachine" IVR Action - this action will return a response indicating if the call hit an answering or fax machine, or if it encountered a live customer. If it encountered a machine, the call is routed to an IVR set in Parameter #1, otherwise the call will continue to the Campaign step below and route back to the Campaign that placed the call. [Alternatively, if you were running a Messaging Campaign, you could use the "IsHuman" action to redirect the call if a person answers instead; by default though, we recommend sticking with "IsMachine" for either case).
Once you have found or created your "Campaign w/AMD" IVR, you will need to create a new IVR for the "IsMachine" step to route to. There are multiple options for what can be done with a call once it's detected to be a machine. Below are a couple of examples:
Hangup - You may not want to do anything with a call that hits a machine, so a simple "Hangup" IVR will suffice.
Alternatively, you can also chose to leave a pre-recorded message on the answering machine. With the below example, the "Leave VM Message" action can be used to play a pre-recorded audio file after receiving the "beep" response from the machine. The "Set Agent Disposition" action will then mark the call with a new call result - ideally one noting that a message was left. By default, calls that are routed via the "IsMachine" step are given the call result "AMD", so if you want to differentiate between calls that hit the Answering Machine Detection and were hung up before the message was completed and those where the full message was played - this is what you would do.
Once you have finished creating the second IVR, be sure to update your "Campaign w /AMD IVR" to include the new IVR's name under "Parameter #1" for "IsMachine".
Be sure to rebuild your Outbound IVR w/ AMD's phone number and add it to the "Internal Routing Number" Field of your Campaign. For additional assistance in creating or editing IVRs, please see: How do I create a new IVR? or Editing Existing IVRs. For all other questions, please contact our Support Team at support@intelligentcontacts.com
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