[Asterisk-Users] Call Center and Predictive dialing

C F shmaltz at gmail.com
Tue Jan 17 13:56:10 MST 2006 

Thanks again for the responses.

On 1/17/06, Matt Florell <astmattf at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> It was good to talk to you yesterday :)
>
> GnuDialer hasn't been focusing as much on the admin features and user
> interface. While they do have them, they are not as full-featured as
> VICIDIAL is. They have spent more time integrating and optimizing with
> the core Asterisk code. GnuDialer is compiled into Asterisk whereas
> VICIDIAL runs on top of Asterisk. GnuDialer does support several
> AMD(Answering-Machine-Detection) methods with their 3.0 release if you
> set them up on the system.

In my opionion I would try to stay away from such an aproach.

> I am in agreement with you about AMD, we don't use it because we were
> loosing calls on our old predictive dialer because it took 1-3 seconds
> longer to connect a customer to an agent, removing AMD takes away this
> delay and you do not loose those customers. Also, it takes a great
> deal of CPU time to process AMD across a lot of lines, and raising
> machine load on purpose is something I try to avoid. I am planning on
> testing a couple of AMD methods that could be easily added on to
> VICIDIAL for a future release, possibly using app_amd and
> AnsweringMachineDetect.

Isn't it an FCC/FTC requirement to answer at least %97 of calls to
humans within 2 seconds? If so how can one use an AMD that takes 1-3
seconds?

> As for Scheduled Callbacks, that's on the roadmap for the next release
> and is the next thing I will be working on after the 1.1.9 release
> comes out(hopefully the end of this week). Callbacks are not that
> simple to engineer and will require a lot of code changes,
> interactivity and admin functionality to make happen correctly for all
> functions of VICIDIAL to work with it. I am working on a process flow
> for it right now and should be able to at least release the process
> flow on the project blog in the next few weeks.
>
> Hope that helps,

Of course it does, thank you

>
> MATT---
>
> On 1/17/06, C F <shmaltz at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thank you all for the responses.
> > Matt, when you say they (gnuDialer) have been focusing on other areas,
> > what do you mean by that?
> > The reason I'm asking, 2 features that I'm looking for that vicidail
> > doesn't support:
> > 1. Scheduled call back
> > 2. The ability to detect an answering machine. Although I disagree
> > with the customer on this one (I personally think that humans are
> > better and quicker answering machine detectors than *any* machine).
> > The customer wants to be able to inject a sound file to the call if
> > it's an answering machine, and put that as the disposition. The reason
> > being that for political campaigns such a disposition has the most
> > value. I know the easy workaround is to create an exten that will do
> > that, and blindxfer the call to that exten.
> >
> > Thank you again. BTW, I was the one that called you yesterday about vicidial.
> >
> > On 1/17/06, Matt Florell <astmattf at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > I can give you some contacts off-list, and of course you can use my
> > > company as a reference as well. I don't have any contacts in France,
> > > but I do in Spain and Greece if that is OK.
> > >
> > > We have a basic French translation of the web clients with no finished
> > > images, but we do have fully translated English, Spanish and Greek
> > > versions of the client and admin code. It wouldn't take much work to
> > > do a basic French admin translation and add the images to the French
> > > client code if that is something you will need for this project.
> > >
> > > MATT---
> > >
> > >
> > > On 1/17/06, Olivier Krief <olivier.krief at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Matt,
> > > >
> > > > Today, I'm working on a proposal for 150 seats PBX replacement.
> > > > Competitors are using Aastra Matra, Alcatel or Cisco IPBX.
> > > >
> > > > Do you think I could name some of those call centers (those 100 using
> > > > vicidial) to prove Asterisk is a safe choice ?
> > > > If positive, is there a way I could get in touch with them to testify their
> > > > system is running OK ?
> > > >
> > > > My prospective customer is a french local authority so a call center in
> > > > Europe would be perfect.
> > > >
> > > > Regards
> > > >
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > From: "Matt Florell" <astmattf at gmail.com>
> > > > To: "Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion"
> > > > <asterisk-users at lists.digium.com>
> > > > Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2006 4:30 AM
> > > > Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Call Center and Predictive dialing
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Hello,
> > > >
> > > > We have been using vicidial for over 2 years now for our inbound and
> > > > outbound call centers. We have four locations with over 200 seats
> > > > across them. Recently we released a development version of VICIDIAL
> > > > that allows for load balancing across multiple servers. This has
> > > > greatly helped our effeciency and allows for a greater degree of
> > > > scalability.
> > > >
> > > > As far as my last count there are close to 100 call centers, from 1
> > > > seat to 350 seats, that currently use VICIDIAL in production. It
> > > > certainly is not perfect, but it is becoming more fully featured every
> > > > month and being open source greatly helps with the fast development of
> > > > the codebase.
> > > >
> > > > EASE OF USE- well, I think it's easy to use you just have to get used
> > > > to how it works just like any piece of software, not necessarily
> > > > simple to setup, but we do have a lot of documentation for setting it
> > > > up. All interfaces are web-based and work on any semi-modern OS that
> > > > supports a recent web browser.
> > > > STABILITY- Vicidial will run on Asterisk versions from CVS 2003-11-21
> > > > to 1.0 tree to 1.2 tree to the new development branch. It is basically
> > > > as stable as your Asterisk installation is.
> > > > FEATURE SET- Not up to the level of $2 million commercial call center
> > > > system, but the code and database are open so you can get it to do
> > > > almost anything you want it to and we are adding features all the
> > > > time.
> > > > OPEN SOURCE- That one's easy, it's GPL
> > > >
> > > > There is another GPL-Asterisk-based dialer project out there too which
> > > > has also been making great strides in the last year: GnuDialer. They
> > > > have a different approach to the backend of the dialer and tend to
> > > > focus on some different elements that VICIDIAL has not spent as much
> > > > time on.
> > > >
> > > > Hope that helps,
> > > >
> > > > MATT---
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On 1/16/06, C F <shmaltz at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > I know this question has been asked a lot before, but please I would
> > > > > like to know from personal experience.
> > > > >
> > > > > I'm looking to use Asterisk in a call center environment, where most
> > > > > of the calls will be outbound calls. They will have at start 100
> > > > > agents.
> > > > > I have looked at vicidial and looks promising, however I would like to
> > > > > hear from users what they use and how they like it compared to other
> > > > > products they have tried.
> > > > >
> > > > > Of interest are:
> > > > > * Ease of use
> > > > > * Stability
> > > > > * Feature set
> > > > > * Open Source
> > > > >
> > > > > Thank You
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