What Is An Outbound Call? Call Centre Best Practices
If you’re an outsourced contact centre dealing with high-volume calls, outbound calling campaigns are vital for driving business growth, acquiring new customers, and nurturing existing relationships. However, executing an effective outbound strategy requires careful planning, the right tools, and a deep understanding of best practices.
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In this guide, we’ll explore the essential elements for mastering outbound calling in your call centre.
What Are Outbound Calls?
Understanding the different types of outbound calls before turning your attention to strategy is crucial. The various objectives behind outbound calling initiatives are important to consider:
Sales and Lead Generation: The bread and butter of outbound efforts are often sales calls and lead qualification, whether it’s cold calling for new business or upselling/cross-selling to existing customers.
Market Research: Outbound surveys provide invaluable market intelligence, gathering insights into consumer behaviour, product feedback, and industry trends.
Customer Experience: Proactive outreach can enhance the customer experience by addressing issues before they escalate and gauging satisfaction through post-transaction surveys.
While the specific goals may differ depending on use cases, successful outbound strategies share a common foundation: aligning the right tactics to your unique business needs.
What Can a Strong Outbound Calling Strategy Achieve?
A well-planned outbound strategy, coupled with the right technology, can significantly benefit your business:
| Boost brand awareness and lead generation | Proactively reach a wider audience, introduce your brand, and generate a pipeline of qualified leads. |
|-------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Strengthen customer relationships and drive retention | Nurture existing relationships with personalised outreach, exclusive promotions, and addressing potential concerns. |
| Gather valuable market research and sales data | Conduct market research to gain insights into customer preferences and buying habits, ultimately giving you a competitive edge. |
| Targeted communication for specific campaigns | Execute targeted campaigns for customer satisfaction surveys, new product launches, and more. |
Optimising Call Centre Technology: Inbound vs. Outbound
While the right technology is crucial for both inbound and outbound calls, their needs differ. Inbound centres focus on agent workflow and empowering customers (think IVR and call routing). Outbound centres prioritise lead generation and call efficiency (think predictive dialers and ACD). For centres handling both, a comprehensive, integrated solution is key.
Make Outbound Calling Successful with Powerful Technology
We’ve established that the right contact centre software is make or break when it comes to outbound calling. But which features and capabilities should you prioritise if you’re looking to boost results of your outbound campaigns?
Auto Diallers: Boost agent productivity with an outbound dialler that connects them directly to live prospects, eliminating wasted time on unanswered calls.
Call Recording: Use call recordings to identify coaching opportunities and help agents refine their communication skills and objection handling techniques.
CRM Integration: Painless CRM integration provides agents with a centralised view of customer information, enabling personalised conversations and stronger relationships.
Automatic Call Distribution (ACD): Intelligent call routing means every call is directed to the most qualified agent based on skills, language proficiency, and availability.
Answer Machine Detection (AMD): Avoid wasted time on answering machines by using AMD technology to identify and skip over voicemails.
Dynamic Call Scripting: Empower agents with flexible, interactive call scripts that can adapt to each conversation while maintaining consistency and accurate data capture.
Outbound Skills-Based Routing: Match customers with agents who possess the most relevant expertise, encouraging rapport and efficient resolution.
Data Management: Use data segmentation tools to target the right audience and prioritise contacts most likely to convert, optimising your outreach efforts.
Outbound Calling Best Practices
When it comes to outbound activity, utilising the right technology alone isn’t enough. Successful outbound strategies also rest on implementing proven best practices:
Planning and Preparation
Clearly define campaign objectives and target your call lists to match.
Develop call scripts that act as flexible conversation guides, not rigid scripts.
Ensure compliance with relevant regulations, such as obtaining necessary consent.
Agent Skills and Training
Refine agents’ communication abilities, focusing on active listening, empathy, and objection handling.
For sales campaigns, provide comprehensive product knowledge training.
Measuring Your Outbound Calling Performance
Measuring the success of outbound calling must look beyond the number of calls made. Tracking relevant KPIs helps you to achieve two things. Firstly, it gives you valuable insights that enhance the effectiveness of your campaigns. Secondly, it empowers you to make data-driven decisions for continuous improvement.
Key KPIs to Track for Outbound Calling Success
Here are some of the essential KPIs you should monitor to gain a comprehensive understanding of your outbound calling performance:
Connect Rate: Measure the percentage of your outbound calls that reach live prospects. A high connect rate indicates efficient dialling strategies and minimal wasted time on busy signals or unanswered calls.
Average Handle Time (AHT): Track the average duration of your outbound calls. While a lower AHT might seem ideal, it’s important to consider the context of your campaign goals. For example, a complex sales call might naturally have a higher AHT compared to an appointment scheduling call.
Conversion Rate: This is the golden metric for many outbound calling campaigns. Measure the percentage of calls that achieve your desired outcome, such as a completed sale, appointment booked, or survey completion.
First Call Resolution (FCR): Track the percentage of customer issues resolved during the initial call. A high FCR indicates efficient problem-solving by your agents and minimises the need for frustrating callbacks for customers.
Customer Satisfaction Ratings: Customer feedback is invaluable. Regularly monitor customer satisfaction ratings to gauge their perception of your outbound calling experience. Positive ratings indicate a well-executed strategy, while negative feedback highlights areas for improvement.
Enhance your outbound calls with MaxContact
Successful outbound calling is a continuous process. By acting on the insights gained from tracking KPIs and consistently refining your approach based on data and best practices, you can transform your outbound calling operation so that your activity consistently delivers exceptional results.
MaxContact is a leading provider of outbound call software, combining powerful diallers with reporting, AI, and optimisation tools. Our cloud-based outbound solution can simplify your call centre operations and boost productivity.
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Whether you’re looking to supercharge sales, streamline debt collection, or elevate customer service, the right outbound dialler can redefine how you connect and communicate. So, continue reading to learn more about automated diallers and discover the potential they hold for your contact centre’s success
So, what’s an outbound dialler?
Put simply, outbound dialling is the process of making calls to customers or contacts, typically for sales or marketing purposes.
While outbound dialling can be performed manually on a mobile or business phone, this is not practical when dealing with a high volume of calls. A range of additional features can enhance outbound calling in a contact centre setting through the use of an automated dialler.
What does an outbound dialler do?
An outbound dialler is generally a cloud or software solution that automatically dials phone numbers and makes calls on behalf of your sales, collection or customer service teams. As such, it’s an essential ingredient in any organisation where you need to make outbound calls to clients and prospects throughout the day.
What are the different types of call centre diallers?
The main options are a manual dialler and an auto dialler.
Manual Dialler
A manual dialler is like a traditional phone. A call agent manually dials numbers from a call list, one after another.
Auto Dialler
As the name suggests, an auto dialler automates much of the dialling process. It digitally dials numbers, and can also dial multiple numbers at once, passing answered calls to available agents.
Manual vs Auto Dialler
Why would you choose one over another? Most call centres now opt for auto dialling, because it significantly boosts productivity. Agents spend more time talking to customers and less time dialling unresponsive numbers.
Manual dialling can still be useful, but only for campaigns involving a small number of high value customers who demand a more personal approach.
The different outbound dialler modes
If you’re using an auto-dialler, there are likely three dialler modes that you’ll frequently use, depending on the type of outbound calling you are doing. These are predictive diallers, progressive diallers and preview diallers.
What is it? When most people think of outbound dialling software, they tend to think of predictive dialling. Predictive dialling places calls based on the software’s predictions of agent availability. It dials multiple numbers simultaneously, so that when agents finish one call they can be instantly connected to the next.
What are the benefits? The best predictive diallers minimise abandoned calls (and the amount of time customers spend on hold) and maximise the time your agents spend having conversations. When should I use it? Predictive dialling is the standard for straightforward, high volume sales campaigns (like commodity sales) or debt collection activity.
What is it?Progressive diallers are predictive diallers that slow the pace down by only dialling a number when an agent is available to take the call. Dialling is instant and automatic, so the system still allows for a relatively high number of calls.
What are the benefits? Progressive dialling eliminates the risk of customers abandoning calls or waiting a frustratingly long time before being connected to an agent. Because an agent is always available, the customers you have painstakingly nurtured over a period of time feel valued and importan
When should I use it? It is often used in campaigns that target current customers. It’s a low risk option that can improve customer experience and effectively help agents upsell additional products and services.
What is it? A preview dialler takes the pace down another notch. When an agent indicates availability, information about the next call is sent to the agent for preview.
After a set amount of time – say, one minute – the number is automatically dialled. This delay lets the agent prepare for the call, using information typically taken from the company CRM system – which are often integrated into the dialler.
What are the benefits? Agents can have more in-depth, focused conversations, based on a customer’s real experiences and challenges. It can improve customer experience and increase the number of positive outcomes.
When should I use it? Preview diallers are particularly helpful when the reason for the call is complex or sensitive. For example, following up with web leads or dealing with customer complaint calls.
Outbound diallers can be integrated into many industries. Any company with an outbound contact centre who are cold calling or making high volume phone calls can benefit from outbound dialler software.
Power up your sales teams
Sales campaigns are often high volume and low touch. Predictive dialling is the gold standard for straightforward, high volume outbound campaigns (like commodity sales). It can quickly and efficiently work through large datasets, making sure leads are contacted while they’re still warm.
The best predictive diallers minimise abandoned calls (and the amount of time customers spend on hold) and maximise the time your agents spend having conversations. They can be set to play messages if they meet an answerphone, and will recycle numbers (placing unanswered calls back into the call queue) in a way that ensures your customers or leads are contacted, but never pestered.
The right outbound dialler can make selling straightforward by helping to connect your sales people to the right customers at the right time. Combined with the contact centre-specific features mentioned earlier, it can offer powerful tools for contacting customers, winning business and exceeding customer expectations.
Increase debt collection rates
Your credit and debt resolution teams can use effective targeting to reach priority customers at times that suit them. Maximise collection rates using advanced data segmentation and encourage self-serve with automated communications. Automate payments with self-serve options providing customers choice and improving satisfaction.
Preview diallers are particularly helpful when the reason for the call is complex or sensitive. For example, debt collection calls are more likely to end positively if agents have the time to gather all the information they need beforehand.
Elevate your customer service teams
Customer service teams often use progressive dialling to target current customers with after sales information or courtesy communications. It’s a low risk option that can improve customer experience, help nurture loyalty and effectively help agents upsell additional products and services. Because an agent is always available to have a conversation, the customers you have painstakingly nurtured over a period of time feel valued.
5 must-have outbound dialler features
Answer Machine Detection (AMD)
Answer Machine Detection (AMD) lets your auto-dialler software identify answering machines before connecting calls to agents. This means agents only spend time on live conversations, saving them valuable time and boosting productivity.
AMD is particularly helpful for high-volume sales campaigns where every minute counts. MaxContact’s AMD boasts a 90% success rate in detecting answering machines, freeing up agents to focus on reaching real people.
Speech analytics
Forget manually reviewing call recordings! Speech analytics uses AI to analyse every conversation, automatically identifying customer sentiment, call quality, and agent performance. This lets you:
Spot frustrated or vulnerable customers who need extra care.
Ensure agents follow compliance guidelines.
Understand what customers are saying about your products and competitors.
Speech analytics gives you valuable insights from all calls, not just a select few. It saves time and helps you improve the overall performance of your contact centre.
A secure payment manager
A secure payment IVR gives customers the payment options they want, while giving teams the time they need to deal with more complex or sensitive cases.
Payment automation helps you speed up debt collection and improve cash flow. When you give customers more convenient ways to pay, they’re more likely to stick to payment schedules.
MaxContact’s payment IVR is fully PCI compliant, protecting customer information at all times. We offer both assisted payments, in which staff safely guide customers through the payment process, and automated payments, which are fully self-serve and available 24/7.
Analytics and reporting
You can only improve contact centre performance when you can measure it. When you’ve done that, you need to present the data in a way that is easy to understand and act on. That’s where analytics and reporting come in.
MaxContact’s pre-configured reporting gives you complete visibility around productivity, issue resolution rates, revenue and customer satisfaction, to name just a few. You can set targets for campaigns, channels, teams and agents and track performance over time.
All teams – sales, service and debt resolution – benefit from better information. Pre-configured reports give you the data you need in the quickest and most hassle-free way.
Easy integration
A powerful dialler is even better when it works hand in hand with your existing systems. Imagine a sales agent having instant access to customer history, preferred contact methods, and past feedback – all within the dialler interface (thanks to CRM integration).
This allows for personalised conversations that address specific needs, leading to happier customers and improved outcomes. Easy integration applies to after-sales and debt resolution teams too. By connecting your dialler with other systems, you can put all relevant information at agents’ fingertips, reducing hold times and boosting overall efficiency.
The benefits of auto-dialler software you can’t ignore
Improve contact centre metrics like AHT
Average Handling Time (AHT) is a calculation based on the time agents spend talking to a customer, the amount of time callers are on hold and the time taken on follow up tasks, divided by the number of calls handled. The lower your AHT, the better. It means you can handle more calls, improve efficiency and reduce costs. A good dialler can improve AHT and a host of other contact centre metrics, by allowing agents to handle more calls, more efficiently.
Excel at sales and debt collection
Whether it’s sales or debt collection, the best results happen when good agents talk to customers. Whether it’s a high volume, low touch sales campaign, or more sensitive debt resolution calls, the right dialler means your agents spend more time in conversation with customers, and less time processing unanswered calls or connecting to answering machines.
Keep your contact centre compliant
A powerful predictive dialling algorithm speeds up and slows down depending on the conditions in your contact centre. If fewer agents are available, the dialling slows down, helping to ensure you stay within compliant boundaries for abandoned and dropped calls. Or you can switch to progressive or preview modes for more personal contacts. The dialler can also ensure that the frequency of calls to a contact never exceeds official limits.
Seamlessly integrate with your CMS
A dialler that integrates with your CMS system is a huge advantage. It means that the systems feed information to each other, so your agents always have the details of previous contacts at their fingertips. That reduces the risk of customers becoming annoyed by having to repeat information they’ve already previously given. It can also provide insights into customer satisfaction rates, preferred times and methods of communication and so on.
These companies boosted performance with auto diallers
We worked with these companies to replace ageing systems with modern cloud-based diallers – and the results are impressive.
Compare My Insurance
Compare My Insurance is one of the largest independent insurance and protection specialists in the UK. But dialler downtime, data issues and missed opportunities were hampering the business.
MaxContact’s dialler solution integrated seamlessly with the company back office systems. It has significantly increased contact rates while providing complete transparency around performance and progress.
APJ Solicitors
APJ Solicitors, a leading financial mis-selling specialist, needed to increase call volumes and boost efficiency, but its basic VOIP phone system was no longer up to the task.
MaxContact’s solution increased call volumes by 110% in the first year, and improved average agent call efficiency by 36%. Productivity has risen five fold over the company’s previous solution.
Improve your call centre performance with MaxContact
MaxContact offers the most sophisticated outbound dialler currently available. This continually improving cloud-based dialling solution gives you the flexibility to run your contact centre your way, letting you choose the right blend of productivity and compliance for your business needs. With over a 1,000 unique features, MaxContact’s outbound dialler helps meet your contact centre challenges in new and powerful ways.
Contact centres can be high-pressure environments, with plenty of challenges to tackle; managing customer interactions, staying compliant and helping agents perform at their best, to name a few. That’s where speech analytics comes in.
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By recording and transcribing 100% of customer conversations, analysing sentiment, categorising topics and ranking agent performance, speech analytics helps contact centre leaders uncover actionable insights, make smarter decisions and optimise business operations.In this article, we’ll explore 10 practical ways our speech analytics platform can be used to transform the way contact centres work. From improving compliance checks to empowering agents and enhancing sales strategies, there’s a lot to gain from this powerful technology.
1. Speeding up call quality assessments
In traditional quality assessments, quality assurance (QA) teams are often required to listen to hundreds of call recordings to evaluate, understand agent-customer conversations, and assess the quality of the call. This manual process is time-consuming, especially for call centres dealing with high call volumes.
Speech analytics speeds up the QA process by transcribing speech-to-text, with every call transcribed into a full text version. Thanks to text transcriptions, QA teams can read through calls – which takes 50% less time than listening to them. This is because QA teams can skip directly to specific points in the conversation that need attention.
By searching within transcripts for specific phrases or keywords, it is much easier and quicker to find sections where issues have arisen, saving significant time but without sacrificing detail.
2. Keyword tracking for compliance
Staying compliant is crucial for contact centres, particularly in industries with strict regulations such as sales, collections, or finance. Agents often need to say specific phrases or mandatory statements during calls – for example, those required by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) or Ofcom guidelines.
MaxContact’s Spokn AI makes compliance easier to monitor and achieve, as it can be set up to track and filter certain keywords across all call transcripts. Compliance teams can set up the software to flag calls where those important phrases are missing or not used correctly.
This means you can quickly spot and fix potential compliance issues without spending hours manually checking calls. It’s a simple way to reduce risks, save time, and make sure your team is consistently ticking all the right boxes.
3. Keyword tracking for vulnerability detection
Contact centres need to identify and provide special care for vulnerable customers, such as those who express concerns related to financial or emotional hardship. This is where the ability to search for phrases or mandatory statements across transcripts once again supports the process.
Using speech analytics and keyword filtering, it is possible to detect sensitive language within conversations, flagging words and phrases that may indicate vulnerability. By automating this process, speech analytics software helps agents and supervisors identify potentially vulnerable customers quickly, allowing them to respond with empathy, follow specific support protocols, or even escalate the conversation to a specialist.
This targeted approach improves customer care and means vulnerable individuals receive the assistance they need.
4. Optimising sales playbooks
For sales and collections teams, the ability to handle customer objections effectively can have a huge impact on call outcomes. This is where speech analytics steps in to give agents an edge. By analysing call topics, customer objections and sentiment trends, tools like speech analytics can help call centre supervisors to uncover what’s working (and what’s not) in customer interactions.
Senior call centre leaders can use these insights to tweak call centre scripts, refine sales tactics and even create “battlecards” to tackle competitor comparisons head-on. These resources and insights are then shared with call agents.
On top of that, speech analytics can indicate how call agents respond to objections by looking at phrase level sentiment, helping pinpoint successful techniques and areas for improvement. With these insights, teams can continuously optimise their playbooks, leading to smoother calls, better outcomes and more conversions.
5. Improving agent performance through sentiment analysis
Helping agents improve starts with understanding where they might be struggling or excelling. Sentiment analysis does this by breaking conversations into phrases and identifying words of positive or negative sentiment post-call. It draws attention to areas where an agent might be lacking empathy, patience, or clarity – all key factors that impact how customers feel during a call.
When speech analytics software uncovers calls with high customer frustration or negative sentiment, call supervisors can step in with tailored coaching. Whether it’s working on tone, handling sensitive situations, or improving listening skills, this focused feedback helps agents refine their approach. The result? Happier customers, stronger relationships and call agents who feel more confident.
6. Identifying what works well to amplify success
Improvement is important, but so is recognising what’s already working. Speech analytics helps teams to see moments of positive sentiment in calls, showing where call agents have handled objections and sensitive interactions effectively, striking the right chord with customers.
By considering the ‘why’ behind these successful interactions, managers can uncover tactics, language, or approaches that deliver great results time and time again. These insights can be shared across the team to raise everyone’s game, and they’re also an important resource for marketing or sales teams.
Whether it’s refining scripts or crafting new campaigns, using proven techniques ensures greater consistency and impact across your contact centre.
7. Driving operational efficiencies
Efficiency is key in contact centres, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of quality. Speech analytics helps strike the perfect balance, with tools like call summaries, topic detection and sentiment analysis. These features allow call centre supervisors to identify common call topics and recurring customer issues.
Armed with this data, managers can design targeted training and streamline processes to ensure agents are ready to tackle frequent queries right away. This leads to fewer call transfers and more first-call resolutions, cutting down handling times while boosting customer satisfaction. The outcome is a more efficient operation that saves time, resources and costs – all without compromising on quality.
8. Gaining insight into team dynamics
Understanding your team’s performance isn’t just about numbers or individual performance – it’s about seeing the bigger picture. With speech analytics, call centre managers have a clearer view of overall team performance and can break down calls by agent, objection type or campaign. This level of detail helps uncover collective team performance as well as each agent’s individual strengths and areas where they may need extra support.
By tracking objection trends, comparing metrics across agents and teams, and analysing how individuals handle challenging situations, call centre leaders can make coaching much more targeted. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, these data-driven insights allow team leaders to tailor their feedback, helping every agent play to their strengths while improving in areas where they struggle. This leads to a more skilled, confident and well-rounded team.
9. Empowering agents to self-improve
Speech analytics isn’t just a tool for managers – it’s also a powerful way to help agents grow and improve. With features like call recaps, sentiment insights, and objection tracking, managers can share clear, objective feedback based on real data from their agents’ interactions.
By providing tailored feedback, managers can help agents spot patterns, identify areas for improvement and refine their skills – whether it’s handling objections more effectively, improving tone, or building stronger rapport with customers.
This personalised coaching creates a sense of accountability and motivates agents to continuously grow.
With clear, actionable feedback, agents can deliver better customer experiences and contribute to the team’s success. Plus, happier, more capable agents are less likely to burn out, which helps reduce turnover and maintain a strong team.
10. Conducting market research to inform growth strategies
Spokn AI is a powerful tool for uncovering what your customers really want. By evaluating recurring topics and sentiment trends across conversations, it helps contact centres build a clear picture of customer needs, preferences and pain points.
With advanced topic detection and transcription capabilities, speech analytics empower businesses to spot emerging trends and patterns that might not be immediately obvious. Whether it’s identifying new product demands, spotting service gaps, or understanding shifts in customer sentiment, these insights are invaluable for shaping future strategies.
This customer-first approach gives contact centres a new-level of visibility into customer information. Often, customer information is recorded in siloed notes (particularly in hybrid working environments) making them inaccessible at a top data level. Speech analytics aggregates and analyses conversations, uncovering actionable insights into sentiment, trends and preferences. This enables businesses to adapt to market changes, create targeted campaigns and design products and services that truly meet customer needs.
Speech analytics is powerful software that makes the way for smarter, more efficient and more impactful operations in your contact centre. By analysing 100% of customer interactions, platforms like Spokn AI offer insights that help tackle the unique challenges of a fast-paced call centre floor, from improving compliance and agent performance to refining sales strategies and uncovering customer needs.
The key to success lies in using these insights to take action: refining processes, tailoring coaching and aligning your strategy with the data. Not only does this lead to better outcomes for your team and business – it also creates a stronger, more positive experience for your customers too.
As customer expectations grow and contact centres become more complex, embracing speech analytics tools can give you the clarity, confidence and competitive edge you need to thrive.
By leaning into the capabilities of speech analytics, you’re not just keeping up; you’re staying ahead.
Blog
5 min read
How to Remove Guesswork from Contact Strategies with Conversation Analytics
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Contact centres are under pressure. Rising costs, increased competition, and shifting customer expectations mean teams are being asked to do more with less. The challenge? Making decisions based on incomplete data or small samples that don't represent the full picture.
In our recent webinar, we explored how conversation analytics helps contact centres move beyond guesswork and make data-driven decisions that improve performance, reduce costs, and deliver better customer experiences.
Four Forces Reshaping Contact Strategies
Contact centres face a perfect storm of challenges:
Rising costs and increasing competition The barrier to entry has lowered across most sectors, meaning competition can move with agility and quickly challenge established players. Every interaction is getting more expensive, whilst high attrition rates mean teams are working harder just to stand still.
Stagnating effectiveness Sales conversions and first call resolutions are trending downwards for many businesses. Conversations are becoming more complex and harder to resolve on the first attempt.
Growing commercial risk of poor CX Customers switch providers faster when service falls short. There's no loyalty in those first few minutes of an interaction. Many organisations struggle to route customers accurately, creating inconsistency and avoidable friction for both consumers and agents.
Shifting consumer behaviour AI call screening, digital buying journeys, and social search are making people harder to reach and changing where and how they want to engage with organisations.
t's not just one challenge – it's the combination of these forces that means traditional contact strategies need to evolve.
52% of contact centres report increased agent workloads this year – a 10-point rise since last year
Average agent churn rate sits at 31% – a costly cycle of recruitment and retraining
Agents are handling more conversations with more complexity and pressure than before
This level of attrition creates both financial costs and operational challenges, impacting team performance and customer experience.
The Sampling Problem
Many contact centres still rely on sampling to understand what's happening in their conversations. The traditional approach might involve listening to 2-3 calls per agent per month – a tiny fraction of overall activity.
When you're handling thousands or tens of thousands of conversations, sampling simply doesn't give you the full picture. You might miss critical trends, coaching opportunities, or compliance issues that only become visible when you analyse conversations at scale.
How Conversation Analytics Works
MaxContact's conversation analytics platform uses AI to analyse 100% of your conversations, not just a sample. Here's what that makes possible:
AI-powered call summaries Every conversation is automatically summarised, capturing key points, outcomes, and next steps. This saves hours of manual note-taking and makes it easy to understand what happened on any call at a glance.
Sentiment analysis Track customer and agent sentiment throughout conversations. Identify where interactions go well and where frustration builds, helping you understand the emotional journey of your customers.
Objection tracking Automatically identify common objections across all conversations. See which objections come up most frequently, how often they're successfully handled, and spot patterns that point to process improvements or product issues.
Custom saved views Create filtered views that surface the conversations that matter most to your team. Whether you're looking for calls with specific outcomes, objections, sentiment patterns, or compliance markers, saved views let you quickly find what you need without manually searching through thousands of recordings.
AI assistant prompts Ask questions of your conversation data in natural language. For example, "Show me calls where customers mentioned pricing concerns" or "Find conversations where agents successfully overcame objections." The AI assistant helps you explore your data and uncover insights without needing technical skills.
Real-World Use Cases
Coaching and development Identify specific coaching opportunities by finding conversations where agents struggle with particular objections or where sentiment deteriorates. Move from generic training to targeted coaching based on actual performance data.
Process improvements When you see patterns across hundreds of conversations – repeated objections, common confusion points, or friction in specific processes – you have clear evidence to drive process changes and improvements.
Compliance monitoring Analyse 100% of calls for compliance markers, not just a small sample. Identify potential issues quickly and address them before they become serious problems.
Understanding what drives success Compare conversations that result in positive outcomes with those that don't. What do successful agents do differently? What patterns emerge in conversations that lead to sales, resolved issues, or satisfied customers?
From Reactive to Proactive
The shift from sampling to comprehensive analysis changes how contact centres operate. Instead of reacting to issues after they've escalated or basing decisions on limited data, conversation analytics gives you:
Complete visibility into what's happening across all conversations
Early warning signals when trends start to emerge
Evidence-based decisions supported by comprehensive data
Measurable improvements that you can track over time
Getting Started with Conversation Analytics
Implementation includes working with MaxContact's product team to define success criteria and create custom views that align with your specific goals. Many organisations start with core use cases – coaching, compliance, objection handling – and then expand as they see the value and discover new applications for the platform.
The platform includes templates to get started quickly, but the real power comes from tailoring the analysis to your specific needs and challenges.
The Bottom Line
Contact centres can't afford to make decisions based on guesswork or small samples. When you're handling thousands of conversations, you need to understand what's happening at scale.
Conversation analytics removes the guesswork, giving you the insights you need to improve coaching, enhance processes, ensure compliance, and ultimately deliver better outcomes for both your team and your customers.
The 2025 UK Budget brings a series of labour-market, tax and business-rate shifts that directly affect contact centres - a sector powered by people and tight margins. Rising wage floors, frozen employer NIC thresholds, and new skills programmes will reshape workforce planning. Meanwhile, changes to business rates and investment incentives could reduce cost pressures for some operators.
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Budget 2025 - What Contact Centres Need to Know
The 2025 UK Budget brings a series of labour-market, tax and business-rate shifts that directly affect contact centres - a sector powered by people and tight margins. Rising wage floors, frozen employer NIC thresholds, and new skills programmes will reshape workforce planning.
Meanwhile, changes to business rates and investment incentives could reduce cost pressures for some operators.
For contact centres, the challenge is clear: absorb higher employment costs while accelerating efficiency, automation and employee development.
MaxContact’s view? This Budget reinforces what we already know - the most resilient contact centres will be those that invest in workforce experience, smarter technology, and data-led decision-making.
What the Budget Means for Contact Centres
If contact centres feel like they’re being asked to do more with less, Budget 2025 cements that reality. While many measures aim to ‘make work pay’, several place direct cost pressure on people-intensive industries - including ours. But with the right technology and operating model, these shifts can be turned into opportunities.
1. Wage Costs Are Rising - Again
From 1 April 2026, the National Living Wage (NLW) increases 4.1% to £12.71/hour (Budget clause - 4.22).
Minimum wage bands for younger workers rise even faster.
For contact centres - where large portions of the frontline workforce sit on or near the NLW - this is the single biggest cost impact.
What this means
Expect a higher annual wage bill, particularly for large multi-site operations.
Increased wage competition could make talent attraction harder.
Inefficient processes will become more expensive every year.
What to do
Use workforce optimisation and automation to reduce low-value tasks.
Improve agent experience to protect retention (reducing recruitment cost spikes).
Reforecast now - 2026 isn’t far away in budgeting terms.
2. Employer NIC Freeze = Higher Costs Hidden in Plain Sight
One detail in this year’s Budget that doesn’t make headlines - but really matters - is the freeze on the Employer National Insurance threshold until 2031 (Budget clause - 4.112)
Here’s what that means in simple terms:
The point at which employers start paying NIC for their staff will not increase for six years.
But wages will increase - especially with the higher National Living Wage coming in 2026.
So even though the NIC rate isn’t changing, employers will still pay more NIC each year as more of each salary is pushed above the frozen threshold.
For people-intensive sectors like contact centres, that’s a direct and unavoidable cost increase built into the system.
When labour costs rise automatically every year, efficiency becomes mission-critical.
Small improvements in forecasting, scheduling, and automation can deliver real financial impact at scale.
This is exactly where modern WFM, AI-assisted routing, and intelligent automation help organisations stay ahead of cost pressure.
3. Youth Guarantee Could Ease Recruitment Challenges
Government funding includes £1.5bn for skills and employment support, including paid six-month placements for 18–21-year-olds (Budget clause - 4.23–4.24 ).
Why it matters:
Contact centres can tap into subsidised entry-level talent.
It may become a strong pipeline for customer-facing roles with the right development pathways.
Build apprenticeship and early-careers programmes aligned to these schemes.
4. Business Rates Reset in 2026
Business rates multipliers drop in 2026-27 due to evaluation (Budget clause - 4.26 ). Transitional Relief and new multipliers offer further support.
For operators in office estates, this may bring modest cost relief - though location-specific impacts vary.
Review your estate profile. Many centres could achieve meaningful savings with the right appeals or optimisation.
5. Salary Sacrifice Tightening (from 2029)
NIC relief on pension-related salary sacrifice will be capped at £2,000 per year (Budget clause - 4.120).
For contact centres offering enhanced pension schemes, this could erode part of their employee-value proposition or increase employer costs.
6. Compliance and Employment Rights Focus Will Intensify
The Budget funds a new Fair Work Agency team targeting illegal working and employment-rights breaches from April 2026 (Budget clause - 4.103).
This signals tougher scrutiny on employment practices and contractor models common in outsourced service environments.
Ensure scheduling accuracy, break compliance and HR documentation are watertight - technology can remove risk here.
Key Takeaways
1. Cost pressures will rise - but predictable pressures are manageable.
Wage floors and frozen NIC thresholds mean labour cost inflation is here to stay. Smart forecasting, WFM, and automation will be essential.
2. Talent pipelines are evolving - seize the opportunity.
Government-backed youth placements and skills funding offer a low-cost hiring route if built into recruitment strategies early.
3. Compliance is tightening - operational visibility matters.
Clear audit trails, documented processes and accurate time-tracking will pay dividends as enforcement grows.
4. Estate costs may fall - review your footprint.
Business rates changes could offer relief for some operators, but only with proactive assessment.
Blog
5 min read
AI Call Screening: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How MaxContact Helps You Stay Ahead
Outbound contact teams are facing a new reality. The calls that used to connect are now being intercepted - not by answerphones, but by AI.
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The Challenge: Are Connect Rates Under Pressure?
Outbound contact teams are facing a new reality. The calls that used to connect are now being intercepted - not by answerphones, but by AI.
According to our latest research, 42.8% is the average connect rate for UK contact centres, with 38% of respondents reporting connect rates between 40-59% [Source: MaxContact KPI Benchmark Report 2025-26].
These numbers tell only part of the story. Behind them lies a fundamental shift in how customers interact with incoming calls, and outbound teams need to understand what's happening - and more importantly, how to adapt.
What Is AI Call Screening?
AI call screening is smartphone technology that uses avirtual assistant to answer calls from unknown numbers. When an incoming call arrives, the AI asks the caller for their name and purpose, then transcribes the response in real-time on the user's screen. The user can then decide whether to answer, decline, send a text reply, or report the call as junk.
How It Works for End Users
iOS Devices: When a call from an unknown number arrives, users see a "Screen Call" option. Tapping it triggers an automated voice that asks the caller for their name and reason for calling. The user doesn't hear the audio initially - instead, they see a live, on-screen transcript of the caller's response. Based on this transcript, they can accept, decline, reply via text, or report as junk. Users can configure their iPhone settings to automatically screen all unknown callers, send them directly to voicemail, or allow calls toring through normally. If they've spoken to that number before or have it saved, the call isn't classified as unknown and by passes.
On Android (Google Pixel) Devices: Users can manually tap a "Screen call" button or set the feature to automatically screen calls from spam, first-time callers, or all unknown numbers. When automatic screening is enabled, the phone may not even ring - a transcript of the screened call appears later in the call history. The Google Assistant informs the caller they're using a screening service, asks for their name and purpose,and can even ask clarifying questions like "Is it urgent?" on the user's behalf.
The Impact on Outbound Contact Strategies
Research on our customer base shows that currently, less than 0.37% of outbound calls are hitting iOS call screening services. While this figure suggests relatively low adoption now, industry analysts expect it to compound over time as the technology becomes embedded in everyday life.
Answer Machine to Call Screen Detection.
MaxContact use Answering Machine Detection (AMD) technology to identify when calls reach voicemail. AMD often identifies AI call screening as a standard answering machine.
When using automated dialling modes - predictive orprogressive dialling with AMD enabled - calls are flagged as "Answer Machine" and routed to the IVR plan for answering machines. If a contact answers the call while the IVR message is playing, they won't be connected to an agent. Instead, they'll see a transcript on their phone showing who called, as stated in the recorded message.
While AMD technology catches many screened calls, it isn't foolproof - a number of these calls may still get through to agents. If answer machine detection isn't enabled, agents will be connected to AI call screening when activated.
What This Means for Your Connect Rates
AI screening tools are acting as gatekeepers, allowing customers to decide whether calls are worth their time. For outbound teams, this might mean:
Reduced agent connection rates – More calls being intercepted before reaching the intended person
Wasted agent time – Agents speaking to AI screening services instead of real customers
Missed opportunities – Prospects receiving incomplete messages or no context about why you're calling
Brand perception risks – Silence, dropped calls, or robotic IVR messages creating negative first impressions
According to our benchmark data, the average contact rate (percentage of connected calls that reach the intended person) is 43.2%,with 39% of respondents reporting rates between 40-59%. As AI call screening adoption grows, maintaining these rates will require strategic adaptation.
MaxContact's Solution
At MaxContact, we're tackling AI call screening head-on with a comprehensive approach that combines smart automation with agent training. Our strategy ensures you maintain connect rates while delivering consistent, professional brand experiences.
The Automated Strategy
(When AMD Detects the Screener)
For calls that are correctly identified as answering machines by the system, MaxContact enables you to:
Use IVR Routing for Answering Machines Set upspecific IVR routing that plays when the system detects an answering machine. Your IVR should deliver a clear, purposeful message that explains who iscalling, why, and how to get back in touch.
This approach ensures that even when your call hits AIscreening, the person receives a complete, professional message they can reviewin their call transcript. It's transparent, compliant, and positions your brandas respectful of their time.
The Agent-Led Strategy
(When Screened Calls Reach Agents)
For calls that AMD doesn't catch - or if you don't use AMD - MaxContact recommends training agents to recognise and respond effectively:
Train Agents to Identify AI Screening Agents must be trained to recognise the distinct voice of an AI screening assistant, which sounds different from a genuine customer.
Deliver Personalised, Concise Messages When an agent identifies an AI screener, they shouldn't hang up. Instead, they should respond clearly and concisely with a personalised message. For example: "Hi, thisis Sarah from MaxContact. I'm calling for John regarding the information he requested on our website." If the person doesn't pick up, agents should leave details on how to get back in contact.
This gives the person screening the call the clear, concise information they need to decide to accept it.
How MaxContact's Platform Supports Your Outbound Strategy
MaxContact provides the tools you need to implement theabove strategies effectively:
Intelligent Dialling with AMD
Our automated dialling technology (predictive and progressive modes) includes industry-leading Answer Machine Detection. When AMD identifies a screened call, it's automatically routed to your configured IVR plan, ensuring consistent messaging.
Flexible IVR Routing
MaxContact's IVR capabilities let you create specific routing plans for answering machines. You can craft messages that clearly identify your organisation, explain the reason for calling, and provide callback information - all essential for making a positive impression when calls are screened.
Agent Coaching
Our Conversation Analytics features help management identify AI screening and uncover the openers that work best. Train agents on delivering clear, concise messages that maximise the chances of prospects accepting the call.
Comprehensive Reporting
Track how often your calls are hitting answering machines (including AI screening), monitor connect rates and measure the effectiveness of your strategies with MaxContact's reporting suite.
Best Practices: Adapting Your Contact Strategy Today
AI Call Screening is here, here's how to optimise your outbound strategy now:
1. Audit Your IVR Messages
Review the messages played when AMD detects an answering machine. Ensure they clearly state:
Who you are (company name, agent name if possible)
Why you're calling (the value proposition or reason)
How to get back in touch (phone number, website, email)
Recognise the sound and cadence of AI screening assistants
Deliver clear, personalised responses when they identify screening
Leave complete information if the person doesn't pick up
Role-playing exercises can be particularly effective here.
3. Leverage Branded Caller ID
Consider using branded caller ID services that display your company name on incoming calls. This transparency increases the likelihood that prospects will answer or trust the call even when screened.
4. Optimise Contact Timing
Use MaxContact's intelligent targeting to call prospects attimes they're more likely to answer. Our platform allows you to build lists with differing contact windows, reducing the chances of hitting screening technology.
5. Embrace Omnichannel
Don't rely solely on voice. Use MaxContact's omnichannel capabilities to follow up via SMS, WhatsApp, email, or web chat when calls don't connect. Multi-channel strategies significantly improve overall contactrates.
6. Monitor and Measure
Track your connect rates, contact rates, and conversion rates over time. Use MaxContact's reporting suite to identify trends and measure the impact of your AI call screening strategies.
The Bottom Line: Stay Ahead of the Curve
AI call screening isn't going away—if anything, adoption will accelerate. But with the right strategy and technology, your outbound teams can not only maintain performance but improve it.
MaxContact's approach—combining intelligent automation with agent training—gives you the tools to adapt now.
Remember: Successful teams will adapt to AI call screening with transparency, branded caller IDs, and pre-call context, working with AI to increase responsiveness and to maximise every opportunity.
Ready to Future-Proof Your Contact Strategy?
If you're concerned about how AI call screening is affecting your connect rates get in touch with MaxContact today.
Our team of contact centre experts can audit your current strategy, identify opportunities for improvement, and show you how our platformhelps you stay ahead of emerging technologies.
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