Looking for a dialer traffic partner? This can be an exercise in frustration. Rates are unpredictable. The total number of lines available for short call service fluctuates wildly between carriers. And many carriers have pricing structures so confusing its impossible to tell what theyre offering.
Some customers, once they've found a good SIP termination carrier for their dialer traffic, find they still need to account for incomplete or short call penalties and fees. Actual costs add up quickly and the original quote they received becomes meaningless.
How do you make sense of all this? Lets take a look.
The background
Dialer traffic is a modern and important phenomenon. Its comprised of a flood of short calls from contact centers, of usually less than 10-seconds in duration. That means political campaign calls, non-profit fundraising calls and civic emergency calls. Without carriers who specialize in dialer traffic technology, there would be no way to reach millions of people in a timely manner.
But dialer traffic is also carefully legislated. In the U.S. it is subject to federal law by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991 and the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule. The TCPA limits the timeframe in which calls can be placed, and it prohibits automated calls to health care facilities and emergency numbers. It also controls the use of automatic dialing systems, computer-generated voice messages and texts.
Dialer traffic can prove a problem for carriers because of the huge calls-to-revenue ratio. A flood of dialer traffic creates a load on carrier resources with only a small ROI. Making matters worse, often the calls aren't terminated properly. The receiving party may not pick up or an operator at the call center may have more than one call connect at the same time. This results in unexpected fees and penalties for short call traffic.
The solution
So how do you know that the carrier you're considering is right for you?
1. Look for carrier-grade technology. If a dialer traffic carrier has carrier-grade switching
and network technology, then their overhead will be much lower than that of PSTN carriers and youll see the savings. Here's how you'll recognize it: Carrier-grade means the network has little or no downtime. Commercially, the network should be operational at least 99.999 percent of the time, equating to a downtime of no more than five minutes a year. Carrier-grade ensures that your calls get through to the number you dialed, and the call should start ringing within two to three seconds. Carrier-grade ensures that speech quality is superior, with no echo, noticeable delay, or annoying clicks on the line.
2. Consider using multiple dialer traffic vendors. In the past, the sheer number of concurrent calls overwhelmed carrier capacity. Potential revenue-generating customers ended up not connecting because of busy carrier lines. Using multiple carriers and simply limiting the number of call attempts-per-second frees up resources without creating a problem with any one vendor. This call limit along with usingmultiple vendors means that networks have virtually unlimited concurrent call capacity.
3. Look for flexibility. For example, call centers can limit the number of calls by area code or limit the number of calls by exchange. During election season, this can become critical. Rural areas with small phone network capacities are instantly overwhelmed if a call center launched a vast number of calls simultaneously. An experienced carrier can account for this when building a network, so the call center doesnt completely use up the areas capacity. A flexible dialer traffic carrier can place a limit on the number of calls by area code or exchange to avoid this problem completely.
All of these considerations require dialer traffic carriers to make large monetary investments in technology, time investments in developing relationships with other carrier vendors, and the attention to detail that will maintain carrier-grade performance.