Campaigns

With this guide you will learn the fundamental concepts about campaigns, how they work, and how to make the most of them.

What is a campaign?

A campaign is a central concept that allows you to manage interactions with customers through different channels. You need to configure at least one channel to start receiving or creating interactions. Additionally, each campaign has members, meaning agents who will be responsible for managing them and communicating with customers.

Campaigns are designed to centralize specific business strategies, such as a support campaign that handles customer support requests or a sales campaign that manages customer opportunities. Campaigns can include automations to improve response times and service efficiency, such as bots to answer questions and collect information, automatic dialers to remind customers of payment dates, among others.

By centralizing all these elements within a campaign, it facilitates the analysis of Contact Center metrics, agent performance, and customer satisfaction.

What is a channel?

Channels are those configured in campaigns to receive interactions. Basically, it is the medium through which customer interactions are received and through which agents can create interactions. In uContact there are different available channels, such as Telephony, SMS, WhatsApp, Email, WebChat, and Messenger, allowing you to communicate with your customers in an omnichannel manner.

What is an interaction?

An interaction refers to the contact established between the customer and the Contact Center. Interactions can be inbound or outbound, meaning they can be initiated either by the customer or by the agent. In each interaction, all messages are unified, both from the agent and the customer. Once initiated, the messages sent by the customer through the same channel will be part of the same interaction and will not create multiple interactions.

Interactions can be transferred between agents or campaigns to direct inquiries to those who can resolve them. For example, a customer contacts via WhatsApp requesting information about the price of a specific product, then the agent could transfer this interaction to the Sales campaign so they can better advise the customer. When the agent receives the interaction, they will have the complete message history as well as the customer information.

For Telephony and WebChat, both the agent and the customer can end the interactions. For other channels, only agents can end the interactions. Once an interaction is ended, no messages can be sent or received through that specific interaction. The system will automatically create a new interaction if the agent or customer communicates again.

What is a waiting queue?

Once an interaction arrives at uContact, if there are no available agents to attend it, it enters a waiting queue where there may be other interactions waiting to be attended. Interactions are placed one after another as they arrive and are then assigned as agents become available.

The average time that interactions remain in the queue can be measured, known as the Average Wait Time, and the goal of any inbound Contact Center is to bring this time to the lowest possible value.

Contact Centers can set objectives to attend to interactions within a certain amount of time. Example: suppose we want to attend to all incoming calls within 20 seconds; if during the day we have attended to half of the calls within 20 seconds, this means we have a Service Level of 50%. If we had attended to all calls within that time, we would have a Service Level of 100%.

Both the Average Wait Time and the Service Level are key factors in a Contact Center to improve the end-user experience.

What is a strategy?

When a new customer interaction arrives in the waiting queue, uContact uses different distribution strategies to determine which of the available agents will attend that interaction. Each strategy has a different behavior and objective.

In some strategies, the penalty that the Administrator has indicated in the campaign configuration is taken into account. The penalty is a value between 0 and 100 assigned to each campaign member that allows regulating the number of interactions they receive. The higher the value, the fewer interactions can be assigned to them.

Telephony strategies

• linear: In this strategy, agents will have the order defined by the Administrator in the campaign. The call will be delivered to the first agent on this list. If the agent is not available, it will be delivered to the next agent on the list, and so on. When assigning a new interaction, if the first agent is available, it will be assigned to them.
• rrmemory: The system remembers the agent who received the last call and the next one will be assigned to the next one on the list.
• random: Calls are distributed randomly among available agents.
• ringall: Calls ring simultaneously on all available agents until one answers the call.
• wrandom: Calls are distributed randomly among available agents, with those having higher penalties being less likely to receive them.
• least recent: Interactions are assigned to the agent who has attended the fewest interactions recently.
• fewest calls: Interactions are assigned to the agent who has attended the fewest interactions in total.

Omnichannel strategies

• rrmemorynocall: The system remembers the agent who received the last interaction and the next one will be assigned to the next one on the list. Assigns interactions to the agent even if they have other active interactions from any channel.
• rrmemoryincall: The system remembers the agent who received the last interaction and the next one will be assigned to the next one on the list. Does not assign a new interaction if the agent has another active interaction.
• rrmemoryinteraction: The system remembers the agent who received the last interaction and the next one will be assigned to the next one on the list. Only assigns new interactions if they have no other interactions or have an active call.
• wrandomnocall: Random distribution that takes into account the penalty, agents with a higher penalty have less probability of receiving new interactions. Assigns interactions to the agent even if they have other active interactions from any channel.
• wrandomincall: Takes into account the penalty, agents with a higher penalty have less probability of receiving new interactions. Allows agents to respond to interactions only if they are not on a call or paused. Does not assign a new interaction if the agent has another active interaction.
• wrandominteraction: Random distribution that takes into account the penalty, agents with a higher penalty have less probability of receiving new interactions. Only assigns new interactions if they have no other interactions or have an active call.
• ringall: The first interaction in the waiting queue rings simultaneously on all available agents until one attends it.
• ringallmultiple: All interactions in the waiting queue ring simultaneously on all available agents until one attends them.

What is a disposition?

Dispositions are used to categorize the final outcome of interactions with customers. This is an example of dispositions that could be used: general inquiry, complaint, service cancellation, but these will depend on the customer's business.

When an agent ends an interaction, they will be asked to select a disposition that describes the outcome of the interaction. This allows supervisors and administrators to measure Contact Center performance, identify areas for improvement, and measure the effectiveness of different agents.

Dispositions can also be used to trigger specific actions within the Contact Center. For example, if an agent selects "resolved" as a disposition, the customer's account can be marked as "closed" and the agent can be asked to schedule a follow-up call.

On the uContact platform, a multi-level disposition structure can be used, allowing for more detailed and precise tracking of customer interactions. Each disposition level provides more detailed information about the interaction. For example: we can have a level 1 disposition that is "Sale" and within that level, different level 2 dispositions that are "Computer," "Cellphone," and "Tablet." If we wanted to know how many sales we have, it would be enough to count how many level 1 dispositions with the result "Sale" we have.

What is a status?

Statuses are different types of pauses that allow agents not to be assigned any type of interactions. Statuses are used for various purposes, such as lunch, break, training, among others. These statuses can be monitored through Campaign Dashboards and in the agent profile, showing detailed times of how long they remained in each status.

There are default statuses available for all agents, and it is possible to create custom statuses for each campaign. For example, a custom status could be 'English class'.

What is the blacklist?

The blacklist is used to add phone numbers or email addresses from which SPAM interactions, customers who do not want to be contacted, or similar originate. Once added, these interactions will not enter any campaign. The blacklist can be both outbound and inbound, meaning if an agent wants to initiate an interaction with a number that is on the blacklist, they will not be able to. Each campaign has its own separate blacklist.

What is a quality model?

A Quality Model is a tool that allows evaluating user performance based on criteria defined by your operation. In uContact, a model is composed of categories, questions, answers, and scores that are used to audit interactions performed by users on different channels.

You can adapt the Models to fit the specific needs of your business, allowing you to measure key aspects such as:

• Customer service quality
• Protocol compliance
• Product or service knowledge
• Customer experience (CX)

Models are applied manually on individual interaction segments, allowing you to evaluate user performance and detect improvement opportunities.

Why is it important to use Quality Models?

Quality Models are fundamental within a Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS), as they allow aligning the operation with the business's strategic objectives and ensuring consistent customer experiences.

• Objectively measure agent performance: supervisors have clear and standardized criteria to audit interactions.
• Detect improvement and training opportunities: identify specific weaknesses of each user or team, and generate more effective training plans.
• Optimize customer experience (CX): by evaluating aspects such as empathy, response times, and clarity of information, you directly improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Ensure compliance with protocols and regulations: guaranteeing that interactions respect internal, regulatory, or service quality policies.
• Obtain actionable metrics: scores and results can be analyzed to make data-driven decisions and continuously improve the operation.
• Homogenize service across all channels: ensuring that the customer receives the same quality, whether by phone, chat, social media, or email.

In summary, Quality Models not only evaluate agents, but become a key tool to raise the service standard, improve contact center productivity, and enhance customer experience.

Structure levels

These Models are structured at different levels: categories, questions, answer options, scores, and special actions. Below we explain each of them with examples to make it easier for you to build your first model.

Categories

Categories group questions related to the same topic or stage of contact.

Some examples can be:

• Call opening
• Service provided
• Closing and farewell

These divisions allow for better organization of the evaluation and facilitate subsequent analysis of results.

Questions

Each category contains one or more questions that will be used to evaluate that specific aspect of the interaction. Questions can have an optional description, useful for clarifying what the evaluator should observe.

Some examples can be:

• Did the agent introduce themselves correctly?
• Did the agent provide relevant information?
• Was the resolution time for the inquiry optimal?

Answer options and scores

Each question must have at least one answer option, and each option must have an assigned score.

Some examples can be:

The blacklist is used to add phone numbers or email addresses from which spam interactions, customers who do not want to be contacted, or similar are received. Once added, these interactions will not enter any campaign. The blacklist can be both outbound and inbound, meaning if an agent wants to initiate an interaction with a number that is on the blacklist, they will not be able to. Each campaign has its own separate blacklist.

What is a Quality Model?

A Quality Model is a tool that allows you to evaluate user performance based on criteria defined by your operation. In uContact, a model is composed of categories, questions, answers, and scores that are used to audit interactions performed by users across different channels.

You can adapt the Models to fit the specific needs of your business, allowing you to measure key aspects such as:

• Customer service quality
• Protocol compliance
• Product or service knowledge
• Customer experience (CX)

Models are manually applied to individual interaction segments, allowing you to evaluate user performance and identify opportunities for improvement.

Why is it important to use Quality Models?

Quality Models are fundamental within a Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS), as they allow you to align operations with the strategic objectives of the business and guarantee consistent customer experiences.

• Objectively measure agent performance: supervisors have clear and standardized criteria to audit interactions.
• Detect opportunities for improvement and training: identify specific weaknesses of each user or team, and generate more effective training plans.
• Optimize customer experience (CX): by evaluating aspects such as empathy, response times, and clarity of information, you directly improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.