Calling hours and retries

Do this: set calling hours

1. Open the campaign, then the Settings tab.
2. In Calling hours, under When to call, choose Whenever the law allows or Only between set times.
3. For set times, fill in From and Until. Use the 24-hour clock.
4. Under On which days, switch off the days you do not want. At least one day stays on.
5. Select Save changes.

Hours are the person’s own time

Hours are counted where each person lives, not where your call centre is. A window of 09:00 to 20:00 means 9 am to 8 pm for a person in New York and for a person in Los Angeles, each in their own time.

Two windows apply at once, and a call is placed only when both are open:

• Your campaign window, if you set one.
• The legal window that VoDialer’s calling rules enforce on every call. The starter values are 8 am to 9 pm, and 8 am to 8 pm in Florida and Oklahoma. The strictest rule that applies wins. These values are starter values and need counsel’s review. See rules and counsel review.

The screen says: “Hours are counted in each person’s own local time, where they live. The legal calling hours always apply on top of this. Someone whose time zone we cannot tell is not called.”

How the zone is worked out

1. If the person’s record has a time zone, that zone alone is used.
2. If not, VoDialer uses every zone that the phone number’s area code and the person’s state cover. The window must be open in all of them.
3. If no zone can be worked out, the person is not called. The screen reason is “We cannot tell where this person lives, so we cannot tell when it is safe to call.” They are held and checked again later, so fix their state or time zone on the list.

A person outside your window is not counted as a try. They wait until the window opens where they live. A window that crosses midnight belongs to the day it started on. If you leave From and Until off, only the legal window applies. See calling hours and time zones.

Not yet

The tables that turn area codes, states and ZIP codes into time zones are built from public data (NANPA, Census, US DOT) and have not been reviewed by counsel. Have counsel review them before real calls depend on hours.

Days

On which days lists Mon to Sun. All seven on means every day. Days are local days.

Retries

Setting on screen	Default	Used when
Most tries per person	3 times (1 to 20)	Always.
Let a call ring for	30 seconds	A call is ringing.
Wait after no answer	4 hours	Nobody picked up.
Wait after a busy signal	30 minutes	The line was busy. A call that failed for a carrier reason uses this wait too.
Wait after an answering machine	8 hours	A machine answered.
Wait after an unfinished conversation	1 day	A person answered and the call ended without a result.

Waits are set in minutes, hours or days, up to 30 days.

A try is counted when a call reached the carrier. A person held back by the calling rules or by your window is not counted.

What exhausted means

When a person has had Most tries per person tries with no result, they are exhausted. VoDialer does not call them again on this campaign. Exhausted people are not counted in “People left”.

Note

The setting called timezone inside a campaign’s calling hours is kept for old campaigns and no longer decides anything per person.

Next: dialing modes.