Outbound Call Center Contact Rate vs Connection Rate (2023)

  • October 11, 2022
  • ByConvoso

Contact Rate vsConnection Rate. What’s the difference, and why does it matter for your outbound call center?

Whether you’re a call center manager, owner, admin, or analyst, you may be using the terms “contact rate” and “connection rate” interchangeably. Many people do. However, they are different metrics impacting ROI.

So, what is contact rate and what is connection rate? We’ll look at how they differ, how to calculate contact rate and connection rate, and why it matters.

In this article, we’ll talk about 4 key ways to improve connection and contact rates:

  • Dial Time-out Adjustment
  • Dial Level Scheduling
  • Carrier Quality Monitoring and Management
  • Tools to Boost Contact Rates

Related Content

Download our quick guide on Contact Rate vs Connection Rate

Defining Connection Rate vs Contact Rate (and the formulas to calculate both)

Connection rate and contact rate have distinct purposes, and are among numerous metrics KPIs for outbound call center profitability. A connection is when a call is answered, and a contact is when you reach an actual person. So a connection could mean you reached a voicemail or someone hit the green button and immediately hung up, but if you reach a live person who is talking to you, you have a contact. Of course, both are major factors impacting lead conversion rate. And when it comes down to it, conversion rate is what matters.

What is Contact Rate?

Contact rate for an outbound call center is a list level metric, and is the key to understanding the quality of the lead list. To determine the rate, we divide the number of live person contacts by the total leads on the list. For example, using this contact rate formula: 20 people pick up the call / 200 leads = a contact rate of 10%.

What is Connection Rate?

(Video) How to increase contact rates for outbound call centers

Connection rate for an outbound call center gives a daily snapshot of the number of calls placed on a given day to leads. To determine the rate, we divide the calls answered [including voicemails] by the total calls placed. For example, 25 calls answered / 100 calls dialed = a connection rate of 25%.

In a nutshell, connection rate tells us the efficiency of the leads, and is short term. Contact rate tells us about the quality of the leads. Over time, connection rate contributes to contact rate.

Outbound Call Center Contact Rate vs Connection Rate (1)

Strategies for Improving Connection and Contact Rates

1. Dial Time-Out Adjustment

What is the ideal number of rings to allow before moving on to the next call? As any call center admin or manager knows, finding this sweet spot is the trick of trial and error. The FCC requires a minimum of 4 rings or 15 seconds. From this threshold, if you set the time-out too high, you get too many voicemails (money wasted on telco minutes!). Of course, if you set the dial time-out too low, you may lose the call, because you haven’t given the recipient enough time to answer.

Tweaking the number of rings in smaller increments is often the key. If your dialer doesn’t let you adjust the dial time-out by a half ring, you are at a disadvantage.

Sometimes half a ring makes all the difference. Our customers control the dial time-out with one simple setting. They sometimes go back and forth until they land on the ultimate number, say 5.5 rings, and that turns out to completely change the Connection Rate.

— Jen Knight, Convoso Senior Customer Success Manager

Outbound Call Center Contact Rate vs Connection Rate (2)

The Ultimate Guide

Understand how STIR/SHAKEN affects your contact rates

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2. Dial Level Scheduling

The most effective scheduling tools positively impact both Connection and Contact Rate. They should automatically adapt hour-by-hour throughout the day, raising and lowering dial levels tailored to contacts’ schedules. Dial level scheduling sets a specific number of dial levels (aka lines) based on a pre-defined schedule. So, for example, at 10am it will use 3 dial levels, or at 5pm it will use 4 dial levels.

An additional scheduling tool is a follow-the-sun dialing tool that selects each lead at the time of day when they’ll be most responsive. The result will be more successful connections and a lower dropped call rate.

Related Content

Discover the top KPIs tracked by successful outbound contact centers

Learn more

3. Carrier Quality Monitoring and Management

Call centers that don’t continuously monitor their Connection Rate are at risk of trying to run their business with broken dialers… without even knowing it.

The fastest way to tell if your dialer is broken is to check the Connection Rate. If you see a sudden dip, you can tell within an hour or less that there’s a problem with the dialer. That’s why we’re proactive, and have a team monitoring each carrier’s connection rates, so if it goes down, we immediately take them out of the route until the issues are resolved. This way everything continues to function as normal, and the impact on our customers is minimized. We also only use solid, top quality telecom carriers.

— Nima Hakimi, Convoso CEO & Co-Founder

If a call center has downtime due to a carrier issue, that’s costly. You’re not converting leads if no one is connecting.

Related Content

Download our Contact Rate Booster Checklist

4. Tools to Boost Contact Rates

With intuitive management tools, call centers can immediately improve dialing efficiency. Convoso predictive dialers incorporate proprietary algorithms that respond in real time during the calling process, and help to strategize, implement, and adapt a calling plan for your campaign. Together, they maximize connectivity, lower unanswered calls, and boost contact rates.

  • Caller ID Reputation Management – Track and replace numbers are being blocked by carriers or flagged as a spam risk. This is an essential best practice to improve contact rates in today’s outbound dialing environment. Using local caller IDs may also encourage more customers to pick up your calls. Convoso registers your numbers with the major carriers which significantly reduces the likelihood of your numbers being flagged, and allows us to remove flags without having to replace numbers in most cases.
  • Accurate Answering Machine Detection – This single tool can make a substantial difference to an outbound dialing campaign if it is fast and accurate. Detecting voicemails and adjusting for false positives or false negatives can make a huge impact on contact rates.
  • Workflow Dialing – Define rules for how you want to call back, or recycle, your data. Build a custom cadence that schedules delays between calls by staggering intervals. The result is increased list penetration that boosts contact rates.
  • Lead Follow-up Automations and Omnichannel Outreach – Use strategic methods of reaching leads in an automated cadence through multiple channels via well-timed text messages, emails, calls, and smart voicemail drops to communicate with prospects and advance the customer journey.

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List Conversion Reports – Beyond Connection and Contact Rates

Improving connection rate and contact rate are essential for call center agents to convert more leads. However, we need to drill deeper if we want a true picture of ROI and profitability. The next step in this process is to analyze list conversion for efficiency.

A call center’s biggest expenses are payroll and data. Managing opportunity costs poses a perpetual challenge. You may have a great contact rate. However, if your agents have a high talk time on a list but they aren’t selling, then the profitability of those leads just took a nosedive.

Integrating data in real time with a List Conversion Report gives you the ability to determine what lists are creating true revenue. Convoso customers tell us these reports have been a game changer in maximizing lead efficiency. They note increased profitability, better resource management with a decreased need for staff, increased productivity, and cost savings.

Outbound Call Center Contact Rate vs Connection Rate (3)

The Essential Guide

Oubound dialing strategies for your call center

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Convoso provides the right technologies to help call center owners, managers, and admins meet and exceed their goals for lead conversion. Just ask our customers.

Learn more in a demo about how Convoso’s omnichannel contact center software can dramatically improve your Connection Rate and Contact Rate.

Want more from your dialer?

See how with a live demo

(Video) CCW 2022: Leveraging Amazon Connect outbound campaigns to improve customer experience | AWS Events

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FAQs

What is a good outbound contact rate? ›

#1 Occupancy Rate (OR)

It's important to track this metric because it indicates how efficiently your agents work. The ideal occupancy rate will vary depending on the type of outbound call center, but in general, you should aim for an OR between 70% and 80%.

What is contact rate in call center? ›

What is a contact rate within a call center? A contact rate is an outbound call center metric. You take the total number of calls that an agent makes – let's assume 100 for an easy example. Then you divide that by the number of actual conversations that the agent has.

What is a good contact rate? ›

First Contact Resolution (FCR)

Generally, the industry benchmark for FCR is between 70 and 75%. However, there are many different ways to measure FCR, and percentages will likely change depending on the method you use.

How do I increase my contact rate on outbound calls? ›

6 Tips to Improve Your Call Center's Contact Rates
  1. Choose the Right Dialer. As mentioned above, ineffective dialers often result in bad contact rates. ...
  2. Use Lead Scoring. ...
  3. Check if Mobile Numbers are Active. ...
  4. Choosing the Right Phone Numbers. ...
  5. Use Enhanced Caller ID. ...
  6. Don't Dial Customers From "Bad" Numbers.
25 Nov 2020

What is connection rate? ›

Connection rate for an outbound call center gives a daily snapshot of the number of calls placed on a given day to leads. To determine the rate, we divide the calls answered [including voicemails] by the total calls placed. For example, 25 calls answered / 100 calls dialed = a connection rate of 25%.

How many outbound calls per day is normal? ›

Key Cold Calling Statistics

The average B2B salesperson makes about 35 calls a day, while some report as many as 100 calls a day for phone bank workers. 82% of buyers accept meetings when salespeople reach out to them. 69% of buyers accepted one or mold cold calls from a salesperson in the last year.

How do I find my contact rate? ›

To determine the contact rate, divide the number of leads that answered the call by the total number of leads on the prospect list.

What is RPC in outbound? ›

What is Right-Party Connect? Right-Party Connects or RPC is an outbound call metric that measures how often businesses communicate to the right individual. RPC is the best test of your campaign activities' success. It can also determine the reliability of your contact database.

How do you measure contact center performance? ›

To measure agent productivity and performance, call center directors should keep track of these seven key metrics to see where agents need to improve and where they thrive.
  1. Average handle time. ...
  2. Quality monitoring. ...
  3. Customer satisfaction. ...
  4. Schedule adherence. ...
  5. Dial transfer rate. ...
  6. Unavailable time. ...
  7. Agent occupancy.
27 Jul 2021

How many calls per hour is good? ›

This will allow a good inside salesperson to average 10-12 calls per hour while effectively maintaining and updating information in the CRM. Therefore, when asked how many cold calls per hour should an inside salesperson be able to make, a fair and reasonable response is 10 calls per hour.

What is a good first contact resolution rate? ›

What exactly is a good FCR rate? According to a range of reports, the industry standard is between 70 to 75%. This means that 25-30% of all customer communications you receive are repeat calls about the same issue. In general, the higher your FCR rate, the better.

What is a good contact rate for cold calling? ›

What is the success rate of cold calling? The average cold calling success rate is 2%. This percentage is a lot lower than other sales techniques, but as a form of outbound lead generation, it's still effective and should be implemented into your sales strategy.

How can I improve my answer rate? ›

14 Tips to Improve Response Rates
  1. Administer a pre-survey email. A pre-survey email can easily help warm up your respondent sample to the idea of completing your survey. ...
  2. Introduce yourself. ...
  3. Don't use sales jargon. ...
  4. Keep it short. ...
  5. Engage. ...
  6. Limit insignificant questions. ...
  7. Limit the amount of scrolling.

What are the 5 best practices for a successful outbound calls strategy? ›

Here's a quick checklist that can ensure your outbound calls strategy goes smoothly:
  • Grab the customer's attention. You have just seven seconds to make a first impression so you need to make it count. ...
  • Make them feel valued. ...
  • Respect their time. ...
  • Don't make promises you can't keep. ...
  • Set a follow-up meeting.
31 Jan 2022

How is connection measured? ›

How are broadband speeds measured? Broadband speeds are measured in 'megabits per second', often shortened to Mb Mbits p/s or Mbps. Bits are tiny units of data, with a megabit representing a million of them. The higher the number of Mbps (megabits per second) you have, the speedier your online activity should be.

What is a connection drop rate? ›

Packet drop rate, the rate at which packets are lost in a network connection.

Which connection type is best? ›

Fiber-optic internet is arguably the best connection type, so we'll start there. Like the name suggests, fiber refers to an internet connection that comes to your home via fiber-optic cable, which uses pulses of light along thin strands -- or fibers -- of glass or plastic to transmit data.

How long does it take to make 100 calls a day? ›

Making 100 cold calls could take you between 1-5 hours, but this greatly depends on the dialing system you're using. If you want to improve your cold calling efforts, you'll need a proper sales strategy.

Is outbound calling hard? ›

We've said it before and we'll say it again: making outbound sales calls is TOUGH! There's no denying it, and even the most experienced salespeople would agree that while it gets easier with time and practice, it never gets truly easy. Still, that doesn't mean you can't make it easier to have successful sales calls.

What are the two types of outbound calls? ›

Two Categories of Outbound Calls
  • 1) Cold Calls. Cold calls are made to potential customers who weren't expecting the contact. ...
  • 2) Warm Calls. Warm calls, unlike cold calls, are the result of some previous interaction with the lead. ...
  • Types of Outbound Calls.

What are call center metrics? ›

What does metrics mean in a call center? Call center metrics gauge the overall effectiveness of customer service teams. Many aspects of call centers use metrics to measure performance, agent productivity, and other activities that lead to increased customer satisfaction.

What is API and RPC? ›

REST and RPC are design architectures widely used in web development to build APIs (Application Programming Interface). It is a set of instructions that permits two systems to share resources and services. The client creates a request to the server that responds to it with data in JSON or XML format. REST APIs.

What is IPC and RPC? ›

js, RPC (Remote Procedure Call) and IPC (Inter-Process Communication) are both mechanisms to communicate between a frontend process running in a browser and a backend process running under Node. js. Each can be used to connect processes that reside the same machine or on different machines connected through a network.

Is SOAP and RPC same? ›

Introduced in the late 1990s, SOAP was one of the first protocols designed to allow different applications or services to share resources in a systematic way using network connections. (I should note that, technically speaking, SOAP is an example of a Remote Procedural Call, or RPC.

What are the 3 performance measurement? ›

Performance measurement: an exercise in storytelling

The framework should align with these three elements: What does your organization want to achieve, where do they want to make a difference, and what are the desired outcomes? What steps does your organization need to take to achieve its objectives?

What are the 3 key performance measures? ›

These types of indicators include: employee engagement, satisfaction and turnover.

What are the three 3 examples of performance measurement systems? ›

Examples include balanced scorecards, ISO standards and industry dashboards. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are at the heart of any system of performance measurement and target-setting. When properly used, they are one of the most powerful management tools available to growing businesses.

How many calls should an agent make a day? ›

That is an average of 60 cold calls per working day. Similarly, if you are a sales rep who needs to get 10 qualified opportunities per week –– you need to make roughly 180 calls (18 attempts x 10 prospects). That means an average of 36 sales calls per working day.

How many calls can an agent handle in a day? ›

The number of calls representatives answer each day varies based on the business' needs, but some may take as many as 50 calls each day. This means representatives will be on the phone for most of their shift, interacting with customers.

Is 100 calls a day too much? ›

If you are making 100 dials a day, that's too many because it means you aren't having any meaningful conversations with prospects. If you were having meaningful conversations, you wouldn't have time for 100 dials a day.

What is average speed of answer in call center? ›

Average Speed to Answer (ASA) is the average amount of time taken for a call centre agent to answer an inbound customer call, including time spent waiting in a queue. It excludes time spent navigating an IVR system. This metric one of the most important signals tied to customer satisfaction.

How do I reduce first contact resolution? ›

Equipping Your Customer Service Team to Improve First Call Resolution
  1. Prioritize FCR techniques in training. Emphasize the importance of in-depth product knowledge and cross-channel communication strategies in training. ...
  2. Cross-train agents. ...
  3. Make crucial information readily available for agents. ...
  4. Repeat and reflect.

How can I reduce my call center transfer rate? ›

How to decrease call transfer rates. You can start decreasing CTR by making sure your agents are knowledgeable about your product. Training sessions, refresher exercises and mentorship programs are simple ways to achieve this.

How many no's does it take to get a yes? ›

A no means that a yes is possible.

In fact, studies show that the average customer says no an average of five times before saying yes.

What is a good meeting conversion rate? ›

The answer is between 25-35%.

That means about every 1 in 3 of your SDRs' phone conversations should end in a meeting. The other two call recipients either don't listen, aren't interested, or feel it's not the right moment for your solution.

Why cold calling is so hard? ›

One of the most common reasons cold calling can be so stressful is the fear of rejection. To succeed in B2B sales, you must be able to overcome this fear. Fortunately, there are some tricks you can use to come out on top. Check out our guide How to Cold Call, Connect, Convert, and Crush on the Phone.

What is the fastest way to answer a test? ›

Short Answer Test Preparation Tips
  1. Study for understanding. ...
  2. Focus on topics and concepts. ...
  3. Employ self testing. ...
  4. Use flashcards. ...
  5. If in doubt, make an educated guess. ...
  6. Answer the easy questions first. ...
  7. Read all instructions. ...
  8. Budget your time.

What are the 8 basic techniques in answering telephone calls? ›

Phone Etiquette
  • Answer the call within three rings.
  • Immediately introduce yourself.
  • Speak clearly.
  • Only use speakerphone when necessary.
  • Actively listen and take notes.
  • Use proper language.
  • Remain cheerful.
  • Ask before putting someone on hold or transferring a call.
23 Jul 2020

What are outbound tactics? ›

Outbound marketing consists of various marketing strategies and techniques that simultaneously target a large spectrum of people. Some of these include advertising (traditional and digital), cold emailing, cold calling, trade shows, and content syndication.

How do you calculate outbound productivity? ›

(Total Output / Total Input) x 100 = Labor Productivity

Total Output is the time each of your employees spends on actually achieving their targets (for example, talking to customers or doing after-call work).

What is important in outbound calls? ›

Ability to gather target audience insights

Outbound calling allows you to have conversations with your target audience to discover insights that you may not have considered otherwise. You can use these insights to improve your marketing and sales message and guide product and service development decisions.

What is perfect outbound? ›

Perfect Outbound is a young, innovative, fast-growing sales development agency for B2B service. based businesses.

What makes a good outbound call? ›

Make them feel valued

Demonstrate understanding about their role, their challenges, and their context and that you want to know more. Tie this to specifics about their business so they know you've done your homework and aren't coming at them out of the blue.

How long does it take to make 100 cold calls? ›

Making 100 cold calls could take you between 1-5 hours, but this greatly depends on the dialing system you're using. If you want to improve your cold calling efforts, you'll need a proper sales strategy.

What is outbound strategy? ›

Outbound marketing focuses on reaching out to the public with non-targeted content to promote products or services. It covers traditional marketing and advertising methods like: Direct mail. Email. Radio ads.

What are outbound strategies? ›

In outbound sales, the seller actively seeks a potential buyer, then reaches out to the prospect via cold calls and emails, strategically moving the prospect towards a purchase decision through a process of follow ups, demos, negotiations, and close attempts.

Is outbound calling difficult? ›

It needs a lot of patience and hard work on the part of the outbound call centre service providers and callers to keep their clients happy and satisfied with the services they provide them.

What to say in outbound calls? ›

My name is [your name] and I'm calling from [your organization name]. I was hoping you could direct me to the right contact. I'm trying to connect with someone who manages your [department/job function that would likely be a purchaser of your product/service].

What is outbound KPI? ›

This KPI tracks how much income your outbound sales team is generating from first-time buyers. It's a solid barometer of how well your outbound sales machine is functioning. We recommend tracking new business revenue monthly against a target percentage (e.g., 30% of revenue should come from first-time buyers).

How do you figure outbound leads? ›

There are different communication methods businesses can use for outbound lead generation, including phone calls, email marketing, social selling, social media, TV and radio ads, direct mail, and more.

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