Skip Trace

Skip tracing in contact centers refers to the process of locating individuals who are difficult to reach due to outdated or unavailable contact information, such as phone numbers, addresses, or email addresses. This technique is primarily used in industries like debt collection, fraud prevention, legal services, and financial services, where reaching specific individuals is critical for business operations. To facilitate this process, agents use a Skip Trace widget, which offers a range of functionalities designed to assist with manual call operations and streamline the search for updated contact details.

Key Features

• Allows agents to manually initiate calls.

• Agents can retrieve multiple or individual contacts, based on backend settings.

• For each contact, either all associated numbers or only the currently active number is displayed, allowing agents to select the appropriate one for dialing.

• Agents have the option to add and save new numbers or make one-time call attempts with tracking.

• Compliance checks are performed on both existing and new numbers before dialing to ensure regulatory adherence.

• Agents can log outcomes for each call attempt, with the ability to track a final outcome for the contact's lifecycle.

Use Cases

• Skip Trace Agents: The widget enables agents to attempt calls on all numbers associated with a contact or add new numbers discovered through various channels.

• Cyclic Dialing: Configured to present one contact at a time, agents can cycle through all associated numbers, saving outcomes for each attempt.

• Human Choice Dialing: This feature, often used with Accelerated Dialing, allows agents to manually select contacts. Legal requirements often necessitate that the Agent, not the dialer, selects the contact. The widget presents multiple contacts, and the agent chooses which to dial, ensuring manual dialing of non-consented records.

• Human Initiated Dialing: The widget can display a single contact with the current active number for agents to manually dial non-consent records.

How does it work

An agent can retrieve contacts and initiate a manual call to reach a customer using the Skip Trace widget.

Initiate a Skip Trace Call

To initiate a call for a contact, follow these steps:

1. The Campaign Group dropdown menu displays the list of assigned campaign groups to the agent. Select the required campaign group from the list.

   Note:

   The Campaign Group dropdown menu displays the list of assigned campaign groups to the agent. Select the required campaign group from the list.

2. Click to get the list of contacts associated with the selected campaign group. It displays the following fields.

   1. Contact ID - The unique contact ID for the contact.

   2. Campaign Name - The campaign name associated with the contact.

   3. Status - The status icons indicate whether a disposition has been set for each contact. If disposition is set, it means the contact has already been contacted. Agents can easily identify the contacts without a disposition and initiate a call.

      Note:

      1. If the Status displays with , the disposition of the contact is already set.

      2. If the Status is empty, the agents must set the disposition.

Click any Contact ID or Campaign Name to see the list of available modes to dial the contact. The adjacent table displays the modes along with the following fields:

1. Modes - Mode of the contact, such as Home, Mobile, or Work.

2. Contact No - Contact number of the customer associated with the mode.

3. Status - Indicates different statuses based on the operations the user performs. The following table describes each status:

   UI	Description
   	Indicates that the compliance check for this contact is incomplete. The dialing option is not available for the agent.
   	Indicates that the compliance check for the contact has failed.  The dialing option is unavailable for the agent.
   	Indicates a failure in the compliance check for either calls or voicemails. The agent can dial the contact even if the Voicemail compliance check has failed; however, the agent should remember not to leave a voicemail.
   	Indicates that the compliance check has passed for both call allowed and voicemail. The agent can proceed to dial the contact.
   	Indicates that the agent has called and set the disposition for the contact. The agent can proceed to dial the contact.

4. Actions - Click any contact to perform the compliance check and initiate a call operation. Refer to the following table to see the list of each action with its respective icon:

Setting Disposition for Skip Trace Calls

Agents can set Dispositions for both contacts and their associated modes.

Setting Disposition for a Mode

Agents can set disposition for any one of the modes such as home, mobile, or work associated with a contact. To do so:

1. Click the Call icon of the specified mode.

   The Outcome widget is displayed with the following details:

   1. Mode: Displays the selected contact ID, mode name, and mode number.

   2. Call type: The call type is tagged in green, which is Skip Trace here.

   3. Category type (Mode): The category type is tagged in blue, which is the mode that is dialed.

   4. Call Outcome, Parent Business Outcome, and Child Business Outcome dropdown menus: Contains the respective outcome options.

2. Select the required Call Outcome, Parent Business Outcome, and Child Business Outcome options.

3. Enter the Target Achieved details and Comments in the respective text boxes.

4. Click Submit.

Setting Disposition for a Contact

Agents can set a disposition for the selected contact either before dialing out any modes or after setting disposition for a mode. To do so:

1. Click the respective Contact ID or Campaign Name.

   The Outcome widget is displayed with the following details:

   1. Contact: Displays the selected contact ID.

   2. Call type: The call type is tagged in green, which is Skip Trace here.

   3. Category type (Contact): The category type is tagged in blue, which indicates a contact that is selected but not dialed.

   4. Call Outcome, Parent Business Outcome, and Child Business Outcome dropdown menus: Contains the respective outcome options.

2. Select the required Call Outcome, Parent Business Outcome, and Child Business Outcome options.

3. Enter the Target Achieved details and Comments in the respective text boxes.

4. Click Submit.
   

   Note:

   When agents select a contact from the Skip Trace widget, the following widgets populate with relevant data before dialing a mode or contact.

   1. Active Campaigns

   2. Customer Profile

   3. Dispositions

   4. Customer Journey

   5. Call Guide

   6. MCD (if the number is available in multiple campaigns)

Add New Dialing Mode

Agents add a new number if they try all existing numbers and still can’t reach the customer.

To add a new dialing mode for a contact, perform the following steps:

1. Click   to insert a new row to enter the new dialing mode for the contact.

2. Select the required Mode from the drop-down list. The modes drop-down list displays options based on the campaign configuration.

3. Type the contact number in the Contact No field.

4. Click   to save the contact number. To discard the changes, click  .

After adding a dialing mode, agents can perform a compliance check and dial that mode.

Manual Dial

Agents can dial a manually entered number if they cannot reach the contact through any available modes.

To dial a manual number, perform the following steps:

1. Enter the contact number in the phone number text box.

2. Click the Check Compliance icon. The compliance check is successfully completed.

3. Click the Call Number icon to dial the contact.

4. Once the contact is dialed out, agents can set the disposition for the manually dialed number. To do so, refer here.