Difference between results and outcomes. Global and project outcomes.
What are results and outcomes?
Whenever an Outbound call is placed, their are several potential results.
- The number may be invalid, busy, may ring unanswered, these are all results which might trigger a waiting period, as we may not want to wait before calling the same contact again.
- Alternatively, preferably, the contact picks up and speaks to the agent. At the end of that call, the agent would record an Outcome. Did they make a sale, did the contact request a callback, or to be added to a blacklist. Outcomes let you record deals, and manage contacts, finalising those that are no longer needed, for example.
Understanding outcomes
At the end of each interaction with a customer, agents must record an outcome. These have two main functions:
- To record what happened in the call for monitoring and reporting purposes. Tracking deals made, for example.
- To determine what happens next with the contact. This might be to remove the contact from the current list, move them to a different list or to blacklist them, for example.
Global- and project-based outcomes
You can create call results which are available in all your projects, or call results which are tied to specific projects.
- Global outcomes. Created and managed on the General settings page of your Admin account. These outcomes are available to all projects.
- Project specific outcomes. Created and managed within the project they will be used in. They are only available to agents using a specific project.
If you have an outcome which you intend to use for multiple projects, it is better to create it as a global outcome, then hide it from the projects that don’t use it. This reduces the chances that you create multiple call ending reasons that all do the same thing, which can result in confusing reports.
Before creating a new call ending reason, double-check that you do not have a duplicate reason already.