Abstract:
Apparatus for assessing compliance with FTC/FCC predictive dialer requirements includes a predictive dialer for dialing selected calls, a call-log data record for recording data necessary to determine for a selected call by said predictive dialer whether said call meets FTC/FCC requirements for calls from a consumer telemarketer, a compliance analyzer, a data transfer agent for transferring data from the call-log data record to said compliance analyzer which is operative to analyze the transferred data to determine whether it is in compliance with said FTC/FCC requirements, and a result presentation system for generating a report to demonstrate compliance with the FTC/FCC requirements.

Description:
BACKGROUND  
       [0001]     Field of the Invention  
         [0002]     The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for permitting telemarketers to comply with rules and regulations of the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission (FTC/FCC) relating to consumer telemarketing.  
         [0003]     Predictive dialers dial phone numbers and screen out non-productive calls such as “no answers”, “busy signals”, “disconnected numbers”, “answering machines”, etc. They send “live contacts” (customers) to agents who then talk to the prospective customer. Because of the high percentage of non-productive calls, predictive dialers dial phone numbers before an agent is available to take the call. Predictive dialers use sophisticated pacing algorithms which measure calling activity to predict when an agent is going to be available to take the next call. A dialer can be set to dial very conservatively to make sure that an agent is available before dialing a number; or, it can be set to dial ahead in anticipation of when an agent may be able to take a call if it turns out to be a live contact.  
         [0004]     The predictions, however, are not always exactly in keeping with reality. Hence, when dialing ahead, there are usually a number of live contacts which answer when no agent is available to take the call. When this happens, the dialer will either place the live contact on hold while waiting for an agent, or hang up. A hang up is an “abandoned call”.  
         [0005]     FTC/FCC regulations now require telemarketers to connect a call with an agent within two seconds of the consumer&#39;s completed greeting; and, moreover, telemarketers are not permitted to abandon more than 3 percent of live contacts wherein a call is considered abandoned if there is no agent available to take a call within two seconds of the time a consumer completes his or her greeting. The FTC/FCC requirements therefore are more stringent than the past practices of telemarketers.  
         [0006]     In the event a call cannot be connected to an agent within two seconds, the FTC/FCC regulations further require the telemarketer to play a pre-disconnect announcement to the consumer including information such as the company name and it&#39;s phone number and a statement that the call was for telemarketing purposes.  
         [0007]     Prior to the initiation of the National Do Not Call Registry, telemarketers would customarily let a phone ring only three times to avoid paying toll charges for calls that were answered by answering machines. The FTC/FCC regulations require, however, that telemarketers permit a call to ring for at least 15 seconds (approximately four rings) before determining that a given call is a “no answer”.  
         [0008]     The FTC/FCC regulations also require telemarketers to maintain records showing compliance with the above-discussed requirements. Indeed, each violation of the FTC/FCC requirements can result in a fine of as much as $11,000.00.  
         [0009]     Hence, telemarketer which are responsible for many billions of dollars in commerce each month, must not only adhere to the FTC/FCC regulations but be able to prove they have done so. Similarly, the FTC/FCC must be able to monitor the activities of telemarketers to determine whether telemarketers are meeting the FTC/FCC requirements. Various aspects of the instant invention therefore, are intended to make a determination of whether a given telemarketer is meeting one or more or all of the above-discussed requirements.  
       SUMMARY  
       [0010]     Apparatus for assessing compliance with predictive dialer requirements includes, a call-log database and, if desired, an audio recorder for recording data necessary to determine for a selected call one or more of the following:  
         [0011]     whether it was a live contact and, if so, whether it was abandoned; the length of time between a completed greeting of an answering party and the connection of the call to an agent; if a pre-recorded message was played for abandoned calls and, the length of time a party&#39;s phone rang, before a determination was made that there was “no answer”. A compliance analyzer is used to determine:  
         [0012]     whether the number of abandoned calls exceeds a predetermined number of live contacts; whether a given live contact was connected to an agent within a predetermined time period; whether a given phone was permitted to ring for a given period of time before the call was determined to be a “no answer”; and, whether a pre-disconnect announcement was played when a given call could not be connected to an agent within a predetermined time period. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0013]      FIG. 1  is a block diagram showing an overall relationship between a predictive dialer, a compliance monitor system and a compliance analyzer system.  
         [0014]      FIG. 2  is a block diagram showing details of the compliance analyzer. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0015]     With reference to  FIG. 1 , a preferred embodiment of the invention includes one or more compliance monitors  10  and a compliance analyzer  12 . The compliance monitors are located at each of a plurality of call-center sites. One or more predictive dialers  16  at each call-center site are connected to a public switch telephone network (PSTN) which receives each outgoing call from each predictive dialer. The compliance monitor  10  gathers call log data records in a Data Recorder  26  on all calls placed by the predictive dialers. If desired, each compliance monitor  10  can be adapted to record some or all of the audio data received on lines  14  and  15 , through hub  17 , from predictive dialers  16  as a given call progresses from a predictive dialer to the PSTN. In this respect, all audio data can be recorded if required. Even if FTC/FCC should require copies of audio data for proof of compliance purposes, however, it is anticipated that a sampling of only 15-25% or so of outgoing calls should be sufficient. Hence, it is anticipated that it will only be necessary to record a portion of the audio data rather than all. On the other hand, if it is desired to be able to retrieve an audio copy of a given customer&#39;s call initiation that data can be recorded.  
         [0016]     Each compliance monitor  10  includes a call-data recorder  26  for logging call data; a data transfer component (data transfer agent)  28 ; and may include an audio-recording component  24  for recording audio data being transmitted to and from the PSTN through hubs  17  on line  15 . The compliance monitors can be conveniently installed at call centers and, as the predictive dialers dial calls in connection with given sales campaigns, they are also connected to the compliance monitors by lines  18  for data collection purposes.  
         [0017]     The compliance analyzer  12  can be located at the call center site, but more conveniently it is remotely located at a remote compliance-management location which receives similar data from a plurality of call-center sites  1  through n as illustrated in blocks  6  and  8  of  FIG. 1  wherein each call center site has one or more predictive dialers and at least one compliance monitor  10 .  
         [0018]     Each predictive dialer  16  also includes many call-log data records  30 ; and, the data recorder  26  in the monitor  10  receives all such desired data in the form of a compliance-monitor call record to be detailed shortly. This data in the dialer&#39;s calling log data record  30  is recorded for every telephone number that is dialed by the predictive dialer  16 . That data located in the calling log data record  30  of the predictive dialer  16 , however, is in a pre-record format and is transferred on line  18  to a data recorder section  26  of the compliance monitor  10 .  
         [0019]     Each record can preferably include all or some such data fields as:  
         [0020]     d1. For all outbound dials, the consumer telephone number dialed.  
         [0021]     d2. For all outbound dials, the date and time each call was initiated.  
         [0022]     d3. For all outbound dials, an identification (description) of the physical outbound-line.  
         [0023]     d4. For live contacts only, the date and time of the consumer&#39;s completed greeting.  
         [0024]     d5. For live contacts only, the date and time the call transfer to the agent was initiated.  
         [0025]     d6. For non-answered calls only, the date and time each call was determined a no answer.  
         [0026]     d7. For all outbound dials, the call classification [busy, live, answering machine, modem/fax, disconnect tone (SIT), abandoned call, no answer, or some other such designation].  
         [0027]     d8. For all outbound dials the Call Classification Method, i.e., whether it was classified by the system as or by an agent.  
         [0028]     d9. For all abandoned calls, whether a pre-disconnect message was played (Yes or No).  
         [0029]     d10. For all abandoned calls, the date and time the pre-disconnect message playing was initiated.  
         [0030]     d11. For all abandoned calls, where available, a description of the message that was played.  
         [0031]     d12. For all calls, a Campaign Identifier  
         [0032]     d13. For all calls, a Client Identifier  
         [0033]     d14. For all calls sent to an agent an Identifier of the agent to whom the call was connected.  
         [0034]     d15. For all calls, a final result code of the call. (Sale/No Sale, scheduled-call-back, etc.)  
         [0035]     d16. For all calls where a caller identification is modified by the system, the caller value that is sent to the PSTN.  
         [0036]     This data gathered in the Data Recorder  26  in the Compliance Monitor  10  is sent to the Data Transfer Agent  28  section of the Compliance Monitor  10 .  
         [0037]     The call-log data from section  30  of the predictive dialer  16  is conventionally mapped to the call log data source in the data recorder section  26  of the compliance monitor  10 . In this respect, the call-log data records items d1-d16 above that are transferred in connection with a first sales-campaign customer&#39;s files might be mapped in a different manner than a second such customer&#39;s call-log data records, but in each instance, such mapping is done in a conventional manner. Once mapped, little or minimal change is required from one sales-campaign customer to another.  
         [0038]     The suitably mapped data files are then transferred from the data transfer agent section  28  of the compliance monitor to the data-collection section  34  of the compliance analyzer as discussed above.  
         [0039]     Each audio recorder  24  is selectively connected to all or part of the outbound calls at hubs  17  from each dialer for selectively or continuously recording such calls if desired. Conventional circuitry is employed to start the recording preferably when the outbound line from the call center initiates the call (goes off-hook) and stops recording at a pre-designated time frame, preferably after the receiving location answers the call (usually the conversation need not be recorded); and, each desired block of such data is captured, if desired, by the audio-recorder  24  as an individual audio-data file  21  with an associated audio data record  22 . The actual audio recording file, or the audio data file  21 , and the audio data record  22  are combined as audio record data  23  and are sent to the Data Transfer Agent  28 .  
         [0040]     The audio recording  21  will be mapped later by the Compliance Analyzer to a specific Call Record  27  to facilitate associative comparison if so desired or required. The audio record data  22  are created in a per-record format, and are stored within the compliance monitor system  10  and sent to the Data Transfer Agent  28 .  
         [0041]     Each audio data record  22  can preferably include all or some such data fields as:  
         [0042]     a1. The consumer telephone number dialed.  
         [0043]     a2. The date and time each call was initiated.  
         [0044]     a3. An identification (description) of the physical outbound-line.  
         [0045]     a4. The unique file name of the recording (Audio Data File  21 ).  
         [0046]     Two fields are added in the call record data  25  and the audio record data  23  when these records are sent to the data transfer agent  28 :  
         [0047]     a5/d17. a Unique Record Identifier; and,  
         [0048]     a6/d18. a Call Center Site Code.  
         [0049]     Other data fields, of course, can be added or not as desired.  
         [0050]     The call record data  25  and the audio record data  23  are then regularly transferred out of the compliance monitor  10  by the data transfer agent  28 . This is accomplished on line  32  via a system such as a Wide Area Network (WAN) or the internet and via line  32  a to a data-collection agent  34  of the compliance analyzer  12  ( FIG. 2 ). That data is then further transferred on line  34   b  from the data-collection-agent section  34  to a per-record data section  35  of the compliance analyzer  12  where the compliance-monitor call record data for each call center is stored. With respect to  FIG. 2 , the Compliance Analyzer System includes a data-collection agent  34 , a call inspector section  36 , a campaign analyzer section  40 , an archival data transfer agent  38  and a report transfer agent section  39 .  
         [0051]     Call center output data collected by the data-collection agent  34  of the compliance analyzer  12  is stored in two separate areas, an area for data  35 , and if desired, an area for audio records  37 . The call data records  35  are transferred directly to the campaign analyzer  40 . If desired, the audio data records  37  are transferred to the call inspector  36  which “listens” to the audio data records  22  that have been collected and stored in a call center output section  37  by the data-collection agent  34  and creates an output in a call inspector output section  42  of its interpretation of what it hears in the recordings and sends that data to the campaign analyzer  40 . Further the campaign analyzer  40  of the compliance analyzer  12  merges the call record data  35  and the call inspector output  42 , compares that data with the FTC/FCC rules and creates output on a line  40   c  to a campaign analyzer output section  41  which determines how the operation of a given campaign relates to the FTC/FCC rules. This output is derived from the data that has been gathered in the campaign analyzer  40 .  
         [0052]     A typical format of merged records in the campaign analyzer might be: 
        1. For all records, a unique Record Identifier     2. For all records, a unique Call-Center Site-Code     3. For all records, the consumer telephone number dialed     4. For all records, the time the recording analysis is initiated     5. For all records, the digits pulsed to the PSTN     6. For all records, the date and time the ringing begins during analysis.     7. For records that are deemed a connect, the date and time during analysis of the consumer&#39;s completed greeting.     8. For records that are deemed to be a connect, the date and time during analysis of the initiation of the agent&#39;s response to the greeting     9. For records that are deemed to be non-answered calls, the date and time during analysis each call was determined to be a no answer     10. For all records, a call classification wherein preferred classifications may be such as: 
            (i) Answering machine (AM)     (ii) No answer (NA)     (iii) Live Connects 
                a) abandoned call (AC)     b) sent to an agent (LC)    
                (iv) Busy signals (BU)     (v) Disconnected numbers (DS)     (vi) Blocked numbers (BN)     Other classifications can be added or not as desired.    
            11. For all records that are deemed to be a connect and then an abandon, whether a pre-disconnect message was played (Yes or No).     12. For records that are deemed to be an abandon, the date and time during analysis the disconnect message playing was initiated.     13. For records that are deemed to be out of compliance, a specific code indicating the compliance violation(s).     14. The unique code number associated with the filename of each audio recording which generated a given result.        
 
         [0076]     Anomalies in the resulting data, if any, are analyzed by the Campaign Analyzer  40  against the standards set by the FTC/FCC. The campaign analyzer  40  creates a summary and detail-report output  41  which is transferred to a results presentation system  62  by the report transfer agent  39  on lines  40   d  and  39   a.    
         [0077]     Any anomalies that are detected are flagged and may be reported in suitable summary and detailed formats (not shown).  
         [0078]     The reporting application also does the necessary calculations to produce a compliance summary report. A typical compliance summary report might be as follows:  
                                             Campaign ID: 35252   Report Date: May 1, 2003       Campaign Name: Telemarketing 1   Report Interval: 00:00-23:59                                Section 1: Call Abandonment           Total Number of Dials   102,426       Total Number of Live Connects:   67,242       Maximum Abandonment Setting for Live Calls (%):   04.00%       Minimum Abandonment Setting for Live Calls (%)   01.00%       Actual Average Abandonment Rate for Live Calls (%)   02.11%       Actual number of Abandoned Calls   1423       Section 2: PreDisconnect Message Status       Total Calls Abandoned Requiring Disconnect Message:   1423       Abandonment Message Played:   1422       Disconnect Message Success Rate:   99.93%       Section 3: Wait before terminating call       Actual Minimum No Answer Wait Time (seconds):   31       Average No Answer Wait Time (seconds):   35       Section 4: Caller ID       Caller ID Activated:   True       Section 5: 2 Seconds to Connect       Actual Maximum Time to Connect (seconds):   1.821       Average Time to Connect (seconds)   0.724                  
 
         [0079]     Independent of the call inspector  36 , the campaign analyzer  40  creates reports based upon the call center output  35 . The data contained within the individual call records  27  are analyzed and such parameters, among others, as ring times, live connect data, and recorded announcements are utilized in report creation.  
         [0080]     The campaign analyzer section  40  produces output that is then delivered on line  40   c  to the analyzer output section  41 . The output is delivered through line  40   d  to the report transfer agent  39  component of the compliance analyzer system. The report transfer agent then formats and delivers through line  39   a  resultant report sets to the results presentation system  62 . The report presentation agent  46  component of the results presentation system  62  utilize a secured website  44  to display reports to the requestor.  
         [0081]     The report transfer section  39  of the compliance analysis system  12  also delivers data on line  39   a  to a results presentation system  62  which gives access to all desired data and reports by means of a conventional secure access line to customers, call-center personnel, FTC/FCC personnel and the like. Hence, telemarketers are able, if desired, to substantiate issues such as the following: 
        Total # of Dials     Total Number of Connects     Average Abandonment Rate     Total of Abandoned Calls     Total Calls Abandons Requiring the Play of a Disconnect Message     Total Abandonment Messages Played     Abandonment Message Success Rate     Minimum No Answer Wait Time in Seconds     Average No Answer Wait Time in Seconds     Maximum Time to Connect a Call in Seconds     Average Time to Connect All Live Calls in Seconds     Other items can be added to the report, or not, as desired.        
 
         [0094]     In addition to the summary report, the results presentation system  62  permits a browser-based utility to allow for searching and displaying detail from data within the results presentation system  62 , for each specific telephone number that has been dialed so that clients at given call-center sites can easily access and distribute call detail whenever it is desired to do so. In this manner, it is possible to present a call history in the event that a complaint is made by a consumer. This detail may also be replicated by the campaign analyzer as output over line  40   e  to the archival data transfer agent  38 , stored in a per-customer storage section  48  of an archival history  60 , and archived in a restricted database  50 .  
         [0095]     The FTC/FCC regulations call for telemarketers to maintain at least two years of data for all calls placed from their predictive dialers. The archival history section  60  of the system of the invention maintains such compliance data while minimizing customer expense. Preferably, this is accomplished at an off-site location from the compliance analyzer as described above. Conventional site-to-site data encryption on-line permits the archived data to be presented at remote locations through the results presentation system  62  via standard internet browser techniques. In this manner, the call center (telemarketer) is permitted to focus on its call center activities and eliminates the need for the telemarketer separately to maintain costly hardware for archiving data and extracting such data from the archives.  
         [0096]     A preferred reporting package based on the above-described system includes summary and detail reports as noted above. Such reports demonstrate both compliance with FTC/FCC requirements and exceptions to those requirements. Conventional spread-sheet analysis also permits generation of a call-center compliance score of between, for example, 0 and 100 quickly to show where a given call-center site ranks in compliance; and, moreover, these reports can be generated from the report transfer agent  38  and downloaded from the results presentation system  62  to individual call-center sites and/or FTC/FCC compliance facilities through normal internet connections.  
         [0097]     While the invention has been specifically shown and described with reference to preferred embodiments, it should be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and detail may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.  
         [0098]     The embodiments of the invention in which an exclusive property or privilege are claimed are defined as follows: