Balancing Yield and Cost Efficiency with SmartAMD

The client

A valued TCN client operates large-scale outbound contact center campaigns with diverse balance profiles. To keep operations profitable, they needed a predictive dialing model that could balance high-quality customer conversations, software fees, agent labor costs and telecom compliance. That is where TCN’s new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered SmartAMD came in.

The challenge

Using a standard answering machine detection (AMD) solution, the client’s contact center was losing valuable time to operational noise. The system routinely flooded the floor with robotic dead air and automated carrier intercepts, draining agent energy and tanking morale. Even worse, the standard AMD couldn’t recognize modern digital call screeners on iOS or Google, leaving agents stuck having to manually interact with automated systems. On low-margin portfolios, these wasted agent hours and software surcharges directly threatened profitability.

The solution

To eliminate this floor noise, the client implemented TCN’s SmartAMD to filter out automated drops, tag digital endpoints such as voicemails and screeners and optimize bridging speeds. This change completely reshaped call dynamics on the floor. While the standard AMD frequently bridged robotic dead air directly to agents, SmartAMD quietly filtered it out in the background.

Plus, because SmartAMD connected real humans to agents almost instantly, agents occasionally saw an increase in quick human hang-ups (callers who dropped off immediately upon hearing an agent). However, this isn’t a flaw – it’s proof of speed. SmartAMD connected real people so quickly that it gave agents a split-second shot at callers who would previously have been dropped by a slower legacy dialer.

The results

Switching to TCN’s SmartAMD delivered immediate operational and financial wins for the client, including:

• An increase of 35 right-party contacts (RPCs) per day – a 3.2% lift
• A 0.41% drop in the total volume of calls bridged to agents, meaning less time wasted on useless calls 
• Successful rerouting of 43,000 dead-end calls to high-performing texting and email workflows, reclaiming massive amounts of agent time and yielding a high return on investment (ROI)

Leveraging the best of both worlds

When implementing SmartAMD in their operations, the client decided that a dual-purpose engine strategy was the optimal approach. Because continuous deployment could be costly for low margins, the best of both worlds involved leveraging the strengths of two systems:

• Low-balance accounts: SmartAMD runs on the initial passes to scrub the list and flag unproductive numbers. The campaign then switches to TCN’s StandardAMD for daily maintenance dialing, giving the client a clean list without ongoing AI surcharges.

• High-balance accounts: SmartAMD runs continuously to maximize critical, high-value conversations.

The hybrid SmartAMD strategy

Implementing SmartAMD into the client’s operations with this two-pronged approach involved two phases:

Phase 1: Portfolio scrubbing 

Deploy SmartAMD exclusively on the first one to two passes of a newly loaded portfolio or unscrubbed dialing list. The engine will map and identify digital endpoints (voicemails, network errors and digital screeners) that a standard AMD cannot detect and permanently tag them in the database.

Phase 2: High-efficiency dialing 

Once the SmartAMD engine has scrubbed the portfolio and generated suppression lists, switch the floor to TCN’s best-in-class StandardAMD engine. Dial the newly concentrated, human-dense list using the free, standard engine. Since the standard engine will no longer trip over the digital junk now suppressed, daily surcharges are avoided while maintaining high efficiency.

Why TCN’s AI

SmartAMD doesn’t just filter out bad calls; it turns raw dialing data into a roadmap for your business. By blending fast human connections with smart list scrubbing, TCN lets you protect your agents’ morale, cut wasted labor and extract real profit from every portfolio. But the benefits TCN’s AI-powered tools could bring to your business don’t end there.

Implementing AI into your contact center is simple, especially when everything is done at your pace with minimal IT involvement – the heavy lifting is already done! Plus, TCN clients can add AI to their toolbets today without increasing their tech debt because TCN’s AI lives right within the Operator platform – simplifying your vendor stack and approval process. See what results TCN’s AI contact center solutions could produce in your contact center and learn more about its incredible capabilities.