How to set up a broadcast (robo) campaign

A broadcast campaign, also called robo-dialing, plays a recorded message to a list of numbers with no live agent on the call. It is the right tool for reminders, notices, and political or non-profit announcements. Setting one up comes down to recording the message, choosing how it plays, and pointing a remote agent at it. Here is the path from a blank list to dialing.

Step 0: confirm you are allowed to broadcast

Recorded-message calls are heavily regulated. In the US, broadcasting to consumers generally needs prior express written consent, so the clean cases are opted-in customer reminders plus political and non-profit announcements. This is practical guidance, not legal advice. Square away your TCPA obligations and your DNC (do not call) suppression before you record anything.

Step 1: record your message

Use the easy-prompt process: dial 8168 from a phone connected to your server, enter the recording ID when prompted, and record after the beep. A practical tip is to record the message twice in the same file, because the start of a recording often gets clipped before the person finishes saying hello or while a voicemail greeting plays. Recording it twice means they hear the whole thing the second time around. Note the filename, which starts at 85100001.

Step 2: choose how the message plays

There are three approaches, from simplest to most capable:

• Play immediately: starts the recording on connect, no dialplan editing. Easiest to set up, but clips the start and gives no real lead status.
• Wait a set number of seconds: delays the recording so it usually starts after hello. Needs a small dialplan edit.
• Wait for silence or full answering machine detection (AMD (answering machine detection)): listens before playing so it handles voicemails better. Full AMD is configured from the web interface and usually needs a little tuning.

Step 3: wire up the remote agent

Because no human logs in, a Remote agent drives the dialing. On the Remote Agent Modification screen, set its External Extension to the right playback target for your chosen method, and set the campaign's VDAD extension to the matching broadcast extension. For full AMD you point External Extension at the answering-machine playback handler and set the related answering-machine fields on the campaign. The exact extensions depend on which playback path you picked in step 2.

Step 4: start and stop the run

To start dialing, set the remote agent status to ACTIVE and submit. To stop, set it to INACTIVE; that can take about a minute to fully wind down. As calls connect, watch the lead Status (lead status) values move through PU when the message starts and AL once it has played in full. That trail tells you who was actually reached. Keep your Call times set to acceptable hours so the run never places calls outside permitted windows.

If you need callers to press a key before reaching a human, you want a press-1 survey instead of a broadcast. For how broadcast sits next to the other modes, see the dialing strategies guide, and before a large run skim the drop-rate guide since abandons still count even with no agents on the line.

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