Ringless voicemail or RVM is a communication technique that allows marketing and broadcasting agencies to deliver their message directly into prospects’ voicemail boxes without disturbing or even ringing their phones. Generally, it is considered a lawful method of telemarketing and political advertisement.
How it works
Most Mobile Network Operators usually offer Voicemail Drop as a value-added service. ICTBroadcast uses this value-added service to automatically drop a recorded message as voicemail. Following is a brief description of how ICTBroadcast does it
ICTBroadcast dials out given access numbers and uses a sequence of DTMF keypresses to submit number of target phones as well as to reach the prospect’s voicemail recording interface. ICTBroadcast starts playing selected recorded message after the recording tone and, on completion, it uses the DTMF tones sequence to save the recording and then finish the call.
How to set up a Ringless Voicemail system
Admin is required to configure his ICTBroadcast server before launching campaigns for Ringless Voicemail in accordance with the following instructions.
Setup remote portals
Each access number has IVR system that is specific to Mobile Network Operators, means different Mobile Network Operators has different IVR systems, therefore, admin has to configure different IVR system against each Mobile Network Operators, a remote web portal that will be called as Remote Portal.
A new remote portal can be created from Administration and then the Remote Portal menu, Following are brief details of each required field.
- Remote Portal Name: give a unique name
- Portal Type: Type of target IVR system, i.e voicemail
- Provider Name: Mobile network operator name
- 1st: Start sequence: A sequence of Keys that are required to select the required service and submit the target phone number
- 2nd: Phone Number: This Will be done automatically
- 3rd: Recording sequence: Another sequence of Keys which is required to navigate to voicemail recording prompt
- 4th: Recording: Message will be played automatically
- 5th: Send sequence/hangup: Final sequence of Keys to finish and submit voicemail recording and to proceed with hangup
Create Access numbers
There is an issue while working with Ringless Voicemail. As mentioned above, each Mobile Network Operator may have a different set of IVR flow against its voicemail interface. This issue can be addressed by creating separate contact groups and campaigns for different providers, But, unfortunately after the number portability option this is not practical. In ICTBroadcast, we have introduced a special mechanism that dynamically determines target access number and remote portal type in real time based on the CNAM report of the current contact number.
New access numbers can be created or imported from Administration and then the Access number menu. Following is a brief detail of each required field.
- Phone number: Access number advertised by Mobile Network Operator for their voicemail service. It will be dialed to reach the user’s voicemail box.
- Remote Portal: Select mobile provider’s IVR interface that belongs to the current access number
- Region: To filter destinations
- Country: To filter destinations
- Destinations: OCN or Network prefixes list required to identify and map given contact number with original network and to current access number
Configure CNAM Provider
ICTBroadcast has to determine the original Network Operator for a given phone number when working with a contact list, this can be done via CNAM query which provides this required information, i.e OCN. CNAM providers can be configured from Administration then System Configuration menu.
Following are details about the required fields.
- Enabled:
Enable or disable CNAM client - SS7 Provider:
Select provider type - Expiry (seconds):
How long ICTBroadcast can reuse stored/cached CNAM data - API URL:
URL to API interface - API Key: Authentication key (optional) Note: either use API key or username and password combination depending on your provider
- API Username:
Username for API (optional) - API Password:
Password for API (optional) - Phone prefix:
In case, API provider requires a phone number with a specific format then ICTBroadcast will apply this filter on the phone number before request CNAM data.
Start Ringless Voicemail Campaign
Prepare contact group
- Click on “Contact management” from the top menu and then click the “Add new” button from the contact group page
- Fill required fields, and submit the form to create a new contact group
- Now visit “Contacts” from the top sub-menu, And then either create new contact manually or import from a CSV file
- After creating or importing contact goes back to the “contact group” page
- Finally, click the “Start CNAM” button to update the CNAM database for the newly created contact group
Launch Voicemail Campaign
- Click on “Campaign” from the top menu and then click on “Campaign Management” from the top sub-menu
- Click on the “Add New” button and then click on the “Voice Mail Campaign” button
- Fill the campaign form as following
- Enter Name of the campaign
- Select contact group / List of phone numbers that this campaign will dial.
- Select Type of remote portal
- Select from a list of already created/recorded messages.
- Leave other settings as default.
- Click save to run the campaign.