Soft Callbacks/Approximate Time Calling

The tilde in column 31 means those calls are “soft” call backs. The date/time that is shown in column 31 is rounded to the nearest hour. Those calls have a lower priority than specific timed calls, but higher priority than normal system call backs.

This is also known as Approximate Time Callingwhich means an interviewercan set a call to be made some time ‘about’ a particular hour of the day, or at ‘some’ time in the morning, afternoon, or evening. The program will pick an hour to call, and the call will have the next priority behind specific timed calls.

There are 24stacks (289-312) that are ‘call at this hour’ stacks. If you say to call ‘tomorrow afternoon’, the program will pick a random stack from 12pm to 5pm tomorrow. If you say “about 3,” it will pick the 2pm or 3pm stack. In all other ways they will act like timed calls.

When the hour comes along, whenever specific-timed calls are all distributed, the system will attempt to call these numbers. You may specify any date format in conjunction with an approximate time format. The list of supported ‘approximate time’ keywords at the “WHEN TO CALL–>” prompt is as follows:

  • Some time later today
  • <time>
  • <time>
  • From 8am to 11:59am
  • From 12 noon to 4:59pm
  • From 5pm to 9:59pm


NOTE: MORNING, AFTERNOON, and EVENING will be further restricted by your daypart times (i.e., must be between DAYPART1 and DAYPART4) and also between your OPEN and CLOSED times.

For example, if your shop is shut at 5pm, the system will not let the interviewer schedule a callback at NIGHT. The interviewer will see a note on the screen that the call will be made approximately at a specific time. This allows you to make a distinction between “hard” appointments and “soft” appointments. The “minute” part of the note always reflects the current minute, the call will actually be available any time after the hour prompted

with.

Example:


7/15 before 3pm

TUE NIGHT

TOMORROW MORNING

Also, a soft callback can happenif it’s too late for a special interviewer to call. The system sets up a soft callback for the next day.

For Example:You have a special 3 number scheduled for 7:00 PM EST and a special 3 type interviewer doesn’t log in until 9:00pm, then it’s too late and it’s scheduled as a soft call back for the beginning of the next day.