Phone Call Settings

In the List Settings > Phone Call Settings, you will find all of the call settings that are specific to that list. The settings here are pre-populated based on multiple factors, including the size of your organization, the location of your organization, and any other organization-wide defaults that have been set up by your organization. Please contact us before making changes to the phone call settings, as significant changes can have negative results. 

Changing the outgoing caller ID

The outgoing caller ID number is the phone number that will show in your recipients' caller ID on their phone. Through the List Settings > Phone call settings, you can change the outgoing caller ID number for the specific list. 

• Change the caller ID number to your phone number if you want your calls to be easily recognizable by your recipients. Note that this could cause an increase in call-backs to your office. 
• Change the caller ID number to BrightArrow's phone number, (855)994-4242, if you want to limit the number of call-backs to your office. Note that this could result in your contact's not answering their phones because they don't recognize the number. 

Changing the dial speed and number of attempted calls

You probably want to make sure your calls are successfully reaching your contacts as fast as possible, and that's where dial speed can make a difference. However, the defaults in your list settings for dial speed and call "retries" are already considering multiple factors and any changes to these fields should be made with caution. Changing any of the three fields lists below can come with adverse effects, and all three options need to be considered when making changes to any of them. Please contact us before making any major changes to the fields listed below so that we can help you make sure you'll get the best results. 

• Number of retries upon busy or no answer: This is how many times we'll try to send your call again if no one answers on the first try. Note that if a voicemail answers, that counts as an answer so the system will not send the call again. The call will only attempt to re-send to your contacts when the initial call was not answered by a person/voicemail or the call reached a busy signal. 
  • We recommend limiting the number of retries, simply because sending too many retries can be bothersome to your recipients. Remember that the calls will only be tried again if there was a busy signal or no person or voicemail picked up. 
• Minutes between retries upon busy or no answer: This is how long the system will wait before re-trying calls.     
  • If there aren't enough minutes between when the initial call sends and when the call retries to send, it can result in your initial message not sending properly. This is especially true if you have a large list. Even for small lists, we recommend that you do not set this number below 20 minutes. For larger organizations / lists, this number may need to be greater than 30 minutes. 
• Dial speed: This is how many calls BrightArrow will send each minute. 
  • BrightArrow has the capacity to send a large number of calls each minute, however, your local phone services providers may not have the capacity to process a high number of calls. 
    • Setting the dial speed too high can prompt some phone service providers to "blacklist" BrightArrow calls if they believe it is spam-calling, which means your phone calls will not make it to your recipients when you need them to. 
    • Even if your area predominantly uses a large phone service provider, such as Verizon or AT&T, remember that some of your constituents may not be using that service. Setting a high number in the dial speed field could result in some recipients being unable to receive the call.

Dial speed, number of retries, and minutes between retries should all be considered together before making any changes. In the screenshot shown above, the dial speed is set to 50, and the minutes between retries is set to 30. If the list has more than 1,500 phone numbers to contact, the initial call will still be sending when the first "retries" start. This could result in calls not sending as expected. Please contact us before making any major changes to dial speed or number of retries so that we can determine the best options for you.

Which phone numbers will be called?   

Depending on your list's settings, BrightArrow will call every phone number for each contact, only certain phone numbers for each contact, or call each contact until the call is answered. The phone numbers taThe setting your list will use is determined by the options under "Phones to call for each contact."

• Phones to call for each contact: These settings determine which phone numbers to contact for each voice call you send. 
  • Call specific numbers: If you have all phone numbers entered in BrightArrow systematically, you can set your list to only call certain phone types/numbers. For example, if all of your contacts are entered in BrightArrow where phone 1 = home phone, phone 2 = cell phone, and phone 3 = work phone, you can mark the boxes within your list to only call the home number (phone 1). 
  • Call all numbers: This will call every phone number in the list, even if the recipient answered the call on a different phone. For example, if your contact answered the call on their cell phone, they will still receive the same call on their home phone and work phone. BrightArrow will still de-duplicate your lists, so the calls will not send to the same number twice even if it is in the list twice. 
  • Try first number, then onward until delivered: This will try the phone number that is marked as phone 1 first, then continue on to phone 2 if there was no answer on phone 1. This option is typically the best option to use to keep your recipients happy. They receive the phone call once, so our system does not call their other phone numbers. But if they miss the call on the first phone, the system will recognize that and try another phone number for them. Remember that if a voicemail answers, that counts as having been answered and the system will not proceed to try their next phone number.