Engage Voice | Dial Zones overview
Dial Zones is an outbound dialing feature that allows you to create your own ‘custom timezones.’ These custom timezones — also known as dial zones — are useful for circumstances in which you need more (or more flexible) timezone options than those offered by the system.
Dial zones (which are configurable via the Dial Zones tray setting under Dialing) can be assigned special dialing schedules. These schedules can be used to override a campaign’s typical daily schedule within a specific timezone. This dial zone feature works for the ManualDial product, as well as all outbound dialers. Your custom dial zones can also be available to use with dial plan filtering options (by timezone).
Let’s look at some examples of times you might want to create a custom timezone.
- When you’re dialing internationally, including to Canada (the system currently does not offer international timezone codes)
- When you’d like to create a timezone ‘override’ for a region that already has a set timezone. For example, say you generally don’t make phone calls on Sundays, but you just got a lead list of folks in Alabama who have consented to being called on Sunday afternoons. In this case, you could create a custom dial zone for those leads in Alabama and apply it to the folks that have consented to Sunday afternoon phone calls
Understanding dial zones and groups in detail
Before you can create a custom dial zone, you must first create a dial zone group. Dial zone groups represent a way to organize custom dial zones by the base timezone in which your dial zone is located.
About base timezones
When you create a group, the system will ask you to choose a base timezone. This is the timezone that will apply across all dial zones and schedules located within that group. Following the example above, let’s say you choose Central time (CST) so you can create some custom dial zones in that group that relates to Alabama.
Now, if the base timezone is set to US/Central, the system will allow all leads associated with any custom dial zones in that group to be dialed between the hours you choose for this group — using US Central time as a base standard. Please note that the system will adjust for Daylight Savings Time across all base timezones.
If you’re dialing internationally and would like to create an international dial zone, you can simply choose one of the base timezones offered that is closest to the international timezone you need. You can then calculate your dial zone schedule so that it reflects the timezone of your choice (we’ll go over dial zone schedules below).
Please note that the default timezone setting for North America restricts calling after 8-9pm. You can reach out to your CSM if you would like to enable 24-hour dialing.
About dial zone keys and schedules
Once you create a dial zone group, you’ll be able to add some custom dial zones within that group. Say you want one custom dial zone for leads in Montgomery and another for leads in Tuscaloosa. You can create a dial zone for each, and assign each zone a key — or a unique string of digits — of your choice that will allow you to reference that dial zone later on when you assign it to a lead on your list. After that, you can create a special schedule for the system to use when dialing that custom dial zone.
Please note: You must be sure to configure your schedules within legally permitted dialing times. When you use the Dial Zone feature, you take on the responsibility of following industry regulations around outbound dialing.
Applying custom dial zones to lead lists
Once you have a group and one or more dial zones scheduled and configured within that group, you’ll be able to put those custom dial zones to use. First, you’ll need to assign the dial zones to the campaign of your choice. After that, you can upload and map a lead list containing an extra column for the dial zone key(s) that you’ve created.
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