If you have ever tried voice broadcasting (automated telemarketing) to generate leads for your company, you know that the responses you get from a live response broadcast can often be negative. Many respondents ask to be removed from the call list, and some of them can be angry or even abusive. A thoughtful manager will want to insulate the sales staff from these "raw" response calls, in order to make them better able to focus on leads and sales without the distraction of negative calls.

Many broadcasters will do this by employing a live call screening person with a very specific and short script by which to eliminate the negative calls before transferring them to the sales staff. But other broadcasters set up the voice broadcasting system itself to do this.

This "automatic" call screening process involves the use of an "intermittent" messages. The initial recorded message that the prospect hears gives them an option to press 1 for more information. With an intermittent message, the "press 1" action results in the playing of a second recorded message instead of a live transfer to a representative.

This "intermittent message" will frequently last 30-45 sec., and often the first thing that it does is to again invite the prospect to "press 2" - to be removed from the call list. Then it will go on to provide more information about the service or offer being made, often stressing important qualification information, and will then invite the prospect to again "press 1".

This final "press 1" action can be used either to transfer the prospect to a live representative, or to a voicemail system where the prospect can leave a message.

The result of this process is that the great majority of "negative callers" will either press 2 or hang up during the intermittent message. When the final transfer is to a voicemail recording system, the few negative messages that are received simply aren't turned over to the sales team.

Using either of these automated screening processes means that the sales staff receives a greatly reduced number of calls for a given broadcast. And for this reason many voice broadcasters ignore the value of this approach, perhaps making the mistake of equating more activity with more profit. However, others believe that in most cases, the transferred calls that are "lost" by this screening method are simply not profitable, and should be avoided.