Automation Rules allow you to classify your interactions automatically. You tell us which types of interactions you want to focus on by choosing criteria — call length, which marketing campaign a call is associated with, which words were spoken during the call, and much more — and we’ll qualify, score, tag, or assign a value to the ones that meet your criteria, automatically. Transcript intelligence must be enabled for Automation Rules to work.
Interaction criteria
Automation Rules can be used for phone calls, online form submissions, and chat conversations. The criteria you can use to target interactions are divided into three categories.
Interaction type and handling criteria
- Interaction type: which type of interaction do you want to target, calls, chats, or forms?
- Call direction: target inbound vs outbound calls.
- Call duration: target calls based on length.
Marketing and attribution criteria
- Active page: target based on which web page a person was looking at when they called you.
- Campaign: target based on which marketing campaign is associated with an interaction.
- Landing page: target based on the first page a person viewed when they visited your website.
- Referrer: target based on which website referred a person to your website.
- Search keyword: target based on which search terms a person typed into a search engine that led them to your website.
- Source: target how a person found your number or how they got to your website before they called you, e.g., if they typed your URL directly into the address bar of their browser, if they clicked on a Google Ad, if they searched for you using Bing, etc.
Key terms and phrases
- By entering key terms and phrases, you can target words that are important to your business, such as "make an appointment" or "get a quote," when they are used by a customer or agent. You can enter as many key terms as you want, and can specify whether you want to focus only on words used by the agent or only on words used by the customer. You can also target interactions based on which words are NOT used.
Creating an Automation Rule
Follow these instructions to create an Automation Rule. You can create a custom Rule or use one of our five templates as a starting point. Check out our community post to learn more about templates.
Please note: only administrators and managers can create and edit Automation Rules.
- Click the Settings icon on the left navigation bar.
- Choose the company where you'd like to create an Automation Rule.
- Click Workflow at the top of the page.
- Choose Automation rules from the Automation header on the left.
- Click the Custom Rule box to build a rule from scratch. Otherwise, choose one of the templates as a starting point.
- Choose if you want the rule to apply to a certain company or to all current and future companies within your account, then click Rule parameters.
- Choose the type of criteria you want to target by selecting one of the three tabs on the left of the screen.
- Enter the specific criteria you want to target using the larger panel on the right.
- For instance, if you want to target calls in which customers say certain words, you would select the Key terms and phrases tab on the left, and then enter the words you want to target on the right.
- Choose an action using the Classification tab in the bottom left. This lets us know how to classify the interactions that meet your criteria.
- You can tag an interaction, score an interaction as qualified or non-qualified, or assign a monetary value to an interaction.
- Name your rule.
- Once the rule is active, any interaction that meets the criteria you choose will be automatically classified based on your action.
Managing Automation Rules
Follow these instructions to manage your Automation Rules. Administrators and managers can create and edit Automation Rules.
- Click the Settings icon on the left navigation bar.
- Choose the company where you'd like to edit Automation Rules.
- Click Workflow at the top of the page.
- Choose Automation rules from the Automation header on the left.
- Scroll past the templates to your list of Automation Rules.
- Use the company dropdown on the right to choose which company's Automation Rules you'd like to view.
- Use the icons on the right side of each row to manage your rules. Click the pencil icon to edit, the double square icon to duplicate a rule, and the trashcan icon to delete a rule.
- Use the toggle on the far right to deactivate a rule without deleting it. This allows you to keep the rule, but prevents it from automatically classifying interactions. You can reactivate the rule by clicking on the toggle again.
Finding your keywords
When you identify key terms using Automation Rules, they'll show up in the Key Terms Spotted Report and in the call recording player. Your key terms will have a timestamp that takes you to the moment they were spotted inside of the call recording. Spotted key terms also appear in exported call logs.
Learn more about exporting call logs in CallRail.
FAQs
I want to create bulk Automation Rules. What should I expect?
If you have any existing company-level rules, they will be deleted and replaced with the new bulk multi-company rules you configured. We do this to decrease the chances of having any duplicate rules in one company. Duplicate rules can cause rules to override each other or stop working due to conflicting information.
What if I want to edit an Automation Rule that is shared across several companies?
If you edit a shared rule, your classification choices will be reset and you will need to set them up again.
What languages can Automation Rules identify?
Automation Rules only understands standard English words that can be found in a dictionary. For example, a proper noun like "CallRail" or your business's name may not be recognized by the system.
Can you apply Automation Rules to past calls after I've set up a new Rule?
Automation Rules will begin working on all calls and/or forms received from the time the Rule is activated and going forward. It won't work for calls that occurred prior to turning on this feature. If you deactivate a rule but don't delete it, the Rule will not apply to interactions until you reactivate it.
Is there a limit to the amount of words that an Automation Rule can contain?
Yes. There can be up to 2,000 keywords/phrases in a single Automation Rule.