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Glossary · Dialing

What is Contact rate?

  • Also called: right party contact rate, rpc

Reviewed by Sujan ThapaliyaLast updated

Definition

Contact rate is the share of dialled calls that reach the specific person you intended to speak to — the right-party contact. It is always lower than connect rate, and it is the figure that should drive forecasting and list sizing.
The three STIR/SHAKEN attestation levels, which underpin how contact rate behaves in practice: A asserts both that the carrier knows the customer and that the customer may use the calling number, B asserts the customer only, and C asserts neither. A shared number pool can reach B at best, which is why number ownership keeps recurring in these definitions.
Attestation is the backdrop to most caller-ID and deliverability terms, contact rate included.

In practice

How contact rate actually works

The gap between connect and contact is made of gatekeepers, colleagues, wrong numbers and people who share a handset. On some lists half of all live answers are not the right party.

Because it is the harder number, it is the one most often quietly replaced with connect rate in reporting. Any pipeline model built on connect rate will overstate coverage by exactly that gap.

It responds to data quality more than to any dialing setting: verified direct dials outperform switchboard numbers by a wide margin, and mobile numbers outperform both.

Contact rate is also the metric that exposes data decay. A list that contacted at 3% when purchased and 1.2% six months later has not become harder to call; a third of its direct dials have stopped being correct. Watching the trend on a static list is the cheapest data-quality audit available.

Worked example

1,200 dials producing 84 live answers is a 7% connect rate. If 31 of those were the decision-maker, contact rate is 2.6% — and that is the number the pipeline model needs.

Contact rate: common questions

How is contact rate different from connect rate?
Connect rate counts anyone answering; contact rate counts reaching the person you needed. Reporting the first while planning against the second is the most common forecasting error in outbound.
What is a normal contact rate?
On cold B2B lists, commonly 1% to 4% of dials. It rises sharply with verified direct dials and falls sharply on switchboard numbers.
How do you raise contact rate?
Better data before better dialing. Direct dials and mobile numbers, verified recently, move it far more than any pacing or caller-ID change.

Sources

  1. Combating Spoofed Robocalls with Caller ID Authentication — Federal Communications CommissionThe STIR/SHAKEN framework, the attestation levels carriers sign calls with, and the mandate requiring providers to authenticate caller ID.
  2. 47 U.S.C. § 227 — Restrictions on the use of telephone equipment — Cornell Legal Information InstituteThe Telephone Consumer Protection Act itself — the consent requirements, calling-hours limits, and private right of action.
  3. ITU-T Recommendation E.164 — The international public telecommunication numbering plan — International Telecommunication UnionThe international number format, the 15-digit maximum, and how country codes and national numbers compose.

See contact rate in the product

Call analytics turns raw call records into the numbers a manager can act on: volume by hour, connect and answer rates, talk time, dispositions, service level, abandonment and the per-number reputation behind all of it. Reporting on activity, as distinct from attributing calls to campaigns.

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