Outreach Voice Best Practices

All web-based software can experience performance issues relating to the connections and its operational environment. Existing systems or connection issues may not be as noticeable during normal usage of Outreach functionalities, but can become more outstanding when using Outreach voice, which contains more strict bandwidth requirements.

Outreach uses Twilio as an underlying VOIP provider. Due to the nature of VOIP services overall, call quality can highly depend on the network speed, number of concurrent calls, the specific client device, etc. To help our customers optimize the quality of Outreach voice, we have compiled a list of best practices for both end users and org IT administrators (network engineers) when setting up Outreach Voice.

Please review the information below, and if you have any question, please contact support@outreach.io.

Best Practices for Outreach Voice Users

OS, Browser & Hardware

The device hardware requirements are dependent on a combination of multiple factors, but generally we recommend:

1.Use the most recent version of Google Chrome:

• The three latest versions of the the Chrome browser provide the best performance when using Outreach Voice
• If Chrome browser is not available, user can also use the recent versions of Firefox
• Note: Outreach Voice is only compatible with webRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) supported browsers, therefore Safari is not supported. For more detail on whether your browser is supported, please visit: http://clientsupport.twilio.com/

2. Have 8GB of memory
3. Close any CPU/network intense webpages such as video/audio streaming service
4. Use an ethernet cable if available to reduce the latency caused by WIFI.

In the unlikely scenario that Outreach calls drop, intermittent issues in Outreach VOIP can be resolved by clearing the browser cache. You can clear the cache on your chrome browser via the following steps

1. Open the Chrome history page: Ctrl-Shift-Delete (Windows) or Command-Shift-Delete (Mac)
2. In the dropdown select "the beginning of time"
3. Select the "Cached images and files", "Cookies..." & "Hosted app data" checkboxes
4. Click "Clear browsing data"

Headsets

Headsets can improve audio quality by minimizing echo challenges. We recommend using a headset on Outreach VOIP calls to provide acoustic isolation between the speaker and microphone, and to minimize echo.

Headset for lower-end PC hardware: For lower-end PC hardware, we recommend USB Headsets, rather than 3.5mm jack headsets, which bypass the native sound board. For computers with a higher-end integrated sound board the 3.5mm connection is fine.

When selecting bluetooth hardware: Bluetooth headsets can present unique challenges, as each headset operates differently. If your headset came with a USB bluetooth adapter, we recommend you use the USB adapter, rather than bluetooth, to avoid bluetooth interoperability issues.

Note that a ‘static’ noise issue with your client audio is often due to a misbehaving or misconfigured headset. If you are experiencing static, try with different headset hardware or no headset hardware to narrow down potential sources.

Unsure whether your existing headset would work? Check our how to test your speaker/mic in Outreach based on our best practice.