How to Run an Outbound Call Campaign: Step-by-Step Guide

An outbound call campaign is set up by deciding in advance who you will call, why, at what times and with what conversation, what you will do when you can’t reach someone, and how you will measure the result. The order is: define the goal, clean and segment the list, check consent against İYS, choose calling hours, write the script, set retry and voicemail rules, plan the handover to people, test with a small group and measure. The calls can be made by your agents or by an AI voice agent; the steps are the same either way.

This guide walks through each step with examples and ends with a checklist you can copy. For a short definition of the term, see outbound call campaign.

This article is general information about Turkish rules, not legal advice. Laws and practice change; review your own situation with a lawyer before launching a campaign. Last checked: 2026-10-22.

1. Write the goal in one sentence

Every campaign should start with one goal. “Let’s call our customers” is not a goal; “confirm tomorrow’s appointments and rebook anyone who wants a change” is. The goal determines the consent position, how long the script is, when to call and how you measure success.

The consent column is only a starting point; step three goes into more detail.

2. Prepare and segment the list

The list usually comes from your CRM, booking system or a spreadsheet. Before you dial anyone:

• Normalize the numbers. Numbers written with the country code and no spaces make duplicates and bad records easier to spot.
• Remove duplicates and invalid numbers. Calling the same person twice on the same day is a quick way to lose trust.
• Exclude people who opted out. Anyone who has said “don’t call me” should be kept on a separate list that every campaign excludes automatically.
• Carry only the fields you need. Name, number and a few fields tied to the goal (such as the appointment time) are usually enough. Carrying more personal data than necessary is a KVKK risk; see our guide to KVKK for AI phone assistants.

Then split the list by goal, date of last contact, language or branch. Segments let you tailor the script and compare results. Starting the first round with a small part of the list is the cheapest way to catch mistakes before they grow.

3. Check consent against İYS

In Turkey, a phone call with a commercial purpose counts as a commercial electronic message and, as a rule, needs the recipient’s prior consent recorded in İYS, the national consent register. Whether a person or a voice agent makes the call doesn’t change that. Practical rules for a campaign:

• Check at the moment of dialing. Consent can change after the list is prepared, so the check should run right before each call.
• Look per channel. Consent and opt-outs work per channel; consent given for SMS does not cover calls.
• When in doubt, don’t call. If İYS can’t be reached at that moment, postpone the call rather than assuming consent.
• Keep promotion out of service calls. Adding a new offer to an appointment confirmation can change the nature of the call.
• Act on opt-outs immediately. When someone says “don’t call me again”, you have to stop commercial messages to them within three business days at the latest and report the opt-out to İYS within three business days as well.

We cover the exceptions, a decision tree and content rules during the call in our guide to İYS consent rules for AI phone calls.

4. Choose calling hours

The current text of Turkey’s Regulation on Commercial Communication and Commercial Electronic Messages does not set a specific time window for calls (last checked: 2026-10-22). That doesn’t mean any hour is fine: rules specific to your industry or the contracts you have with customers may add limits, and above all, a call at an inconvenient time hurts both the campaign and your brand. Practical suggestions:

• Call on weekdays during the day. Early mornings, mealtimes and late evenings make refusals and complaints more likely.
• Treat weekends, public holidays and religious holidays separately. The eve of a holiday and the holiday itself are wrong for most campaigns.
• Use the recipient’s time zone. A health tourism clinic calling patients abroad should go by the patient’s local time, not Turkish time.
• Time the call to the goal. For appointment reminders, a call one or two days before works well; for sales calls, the times a person has contacted you before are a good starting point.
• Measure by time slot. Your first campaign shows which hours reach the most people, and you adjust the next one accordingly.

5. Write the script

On an outbound call you are the one calling, and the other person may not be expecting you, so the first sentences decide a lot. A good outbound script has five parts:

1. Opening: who you are, which business you represent and why you are calling. If a voice agent makes the call, saying so at the start builds trust.
2. Availability: “Do you have a minute right now?” If not, ask when to call back and record it.
3. Main topic: one goal, short sentences. For an appointment confirmation: date, time and place, followed by one question.
4. Branches: separate paths for yes, no, a change request, “I’d like to speak to someone” and “don’t call me”.
5. Close: sum up what was agreed in one sentence and state the next step.

For voice agent campaigns, this structure goes into the agent’s system prompt. Make sure phrases such as “don’t call me”, “not interested” and “who is this?” are recognized and routed to the right branch, and test them with trial calls. Trying two different openings on two similar segments and comparing the results is the easiest way to see which wording works.

For ready-made examples, see our outbound call scripts and appointment reminder call scripts templates; for the underlying principles, conversation design is a good place to start.

6. Set retry and voicemail rules

You won’t reach a large part of the list on the first attempt. Write down in advance what happens next:

Always cap the number of attempts. Calling the same person over and over in one day barely improves reach, but it raises annoyance and the risk of complaints.

If you leave a voicemail, keep it short: who called, why, and how the person can get back to you. Never leave health details, amounts owed or other sensitive information in a voicemail; someone else may hear it. Sending a short SMS or WhatsApp message to people you couldn’t reach is another option, but assess consent for each channel separately and use an approved template for business-initiated WhatsApp messages.

7. Plan the handover to people

However good the script, some people will want to talk to a person: an interested customer with detailed questions, a past customer with a complaint, or a request the script doesn’t cover. These are the most valuable moments of a campaign and shouldn’t be lost.

• Write down the handover conditions: an explicit request, buying intent, a complaint and repeated misunderstandings.
• Hand over with context: the agent should receive the call with the AI’s summary and not ask the same questions again (warm transfer).
• Match pace to capacity: the number of calls running at the same time (concurrent calls) shouldn’t exceed what your team can take on in handovers, or interested customers end up waiting in a queue.
• If nobody is available: create a callback record and tell the person when they will be called.

We cover handover triggers and a sample handover summary in warm transfer from AI to human agents.

8. Test with a small group

Before going live, run the script against internal numbers: yes, no, change, “don’t call me”, voicemail, handover and a moment when every agent is busy. Then do a real round with a small part of the list and read a sample of the transcripts. Phrases the agent didn’t understand, sentences that run too long and wrong outcome codes tend to show up at this stage. For voice agent testing, our checklist for testing a Turkish AI phone assistant may help.

9. Measure the results

Closing every call with an outcome code is the basis of measurement. Define the codes up front to match the goal, for example: confirmed, asked for a change, cancelled, not interested, call back later, do not call, wrong number and not reached.

Set targets against your own first campaign, not other companies’ averages. Comparing two script variants on similar segments is the most reliable way to see which change made the difference.

Pre-launch checklist

• The goal is written in one sentence and the success measure is clear.
• The list is clean; duplicates and opt-outs are removed.
• Consent is checked against İYS at the moment of dialing.
• Calling hours and the recipient’s time zone are set.
• The script has an opening, an availability question, branches and a close.
• Opt-out phrases are recognized and added to the do-not-call list.
• Attempts and intervals are capped.
• Handover conditions and agent capacity are in place.
• Outcome codes are defined and reports checked.
• A small test round is done and transcripts have been read.

Outbound campaigns in Speakline

In Speakline campaigns, calls can be made by a Turkish-speaking AI voice agent, or contact cards are handed to your agents one by one and they place the calls. You upload the contact list and set calling hours, the number of simultaneous calls and script variants. Calls are limited to the time window you choose.

The İYS check can be switched on or off at company level. When it is on, AI campaigns check each number’s call consent in İYS before dialing: without consent the call is not made, and if İYS can’t be reached at that moment the call isn’t started and is retried later. In agent campaigns and one-off calls, you mark the purpose of the call as service or marketing; service calls such as callbacks and support are not checked.

You set the number of attempts and the intervals for people you couldn’t reach, and in voice-first campaigns an SMS, or a WhatsApp message with an approved template, can go to anyone who didn’t answer. If someone wants to talk to a person, the call is passed to your team’s queue with a summary of the conversation. Every call is saved with an outcome code; you can compare results in reports and send them to your CRM through the API and webhooks. If you’d like to plan your campaign with us, get in touch.