November 6, 2019

Get the Most Out of Your Outbound Dialer!

How about an automated dialer for your company? Shunning the traditional methods of calling and adopting newer technology is a significant boost to your business. You not only improve call handling but also uphold a high business reputation. With an automated outbound dialer, you have the best bet for dealing with unfavorable abandonment rates and spamming by recipients.

Every sales agent wants to achieve the highest connection rates possible and generate more leads. With dialing technology at your call center, you can boost your KPIs and hence improve your business productive.

So, what are the different types of outbound dialers and how they can impact your business?

Types of Outbound Dialers

There are 4 main dialer systems used by businesses that rely on outbound calls. Depending on your industry and the purpose of your calls, the dialer and configuration you should be using can vary.

Preview Dialer

A preview dialer a simple outbound dialing mechanism where the next available lead’s information displays to an agent. The caller agent then looks through the customer’s record before deciding to call the customer.

After the end of every call, the dialer advises you on the next call on the list. The agent has to decide either on calling or skipping the call. Often, preview dialing is used during sophisticated campaigns. A debt collector or sales agent might benefit significantly from a preview dialer.

A preview dialer is beneficial in many ways. First, it helps eliminate call abandonment. It’s challenging to experience lost leads and dropped calls. This helps keep your agent’s spirits high throughout the calling day.

It gives the agent a chance to go through the caller’s history. With hundreds of thousands of calls to make, the preview dialer offers useful customer details to guide the agent. This, in turn saves huge amounts of time while working on a preview dialer. Also, this type of outbound dialer thus heightens the agent’s productivity.

Predictive Dialer

Predictive dialing an outbound calling technology where the dialer automatically dials from a list of numbers. The dialer assists the agents in screening busy signals, disconnected numbers, and voicemail.

The ability to use metrics to make prediction sets predictive dialers apart from other dialers. Predictive dialers calculate the average length of a call and the number of dialers it takes to make a connection. The main aim is to optimize dialing and enable agents to move from call to call smoothly.

Predictive dialing uses an algorithm to monitor an agent’s call trends, and schedule calls to try to match the agent’s call activity. While this allows more calls to be placed than a preview dialer, the abandonment rate tends to be slightly higher. In this outbound calling strategy, the predictive dialer dials multiple dialers at once. The primary purpose of predictive dialing is ensuring maximum agent utilization.

Where phone utilization is the main point, predictive dialers are the best. They not only improve agent productivity but also deliver excellent results. They save the caller agent’s time by eliminating manual dialing. For straightforward campaigns such as direct sales, it’s the best outbound dialing technology. Although there is some concern about the abandonment of some calls, it still proves useful.

Ideally, a preditive dialer tries to keep the abandonment rate below 3%.

Progressive Dialer

Similar to predictive dialers, progressive dialing varies in that it only connects an agent to a live person and provides relatively little time between calls. This helps to ensure low to no abandonment rates generally. After the call agents have indicated that they are ready for a call, the dialer presents information to them. A call is then initiated, with the dialer monitoring progress.

The dialer disconnects any calls that don’t result in ringing. The outbound dialing process is controlled by a call software that makes the agent’s involvement minimal.

Progressive dialing is most useful in cases where you are contacting customers already familiar with your product or service, for example, in upselling new products. Progressive dialing ensures that there are no silent calls for customers. If you want to get the most of your outbound dialer, progressive dialing might be the right deal. It makes sure your call agents have a steady work rate.

Using this dialer, you can reap the benefits of outbound dialing. Your call agents avoid dead ends, disconnected calls, and answering machines. Fast-growing companies utilize progressive dialers to generate leads and reach a broad client base.

The main difference between progressive and predictive dialing is that the progressive dialer places outbound calls only after the availability of the agent. On the other side, the predictive dialer initiates outbound calls based on the agent’s preset dialing ratio.

Power Dialer

This is an outbound dialing technology that helps increase the number of outbound calls. Also, it spends less time while placing calls. If you want your call agents to connect more prospects, a power dialer might be the best for you.

Power dialing uses manually configured ratios for agents. This works by dialing blocks of numbers to find a live lead then connect the agent to the lead. For example, a power dailer can be set to dail 3 calls at once. If a call hits voicemail or a disconnected number the call is dropped and a new call is placed.

Although power dialers tend to seem more productive for calling agents, these almost always have a high abandonment rate compared to another dialing. In the example above, if 2 customers answer at the same time, one will not be connected to the live agent. This may inflate your abandonment rate depending on the settings of the dialer.

With a power dialer, you can auto-schedule calls, set the time between calls, and gain control over reaching your leads.

Using Outbound Dialing to Reduce Abandonment Rates

Keeping your abandonment rate low is essential for your business. Not only to stay within the limitations set by the FCC, but also for your business’ reputation. On Feb 15, 2012, the FCC and TSR announced that the abandonment rate should not exceed 3% for 30 days of campaigns.

Not checking your abandonment rates might hurt your business. Every abandoned call means an unsatisfied customer. With CRM software, you can track call volume patterns during specific intervals to identify any cases of abandonment.

Ethical Outbound Calling

Using ethical outbound calling methods will help your business maintain its reputation and improve your conversion rates. The first step of ethical dialing starts with your dialer software. How this is configured and deployed to ensure you are not spamming or burning through your leads is essential.

Pruning Your Lists

Your lead list is also essential in ethical dialing. Ensuring the leads on your dialing list may want your product or service is relevant to your conversion rate. For example, using a list of leads from a loan debt list to try to sell a product will likely not lead to effective conversion rates and may increase the chance your numbers are flagged as spam. Abiding by DNC compliance is imperative for businesses conducting outbound dialing.

Optimizing Your Dialers

Using unoptimized dialing systems, such as power dialers, can drive up your abandonment rates. This in turn will lead to higher chances of your outbound numbers getting flagged as spam.

On top of optimizing your dailing method, scanning your outbound numbers to check if they are flagged is an essential protocol to ensure your calls are properly reaching your leads or customers.