OUTBOUND PREDICTIVE DIALLER

What is a Predictive Dialer in a Call Center?

Call centers have been around for decades. They have been most helpful for telemarketing, customer care, etc. Call centers are vastly known for cloud calling which involves a lot of outbound phone calls.

Agents are constantly making calls to prospects in an effort to turn them into real customers. Agents have to manually dial phone numbers repeatedly in order to make as many calls as possible but such a process is exhausting and irritating because there is no guarantee that all prospects will pick up the calls.

But things changed with the introduction of automatic dialing systems. Most cloud-based call center software has a feature called predictive dialer which is a game-changer for the cold calling process.

The main purpose of a predictive dialer is to keep the flow of outbound phone calls steady by dialing phone numbers automatically for the next appropriate agent who is available to handle the call.

With this automated process, agents don’t have to manually dial numbers which directly impacts agents’ performance & productivity.

Most call centers have seen a rise in the productivity of agents and an increase in the number of calls made every day.

A Predictive dialer in a call center is an intelligent feature that uses powerful algorithms to calculate the availability of agents using the historical stats of each agent. It assigns a call to an agent on the basis of call session time, call drop ratio, call wait time, etc.

How Does a Predictive Dialer work?

It uses an algorithm and previous call statistics to predict the time it will take each agent to complete a call and the agent’s availability and then dials the following number accordingly. Your agents will only receive live calls from your clients as the predictive dialer system recognizes answering machines, dropped calls, and unanswered calls.

The predictive dialer connects you with only successful interviewers, meaning that you are required to take a few moments off from your routine activities. You can edit the maximum number of simultaneous calls and the dial level from the dialer dashboard.

Predictive Dialer Algorithm

Pacing Algorithm

A predictive dialer works based on its pacing algorithm. The dialer uses a pacing algorithm to determine how many calls to place based on how many agents are available.

An agent should be connected to the next call as soon as they finish the previous one. You must avoid having your contacts wait on the other end of the line to speak to the agent. A predictive dialer uses pacing algorithms to ensure they are dialing at the correct rate and make sure contacts are quickly connected to a live agent.

In other words, it tries to strike a balance between how many free agents you have available and how many outbound calls to place.

Unanswered Calls

Customers usually lose their patience after a few seconds, so you only have a few seconds to earn them back. The best way to maximize the efficiency of your calling process is to keep the abandonment rate as low as possible. Each abandoned call results from a failed dialing setup, and your predictive dialer should automatically handle this.

The whole purpose of predictive dialers is to save you time and money. A predictive dialer allows agents to spend more time speaking with prospects by automatically dialing through numbers until it reaches a live call.

Predictive Dialers respond quickly to pick-ups by directing the call to a free agent as soon as they are picked up. It can predict the best time of day to route calls through to your agents by feeding back abandoned call rates, which reduces the possibility of abandoned calls happening.

Awareness of Agents

Predictive dialers are most beneficial to call centers with high call volumes. It is necessary to have a large number of agents available to run the pacing algorithm effectively. It works better with more agents available.

The system can handle the calls on its own, but it must be informed when a certain number of agents are available. These dialers require precise information due to their ability to perform activities down to fractions of a second.

What are the benefits of Predictive Dialer?

1

Boosts productivity

The predictive dialer uses algorithms to determine the call duration and assign it automatically to a specific agent. These designs are built to lock in more sales and make more profit under the most competitive conditions. It reduces your call center’s agent’s repetitive work and maximizes the efficiency of the agent.

Similarly, it enables you to make multiple calls simultaneously, ensuring the right call is made at the right time, which decreases idle time and increases agent talk time, improving the efficiency and productivity of the call center. Whenever you wish, you can access and review records to determine the efficiency of resources and optimize the process.

2

Reduces idle time

It takes agents a long time to connect their calls manually. A call center agent loses time listening to busy tones, answering machines, or dealing with disconnected calls every time he answers a call.

Predictive dialers notice these time-wasting signals and skip calls that contain them. This allows you to reduce agent idle time in addition to increasing agent efficiency.

Using predictive dialers, you can detect unproductive and productive local numbers easily. It even checks the availability of agents and routes missed calls to those who can handle the next call. This helps the agent get more calls done each hour by saving them time.

3

Boost sales

With predictive dialer software, you can increase the number of calls and improve the quality. No one can guarantee 100% success on every call; however, the fact that the agents are answering more calls increases the possibility of more leads being converted by the end of each shift.

It is enormously inefficient to use manual dialing to get in touch with customers, most of which is spent listening to busy tones, leaving voicemails, or scheduling follow-ups.

You can further simplify lead generation and management by importing contacts from other sources. You can also further maximize auto-dialers effectiveness by increasing the number of connections to generate new and promising leads.

4

Enhance customer service

It is always possible that two agents call the same client simultaneously or that a call goes unreturned. All of these issues can be solved with predictive dialers, which enable your entire system to be automated and handle the highest amount of calls at any given time while reducing the possibility of human error.

Unlike regular telemarketing calls made at odd hours, predictive dialers allow callers to schedule their calls at convenient times. Customer satisfaction and loyalty can be increased with these features of predictive dialers.

5

Increases lead generation

Predictive dialers are one of the most powerful tools you use to generate more business leads. It enables you to give prospective customers more attention and communicate with them more effectively. Furthermore, it also provides self-service options for information collection.

The use of automatic dialers can be leveraged further to generate new and promising leads via increased call connections. It is possible to import contacts from multiple sources to simplify lead generation and management. Predictive dialing not only helps you generate more leads but also helps you boost conversion rates.

6

Reliability and Redundancy

Even if your business generally doesn’t make or receive many calls, you may want to hire an operator who can direct agents’ calls. Nevertheless, finding a person we know will perform that job efficiently can be difficult.

With predictive dialer software, you can reduce costs by utilizing your existing computer network. You don’t have to buy new hardware if you choose a cloud-based predictive dialer. All the elements you need are already in place to transform your call center.

By deploying predictive dialers in call centers, you can employ fewer call agents since only a few agents will be needed to handle calls. This reduces the operational costs of call centers.

7

Analyze call data for insights

A predictive dialer enables you to generate a wide range of reports through interfaces that are based on real-time data. The system also enables you to monitor call center activities and agent productivity through real-time reports.

In addition to evaluating recorded and live calls, you can also assess customer service quality and agents’ skills.

Furthermore, auto-dialers simplify your call center operations by using the right decisions when necessary. Even without putting in extra time and effort, you can produce and check campaign reports.

You can assess the business performance of individual marketing campaigns by referring to the latest campaign report, which includes a review of specific criteria and goal considerations.

8

Enhanced Quality Monitoring

Predictive dialing systems integrated with call monitoring interfaces help managers to monitor how their call agents are performing. Managers can observe, peep and barge into a call for evaluating the quality of conversation between agents and the customers. The information that is being collected can be used for providing training to the agents on a real time basis, which will help to improve your agent skills.

9

Improved Agent Efficiency

With Predictive dialer, it helps to reduce the burden off agents by automating the task of manual dialing to customer and searching for the list of phone numbers. It determines the best time to call customers and also can predicts where the ongoing call will end. It enables call blending features, where you agents will be able to switch among inbound and outbound calls depending on the request.

10

Integrate with Lead Management Software

The integration of lead management software with a predictive dialer helps you to boost your outbound sales activities, enhances your sales team to reach new heights in work productivity and efficiency. It streamlines the way of identifying the leads and engagement, this integration helps to improve your agents’ sales to connect with highly qualified leads, increasing their time and efforts.

Common Types of Dialers for Call Centers

Generally, a dialer automatically dials a phone number or a set of phone numbers to make outbound calls and then routes each call to a call center representative. Most call centers use dialers as a part of their outbound marketing strategy to grow their customer base.As we already know, a predictive dialer is a most commonly used dialer in call centers but it is not the only one. Different cloud-based phone systems have introduced different types of dialers over the years. The following are the two popular dialers that rival predictive dialers:

Power Dialer

A power dialer is a call center solution that automatically dials a phone number after agents complete their previous call. When an agent is finished with a phone call, it grabs the next phone number on the list and makes the call.

Agents get an option to drop a pre-recorded voicemail if the outbound call is answered. If any dialed phone number is busy, unanswered, or disconnected then the power dialer drops those calls and moves to the next phone number.

Auto Dialer

As you can guess from the name itself, an auto dialer is a call center solution that automatically dials the phone number from a given contact list. It dials the numbers in sequential order.

It automatically drops a pre-recorded voicemail when an answering machine is detected. This dialer is suitable for small teams or remote working teams of a company.

Predictive Dialer Vs Power Dialer Vs Auto Dialer

Feature	Predictive Dialer	Power Dialer	Auto Dialer
Calling Ratio	The ratio is different depending on drop rate, call timing, etc.	The ratio is 1:1 which means one call for each agent.	The manager sets the ratio at the start and then remains constant.
Voicemail Drop	A pre-recorded message is automatically dropped when an answering machine is detected.	When your system comes across a prospect’s answering machine, agents can drop a pre-recorded message with a click.	A pre-recorded message is automatically dropped when an answering machine is detected.
Auto Dailing	Yes	Yes	Yes
Calling Control	Automatically dials the phone number and connects to the next available agent.	The next phone number is dialed only when the agent wants.	The phone numbers in the queue are automatically dialed when an agent saves disposition and notes.
Calls per hour	An average of 150 calls/hr	An average of 70 calls/hr	An average of 70-90 calls/hr

Final thoughts

It is essential to promptly place calls and reach out to prospective customers, especially in our fast-paced modern world.

With Vital PBX cloud-hosted, predictive dialing solutions, not only will your agents spend less time putting in calls, but they will be able to place and answer calls from anywhere in the world.

Cloud Predictive Dialer FAQs

Are predictive dialers illegal?

Normally, predictive dialers are not considered illegal. But the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) prohibits advertisers and marketers from making uninvited calls using an autodialer which includes predictive dialers. It is prohibited to make calls via auto-dialers without first obtaining the call recipient’s consent.

What is a predictive dialer in sales?