For Contact Centers, outbound marketing strategies are an opportunity to grow a loyal and satisfied customer base. The dialing mode must be adapted to the organization’s market niche and business goals. Learn about the 3 types of dialers for call centers and understand which one is the best for your business.
What is a dialer?
A dialer is an application that automatically dials and calls for a number, and then delivers each call to a call center agent. Its function is to automate outbound calls.
Get to know the types of dialers: preview, power, and predictive. In addition, check the pros and cons for each one and understand which dialer to use per campaign type.
Types of dialers in call centers
1. Preview Dialer
With this type of dialer, the agent can check information about the contact before dialing.
This is useful if the issue requires some degree of preparation for performing the call. For instance, if the agent is calling about an issue with a booking reservation, it will be useful to check the client’s history before dialing.
This dialer can work in two ways:
- The agent previews the information for a pre-determined period and the dialer automatically dials after the time ends;
- The agent previews the information for an undetermined period of time and chooses when to dial.
Pros and Cons of the Preview Dialer:
Pros:
- Checking information about the contact can be useful to better attend to the customer’s issues.
Cons:
- The agent will face a lot of unsuccessful calls: busy signals, disconnected lines, or voice mails. This reflects in the overall productivity of the call center and may affect the agent’s motivation.
When to use Preview Dialer:
It’s recommendable for any queries that are not within a call center script and demand preparation from the agent. This happens if the issue is complex, and involves documentation or legal requirements (ex: debt collectors).
2. Power Dialer
This type of dialer automatically dials and distributes calls. When a contact picks ups the call, it is delivered to an agent. This dialer works by connecting agents only to calls that are answered by people.
A Power Dialer dials a number instantly after a call is finished. When a number is unattended, busy, or disconnected, the power dialer instantly moves to the next one. Unwanted calls are not delivered to any agents, so there’s no time wasted on busy signals, invalid numbers, disconnected lines, or voicemail answers.
Dialing rates are adjustable according to the relations of the number of agents and demand or goals of calls.
If the power dialer is integrated with CRM, the information history of the contact will be displayed to the agent.
Pros and Cons of the power dialer:
Pros:
- More contacts per hour;
- CRM integration provides good customer service and lead management;
- An agent is always on the line when someone answers, there is no risk of dropped calls;
Cons:
- Agents may have some idle time.
When to use Power Dialer:
Sales, marketing campaigns, or follow-up calls. It’s widely used for telemarketing and cold calling.
3. Predictive Dialer
This type of dialer is an automated dialing system that anticipates agent availability and adjusts the dialing rate accordingly.
Predictive dialers predict the average time it takes for calls to be answered and crosses that information with the number of agents. Intelligent algorithms predict how many dials should be done. It’s also called Rapid Dialer.
Dialing behavior feeds on statistics and dials more calls than the number of agents. Knowing that a certain proportion of calls won’t be valid, predictive dialers calculate the right number of dials to have every agent on the line with shorter breaks between calls. For instance, if the call center’s data show that an average call typically lasts 60 seconds, a predictive dialer might start dialing at 50 seconds. Dialing behavior is customizable to business needs.
Abandonment Rate on Predictive Dialers:
As this dialing system over dials to have every agent on the line, it can happen that a person answers the phone and there is no agent available to take the call. This results in a dropped call.
Companies eager to increase a call center’s revenue or sales might set the bar too high and configure exaggerated dial strategies. Setting inadequate dialing rates results in more call abandonment. People who are in the dialing list can be importuned several times per day with calls from an unknown number that has no one talking.
To safeguard citizens from aggressive predictive dialer practices, a lot of countries have legal regulations on abandonment rate. A maximum 3% abandonment rate is advisable. In some countries, the maximum abandon rate is 5%.
In many cases, if no one interacts with an agent within 2 seconds of the person’s pick up and greeting, the call is considered abandoned. As a result, the dialer must play a recorded message. This is an opportunity to leave a quality voice message and introduce the company.
The predictive dialer in Collab’s OneContact CC has a feature that minimizes the risk of annoying a customer with empty calls: after a contact is a victim of a call with no agent on the line, the contact is flagged and put on a list to be contacted only on Power Dial mode.
Pros and Cons of Predictive Dialer:
Pros:
- Great increase in call center’s productivity and revenue;
- More calls per agent, more talk time, less to no idle time;
- Scalable solution;
- Adjustable to business needs;
- CRM integrations are available to provide the best customer experience. It’s possible to configure predefined actions according to the outcome of the call (ie. voicemail reached, no answer, prospect is interested, appointment set, etc.).
Cons:
- Thigh regulations on some countries, must observe compliance with legislation;
- Improper use may impact negatively on the people being contacted;
- Improper dialing rates may affect the agent’s motivation and energy.
When to use predictive dialers:
Telemarketing, short calls, surveys, and in any situation that benefits from a rapid dial rate.
Choosing between types of dialers
Consider your target audience and the pros & cons of the different types of dialers and make a smart choice that ensures the best results for outbound campaigns, while being compliant with both the law and your needs. For any questions, do not hesitate to contact us 🙂