Task switching, even within a routine, can be extremely time-consuming and, quite frankly, kind of boring. Your team spends a lot of time clicking between apps, finding the necessary information, and doing some preparation before every call. Now, you can automate a lot of those tasks.
Your team could be taking more calls and making more connections by speeding up the outbound calling process. Allowing your team to focus on the sale (and less on the admin and logistics) makes every call and team member more effective and efficient.
There are many reasons you might be looking into auto-dialer software. The reasons normally fall into one of four main categories:
Achieving cost savings
Improving sales efficiency
Adding a lead generation arm
Scaling outbound sales teams
In this post, we’ll take you through the ins and outs of auto-dialer software to help you decide whether it’s the best next step for your business.
What Is Auto-Dialer Software?
Auto-dialer software is a specialized call center tool commonly used in outbound sales roles, market research companies, and collection agencies to automate the process of dialing phone numbers at scale from a pre-set list.
At the most basic level, you use software to pull from a database of contacts and make calls without anyone needing to press a button. This leads to benefits like time and cost savings, lead management productivity, and scalability, as there are no misdials or searching for the right contact to call.
Example of an auto-dialer
When combined with outbound SMS campaigns , auto-dialers perform extremely well, as customers can be primed for your call before you start your outreach.
There are various models of auto-dialer software, including predictive, progressive, power, and preview dialing. Each mode has its own methods of auto-dialing. There are nuances to each, making some better suited for certain businesses. We dive into all these later.
At a technical level, auto-dialing is made possible by integration with customer databases, such as customer relationship management systems (CRMs), to access and manage call lists and customer information. Salesforce, for example, is an extremely popular integration.
Practical Benefits of Auto-dialers
When you use an auto-dialing system correctly, there are many benefits for your business. We can categorize them into four categories: simplicity, scalability, cost-effectiveness, and productivity.
1. Simplicity
Auto-dialers are simple to set up and use, making them a good choice for businesses that don’t have a lot of technical expertise or time to learn. There’s no benefit when introducing complex software, and if software is hard to use, team adoption is low.
You don’t need to be an experienced call center agent or versed in sales technology to use an auto-dialer. Once set up, the software does everything behind the scenes, making your sales reps’ lives easier.
All they need to do is put on their headset and start talking to customers and prospects.
2. Scalability
Once you achieve early success with your auto-dialer, you can roll it out to all your agents. Scaling is easy, as most dialer software is now cloud-based . All you need is a license for each user. There’s no hardware involved, so it doesn’t use any real estate or cut into the budget.
If you’re a growing contact center, have a seasonal push, or are expanding into new geographies, you can use auto-dialer software to scale your operation without technical rollouts or extended training.
3. Cost-effectiveness
Not only does it cost relatively little to get started with auto-dialer software, but you can expect a significant return on investment from day one.
On average, an employee toggles between apps and windows 3,600 times per day, leading to manual errors and human mistakes. By automating the dialing process, your operational costs and time lost to manual inefficiencies plummet.
Workflow automation of the outbound calling process has a few additional benefits:
Misdials become a thing of the past
Bad contacts are archived
Missed calls go back into the queue
All with no operational time, cost, or effort used.
4. Productivity
Expect agent idle time to decrease dramatically. When you eliminate the admin time of looking for the next contact between calls, agents can spend more time doing what they’re skilled at: making successful calls and following high-converting call scripts.
By ensuring everyone can make calls as soon as they’re available, auto-dialers remove dead time, streamline operations, and boost agent productivity.
More time on the phone means more sales, more research, and better customer service.
Types of Auto-Dialers
There are four different dialing modes (or types) to choose from:
1. Predictive dialer
A predictive dialer predicts live agent availability. Using smart algorithms to predict when an agent will be available to take a call, it auto-connects the next call when an agent is “ready.”
This involves factors such as average talk time, wrap-up time, and agent status. These all factor into the dialer algorithm to connect agents with callers in an automated fashion.
A predictive dialer feature has many upsides to keep in mind.
Dials multiple numbers at once: Dials several numbers at once, aiming to connect a live call to an available agent just as they finish their previous interaction.
Minimizes agent idle time: Ensures agents spend minimal time waiting for calls, maximizing their productivity.
Ensures a high call volume and connect rate: Typically used for high-volume outbound campaigns where connecting as many calls as possible is crucial.