The era of basic auto-dialers with excessive unused agent time and call recipients hanging up on dead air is over. Predictive dialing is an advanced solution that forecasts agent availability and connects them to live prospects in real time for seamless conversations.
This is handy when managing an outbound call center or a telemarketing campaign. With predictive dialing, agents can progress directly between productive live calls, contacting more leads, and increasing sales.
However, like any powerful contact center software , predictive dialers must be carefully implemented to maximize benefits and avoid misuse.
This article covers best practices for creating effective predictive dialer campaigns, optimizing efficiency, and avoiding common mistakes that can backfire. You’ll learn how to use predictive dialing strategically to increase contacts while maintaining compliance and quality.
What Is Predictive Dialer Software?
Predictive dialer software automatically dials phone numbers from lists and connects answered calls to available agents. It uses algorithms to dial multiple numbers at once and optimize call distribution based on real-time call metrics like agent availability and call connect rates.
Key benefits of predictive dialers include:
Increases agent productivity without manual dialing and voicemail wait times
Predictive capabilities adjust dialing rates up or down based on metrics
Integrates with contact center software to supply agents with customer data
Enables contact centers to enable smart routing and scale outreach efficiently
Predictive dialing technologies maximize agent productivity and utilization through automated dialing, predictive analytics, and integrations with CRM platforms.
They even allow you to route calls to cell phones so call center agents can work from anywhere and on any device. This allows call centers to contact more leads in less time.
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Auto Dialer vs. Predictive Dialer: What’s the Difference?
How Predictive Dialers Work?
Predictive dialers load calling lists and data just like basic auto-dialers , but are enhanced by a predictive algorithm and dialing modes that model the operation of the call center in real-time.
The software automatically dials multiple phone numbers from lists and connects answered calls to available agents. It uses algorithms to maximize agent talk time by minimizing busy signals and wait times.
Tracking the average handle time per call, as well as the time between inbound calls, the algorithm estimates when an agent will become free. It then dials the next call ahead of time so someone answers when the live agent arrives.
By overlapping outbound calls with agent availability, the dialer achieves much higher contact rates than agents could ever deliver on their own.
The system can dial dozens of numbers for every agent, only connecting calls that are actually answered live. This maximizes the productive use of available resources.
Types of Predictive Dialer Campaigns
Predictive dialers can be helpful for a number of outbound calling campaigns.
1. Customer service calls
Predictive dialer software can help your team proactively reach out to customers. This may be useful if you need to remind them of a service outage, set up a service appointment, or promote an upcoming sale.
2. Fundraising campaigns
By leveraging predictive dialer software, your team can reach more potential donors, enabling you to reach your fundraising goals faster and more efficiently.
Predictive dialers can be configured to work with any size of call center, so if you only have a few agents dedicated to raising money, the software can work to make the most of their available time.
3. Phone surveys
Whether you’re performing market research, working for a political party, or simply trying to assess how happy your customers are, surveys are a common use case for predictive dialer software.
In all of these situations, you’re trying to reach the largest number of people possible. It just makes sense to maximize your agent’s productivity with a predictive dialer campaign.
4. Lead generation
Does your company do telesales or telemarketing? Use predictive dialing to boost sales and move those leads through the funnel.
You can connect the predictive dialer software to your CRM to automatically dial leads and connect them with your available agents.
5. Debt collection
Call centers are often used to collect outstanding payments from customers. The larger your customer list, the infinitely more useful predictive dialer software becomes.
Upgrade from manual dialing to predictive dialing, and you can reach a lot more people and get those invoices paid.
How To Create a Predictive Dialer Campaign
Ready to boost agent productivity and your contact rate? Follow this 7-step guide to setting up your predictive dialer campaign.
1. Choose a goal for your campaign
As with any campaign, success always starts with a clear goal.
So, what do you want from your predictive dialing campaign? Is your goal to schedule service appointments? Perform market research with your target audience. Turn leads into customers?
Hone in on your goal. And remember, good goals are SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.
2. Scrub your call list
Want to really supercharge the efficiency you can enjoy from a predictive dialer campaign? Scrub your list first. Get rid of old, outdated, or incomplete contact information.
You might also consider segmenting your list by customer sentiment scores, location, or other demographic markers. Once everything’s all cleaned up, you can import it into the predictive dialer software.
3. Use local outbound numbers
When was the last time you answered a call from an area code you didn’t recognize? We thought so.
Your customers feel the same way. Increase your chances that people actually pick up by using outbound numbers that match their area code.
