Auto dialer - Call center software
Enhance agent productivity with an all-in-one auto dialer that helps maximize contact lists for phone calling campaigns
Auto dialer - Call center software
Enhance agent productivity with an all-in-one auto dialer that helps maximize contact lists for phone calling campaigns
Auto dialer - Call center software
Enhance agent productivity with an all-in-one auto dialer that helps maximize contact lists for phone calling campaigns
Auto dialer - Call center software
Enhance agent productivity with an all-in-one auto dialer that helps maximize contact lists for phone calling campaigns
When you’re running an outbound call center, you’ll want to make the most out of every lead by focusing on the customers. But when agents have to use a manual dialing approach and personally go through a contact list, that can get really challenging. That’s why an auto dialer is essential to the success of your campaigns.
So what is an automatic dialer and what can it do for your business? We have some answers that’ll help you.
When you’re running an outbound call center, you’ll want to make the most out of every lead by focusing on the customers. But when agents have to use a manual dialing approach and personally go through a contact list, that can get really challenging. That’s why an auto dialer is essential to the success of your campaigns.
So what is an automatic dialer and what can it do for your business? We have some answers that’ll help you.
When you’re running an outbound call center, you’ll want to make the most out of every lead by focusing on the customers. But when agents have to use a manual dialing approach and personally go through a contact list, that can get really challenging. That’s why an auto dialer is essential to the success of your campaigns.
So what is an automatic dialer and what can it do for your business? We have some answers that’ll help you.
When you’re running an outbound call center, you’ll want to make the most out of every lead by focusing on the customers. But when agents have to use a manual dialing approach and personally go through a contact list, that can get really challenging. That’s why an auto dialer is essential to the success of your campaigns.
So what is an automatic dialer and what can it do for your business? We have some answers that’ll help you.
An auto dialer (also called automated dialer or automatic dialer) is an outbound contact center solution designed to make outbound calls on behalf of users. It’s meant to eliminate the need for a manual dialing process in outbound campaigns, primarily for sales or marketing, leading to enhanced productivity.
Interestingly, the first automatic dialing system was originally developed to solve a completely different issue: misdirected phone calls from errors made by human operators. But this mechanical invention, created by an undertaker named Almon Brown Strowger in the late 1800s, became the foundation of large-scale phone calling.
The auto dialer has since evolved to become a specialized innovation for the outbound contact center industry. These days, it’s a staple of modern contact center software and is especially essential for dialing campaigns.
An auto dialer (also called automated dialer or automatic dialer) is an outbound contact center solution designed to make outbound calls on behalf of users. It’s meant to eliminate the need for a manual dialing process in outbound campaigns, primarily for sales or marketing, leading to enhanced productivity.
Interestingly, the first automatic dialing system was originally developed to solve a completely different issue: misdirected phone calls from errors made by human operators. But this mechanical invention, created by an undertaker named Almon Brown Strowger in the late 1800s, became the foundation of large-scale phone calling.
The auto dialer has since evolved to become a specialized innovation for the outbound contact center industry. These days, it’s a staple of modern contact center software and is especially essential for dialing campaigns.
An auto dialer (also called automated dialer or automatic dialer) is an outbound contact center solution designed to make outbound calls on behalf of users. It’s meant to eliminate the need for a manual dialing process in outbound campaigns, primarily for sales or marketing, leading to enhanced productivity.
Interestingly, the first automatic dialing system was originally developed to solve a completely different issue: misdirected phone calls from errors made by human operators. But this mechanical invention, created by an undertaker named Almon Brown Strowger in the late 1800s, became the foundation of large-scale phone calling.
The auto dialer has since evolved to become a specialized innovation for the outbound contact center industry. These days, it’s a staple of modern contact center software and is especially essential for dialing campaigns.
An auto dialer (also called automated dialer or automatic dialer) is an outbound contact center solution designed to make outbound calls on behalf of users. It’s meant to eliminate the need for a manual dialing process in outbound campaigns, primarily for sales or marketing, leading to enhanced productivity.
Interestingly, the first automatic dialing system was originally developed to solve a completely different issue: misdirected phone calls from errors made by human operators. But this mechanical invention, created by an undertaker named Almon Brown Strowger in the late 1800s, became the foundation of large-scale phone calling.
The auto dialer has since evolved to become a specialized innovation for the outbound contact center industry. These days, it’s a staple of modern contact center software and is especially essential for dialing campaigns.
Auto dialers—also known as auto dialer software—boost productivity in contact centers by eliminating unproductive activities from the entire sales process. By removing the manual dialing approach from the workflow, it allows call center professionals to concentrate on perfecting their approach to sales and marketing instead.
Auto dialers—also known as auto dialer software—boost productivity in contact centers by eliminating unproductive activities from the entire sales process. By removing the manual dialing approach from the workflow, it allows call center professionals to concentrate on perfecting their approach to sales and marketing instead.
Auto dialers—also known as auto dialer software—boost productivity in contact centers by eliminating unproductive activities from the entire sales process. By removing the manual dialing approach from the workflow, it allows call center professionals to concentrate on perfecting their approach to sales and marketing instead.
Auto dialers—also known as auto dialer software—boost productivity in contact centers by eliminating unproductive activities from the entire sales process. By removing the manual dialing approach from the workflow, it allows call center professionals to concentrate on perfecting their approach to sales and marketing instead.
Auto dialing software has three main types, and each of them behaves a little differently:
This type of auto dialer is programmed to anticipate the availability of contact center agents for interactions with customers. It makes the appropriate number of simultaneous phone calls based on statistical information like:
In predictive dialing, the system calls multiple customers even before an agent is finished with a call and connects calls answered by a live customer to the first agent who’s free to take it. It has the most aggressive dialing rate out of all automated dialer modes.
This type of auto dialer is less aggressive than the predictive system in the sense that it’s programmed to wait for the marketing and sales staff to finish their interactions with customers before it starts dialing numbers. It also only dials one number at a time.
Much like the predictive dialer, progressive dialing connects the first available agent to calls picked up by contacts in the list.
This type of auto dialer is quite different compared to the predictive and progressive dialing systems. While the previous two are focused on agent availability, the preview dialer is designed to optimize the interaction between the customer and call center representatives. In other words, its strength is in boosting personalized customer experience.
In preview dialing, agents are provided important information about the person they’ll be interacting with before the number is dialed. Depending on the provider’s offerings, the call can be initiated by either the agent (they can decide if the lead is viable based on the information) or the system (the information is used purely to improve close rates and sales team performance).
Pro-tip: The 8x8 Auto Dialer supports adjustable dialing modes so businesses can customize their campaigns based on their needs. You can set the dialer to Predictive, Progressive, and either of two Preview dialer modes - Preview, wherein the agent chooses to call the customer, and Preview Plus, wherein the system makes the call. Check out the 8x8 all-in-one cloud contact center solution for more details and understand why it's an industry leader in CCaaS.
Table: Summary of differences between predictive dialing, progressive dialing, and preview dialing
| Predictive dialing | Progressive dialing | Preview dialing | |
| What does this dialer prioritize? | It prioritizes quick and efficient completion of campaigns | It prioritizes high productivity and success rate of agents and, by extension, the efficiency of the contact center | It prioritizes personalized customer experience |
| When will it start outbound dialing? | It will start calling prospects even before call center representatives are done with their previous call, based on algorithmic predictions made using the organization’s workforce and workflow data (almost no unproductive gaps between calls) | It will start calling the next prospect on the contact list as soon as a member of the marketing or sales staff finishes up an interaction (allows for a few seconds up to a minute between calls) | Depending on the solution, it will either rely on the agent to manually make the call or dial the number automatically once the agent shows a status of being ready for another customer interaction (allows for several minutes between calls) |
| How many calls does this system place per available agent? | It will place multiple simultaneous calls for every agent that’s almost ready to talk to another person | It will place one phone call for every agent that’s ready to talk to another customer | It will make one call for every agent indicating they’re prepared for another call (if automatic dialing is activated) |
| When should I use this dialer? | Use this when you have large-scale, limited-time sales or marketing campaigns requiring you to get through long calling lists - works best if your marketing or sales reps are using a standard script or prerecorded messages ( voice broadcasting ) | Use this when you have large sales or marketing campaigns that need some level of customization - works best if your lead list is primarily composed of businesses | Use this when you’re running smaller campaigns that need to focus on personalized customer experience - best used for activities concentrating on a seamless customer journey like appointment reminders or appointment scheduling |
Table: Summary of differences between predictive dialing, progressive dialing, and preview dialing
| Predictive dialing | Progressive dialing | Preview dialing | |
| What does this dialer prioritize? | It prioritizes quick and efficient completion of campaigns | It prioritizes high productivity and success rate of agents and, by extension, the efficiency of the contact center | It prioritizes personalized customer experience |
| When will it start outbound dialing? | It will start calling prospects even before call center representatives are done with their previous call, based on algorithmic predictions made using the organization’s workforce and workflow data (almost no unproductive gaps between calls) | It will start calling the next prospect on the contact list as soon as a member of the marketing or sales staff finishes up an interaction (allows for a few seconds up to a minute between calls) | Depending on the solution, it will either rely on the agent to manually make the call or dial the number automatically once the agent shows a status of being ready for another customer interaction (allows for several minutes between calls) |
| How many calls does this system place per available agent? | It will place multiple simultaneous calls for every agent that’s almost ready to talk to another person | It will place one phone call for every agent that’s ready to talk to another customer | It will make one call for every agent indicating they’re prepared for another call (if automatic dialing is activated) |
| When should I use this dialer? | Use this when you have large-scale, limited-time sales or marketing campaigns requiring you to get through long calling lists - works best if your marketing or sales reps are using a standard script or prerecorded messages ( voice broadcasting ) | Use this when you have large sales or marketing campaigns that need some level of customization - works best if your lead list is primarily composed of businesses | Use this when you’re running smaller campaigns that need to focus on personalized customer experience - best used for activities concentrating on a seamless customer journey like appointment reminders or appointment scheduling |
Table: Summary of differences between predictive dialing, progressive dialing, and preview dialing
| Predictive dialing | Progressive dialing | Preview dialing | |
| What does this dialer prioritize? | It prioritizes quick and efficient completion of campaigns | It prioritizes high productivity and success rate of agents and, by extension, the efficiency of the contact center | It prioritizes personalized customer experience |
| When will it start outbound dialing? | It will start calling prospects even before call center representatives are done with their previous call, based on algorithmic predictions made using the organization’s workforce and workflow data (almost no unproductive gaps between calls) | It will start calling the next prospect on the contact list as soon as a member of the marketing or sales staff finishes up an interaction (allows for a few seconds up to a minute between calls) | Depending on the solution, it will either rely on the agent to manually make the call or dial the number automatically once the agent shows a status of being ready for another customer interaction (allows for several minutes between calls) |
| How many calls does this system place per available agent? | It will place multiple simultaneous calls for every agent that’s almost ready to talk to another person | It will place one phone call for every agent that’s ready to talk to another customer | It will make one call for every agent indicating they’re prepared for another call (if automatic dialing is activated) |
| When should I use this dialer? | Use this when you have large-scale, limited-time sales or marketing campaigns requiring you to get through long calling lists - works best if your marketing or sales reps are using a standard script or prerecorded messages ( voice broadcasting ) | Use this when you have large sales or marketing campaigns that need some level of customization - works best if your lead list is primarily composed of businesses | Use this when you’re running smaller campaigns that need to focus on personalized customer experience - best used for activities concentrating on a seamless customer journey like appointment reminders or appointment scheduling |
Table: Summary of differences between predictive dialing, progressive dialing, and preview dialing
| Predictive dialing | Progressive dialing | Preview dialing | |
| What does this dialer prioritize? | It prioritizes quick and efficient completion of campaigns | It prioritizes high productivity and success rate of agents and, by extension, the efficiency of the contact center | It prioritizes personalized customer experience |
| When will it start outbound dialing? | It will start calling prospects even before call center representatives are done with their previous call, based on algorithmic predictions made using the organization’s workforce and workflow data (almost no unproductive gaps between calls) | It will start calling the next prospect on the contact list as soon as a member of the marketing or sales staff finishes up an interaction (allows for a few seconds up to a minute between calls) | Depending on the solution, it will either rely on the agent to manually make the call or dial the number automatically once the agent shows a status of being ready for another customer interaction (allows for several minutes between calls) |
| How many calls does this system place per available agent? | It will place multiple simultaneous calls for every agent that’s almost ready to talk to another person | It will place one phone call for every agent that’s ready to talk to another customer | It will make one call for every agent indicating they’re prepared for another call (if automatic dialing is activated) |
| When should I use this dialer? | Use this when you have large-scale, limited-time sales or marketing campaigns requiring you to get through long calling lists - works best if your marketing or sales reps are using a standard script or prerecorded messages ( voice broadcasting ) | Use this when you have large sales or marketing campaigns that need some level of customization - works best if your lead list is primarily composed of businesses | Use this when you’re running smaller campaigns that need to focus on personalized customer experience - best used for activities concentrating on a seamless customer journey like appointment reminders or appointment scheduling |
While you might be tempted to limit yourself to just one type of auto dialer as you move away from the manual dialing approach to contact center processes, it’s better to invest in a dialer with adjustable dialing modes. A comprehensive cloud-based call center software often comes with an all-in-one auto dialer option as part of its outbound dialing solution.
Of course, you can always get separate dialing solutions; but that would come at the cost of efficiency—in both the financial and operational sense.
While you might be tempted to limit yourself to just one type of auto dialer as you move away from the manual dialing approach to contact center processes, it’s better to invest in a dialer with adjustable dialing modes. A comprehensive cloud-based call center software often comes with an all-in-one auto dialer option as part of its outbound dialing solution.
Of course, you can always get separate dialing solutions; but that would come at the cost of efficiency—in both the financial and operational sense.
While you might be tempted to limit yourself to just one type of auto dialer as you move away from the manual dialing approach to contact center processes, it’s better to invest in a dialer with adjustable dialing modes. A comprehensive cloud-based call center software often comes with an all-in-one auto dialer option as part of its outbound dialing solution.
Of course, you can always get separate dialing solutions; but that would come at the cost of efficiency—in both the financial and operational sense.
While you might be tempted to limit yourself to just one type of auto dialer as you move away from the manual dialing approach to contact center processes, it’s better to invest in a dialer with adjustable dialing modes. A comprehensive cloud-based call center software often comes with an all-in-one auto dialer option as part of its outbound dialing solution.
Of course, you can always get separate dialing solutions; but that would come at the cost of efficiency—in both the financial and operational sense.
While it’s easy to assume that auto dialers primarily serve activities focused on getting customers to spend money (part of the sales and marketing funnel, supporting the collections industry, etc), that’s not entirely true. You can also use them to:
There are other use cases and call center applications that you can explore with auto dialing.
While it’s easy to assume that auto dialers primarily serve activities focused on getting customers to spend money (part of the sales and marketing funnel, supporting the collections industry, etc), that’s not entirely true. You can also use them to:
There are other use cases and call center applications that you can explore with auto dialing.
While it’s easy to assume that auto dialers primarily serve activities focused on getting customers to spend money (part of the sales and marketing funnel, supporting the collections industry, etc), that’s not entirely true. You can also use them to:
There are other use cases and call center applications that you can explore with auto dialing.
While it’s easy to assume that auto dialers primarily serve activities focused on getting customers to spend money (part of the sales and marketing funnel, supporting the collections industry, etc), that’s not entirely true. You can also use them to:
There are other use cases and call center applications that you can explore with auto dialing.
Automatic dialers that come as part of cloud-based call center solutions work through a computerized setup connected to a phone system. In many ways, it can be considered as a type of computer telephony integration (CTI).
In order for automated dialers to work, you need the following:
Bonus note: If you’re using a standard phone system and not VoIP, you’ll also need a voice modem to get the auto dialer to work.
Once you’ve set these up, you can upload or connect a database of phone numbers. From there, you’ll be able to program the auto dialer software to tell the phone systems which leads to call as well as what to do when they encounter unanswered calls for each campaign. This makes the entire sales process much easier.
What’s cool is that, if you’re using modern contact center software that uses a cloud phone system to work, you can even have agents use their cellular phones as they support phone calling campaigns. In other words, your outbound dialing solution can let you leverage a hybrid or remote work environment for employees if it’s supported by cloud technology.
* Depending on the software provider, the solutions may either be accessed as contact center applications stored on a computer or as cloud-based platforms (software as a service / SaaS)
Using an automated dialer system for your contact center operations provides your outbound calling teams the following benefits:
Let’s get into each of these.
As previously mentioned, auto dialers are designed to minimize (if not completely phase out) the manual dialing process. This means more of the operational resources can be focused on seamless customer journey management because the most basic task—calling the customers—is automated.
With less time spent going down a list of leads and waiting for live phone connections, your outbound engagement teams can involve themselves in more calls per hour. Plus, with advanced dialers that can tell the difference between productive and unproductive numbers (numbers that are more vs less likely to result in connected calls based on data), your company can avoid wasting thousands of dollars on leads that don’t work out.
And if it just so happens that your automatic dialer also has adjustable dialing modes and works well with your workforce management tools, you can optimize results for any given situation. This results in better marketing and sales team performance.
Along with the increase in efficiency comes heightened productivity. Having more time and manpower focused on activities that really matter boosts agent performance in terms of successful engagement with prospects.
For example: because agents won’t need to worry about initiating the call (not to mention accidentally dialing the same number a colleague would) and waiting for an actual person to answer it, they can concentrate on customizing the experience. The more personalized the interaction, the better the chances of inspiring customer satisfaction that leads to conversions.
Add to this more minutes’ worth of calls per hour as well as better chances of getting live phone connections, and that translates to better results for lead nurturing.
Another benefit to taking the dialing process out of the daily sales workflow is the wiggle room it gives the organization to accommodate sudden strategic and tactical changes.
Consider a scenario in which teams are reorganized and given new responsibilities. Because agents won’t need to concern themselves with managing different lead lists, they can focus on training for the new phone calling campaigns.
And if your contact center tools also happen to include advanced reporting and coaching features, the organization can more quickly and effectively adapt to abrupt shifts in circumstances. Contact center management has never been easier.
This works even better if you get a dialer that works with the sales engagement platform of your choice on top of an intuitive interface.
While automated dialers may have different capabilities depending on their providers—this is especially true for providers that offer this as part of an all-in-one cloud contact center solution—there are some features that can be considered essential.
Below are examples of valuable capabilities your business may want to have:
Common in cloud-based call centers that want to maximize their sales funnel through marketing automation, this feature ensures that the organization’s contacts database can be filtered to identify prospects that qualify for campaigns. A more advanced version of this, dynamic list management, automatically updates the lists whenever there’s a change in the leads’ information.
When you’re able to rely on contact center applications rather than people to generate a list of promising leads based on segments and criteria you’ve set for a campaign, your agents can concentrate more of their efforts toward making a connection with the customers.
Because auto dialer solutions perform activities that require access to customer information, having a built-in CRM (customer relationship management) or outbound sales engagement platform integration feature is a must.
The CRM will be able to provide the software information that’s crucial to campaign and contact list management—this includes customer interaction history, customer preferences, and the like. It also makes updating customer records during and immediately after a conversation easy. And if the CRM comes with detailed reporting, you can also use this to evaluate calling scripts.
Having this in your suite of contact center tools doesn’t just make things more convenient in your daily sales workflow; it also contributes to seamless customer journey management—ensuring campaigns are promoted to the right people at the right time, with the right pitch. In other words, this plays a critical role in marketing and sales team performance.
