A dialer is an automated system that places calls to customers, from an outbound call center or a blended call center. The aim is to reduce the cost of making phone calls by removing a lot of repetitive and error-prone work. Dialers also improve efficiency by connecting agents directly to customers as soon as they are free. Automated dialing means that contact center agents don’t waste time physically inputting telephone numbers. Instead, they can spend more of each call talking to customers!

What processes are dialers used for?

Nowadays dialers are integrated with all kinds of business processes. When a consumer requests a call-back through a website, it’s likely that the call-back is processed by a dialer integrated with CRM, the company websites and other systems. If a consumer gets a call to check that they have not been a victim of fraud – perhaps because a warning was automatically generated from unusual activity – then that’s also most likely done using an integrated dialer.

Of course, dialers are used by sales teams, including cold calls and automated outbound messaging. But the list of applied processes is very long, and goes well beyond sales; account reactivation, customer retention, proactive customer care, and debt collection are just a few.

In many cases, the calls generated by the dialer are either requested by the consumer, or, in the case of debt collection, essential to the functioning of a financial service.

Key Factors for Choosing Call Center Dialer For Your Business:

If you are looking to automate the dialing process in your contact center, it is crucial to understand which type of dialer is best suited for your business before investing in the dialer technology. Every business is unique and has its own needs and constraints, so evaluate your business requirement on the following factors before you decide to put in your money in any call center dialing system.

1. Type of Call Center Process:

Before setting up a dialer system, the foremost thing is to clearly define the call center process that you want to automate. For instance, do you want your agents to generate leads through outbound dialing or you want your agents to nurture and close leads in the specific time frame? Both these scenarios call for a different type of dialer software in place. In case of high volume calling to get immediate gains like lead qualification, a predictive or power dialer is best suited. On the other hand, for low call volume processes like following up on warm sales leads for closure or high attention processes like debt collection the best choice would be a preview dialer, which gives the agent a prior context before calling to ensure better conversations and higher lead conversion.

2. Number of Agents:

Size of a contact center has a great impact on the type of dialer to be deployed for your business. If you have a large to a mid-size call center with a fairly good number of agents and a large list of contacts to reach out to, an initial good option would be a predictive dialer to churn the list to filter for qualified leads. As predictive dialing helps in reducing agent idle time it is a preferred choice to improve efficiency. For a small call center with few dedicated agents and limited lines, a power dialer would be the comparatively better choice as the agent would be available on-line all the time to answer connected calls.

Also, if your process requires high context driven conversation with increased ROI then irrespective of the number of agents, preview dialer is the best option for your business.

3. Type of Target Customers or Prospects:

Call Center dialer should always be determined in tandem with your target customer type as a wrong dialer can take a toll on your business and hit your bottom-line. For instance, predictive dialers should not be used for high-value prospects as they require a close attention driven approach to calling. Secondly, for most B2B businesses where a sophisticated sales approach is required to get past the gatekeepers, a power dialer is a better option. And as mentioned earlier high detail prospects should only be called via preview dialer to move them across the sales funnel backed by context driven conversations.

4. Type of Lead Source:

If you are investing huge amounts in lead generation from the web or other expensive sources like events then special treatment is required to ensure that no lead is wasted. Such leads should either be handled via power dialer where a dedicated agent is always available to answer connected calls and apply sales skills to navigate through. Or a preview dialer is also a good option to nurture leads which have a longer sales cycle with a higher return on investment.

In addition to the above stated key factors, while selecting an auto dialer for your call center, you should evaluate the dialer software for easy scalability and integration capability with other call center software features like CRM integration, IVR and lead management functionality to run smooth contact center operations.

Conclusion:

When call center agents take on the repetitive task of calling phone numbers, ringtones, and answering machines, they improve call time by predicting when a target customer is most likely to answer the call. Call centers and sales departments can use predictive dialers to connect agents with prospective customers, so employees don't waste time scrolling through long contact lists and dialing numbers manually. Companies that use auto-dialers and progressive dialers can also reduce the wait time for outgoing calls to connect with a call center agent or customer.