Call Center Dialers Guide – Which Dialer is Right For Your Contact Center?

There’s no way around it. Making sales calls all day long is hard work. Management spends painstaking hours tweaking their motivational techniques, attending sales seminars and investing in technology so that their sales team can convert more leads faster. Sales agents grind the phone lines day in and day out while skillfully establishing rapport and pushing their product with relative ease. Why not enhance this process by optimizing your call center auto dialer?

 

If your business is at that point where you need to start ramping up phone sales or lead conversions by make the outbound dialing process more efficient, this blog post is a great place to start. It can help you understand the main types of dialer automation software and help you decide where to place your next sales investment. Below is a quick guide that compares the different types of call center dialers and also provides advice on when to use each one.

Manual Dialing

This is where most small to medium businesses start. There’s no reason to rush into a capital expenditure until you’ve outgrown manual. Allowing agents to choose who to call, on what number and when, gives them the autonomy and responsibility that many sales people need to succeed.

Click-to-Call

If you already have a robust CRM system, integrating a click-to-call feature will allow your sales agents to just click on the phone number in your CRM to make an outbound call. It is slow compared to a power dialer, but all the information about the prospect is right there so agents can more effectively sell and upsell while on the call. Also, any information gained on the call goes directly into your system-wide database that your team can use to follow up on later.

Preview Dialer

Like the click-to-call option, preview dialers also allow agents to review all of the prospect’s information so they can prepare for the conversation before the call. This is often the best option for sensitive calls like collections, inside sales calls, etc.

Power Dialer

This is often a company’s first step into automated dialing. Power dialers will automatically make an outbound call when an agent becomes available. These systems are inexpensive and there are a plethora of options. Going from manual to power dialers can seriously boost productivity and significantly cut down on dialing time. However, be prepared to experience a lot of idle time, no-answers and busy signals. For Talkdesk customers, AutoReach, available through AppConnect, is a great example of a power dialer.

Predictive Dialer

Predictive dialers collect a large amount of information about the agents handling calls and place outbound calls just before the agent become available. They automatically dial several contacts at the same time until one answers; and then transfers the call to the most appropriate agent. These dialers can dramatically reduce idle time and increase efficiency and therefore are great for small sales forces that need to maximize the time they spend on the phone. They can be more expensive than click-to-call options, but are well worth the investment.

 

Placing outbound sales calls can be stressful. Dialers allow your staff to focus on what really matters: the person on the other end. Unless they are dealing with a very long sales cycle, most companies quickly graduate from manual dialing to:

1. Click-to-call — if you have a powerful CRM system in place
2. Preview dialers — for low volume calling of high detail clients
3. Power dialers — for immediate efficiency gains
4. Predictive dialers — for high volume calling with a small staff

 

By giving agents the tools they need to increase the number of leads contacted each day, you already won half the battle. Data and statistics on the actual effectiveness of different dialers are difficult to measure due to all the variables, but you can’t argue with increased efficiency. The increasing demand for call center dialers offering more options is evidence of how essential they have become for contemporary business growth. When it comes to which dialer is best for your business at this particular stage in your growth, it’s your call.