Regardless of your area of specialization, there’s always going be a fierce competitor offering the same services. Of course, the best way to deal with such situations is to have a strategy that focuses more on the current customer demands. Technology has made this part of business management quite achievable given the recent advancements.
Perhaps one of the most notable departments that has benefited from these innovative ideas is the communication sector. The move from manual to auto dialers, for instance, has proven very productive for most businesses. One thing that has made this a success is the rise of several service providers like Call Cowboy. As such, the competition has become stiff, something that has led to the provision of high-quality services at an affordable rate.
This article aims to discuss all you need to know about the benefits of predictive dialers.
What’s A Predictive Dialer
A predictive dialer is an automated calling system programmed to automatically pick phone numbers from a given contact list and call them. This outbound calling system dials a number until it detects a connection then passes it to the next available agent. The software also features an intelligence mechanism that enables it to differentiate a human from a machine receiver.
These systems are usually used by call centers to drive traffic for representatives, which, consequently, increases list penetration. At the end of the day, the call agents’ productivity will be significantly increased, while also ensuring that your company gets the right contacts to work with.
Benefits of Predictive Dialers
Are you planning to incorporate this system in your business? Here are some of the benefits you can expect:
- Improved Call Assignment
Manual dialers have been in use for many years, and some businesses still prefer them probably because they’re cheaper and easier to use. Well, ‘easier’ in the sense that they don’t require high tech skills. It’s all about reading numbers from a printed sheet and dialing them. Of course, with these limited features, you can expect it to be very affordable, even for small businesses.
However, one thing that has always been a problem is redundancy. The call center manager may decide to print one list of contacts and distribute it across all agents. At the end of the day, several representatives might end up calling the same number, which will slow down the production process. In addition, this might even annoy the prospective customers, which could spoil the company’s reputation.
So, how does a predictive dialer solve this problem? Well, the system is equipped with intelligent call assignment mechanism, which means there’ll be no guesswork when dialing the contacts. Since the software has access to all the listed phone numbers, it’ll automatically eliminate those that have already been dialed. This way, you’ll never have to worry about call duplication and customer annoyance.
The smart prioritization feature offered by predictive dialers also make this technology more appealing. It’s designed to filter contacts according to their geographical location, language, lead stage, and prior calls. If a customer calls, the dialer will run their details through the CRM database and determine the right agent to whom it can route the call. Depending on the results of the analysis, the system can forward the call to the agent who last spoke with the lead or the most experienced agent available. This ensures that the sale can be closed a lot faster before the focus is shifted to other prospective consumers.
- Enhanced Agent Efficiency
The best thing about predictive dialers, as earlier stated, is that they are designed to automatically select and place calls from a given list of phone numbers. If you’ve used a manual dialer before, then you already know how hectic your agents’ experience can be with such a system. For one, the representatives are expected to flip through several pages of contact lists. Once they find their desired customer, they then start dialing the numbers manually, which can be time-consuming.
Agent efficiency is measured by their results and how much time it takes them to attain the primary objectives of the company. With a predictive dialer, these goals can be achieved quite easily since it provides a perfect environment for your call agents to exercise their skills. For one, the employees won’t have to manually search for the numbers to be called next—the software takes care of this area all by itself.
Another thing that makes this technology an even better acquisition for your business is the fact that it can predict when the next agent will be free. As such, there’s less time wasted between calls because it ensures that as soon as the agent hangs up, the next call will be ready to go. You might be wondering how a mere dialer can achieve this incredible performance.
Well, it’s designed to calculate the average amount of time an agent takes to complete one call (for example, 90 seconds) and how long it takes for a call to be picked (say 10 seconds). It then takes both of these values into consideration and starts making the next call when it detects that the current one is coming to an end. For instance, if the two values are 90 and 10 seconds respectively, the system will start dialing the next number at the 80th second of the current call. All these unique features are geared towards the improvement of overall agent efficiency.
- Improved Customer Satisfaction
Customer satisfaction have always been one of the main priorities for any business. These are some of the factors that can easily determine the success of your company. Of course, there are several avenues that you can use to improve the overall customer service, but one that has stood out in recent times is the use of predictive dialer. As you already know, good communication is the basis of any business-customer relationship. With a calling system that not only considers the productivity of the agents, but also the welfare of your customers, you’re on track to become a successful business.
So, how does a predictive dialer improve the customer’s experience? Well, for one, the idea of detecting the consumer’s geographical location and determining their time zones prevents any intrusive calls. For instance, the system will ensure that any calls made are during the corresponding business hours of the recipient’s location. This way, you’ll avoid annoying your customers by calling them when they’re busy with other personal things or during late hours.
Predictive dialers, as earlier mentioned, prevent any duplicate calls made to the same phone number. It can be quite annoying for the customer when they receive several calls from the same company passing the same information. In fact, most people will blacklist such contacts and list them as spam, which can hurt the reputation of your company. However, with predictive dialers, this is avoided, which gives your company a better chance of not only generating, but also converting as many leads as possible.
- Performance Monitoring
Quality assurance is very vital when it comes to the success of any call center. Remember, as a manager or business owner, you’re dealing with a lot of employees—in this case, a team of agents. As such, it’s important that you check the performance of each agent every day to make sure that you’re all working towards the same goal. However, it can be quite demanding to manually carry out this task. Also, there’s bound to be a lot of inaccuracies in your daily studies, which give a wrong impression about certain agents.
All these drawbacks are common in a call center that still uses manual dialers. There’re no special features included in these ancient dialers that can help in performance tracking. Therefore, the manager, or whoever is in charge, is forced to record the relevant matrices manually. Predictive, robo-dialers, and auto dialers, on the other hand, are designed in such a way that they can keep track of every agent’s performance and present this results in a human-readable format. As such, all you need to do is open the relevant files and check through all the records which include the number of calls made by an agent, the amount of time each call took, successfully converted leads, and so on.
One thing that many managers appreciate about predictive dialers is the fact that they can also record live calls. As such, it becomes easier to analyze all the factors that led to the success or failure of a given operation. This detailed analysis ensures that you understand how to deal with each agent in order to get the best out of them rather than just making assumptions and generalizing the whole workplace.
- Lower Operational Costs
Every business owner is always on the lookout to find the most cost-effective ways of running their company. The rule of thumb for every success economic adventure is that the operational costs should be kept as low as possible if you’re going to make any substantial profits. Of course, it’s easier said than done, but with the advancement of technology in this particular industry, things have been made simpler for both upcoming and seasoned entrepreneurs.
Automated communication systems, for instance, are among the best ways of reducing operational costs. Predictive dialers have proven to be quite effective in that regard given the fact they reduce the amount of work to be completed by the agents. With this system in place, you’ll only employ a call center representative to come and work on lead conversion rather than lead generation. Once all the contacts have been put in the database, the dialer will do all the dirty work while the agent only waits to communicate with the selected customer.
It’s not only the amount of upfront work that’s reduced; in fact, some systems have been programmed to replace human employees in certain areas. For instance, selfcare services—which were initially handled by human agents—are automated, which means the customer only needs to interact with the computer directly and get their problems sorted. Consequently, you’ll need fewer representatives than before, which significantly cuts overall expenses.
- Higher Lead Generation And Conversion Rate
As earlier stated, the efficiency of any call center is measure by the results with relation to the time taken to achieve those goals. However, an agent can only convert the leads that have been generated, which can be a lot less if you’re using the old systems like manual dialers. Predictive dialers’ algorithms, on the other hand, ensure that the lead generation process is enhanced, and at the end of the day, you’ll have a lot of potential clients to contact.
But how does this technology improve the lead conversion rate? Well, it’s all about the time used by agents to speak to various customers. Since there’s less time wasted between calls, there are some extra minutes added to the agent talk time. As such, it gives your representatives ample time to convince those stubborn customers. At the end of the day, you’ll have more leads converted per day, which is one of the pillars that build a successful business.
- Prevents Legal Implications
With the TCPA laws becoming even more serious by day, the manufacturers of predictive dialers have started including features that’ll help businesses comply with these rules. For one, if you market your products to someone listed in the “Do Not Call” database, you run the risk of falling into legal problems. A modern predictive dialer is able to detect such contacts and remove them from your list, while also preventing any duplications in the registry. This scanning is done every time new phone numbers are added to the contact list.
Conclusion
Over the years, manual dialers have been the theme of many call centers, but with the innovation of automated systems, things have not been the same. Predictive dialers are not only beneficial to the companies that use it, but also the corresponding customers. With their geolocation and time zone adjustment ability, these dialers ensure that you all contact your prospective customers at the right time.
They’re also designed to prevent duplication and get rid of those contacts listed in the “Do Not Call” registry. Another advantage of integrating this system in your business is the fact that it reduces the time wasted between calls and increases agent talk time.
