Outbound dialers - a bit more technical

There is a lot of terminology regarding outbound dialers. Let's see if we can make it a bit more clear by explaining the different possibilities. In all cases the contacts are pushed to the agent, but the way the dial is done is different. Let's explore these different ways.

• Preview dial
  The script starts at the agents' workstation, and he or she can assess the situation at ease. Once familiar with the case, the agent pushes a button and the call is placed from his telephone. Think debt collection, etc.
• Progressive dial
  This is similar to preview dial. With one exeption, namely that the dial will start automatically, instead of manually by the agent, thus forcing them to be ready in a certain timeframe.
• Power dial
  The dialing starts at the agents' workstation and when the call is connected, the script starts. When the customer does not answer, the script does not start and the call is rescheduled (or stopped after some retries). 
• Predictive dial
  This is a bit more tricky. First of all, the agents don't place calls, the your contact center solution / PABX will place calls - this all takes place inside the PABX. Once a call has been set up, it is optionally connected to a call classifier, which is a thingy in your switch that will check whether the call is busy, no answer, machine answer, fax, modem, tri-tone, invalid. This can potentially save you al lot of (agent) time, thus money.
  So, some calls will not be passed to the agents. Assume that you have 10 agents, your software will probably lauch 15 calls, 'hoping' that it will get 10 connected calls. In some softwares, you can configure this, other software, such as Altitude uCI, are much more advanced. They have better algorithms, they measure for every agent where they are in the script, and as a result, they will exactly know how much records to dial to 
      a) keep all agents busy and 
      b) don't call too much, because if you have a person on one end, and no agent available, you need to hang up that call...
  Predictive dialing will only be effective when you have a large number of agents (more then 10), otherwise the statistics will work against you.

Imagine callcenters without dialers. Do they still exist?

You will be amazed by the answer. The answer is Yes. They Still Do Exist. And In Large Quantities. Can you believe this? I couldn't, the first time I heared about that. Over and over again I read studies that using outbound dialer solutions can make over 30 % or 40 % more calls. Which is more or less proportional with your profit. I can believe those 30 - 40 %, these are not made-up figures - and we're not even talking predictive dialing here, just plain and simple preview or power dial. With predictive dialing, you would be saving even more.

 

Next time you want to dial a customer, think Altitude uCI. We have the perfect solution for you.