A business does not merely survive by making a few calls here and there – and if you want really want your business to prosper, then chances are that you will have to make hundreds, if not thousands, of sales calls every month. That indicates that you are going to need the technology that can cope with that amount of calling, and the traditional fashioned way of doing things simply does not cut it anymore.
That is why Predictive dialing was introduced, for the purpose of increasing efficiency within Telemarketing / Sales call centers, which turned out to be a boon for the call centres: because without it, their profits will never be able to soar above average.
With it, sky’s the limit, having a dialer help automate the process is undeniably a critical part.
Benefits of having predictive dialer software in your business:
- A computer-based system that automatically dial groups of telephone numbers, and then passes live calls to available agents
- Not to be confused with an automatic call dialer software, predictive dialer software is programmed to predict when a human caller is available to pick up a call
- Predictive dialers can also measure the number of available agents, available lines, average handle time, and other factors to adjust outbound calls accordingly
- Predictive dialers quickly and automatically place outbound calls and connect only the answered calls to available agents
- They also monitor call center volume and time per call, intelligently adjusting the dialing rate to minimize the time your agents spend waiting between conversations. This allows your business to get the most out of its customer surveys in the shortest amount of time and using the least amount of financial resources
Though, we can see that there are many benefits of predictive dialer.
However, nothing is perfect and so is predictive dialer!
Below mentioned reviews need to be followed to improve the predictive dialer and make it more useful for the customers:
A Predictive Dialer is programmed in such a way that it maintains a perfect balance between keeping the agents busy and getting live prospects. However, many times situations do crop up when there is a live hello on the other side but no agents are available to engage, and here the situation gets worse. The called party picks up the receiver only to hear a click at the other end! This ends up in an abandoned call.
- The person answering the phone may have had to say “Hello” many times before the agent finally comes on the line. That is a sign to many people that the call is probably from a telemarketer and therefore they just hang up. Using a predictive dialer can put call centers at risk legally. For example, it is illegal in the USA to have more than 3 % dropped calls.
- While a Dialer makes the most calls, unfortunately, many leads get lost due to dropped calls
- Aggressive marketers abused this 30 -year-old technology known as ‘predictive dialers’ and criticising it as bad marketing tactic that US FCC (Federal Communications Commission) had to dramatically limit its use
- If the call is at some inconvenient moment or the called party receives such calls too frequently, then it is expected that a complaint may be lodged against the telemarketing company.
- Predictive Dialers do not allow for personalized pre-recorded voicemails.
Needless to say that with a predictive dialer, there are many more hang ups, dropped calls, and wasted leads. Today this happens quite frequently and fresh laws are being imposed by government of many countries across the globe for such telemarketing companies.
Predictive dialers continue to remain relevant for large scale Telemarketing but need more careful usage because of the regulatory landscape. The complete history of Predictive Dialers is a good read to know more on the initiation and evolution of this widely used technology. Use a Predictive Dialer Software, but not blindly!
