All You Need to Know About the Importance of Predictive Dialer Software for Contact Centers
Predictive dialer technology is one of the most important innovations in the contact center industry. Before its invention, customer service agents would dial phone numbers manually to make outgoing calls. It not only consumed a lot of their time but was also quite unpredictable. Only one out of every three or four calls would get answered, while the rest would go to answering machines or voicemails.
In the early ‘80s, tech entrepreneur Douglas A. Samuelson, the president and chief scientist of InfoLogix, Inc., developed a predictive dialer system and revolutionized the outgoing dialing process. However, the technology then was hardware-based.
With time, predictive dialers became software-based and made significant progress in terms of technology. The contemporary predictive dialer automatic software can filter out voicemails, no answers, busy signals, disconnected numbers, and so on. The dialer connects the call to an appropriate agent only when a real person answers the phone.
Predictive dialer software for contact centers can analyze the average length of a call and the average number of dials it takes to make a connection and then optimizes dialing to facilitate agents to effortlessly move from one call to the next. Doing so saves a lot of time, improves efficiency, and could greatly boost the performance of a contact center.
Some of the key benefits of utilizing predictive dialer software include:
Better time management: Time management is one of the most essential things in sales forces, especially in contact centers. A predictive dialer provides call management through the use of algorithms. It predicts when contact center agents should be on a call with clients and prospects. It also ensures that the agents won’t be connected to a recording, a busy tone, or an answering machine.
Improved productivity: Predictive dialers eliminate the need of dialing numbers manually and reduce the call connecting time by aiming to connect agents to a live person each time. This way it leads to improved productivity.
Reduced operational costs: When predictive dialers are integrated with VoIP contact center software solutions, they bring down the costs considerably. Many businesses prefer hosted predictive dialer software as they minimize IT costs as well as upfront capital expenses. The cost of a hosted predictive dialer depends on the size of a contact center, the number of customer support representatives, and the features and services (such as real-time monitoring tools, CRM integration, and more). It can range between $15 and $250 per agent per month, but the return on investment is many times more.
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Efficient management of leads: Predictive dialers generally have lead management software incorporated into the application. Moreover, they can screen out do not call numbers, voicemails, and busy signals to make certain that the most numbers to be dialed out are working and eligible for calls.
Enhanced lead generation: As predictive dialers increase call connections, the chances of generating high-quality business leads also increase. Apart from generating better leads, the conversion rates also improve by leaps and bounds.
Motivated workforce: It allows contact center agents to polish their skills by letting them get meaningful conversations going with leads. When the success rate is high, agents will automatically be more motivated to perform better.
Fewer gaps between answered calls: Did you know that predictive dialers can decrease the gaps between answered calls to three seconds? One recent study found that companies that use predictive dialers not just cut the gaps between answered calls to three seconds but spend the time, they otherwise would have spent dialing and listening to voicemails, and speaking with leads.
Analyze real-time data and generate useful reports: When predictive dialers are integrated with high-quality omnichannel contact center software, they can monitor real-time data, analyze them, and generate several reports. Apart from that, they can also track agents’ productivity and determine call quality.
How does predictive dialer software work?
As the name suggests, predictive dialer software predicts when the agents will be free to take the next call and accordingly dial numbers on the agent’s behalf. The intelligent outbound call center software uses algorithms to determine the exact time when an agent should be finishing up the ongoing call and then dialing another number. This way it maximizes agents’ productivity and decreases their idle time between calls. A properly working predictive dialer delivers agents with a seamless flow of calls with little to no downtime.
What Makes Predictive Dialers Distinct From Other Automatic Dialers?
The ability to utilize call metrics to predict the moment when contact center agents will be available to make the next call sets predictive dialers apart from other automatic dialer software. The auto-dialing system of predictive dialers runs in parallel with the availability of agents. In case, lots of agents at the contact center are busy having conversations, the predictive dialer will slow down or stop its outreach until the agents are available to take the next call and then dial numbers on the behalf of contact center’s agents.
Another key thing that makes predictive dialers different from other automatic dialers is their ability to dial multiple numbers at the same time. The intent is to call the right number of leads at the right time to ensure maximum agent utilization.
Taking everything into consideration
Predictive dialers are extremely useful outbound call management and processing systems that can benefit your contact center in more than one way. Due to their popularity, many companies these days are offering predictive dialer software that is often based in the cloud. But when it comes to handpicking the best predictive dialer out there, choosing the right service provider can make all the difference.
The contact center software provided by HoduSoft has sophisticated predictive dialer features along with many call features such as dynamic caller ID, call scheduling, answering machine detection, and call monitoring, to name a few. If you want to know more about its products, visit its website https://hodusoft.com/ or contact its team today.
