Automation technology makes jobs quicker and simpler. It can improve the efficiency of your call center. As call center technology evolves, contact center dialers are trying to improve the overall productivity of the call center. Earlier, agents spent their time on manual processes like sorting the customer numbers, reading their details, and manually dialing the number. That’s a waste of call center agents’ time that can be used to focus on other tasks. A call center dialer helps by automating the calling process in contact centers. All these tedious and time-consuming processes can be automated using auto-dialers. This article explains everything about call center dialers and auto-dialers. Let’s get right into it.
What is a Call Center Dialer?
A call center dialer is an outbound dialer software that automates the process of outbound calling or sending out the campaigns such as voice mails, broadcasting, or SMS. Contact center dialer makes the life of call center agents easier by eliminating many manual tasks. Intelligent call center dialers automate the calling process and bring in the touch of analytics and data, which helps organizations make informed and data-driven decisions for customer service and business communication strategy. There are many various kinds of auto-dialers available, and you may choose the one that best suits your company’s demands.
Types of Call Center Dialer
Businesses can choose from a wide range of call center dialers in the market with different technologies and functions based on the business needs. There are 3 types of auto dialers available – predictive, progressive, and preview dialers. Let’s now look at the features of the three dialers to help you choose the most appropriate dialer based on your company’s specific requirements.
#1. Predictive Dialer
A predictive dialer is an excellent choice for large businesses with high search volumes. Its intelligent algorithm underpins many data such as agents’ average time on the call, agents’ performance, and past trends to predict their availability and the best time to initiate the call. Predictive dialer dials numbers from the list and transfers the call to the available agent once connected. This dialer also displays the customer connectivity status like call connected, call abandoned, call answered robot, line busy, etc., using the answering machine detection. Only when a person answers the call, is it routed to a live customer service representative. Predictive dialers start dialing before the agent’s call gets over to reduce the idle time. For instance, if the predictive dialer algorithm predicts that the agent’s current call will end in another 40 seconds, the dialer might start dialing the numbers 10-15 seconds before that. Predictive dialer effectiveness depends on variance factor, max pacing ratio, agents’ wait time, and call drop ratio. Dialing ratio, call reporting, ringing strategy, integration capabilities, customization options, time zone-based calling, and skill-based routing are some of the considerations that company owners should keep in mind while setting up the fast dialer in a contact center. A predictive dialer ensures flawless outbound calling with several other benefits. These include reduced agents’ idle time, maximizing efficiency and productivity, better call connect ratio, more talk time, and fewer unanswered calls.
#2. Progressive Dialer
Progressive dialers dial the customer number only when the agent from the previous call becomes available. Unlike predictive dialer, it doesn’t predict the call time or agent availability time to make calls. It stops calling if the agent is not present. The progressive dialer is implemented basically to reduce the agent’s manual effort to find and dial the numbers. At the same time, it gives the agent a few seconds between calls to have a break and reduce stress. A progressive dialer is an inexpensive option compared to other auto-dialers. Its benefits include better customer engagement, increased agent productivity, and a lower call abandonment rate. This call center auto dialer is ideal for small to mid-call centers, b2c operations, and sales.
#3. Preview Dialer
A preview dialer is a basic outbound auto dialer that reads the existing customer data or numbers in the list to suggest the number to be contacted by the agent. Preview dialer software also displays all the information regarding the customer, like previous calling data and personal information that helps agents personalize the call. Preview dialing also gives agents an option to decide whether to call the particular customer or not based on the previous interaction data. Customer interaction history also helps agents personalize their sales pitches and their conversation. This dialer is primarily used in the b2b sales campaigns as it makes call center agents more efficient. Let’s now look at the top contact center dialers.
RingCentral
RingCentral, is an all-in-one solution that helps customers worldwide build great customer experiences. It’s easy for businesses to quickly get in touch with customers because RingCentral has a tremendous and brilliant IVR. You can use tools from the best in the industry to make staff scheduling easier, enhance call-center efficiency, study customers, and more. The RingCentral contact center also provides CRM integrations such as SalesForce and others. RingCentral Contact Center features include IVR, ACD, call routing, social interactions, chatbots, integrations, skill-based routing, voicemail, outbound dialing, and campaign management. It also provides custom pre-built reports and dashboards with call barging, silent monitoring, analytics, and supervisor tools to the business owners to help them make informed business decisions.
Freshdesk
Freshdesk is a simple and largely reliable cloud-based contact center product. Freshdesk has a presence in 100+ countries around the globe and strives to help businesses affordably connect with their customers. Setting up the Freshdesk contact center is easy and requires zero additional hardware. Freshdesk bags on its rich customer experience, which helps sales and support teams to work hassle-free. Your support agents can quickly initiate and answer calls in real-time and categorize them or leave notes. While outside the office, Freshdesk allows customers to record Voice emails. The customer support team at Freshdesk is simply the best. The company works tirelessly to introduce modern features and automated solutions to its clients. Not to forget, the Freshdesk contact center has tons of integration options. Freshdesk pricing and packages start from $0/agent per month and go up to $59/agent per month, depending on different features. The basic package is called sprout, which is best for freelancers and startups that includes basic call queues, custom greetings, forward to phone, and unlimited agents.
Nextiva
Nextiva brands itself as a Nextiva cloud contact center built to scale. Additionally, it supports two billion+ conversations with over 6 billion minutes of talk time annually. Nextiva promises 99.99% uptime and provides standard features like IVR, call routing, ACD and call queuing that every business requires. Nextiva is built as an omnichannel platform that combines voice, video, collaboration, SMS, chat, and surveys — to help businesses of all sizes. Nextiva provides built-in CRM, and you can also integrate other CRM solutions. All the Nextiva support contact center features such as call routing, voicemail, call recording, and landline business phones can also be integrated with the solution using Nextiva business phone service. Nextiva has different packages for contact center solutions starting from $50/agent per month. Different packages are core, premium, optimum, and ultimate. All these packages have various features to offer. Nextiva is a perfect choice for all business types, and it also has 24/7 customer support that makes it easy for agents to get their queries resolved quickly.
NICE
NICE provides a unified and omnichannel platform with plenty of call routing features such as IVR, conversational AI, chatbots, self-service analytics, self-service builder, etc. Nice inContact CXOne is an excellent predictive dialer for all types of businesses. It has plenty of solutions for improving the overall customer experience with inbound and outbound call center software options. CXone automatic contact distributor can route the calls based on the agent’s skills, and it uses AI bots to automate the mundane tasks for the agents. It also provides the AI routing solution with pre-trained models built on industry CX data. It helps business owners to improve their overall operations and business communication strategies.
Talkdesk
Talkdesk is one of the most popular and advanced cloud call center software available in the market, packed with features such as call reporting and voice analytics using AI. Talkdesk features such as customer self-service, mobile contact center tools, call recording, integration features with other software and tools, AI-based virtual assistants, and reporting make this a reliable software for large enterprises. Talkdesk has different pricing options that start from $75 per user per month with its CX cloud essential package. The essential features included in the CX cloud essential package are voice engagement, studio, routing, business intelligence, real-time dashboards, virtual agent, AI trainer, agent assistant starters, etc. Talkdesk believes in better customer experience starters with AI.
Voicent
Voicent Call Center software lets call centers manage agents, incoming calls, outbound campaigns for lead generation, telemarketing, sales calls, etc. Predictive dialing, preview dialing, progressive dialing, and manual dialing modes are all included in Voicent’s easy-to-use call center dialer software. Voicent comes with an agent dashboard that helps them with real-time data and analytics that help increase productivity and set up triggers when a lead becomes a customer or when a call receiver opts into your campaign. Voicent provides a 30-day free trial. After that, pricing starts from $19/agent per month that comes with built-in CRM, a choice of dialers, and 2 voice channels. Other plan options include auto attendant, PBX, IVR, text messages, email and workflow automation tools, and call center management tools.
Genesys
Genesys has assisted many contact centers in migrating toward complete cloud or hybrid architecture from the traditional approach. It is easier to set up complex outbound workflows and strategies using Genesys’s predictive, preview, and manual dialing with additional IVR and ACD features. It provides self-service options such as voice bots and chatbots and handles emails, chats, social media interactions, and comments with its simple user interface. Genesys offers you the tools to take calls even when you are not in an office and answer and listen to emails and voicemails. Genesys offers five different packages: Genesys Cloud CX1, CX2, CX3, Genesys Choice & Genesys DX. Genesys Cloud CX1 starts from $68/month and has basic features like inbound outbound voice, IVR, callbacks, data storage, and voice campaigns. Genesys Choice & Genesys DX are customized packages for enterprises and large businesses.
Five9
Five9 is a widely used cloud contact center solution that offers a combined solution for inbound and outbound dialing. It provides an omnichannel experience by smoothly interconnecting all the communication platforms such as voice calls, lead generation forms, social media, and live chat. Five9 is best-in-class AI that automates conversations and aids live operators, enabling you to minimize support expenses while improving customer service. It also has the ability of all three call center dialers (Predictive, Preview, and Progressive) with features of voice mail, agent scripting, IVR, text to speech, toll-free numbers, DNC compliance, and web callback. It provides 24/7 support with advanced call and performance reports to improve the overall business communication operations. Five9 is a complete call center solution with four different pricing options (Core, Premium, Optimum, Ultimate).
Conclusion
In this world of cloud and fast-growing tech, if a business wants to grow and gain a competitive edge, it must also look for a product that gives its customers a great experience. It’s imperative to choose a product that can scale with the company’s growing needs. You may also look at some of the best contact management software.
