You may have wondered how a telemarketer in a call center may end up dialing your number. They don't just sit there with a long list of phone numbers and a telephone calling one by one. They in fact use what is called a Predictive Dialer. A Predictive Dialer is a computer system that automatically dials numbers that have been uploaded in its memory. These calls are then connected to sales agents that can speak to you live.
A Predictive Dialer also takes note of phone calls that are unanswered, busy, belong to a fax or answer machine or disconnected and discards them. It will only keep those phone calls that connect to an actual person making it more time effective for the agent taking the call. By using a Predictive Dialer, agents are able to twice as many phone calls. If a person was to sit down with a list of 1000 phone numbers and dial each one by hand, they would be able to speak with an actual person only about 25-35% of the time. So you see by the Predictive Dialer taking out numbers that won't be answered by a person, the agent has more time with their customers and has a better chance of completing their goal.
The Predictive Dialer uses sequence of steps to figure out how many calls need to made to connect to the correct number of agents. However, the computer doesn't actually know how many calls will successfully connect to a person until it has done so. In some cases the dialer will get more people on the phone than there are agents available. In this situation, the dialer will then hang up and leave what is known as a silent call.
Some more advanced systems will actually learn the answering trends of the calls that have occurred in the past. For instance, it will note if there is a particular time of day that elicits more successful phone calls and make adjustments in its calling pattern to compensate for those trends. If it knows that between 5pm - 8pm, 50% of the calls made will be answered, it will dial less numbers to ensure that there are enough agents available to answer the calls. Just like if less people answered between 12pm - 3pm, then it will dial more numbers so that the agents working will have phone calls to keep them busy.
As you can see, Predictive Dialers are very sophisticated and are an important tool in inside sales calls.
A Predictive Dialer also takes note of phone calls that are unanswered, busy, belong to a fax or answer machine or disconnected and discards them. It will only keep those phone calls that connect to an actual person making it more time effective for the agent taking the call. By using a Predictive Dialer, agents are able to twice as many phone calls. If a person was to sit down with a list of 1000 phone numbers and dial each one by hand, they would be able to speak with an actual person only about 25-35% of the time. So you see by the Predictive Dialer taking out numbers that won't be answered by a person, the agent has more time with their customers and has a better chance of completing their goal.
The Predictive Dialer uses sequence of steps to figure out how many calls need to made to connect to the correct number of agents. However, the computer doesn't actually know how many calls will successfully connect to a person until it has done so. In some cases the dialer will get more people on the phone than there are agents available. In this situation, the dialer will then hang up and leave what is known as a silent call.
Some more advanced systems will actually learn the answering trends of the calls that have occurred in the past. For instance, it will note if there is a particular time of day that elicits more successful phone calls and make adjustments in its calling pattern to compensate for those trends. If it knows that between 5pm - 8pm, 50% of the calls made will be answered, it will dial less numbers to ensure that there are enough agents available to answer the calls. Just like if less people answered between 12pm - 3pm, then it will dial more numbers so that the agents working will have phone calls to keep them busy.
As you can see, Predictive Dialers are very sophisticated and are an important tool in inside sales calls.
About the Author:
Sam Purdy is a professional author who specializes in customer relationship management and ACD.
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