A Beginner’s Guide to Predictive Dialling

Cold calling may be on the way out, but, if done properly, outbound campaigns are still a very useful way to make effective contact with customers and prospects. And if you run outbound campaigns then you really should be using predictive dialling, which can increase typical talk time by up to 45 minutes per hour.

It differs from preview dialling and progressive dialling because it only delivers live answered calls to agents along with a screen pop of the customer’s information, resulting in huge productivity uplifts.

For the record, predictive dialling allows agents to review customer information before launching a call while progressive dialling provides a screen pop of the record while the system is making the call.

Talk time and agent efficiency increases steadily with each of the three dialling modes, going from an average of 12 minutes in the hour for manual, up to 18 for preview, 32 for progressive and 45 or more with predictive dialling

Here is a quick rundown on what you should look for in a predictive dialling system:

1. Compliance with legislation

Failure to comply with regulations can lead to serious consequences so it is important to choose a dialling mode that ensures compliance. In the UK, Ofcom has recently issued some big fines to companies who fail to protect their customers against ‘silent calls’ where the dialler system connects a call without having an agent ready to take that call.

2. Flexibility

A good system will have the ability to quickly make changes based on customer behaviour. Being able to make small ‘on-the-fly’ changes can bring big improvements in productivity.

3. Multiple dialling modes

Predictive dialling comes with many benefits. However, preview and progressive dialling can be beneficial for some campaigns.

4. Statistics – real time and historical

Once the system is online and you have started to use it, you will be able to see the benefits to the business almost immediately because it is generating metrics and statistics that you can use for review and improvement.

5. Scalability

Cloud systems can be multi-tenanted and will have one version of the software that is accessible to everyone through a standard web browser. Within the cloud environment you have no need for the extra concern or responsibility of on-site infrastructure and architecture, it has built-in resilience and allows you to work from anywhere with internet connectivity.

By Sarah Stacey, Director of Channel Development, West

Thinking about predictive dialling or how to improve your outbound strategies and don’t know where to start?

This guide will tell you everything you need to know:
https://www.westuc.com/en-gb/whitepapers/ebook-10-golden-rules-outbound-campaigns#ebook