Dialers are a great way to increase productivity at your home office. Here are the things to consider when determining your business’ calling needs.
Keeping in contact with clients and keeping up with leads is an important part to any business, and it does not have to stop just because you are now working remotely. Though there may have been some things in the office that made your workday smoother, with new technology you can bring productivity from the office to your home office.
Dialers are a great way to increase productivity at your home office whether you are calling well-known leads or cold calling potential leads. They can increase productivity per hour by 300 percent. Instead of spending all day making back to back calls with no guarantee someone will get an answer, dialers ensure you are properly managing your time. Not only can dialers streamline the dialing process, but they can also track and analyze your calls, giving you detailed reports on how to improve your calling campaign.
When it comes to picking the right dialer for your business there are many options to choose from. Here are the variations of dialers and things to consider when determining your business’ calling needs.
Auto Dialer
An auto dialer uses a software system that automatically dials a phone number uploaded into a database. Some software, like Call Cowboy, is accessible on an app that can be downloaded to your tablet or smartphone. It can also be used on a desktop or on a desk phone. Once the call is answered by the customer or client, the auto-dialer will either connect to you or play a recorded message. When a call is done, the system will automatically dial the next lead. Many professionals like entrepreneurs, realtors, car salesmen, outdoor sales representatives, and customer service agents use autodialer as they are typically used in business to consumer applications. They cannot navigate dial-by-name directories or gatekeepers.
Power Dialer
These are great to use when you want to personalize a phone call, but it definitely takes more time as power dialers only dial one number at a time. These types of auto-dialers call from a contact list, skipping unanswered calls and busy numbers. This helps streamline the process of your customer or client getting on the phone with a real person. There is some software that will allow you to modify the dial rate. It can also assign more than one contact per agent to help increase the calling speed. Power, or progressive, dialers are typically used in business to business environments.
Preview Dialer
This is another auto dialer that allows your potential customers or clients to talk to a real person, but it is slightly different from a power dialer. Its name explains its function. Preview dialers make calls one after another from a contact list while allowing you to review the contact’s record before the call. From there you can determine if you want to go forth with the call or proceed with the next contact on the list. This type of auto dialer is great for important follow up calls in which you would need to review previous conversation history.
Predictive Dialer
If you are looking to make calls in large numbers, this dialer may be the way to go. Predictive dialers call a lot of customers in a short amount of time. It is a very advanced technology as it uses predictive algorithms and machine learning to modify dialing rates, making sure you are effectively managing your time. It uses things like the average length of your calls, the time of day, and the type of job to improve its effectiveness. Its system is constantly being updated with new information to make sure it is performing at its fullest potential. It is programmed to tell when it reaches a live person and when it reaches a voicemail depending on the greeting. Its constant updating makes it very intelligent. This dialer knows to skip bad numbers, busy signals, unanswered calls, and fax machines. Using this dialer, you can be expected to make around 110 calls an hour since it cuts down the time it takes to manually make a phone call.
Voice Broadcasting / Guided Voicemail
These allow you to send off hundreds upon hundreds of voicemails all at once and are good when you do not have to speak directly to the customer or client. These are best used for things like announcements, invitations, warnings and alerts, new products, and reminders for dates or appointments.
Live Conversation Automation
This type of dialer is great for business to business environments. Live conversation automation as the name suggests also guarantees your customers and potential clients talk to a live person. It combines the power of an automatic phone dialer and quick call transfer capabilities and has the ability to tell the difference between dial-by-name directories, operators and voicemail systems. The way it works is very simple. When you make a positive identification of a targeted contact, that call is transferred without the contact even realizing.
Click-To-Call
This feature requests a callback from an agent or when you are on a website it may open up a chat window. A lot of people get it confused with click-to-dial, which is slightly different.
Click-To-Dial
This auto dialing technology is an outbound call that begins by a click of the mouse on a phone number field system. CedarCone says this functionality is most often enabled in CRM systems and email systems that allow you to make calls without dialing a number.Â
Inbound Call Routing
These systems are also referred to as automated call distribution. They use line-hunting, caller ID routing, or burst calling to route to you or someone assigned to the specific number if it already recorded in the database. If not, the unknown telephone number is then recorded in the CRM system and assigned to you or an employee based on that number’s area code. This is a standard feature of most PBX systems.
Now that you know the different types of auto dialers, it is up to you to decide which one is right for you and your business.
