Predictive dialers are a staple of many outbound call centers. Originally conceived to address limitations with basic auto-dialer solutions, predictive dialers maximize the amount of time agents spend on the phone by automatically connecting them to “live” contacts. While useful in certain high volume cold-calling applications, predictive dialers aren’t well-suited for many other sales and customer service campaigns. They optimize call volumes – making sure agents are always engaged – at the expense of call quality and customer experience.
Here’s how a predictive dialer works. A sales manager creates an outbound campaign and imports a contact list into the system. The dialer checks how many agents are available to take calls, and starts dialing. When calls are answered they are automatically directed to an agent. Because predictive dialers are designed to maximize agent uptime they call more contacts than there are available agents – sometimes as many as ten calls for each agent. They start dialing new prospects even while all agents are busy – often subjecting contacts to silent air or recorded announcements when they answer the phone.
Not surprisingly, increased telemarketing in general and the widespread use of predictive dialers in particular has led to consumer backlash and expanding government regulation. In recent years the FCC has introduced do-not-call lists, mandated caller ID for telemarketers, placed restrictions on auto dialing systems and pre-recorded messages, and has even gone as far as regulating call abandonment rates. By law, telemarketers must ensure predictive dialers abandon no more than three percent of all answered calls. (The FCC considers a call abandoned if it is not transferred to a live agent within two seconds after the recipient answers.)
The FCC is apt to introduce additional restrictions as consumer frustration continues to mount. To remain viable, call center operators must adapt to changes in how both consumers and lawmakers view telemarketers and they must rethink the ways in which they engage prospects and customers.
OnState’s Outbound Call Center solution lets call center operators stay ahead of the curve by complying with expanding government regulations and responding to evolving consumer attitudes. More importantly, OnState helps organizations run more effective campaigns by arming agents with the tools and data they need to make better informed and more successful calls, and by ensuring calls are delivered to the agent who is best qualified to serve a particular contact.
Here’s how OnState Outbound Calling works. A sales manager creates an outbound campaign and defines attributes that are used to influence call treatment. Attributes might include the contact’s territory information, company data, or individual demographics or interests. OnState uses administratively-defined business rules to automatically route outbound requests to the agent who is best suited to perform the call at any moment in time, matching the contact’s attributes with agent availability and skills. (In a blended environment outbound requests can be intermingled with inbound calls and click-to-chat and click-for-callback requests.) OnState sends the agent a contact request screen pop along with detailed contact information (customer data, transaction history, Salesforce.com records, etc) so the agent can adequately prepare for the call.
OnState increases conversion rates by eliminating blind calling – enabling agents to make better informed, more effective calls. And since the agent is always on the call in advance of the called party (no silent pauses) OnState can increase capture rates (no abandoned calls) and avoid the consumer frustration brought on by predictive dialers. With OnState you can reach out using multiple methods and contact numbers – conventional phones, mobile phones, Skype, GoogleTalk – to improve capture rates even further.
While others sell auto-dialers and predictive dialers as call center add-ons or independent applications, OnState includes Outbound Calling as integral capability of our on-demand service. With OnState you don’t have to purchase an expensive call center solution to execute “big company” sales campaigns. You can even use OnState and its Outbound Calling capabilities without a PBX or traditional phone system.
OnState Outbound Calling helps businesses run more effective sales campaigns, improve customer service, and make blind calling a thing of the past.
More Information: OnState’s Outbound Dialing Solution for Outbound Call Centers
