Communication is of paramount importance in every business. Whether you’re collaborating with your teammates for a new project or providing assistance to a client, establishing a clear connection should always come first. Without proper communication, you’re putting your business at great risk.
Thanks to technological advancements, companies and organizations can stay connected within themselves and their customers. Today, various technologies exist to serve excellent communication. Through consistent communication, people can get more productive and motivated by their endeavors.
One excellent technology that proves that communication has no boundaries and limitations is computer telephony integration (CTI).
What Is Computer Telephony Integration?
Computer telephony integrations essentially allow interaction between computers and telephone systems. With CTI technology, users can perform a plethora of call-related tasks.
Companies partner up with specific CTI professionals to set up their own dialing platforms. These platforms, such as Call Cowboy, help you create big impressions about your brand by transforming your phone into an excellent business dialing platform. Usually, part of their services is also an all-in-one communication system where you can manage communication within your business departments and clients.
One of the best services that these platforms boast is an auto dialer system, which is perfect for both small and big businesses. Having an auto dialer for your business can definitely separate you from other businesses because of its outstanding capabilities.
Before introducing a CTI technology, particularly an auto dialer system into your business, it’s important to understand how it works and its advantages to your venture. This way, you’ll make the most out of these services.
Auto Dialer: An Outstanding Yet Overlooked Telemarketing Tool
Have you ever tried answering a call from a business just to hear an automated voice or a pre-recorded message? However, right before ending a call, a live operator will attend to you and start alerting and offering their products and services. This telemarketing strategy can be annoying for many individuals. Businesses often overlook and take too much advantage of this tool, but when used properly and strategically, it has numerous outstanding benefits.
An automatic dialer, or auto dialer, is a system that’s run by special software and modem to program a computer into dialing a list of phone numbers automatically so you won’t have to. Specific auto dialer software systems have varying functions and features for personal and business use.
It can be challenging to choose your auto dialing solutions, especially since auto dialing services are similar to one another. To maximize your auto dialing software, collaborate with auto dialing services equipped with fully operational features.
Within this service platform, you can enjoy the features in different devices: your mobile or personal phone, PBX phone, and even through the desktop application. It also contains a variety of other features that are helpful for SMS marketing, such as:
- Utilizes a cloud-based technology
- Has reporting and analytics features
- Create unlimited agent accounts
The Mechanism of Auto Dialers
Before an auto dialer performs its task, you must set up the following pieces:
- Auto dialing software system or platform
- A computer running the software, preferably a desktop
- A voice modem
- An active telephone line
Your chosen auto dialing software is basically the brain of your entire system that facilitates inbound and outbound calling activities. The desktop computer is where all actions take place. Using the voice modem, the computer will be able to play or record audio over your telephone line, which will then be sent into the person you’ve called.
Every modem can only dial one number at a time. The more voice modems you have, the more calls you can make simultaneously, increasing work efficiency. Take note that a desktop computer can accommodate two to four modem cards, and you can generate more calls by integrating a handful of computers.
The auto dialing system will pick the number for the computer to call, and instruct the computer on what to do during three situations: when a person picks up the phone, a voicemail is left, or the line has a busy signal. Before the phone connects into your computer, the software will dictate the caller number and the call duration.
Additionally, many up-to-date auto dialers have voice detection technology, which enables the system to differentiate human voice and answering machines for voicemails.
Here’s how it typically works:
- The auto dialing system dials the number. If multiple rings have passed before someone answers, there’s a higher possibility that an automated voice will answer.
- Upon answering the call, the system will analyze the length of the caller’s first words before pausing. Short answers lasting one to three seconds are more likely a human, while long answers are spoken by a machine.
- Then, the system either plays a pre-recorded message or passes the call to a live operator, which is your team. If your live operators can’t attend at the moment, the software plays another pre-recorded message and puts the caller on hold.
Additionally, auto dialing software solutions have different types and functions associated with auto dialing. Since they have varying functions, there’s one solution that’ll fit your business contact center.
Before immediately choosing a software, it’s important to understand the following types or features of auto dialing and how they benefit your business:
- Preview Dialer: Allows operators to see the caller’s information before or during a call. This is only applicable when making calls from predetermined leads–people who have previously made a purchase, inquiry, call, or any relevant information that can establish context about the call. This also allows the operator to pass the call immediately to a more suitable agent that can address the caller’s issue.
- Predictive Dialer: Compiles and analyzes call history information to make calls even before the operator hangs up on the present caller, reducing intervals between calls. Predictive dialer makes the streamline of calls possible and more reliable.
- Power Dialer: On another end, power dialers only dial the next number when an agent is ready for the next. Power dialers also help find the right agent or department to match the caller. Although they offer some form of efficiency, they’re not as advanced and efficient than predictive dialers.
- Progressive Dialer: Lastly, progressive dialers stand between manual dialing and an advanced approach to predictive dialing. Progressive dialers guarantee a seamless pace of calling, but agents can’t redirect calls and accept them according to their skills and the caller priority.
It’s undoubtedly amazing how these software improves the customer experience of your business. However, providing excellent customer service is only the tip of the iceberg.
Here are six ways on how auto dialers revolutionize your venture:
1. Lessened Agent Idle Time
As mentioned earlier, having a seamlessly working auto dialer relatively reduces the time that your agents work.
Imagine having ten or more agents operating for your telemarketing but no auto dialer. The intervals between ending a previous call and calling the next call is a considerable waste of time on your business operations.
2. Increased Agent Call Time
Since auto dialers lessen agent idle time, it’ll simultaneously increase call time and boost the working efficiency of your operators. Instead of wasting time manually dialing numbers or calling an unresponsive lead, agents can direct their energy in talking to prospective customers.
Thus, auto dialers encourage agent productivity, a boost of morale, and increased customer engagement.
3. Efficient and Organized Customer Database
Since auto dialers are cloud-based systems, they rely on the internet to save, manage, analyze, and present their data. They’re usually integrated with customer relationship management (CRM) as it can contribute to writing and updating customer information without navigating your local files manually.
Moreover, auto dialers assist in managing contact lists, separating them into categories, and generating more leads, all of which contribute to a useful client database.
4. Campaign Multitasking
Working on different campaigns is challenging if you have manual telemarketing. Recent auto dialing systems can power multiple purposes for outbound calling. Despite using a single auto dialing software platform, you can run and manage numerous campaigns within your business without any troubles.
In case these campaigns involve outbound calling from different time zones, your software can efficiently control them automatically and still support its auto dialing features: organizing contact lists, delivering calls to numerous devices, and utilizing CRM integration.
5. Maximized Lead and Sales Conversion
As emphasized, auto dialing solutions save and update customer information on the cloud, which can be viewed anytime, particularly during preview dialing. By providing the client information while the agent is waiting for pick-up, this information helps the agent customize the conversation and provide better assistance.
Consequently, leads or potential customers can get more engaged, with higher possibilities to be turned into regular customers.
6. Real-Time Data Analytics and Reports
Lastly, your auto dialing software doesn’t miss any single call information. It can offer reports, analytics, and insights regarding the overall outbound operations. Using this real-time information, you can formulate the necessary steps to address issues and enhance your strengths.
Moreover, this software lets you view call recordings to observe your agents’ performance and activities, assuring call quality and provide agent training.
Bottom Line
Indeed, having an auto dialer integrated into your business presents limitless possibilities. But before signing up for auto dialer solutions, make sure that you have a full understanding of its system and business applications. By doing so, you’ll be able to pick the best company that can fulfill your telemarketing needs.
