How does a dialer work?

The following is for you if you run, or are about to start, a call centre, telemarketing business, appointment-booking department or an in-house department with a similar function. We want to explain how to think about dialers, sales support systems and dialling functionality.
We also cover tools for telesales and pure B2B sales organisations. We focus on inside sales departments and contact-intensive businesses.

Below you can read about the tools and systems that are useful for helping your staff and company reach optimal efficiency in pick-ups (lifts), completed calls and orders. On this site we’ve focused a lot on features and definitions that can make it easier for you, as an operations or project manager, to navigate the jungle of systems, features and solutions.

The most important thing is to start from your own needs. What does your business need? Below are some questions to ask yourself, but first: what do we mean by telemarketing?

According to Wikipedia, telephone sales or telemarketing is defined as:

“the sales method of selling a product or service by telephone to a targeted or randomly selected private individual or company”

However, telemarketing doesn’t have to involve sales by definition. It may just as well be about appointment booking, prospecting, follow-up, after-sales work, surveys and interviews.

How does a dialer work?
Put simply, a dialer is a system for calling a customer in a more or less automated way. In other words, the person calling the customer doesn’t have to dial the number on their phone.

CLICK 2 DIAL – PREVIEW DIALER

A click 2 call, or click dialer (also called a preview dialer), is simply what it sounds like: a system that lets the agent (sales rep or booker) bring up a customer card and click the phone number directly to have the computer dial it. Usually there’s only one phone number on the system’s customer card, but many systems also allow click 2 call on a mobile number or an “alternative number” on the contact or customer card.
Some systems also sync with various online address sources so that, for example, a mobile number is pulled in automatically from the source at the time of contact (if, say, the customer doesn’t answer their regular phone number).

Click 2 call is very effective for B2B work or for appointment booking in areas such as financial advice, where the selection of contacts is limited and the agent needs to be well prepared for the call. Click-and-dial technology also minimises the number of dropped calls. Because the system always calls one to one, the dialer can never drop a customer, so customer irritation is kept to a minimum.

AUTO DIAL – A TYPE OF PROGRESSIVE DIALER

An auto dialer (in some contexts also called a progressive dialer) is in many ways similar to the simpler click 2 call variant, except that the agent doesn’t have to click. The system dials without the agent’s involvement. When it comes to ending the call, though, different systems work differently. Commonly the agent still ends the call, for example when they notice the customer isn’t answering. The advantage over click 2 dial is that you remove the small sales obstacle of the agent deciding when the call starts. With an auto dialer, the agent has no choice: when the customer card appears on screen, the dialer has already started calling the customer. The auto dial system still has the advantage that no calls are dropped. The system dials one to one – one line, one customer at a time.
This type of dialling is preferable for B2B work and some B2C work.
Both auto dialer and click 2 dial technology usually include some kind of recording (often started by the agent), for example to save order calls (acceptance calls). Of course, there are good solutions on the market that let the systems start and save audio recordings automatically too.

POWER DIALER – A TYPE OF PROGRESSIVE DIALER

The power dialer technique is simple. The agent never needs to request a call or click to dial. The system normally lets the phone ring for 20–25 seconds (sometimes longer) and then immediately brings up a new customer for the agent if the customer doesn’t answer.
Systems do differ, however, in how many lines are used per agent. The normal setting is still one line per agent. But the agent doesn’t need to click anything until they have a customer on the line. Only then does the agent need to click something.
There are also systems that call on several lines at once, but by US standards these are normally called predictive dialers.
Power dialer systems are usually somewhat more advanced than click 2 call and auto dialers, thanks to more advanced dialling and automation.
Both power dialers and predictive dialers are usually equipped with some form of automatic recording of all calls and some kind of listen-in tool.

PREDICTIVE DIALER

A predictive dialer – or PD, as many in the industry call it – is the most efficient form of dialer technology, or to put it another way: the most bulk-oriented form of telemarketing.
Systems with a good predictive dialer give their users calls almost constantly. Here the system calls customers pre-emptively (before any agents are even free) so that a customer can be connected to an agent as soon as the agent becomes available. Waiting time should be minimal for an agent waiting for a call.
If there are plenty of numbers loaded into a predictive dialer, few other calling methods can match it for efficiency. Agents are almost always on calls and waiting time is minimised.
In good systems, the dialer can sense answer rates right down to customer card level and so produce an exact calling pattern throughout the day – depending on list, project, agent and customer.
Many of the slightly better systems also let administrators choose whether to control things themselves or let the system set auto-dial values for the best results (e.g. the maximum percentage of dropped calls).
At the same time, the somewhat more sophisticated solutions also handle dropped calls well, and re-call numbers when the data starts running out – “resetting” a list for re-calling, in other words reactivating the numbers.
Something important with a predictive dialer is that the system has plenty of phone lines to work with. In IP telephony (see the IP telephony section) this is often called a trunk (SIP trunk). A ratio of 3:1 – 3 lines per agent – is preferable, or often 4:1 or 5:1 to be able to work lists with a low probability of answer, in other words: old lists.
The system should also be able to call really old numbers, and an administrator should be able to “reset” lists for re-calling (so-called list reactivation). Getting the most out of your call data without “calling it to death” is important for the call centre to be efficient, win good assignments and earn well per hour (achieve a good CPO).
Other features for working through your contact selection efficiently include the system being able to “randomise” when the next number is called again, or alternatively “knowing” when it’s effective to call the number again (same “shift”). Being able to “show different numbers” to the end customer is also a good feature for getting a high answer rate on your contact selection.
A predictive dialer’s calling algorithm is by far the most important factor in the efficiency of the dialling pattern. The algorithm is usually the supplier’s secret recipe.

Not many systems have it, but some also offer the ability to filter out answering machines effectively. Broadly speaking, there are three ways.

1) You let the dialer “listen” to whether it’s a human voice or a digital recording, and it doesn’t “let the call through” until it knows for certain. This method does, however, clip the start of the call slightly, and an inexperienced agent may get confused. Nor is the customer entirely happy, since at first they hear silence instead of a sales rep.

2) Some dialers can use special algorithms to filter out answering machines before they even reach the agent. This means significantly shorter waiting times for agents and much smoother handling for them. Sales reps avoid irritation and stress and can focus on their calls. With sufficiently sophisticated algorithms, the dialer can even detect that a customer who previously had an answering machine no longer does, and simply put the call through as normal.

3) As with method 2, some dialers can measure the ringing time before the answering machine kicks in, and so hang up the call attempt before the machine answers. This also makes things much easier for agents and improves efficiency. This is something unique to Callmaker.

Here we list some important points and checks to consider when you’re starting a call centre.

THE CLIENT

– Make sure you find one or more really good clients. For example, mixing business sales (so-called B2B sales) with consumer sales (so-called B2C sales). Many calculate how much revenue (after cancellations and credits) an assignment can generate per hour per seat.
It’s a good KPI because the number of seats can vary, as can the number of hours, of course.
Set up a proper spreadsheet and do the maths. And forget the wishful thinking. It’s always a bit harder to find and keep staff, and it usually takes a bit longer to reach the “average sales” the client mentioned.
Make three different scenarios: a worst case, a likely case and a best case.

Don’t forget to get it in writing from the client how many contacts, and what type of contacts, you’ve been promised and over what period.
Also make sure you agree on how the script should look, or be developed during the assignment, to minimise problems with customers, the media or cancellations.

Also agree with the client on how you handle cancellations and withdrawals. Some dialer and sales support systems can handle customers who withdraw directly in the system, and some can even handle withdrawals arriving in a file from the client.

Using a dialer that records all calls is rarely a bad idea. Loxysoft and Callmaker, for example, are two dialer suppliers that offer this.

FINDING PREMISES

Can be harder than you think. One trap is trying to find premises that are too central. A central location is good, but it’s usually more important to have good transport links nearby (bus, train, tram, underground, etc.). So make sure the premises are easy to reach by public transport.
Very cheap premises out on an industrial estate often struggle to attract young people without a car. A too-central address, on the other hand, can be a drawback because of high fixed monthly costs.
There are fresh, newly renovated premises even outside the most central part of town.
Apart from location (which is perhaps the most important thing about the premises), there are a few more incredibly important points not to forget.
The premises should be well planned. It’s not just about revenue per seat per hour, but also how many seats you can fit in: seats per square metre and revenue per square metre. In a call centre, efficient premises are usually open-plan.

INTERNET CONNECTION

Without an internet connection, much of your production falls over. You usually need IP telephony – a system that requires an internet connection – plus email and all other internet use.
Simply make sure there’s fibre into the premises. If not, ask the landlord how it can be solved and how long it will take. Don’t sign anything until this has been sorted out.
Small things that aren’t always a given include whether the landlord has promised to do anything about the interior (e.g. kitchen, toilets, wall surfaces). Waste management, electricity, heating, etc. should also be checked before you decide.

TELEPHONY & INTERNET

There’s a lot to think about when starting a call centre. The to-do list is long: you need clients, premises, contacts, systems, telephony, internet, employees and site managers.
In this section we focus on telephony and the internet.
What do you need? What’s the minimum?
A rule of thumb for power and predictive dialer solutions is 0.2 Mbit per agent. So with 20 agents at once you can manage on 4/4 – but then you have very little margin left for email and other internet functions and needs. A 10/10 line, on the other hand, gives you both margin and room to expand your 20 agents to at least 50 without running into internet problems.
Above all, what matters is having the same speed up as down. So a 100 line is only any good if it’s 100 Mbit BOTH up and down. A 24/1 line is next to worthless if there are more than 3 of you.
But speed isn’t everything. It’s also important to have a dedicated line and not share it with 20 other companies. That can be devastating, since the whole operation relies on the call centre’s internet connection.
Response times are just as important. Here, wireless options (3G and 4G) are usually worse. A really good fibre line has fast response times, down to around 10 ms. Wireless options are also risky because several companies can be on the same mast, creating very uneven loads.
A further drawback of wireless is the asymmetric speed (e.g. 24 Mbit down but only 1 Mbit up)

When it comes to telephony, it’s about choosing quality over quantity. The cheapest option isn’t always the best. A cheap operator, for example, can’t invest as much in its hardware and data centres, and this shows in the number of outages and telephony downtime. But an expensive operator isn’t always a good one either.
Rather choose a smaller provider that sees you as an important customer than the big players who neither see nor hear you – or even understand your needs. For power and predictive dialers you usually need a SIP trunk, unless your dialer supplier provides one. A SIP trunk sounds like a big black box, but it’s actually just a “bundle of phone numbers” to call with. With 20 agents, for example, 60 “lines” in the SIP trunk might be about right.

If you’re going to dial with auto or click 2 dial – progressive, power or preview – simple (separate) SIP accounts may well be enough, and they’re both simpler and cheaper. You don’t need a trunk; you can call with one account per agent. So 20 agents means 20 separate SIP accounts.

So what is a dialer?

What is a dialer, technically speaking?
As we’ve already touched on, there are several technical variants of a dialer. When calling B2B, the dialer method we discussed earlier matters less: B2B marketing is all about the relationship. Of course a certain level of efficiency must be achieved. It mustn’t take several minutes to register an outcome, there have to be ready-made processes so the dialer can handle every call and every customer card efficiently, and of course the dialer has to detect no answer, busy and so on automatically. But you don’t have to get down to 5 seconds’ waiting time between calls. That, on the other hand, is what you do have to achieve in B2C marketing.
A dialer has many processes going on at the same time, and when it comes to predictive dialers there are a couple of key factors to take into account. A dialer has to work on many levels at once. A dialer never rests – in fact, even when it’s resting, it’s working. The first thing to consider with a predictive dialer is how many agents the dialer has to supply with calls. The more agents, the easier it is for the dialer to keep a steady, good pace (provided the list data isn’t limited, or at least that there’s plenty of “fresh” call data (lists) for the dialer to work with). A dialer can certainly work with old lists – not all dialers, but many – and simply “increase the aggressiveness” if the list data is poor. But even if you have a “premium dialer” like that, which can cope with worn-out, called-through lists, you need to mix in new, fresh data to quickly supply the agents (callers) with customer cards that have answered. A dialer that works by calculating the probability of an answer per call attempt, per list, per number and per region is preferable here. Callmaker is of course that kind of dialer, but not all dialers work according to this somewhat more sophisticated principle.

If your call centre is short of list data but still wants quick answers, there are a few things you can tweak to get at least part of the way. You can a) allow several attempts to be made relatively soon after each other (to prevent an unanswered number from staying in “quarantine” for too long), b) set many call attempts – simply to try each customer many times – and finally c) have many, really really many caller IDs (numbers shown to the customer). Caller IDs have increasingly become a necessary evil that has to be changed frequently. If you have a premium dialer like Callmaker, we recommend around 10 active caller IDs per project for the dialer to rotate between at random. Caller IDs are like the bait on a fishing rod: use old, poor caller IDs and the fish won’t bite.

More about predictive dialers.
The agents, the call data, the waiting time, the number of call attempts, the quarantine times, the caller IDs. There are many factors to take into account when setting up a dialer. Perhaps TOO many for some people who are just about to start a call centre and don’t really know what works best.
So here are some tips and “ready-made” settings for running a dialer in B2C telemarketing.

Put the dialer in predictive mode.

If possible, have at least 5 agents/callers on each project.
Have plenty of data – the call data is everything.

Let the dialer clean the data both against internal block lists in the dialer and against previously called lists in that specific dialer project.

Clean against NIX (the Swedish do-not-call register) beforehand and buy lists from a good list supplier. Good lists cost more, but you’ll get that back many times over early in the project.

Set the dialer to many call attempts, or at least as many as the client allows. The more attempts you’re allowed, the more thoroughly your data gets worked.

The point above doesn’t work unless you have many caller IDs per project. We’ve talked about this before, but caller IDs are the number the dialer shows to the customer when they’re about to answer. In Callmaker’s excellent dialer, each project/campaign can contain multiple caller IDs (in theory any number, in practice perhaps 30). Because the dialer randomises the outgoing number, many call attempts also become less of a problem – or put differently: the probability of an answer per attempt doesn’t fall quite as quickly as it would with just 1 caller ID on the campaign/project. But the probability does fall. Of all the factors affecting the likelihood of an answer, the number of call attempts made to the customer matters most.

A dialer needs to be fed plenty of numbers, as we’ve already discussed. Callmaker’s dialer also has the neat feature of “spreading out” the numbers over a longer period, which makes the lists last longer.

In a dialer you can also set something called “quarantine time”. This is how long you have to wait before making another attempt on the number. Trying again after just 10 minutes is perhaps a bit unnecessary – but 2 weeks also makes the number uncallable for a little too long, and you need a great deal of list data to call that “rarely”. It’s also unclear whether letting a dialer call that rarely is even beneficial from an answer-probability perspective. We don’t have exact data on the best quarantine time, but if you have enough call data, 2–4 days shouldn’t be unfavourable for the dialer from an answer-probability perspective.

Global callbacks. Letting agents/callers set global callbacks doesn’t always benefit the calling pattern and pace of a project. A global callback has a set time, and the dialer will try to call that number 1 on 1. That “slows down” the pace of the organisation. In some cases it’s desirable, and even good, to do so, but in the Callmaker Dialer you can at least “shift-click” on global callbacks so the dialer picks a suitable time at random instead of setting an exact time – or, even more efficiently, remove the global callback and set NA (no answer) instead. The number/customer is then called next time via the Pacer instead of 1 on 1. Two ways to speed up the organisation.

Personal callbacks. It’s hard to imagine – but the most efficient way to call, if you ignore the fact that the sales reps, the customer and surely the coach as well WANT the option to set a customer card to a personal callback, is to remove the option of setting a personal callback. As mentioned, a dialer works best with as few 1-on-1 calls as possible, and personal callbacks are the very definition of 1 on 1. You need to have the customer card in front of you, you need to be able to read the log, click “call” when you’re ready, and so on.
Drop target. In the Callmaker Dialer you set a drop target. In theory the dialer could work the other way round – based on how long you as an organisation can live with waiting for an answer – but we’ve chosen a drop target. The admin sets a target for the dialer to keep to, say 4% (this means the dialer calls as aggressively as it can without the number of dropped calls exceeding 4 per 100 attempts). A dropped call, as we know, is when a customer answers and no agent is free: the dialer has called “too aggressively” – but really no more aggressively than you’ve set it to. You decide what target to set. We have customers running at 0.7%, 0.1% or 7% drops. But it quickly becomes counterproductive if you have TOO many drops. A dropped call becomes a global callback that has to be called 1 on 1 (under the market rules applying to dialers) 15 minutes after the dropped call. Unfortunately, these 1-on-1 calls 15 minutes later usually result in an NA (since the customer isn’t always thrilled about the earlier dropped call). This means the “sales floor goes quiet” for longer than necessary. Put simply, high drop targets aren’t always a great idea.

Last but not least: synchronise the calling in a dialer. Let everyone start at the same time and take breaks at the same time. Don’t let people drift off doing lots of different things here and there; keep all the sales reps focused. That’s when you get the best results from the dialer.

As early as the 1960s, telephone sales began to develop and become established, above all in the US but also, gradually, in Sweden. Book clubs were early adopters, calling their existing customers and also contacting potential new ones.
In fact, every company has some kind of customer management for its existing and new customers, as the telephone became a natural tool in companies’ customer work.
Companies calling private individuals to sell to them didn’t really become common until the 1990s, as the technology was refined, and the 2000s, when telecoms companies, energy companies and PPM (pension fund) companies began to use the telephone extensively as their primary customer acquisition tool.
Today it’s taken for granted that you contact your customers, existing or potential, via every available medium. That might be email, letters (traditional direct marketing), social media, mobile, face-to-face sales reps in shopping centres, in store or by phone. Reaching customers by phone is still considered a cost-effective way to get communication that is direct and personal, with the opportunity to close a deal.
Few other communication channels deliver that response as cost-effectively.

During the 1980s and 1990s, when digitalisation seriously made its way into sales organisations too, the equipment was costly, large and clunky. Investments of five million kronor were not unusual, and only the big companies had enough capital to invest in efficient systems.
Well into the 1990s and even the early 2000s, the industry was still struggling with heavy investment needs in switchboards, servers and telephony.

Then something happened.

IP telephony and the internet arrived. Admittedly, the internet had existed by definition since the late 1960s, when ARPANET was created to link universities in the US, and during the 1990s the general public also began to find their way online. But it wasn’t until companies could start making money from goods and services built around the internet that what was on offer came to reflect its potential. Today there are services such as Blocket, Spotify, Amazon, Google and Facebook, all of them profitable for the companies behind them and useful for ordinary people.
In the 2010s, IP telephony has exploded: calls have become cheaper, the technology more accessible, and call centre companies have been able to sharpen their tools.
A call centre system today doesn’t need to be advanced (although there are exceptions), and this accessibility has revolutionised the market for customer service and telemarketing.

SALES SUPPORT

Whether or not your sales or booking organisation needs a dialer, digital sales support is practically a must today. Pen and paper may work for a limited time, budget and size, but over time the analogue telephone with its analogue writing aids just isn’t efficient. Today there are ever higher demands to meet the customer’s high expectations of service and professionalism, and not knowing what was said before, when you last contacted the customer or exactly when you were supposed to get back to them is not looked on kindly. Today’s customers simply expect more than that.
And whether your organisation sells B2B or B2C, office supplies, consumables or phone subscriptions, insurance or services, electricity contracts or pension fund management, broadband or financial services, your sales reps and bookers need a good tool. One feature a sales support system must have for B2B sales reps is the ability to make repeat sales to existing customers. Here there’s a clear line between B2B and B2C sales reps, as the latter don’t always need this kind of functionality.
The definition of a “good tool” of course includes a whole range of features, modules and possibilities. What is a good tool for you in particular?
If your sales department targets businesses, the importance of an accurate picture of the customer can’t be overstated. The sales rep must have the right information about the customer, the right product picture when the order is placed, and be able to give the customer the right price.
Some B2B organisations also need automatic order confirmations in their sales support, plus SMS, templates, email, document management and a quote generator. What’s often forgotten, though, is that the focus should always be on the moment of contact and on the customer – not on features that get in the way of the contact. Email is good, but it doesn’t sell for you. Documents are good, but they take time away from the sales rep. Templates are good, but they don’t close deals. Sales support has to be a tool that generates more contacts and more deals, not more admin and less selling time.

Various fundraising organisations and companies can also benefit from, for example, features that make it easier to work with returning supporters, since members often give a small amount monthly that can then be increased over time.

With that said, when choosing sales support it’s also important to consider your own organisation’s unique needs. Every sales organisation has KPIs and processes that make it unique. Identify them, make the most of them, and use your sales support to bring out the values that drive your particular organisation. What’s unique about your company, products, services and processes should be helped by your system, not held back.

TELEMARKETING SYSTEMS

In this section, we call the type of sales support aimed at telemarketing departments and call centres a telemarketing system. It’s simply the type of sales support that really contact-intensive companies and departments need.
The sales support is somewhat simplified. There are fewer search options and each sales rep or booker has limited choices. The only focus is on the number of contacts and deals.
The typical company with a telemarketing system is some kind of B2C organisation doing sales, appointment booking or fundraising. Unlike the somewhat less contact-intensive B2B department, the KPIs for a B2C department are usually more quantitative. Sales are also more immediate and depend on a high pace every hour. It’s often the coach’s or site manager’s job to make sure the sales floor is “buzzing” and “humming” with activity and calls.
The metric is often orders rather than order value, with every sale counting as “a mark on the board”. A kind of sporting mentality quickly sets in and every minute counts. For an organisation like this, it’s of course important that the system is easy to navigate and doesn’t demand a high level of IT skills from either the agents or the administrator.

CRM SYSTEMS

CRM stands for customer relationship management – in other words, managing your relationships with customers. A system for managing your customers.
The market today, in Sweden or globally for that matter, is extremely fragmented. The systems do have some standards for syncing and handling information in databases, but users’ needs are still so varied that it pays for niche players to enter the market with more specialised tools.
Until the new generations born in the 1980s and 1990s – and perhaps above all the 2000s – have fully taken charge of how CRM systems are used, the needs and design of these systems will remain divided.

Most dialer systems today, like the Callmaker Cloud Dialer, focus on call efficiency. Not every developer has come as far, or managed to cut waiting time as much, as the premium suppliers, but on the whole the focus is the same: the shortest possible waiting time with the fewest possible drops (and by a dropped call we mean, as mentioned earlier, that the dialer has called “too many” customers and finds no free agents for the customers who answer). A good, intelligent and efficient dialer “knows” whether a customer it calls has a high or low probability of answering before the customer is even contacted. This is, at any rate, one of the secrets behind Callmaker’s great success as an efficient dialer: it calculates – down to the smallest unit (the customer) – the probability that THAT PARTICULAR customer will answer. Is it 50%, 33% or 7%? With that knowledge, if the algorithm is correct, it’s easy for a dialer (usually a pacer in the dialer – the part that sets the pace) to call EXACTLY as many numbers as it needs to get answers. No more, no fewer.
This is the big secret behind the success the Callmaker Cloud Dialer has enjoyed in Sweden, and now in Europe too: the dialer doesn’t have to guess how aggressive to be. The dialer knows, because it has learned. The Callmaker Cloud Dialer is a dialer that learns. It learns your project, learns how your agents behave, learns your geographical calling patterns and learns which call attempts pay off and which are harder.

With a streamlined calling pattern – a dialer that knows exactly how many people to contact – drops are minimised and talk time per agent per day is maximised. The agent is almost never stuck in a waiting loop and is nearly always on a call.
Besides this built-in intelligence, a good dialer should also be able to filter out answering machines. Today many customers keep their mobile on silent or choose not to answer at all – at least not right then. The call goes to voicemail. The ordinary dialer systems on the market today can’t tell the difference between a switched-off mobile with voicemail and a customer actually answering. But some can, and the Callmaker Cloud Dialer is one of them. If the dialer can filter out 75–95% of all answering machines, that makes an enormous difference to an organisation’s efficiency. Talk time goes up by several hundred per cent. The number of orders increases. The whole project takes off.

Efficiency, talk time and minimising waiting time have been the focus of dialer companies for several years. But the next revolution is just around the corner. Of those who answer, how do we get more of them to say “yes please”? It’s the puzzle every sales manager has wrestled with since selling was invented, and still wrestles with every day.

Historically, this question has been left to the call centre itself. The sales rep, the project manager and the boss have had ultimate responsibility for making sure the sales bell keeps ringing, that the hit rate stays up, and that the customers who are actually at home and answer also accept the offer.
Over the years the lists have come into focus; these days you don’t just make cold calls. There are leads, former customers and warm-ish customers. Some companies even swap lists with each other to maximise the outcome.

We believe the industry’s next step will be the dialer helping your hit rate. Premium suppliers such as the Callmaker Cloud Dialer can already show hit-rate statistics by list, project, sales rep, call attempt, time of day and shift. Many dialers already let a coach see quickly and easily who needs a “break” and help to raise their hit rate, and which sales reps should strike while the iron is hot. There are already targets and coaching features that raise your hit rate in the moment. And while all these features are good for the call centre and for every employee, they only show how things are – or how they could be if you did this or that. They can present historical facts as a sound basis for decisions in a simple way. When should I call? How should I call? Who should call when in the day, on which project? But it’s still only passively presented data.

The next step is just around the corner: the step towards sales prediction. What if the dialer could help with your hit rate in real time – improving your close rate WHILE YOU’RE ON THE CALL?
Imagine a scenario where the dialer knows that Lisa sells better to Karl-Johan, 58, in Örebro, and that sales rep Frank sells better to Gunilla, 45, in Västerås. Imagine the dialer knowing in advance which sales reps to match with which customers. Imagine the dialer knowing WHEN it’s time to bring in the closing pitch, and helping you with it in real time – and with your pace and tone of voice too. We at CM Software are convinced that the next big revolution in call centre software for outbound calling will be about hit rate. We have now built one of the most efficient systems there is for calling out to customers; you’ll hardly find a shorter waiting time than with the Callmaker Cloud Dialer. But we’ve already started the journey towards the next goal: for 100% of the people you call to say yes.

For the user – the caller – what usually matters most is a short waiting time between calls. That is, if the sales rep WANTS to sell and wants to earn money. If the caller/agent is tired of their job and mostly just sitting out the time, the effect is the opposite: a dialer that’s too fast burns through numbers and the company ends up losing money on that sales rep.
Balance is what matters. We at CM Software AB almost always recommend having several projects: a learning project and a pro project for the skilled. The dialer becomes the caller’s main tool, but it also becomes something the agent doesn’t think about. Does the cleaner think about their vacuum cleaner? No, it just has to work. It’s only when the dialer doesn’t work that the caller starts thinking about it. That’s why it’s extremely important that the dialer works well and has minimal downtime.
Beyond that, a dialer with lots of built-in gamification features is preferable. Calling and selling is a monotonous job, so it’s vital that both the system and the admin have ways to motivate the caller. If you can extend someone’s staying power by even a few weeks, a lot is gained – and the dialer can help the admin with this.

Most important of all is choosing a supplier you can grow with and that is future-proof.