Auto dialers have been proven to be an effective solution to the way call centers around the world conduct business. Auto dialers save a lot of time by cutting down on the redundant manual process of dialing by customer representatives. Aside from saving time and having more efficiency, call centers also use auto dialers as a contact strategy that brings logic to the way these companies conduct their business. It also brings in more calls, higher agent efficiency, better customer service, and ultimately more revenue.
Before auto dialers, agents use manual calling and they end up allotting 10 to 15 minutes of talk time per hour as their time gets wasted on long wait times, redundant tasks such as manual dialing, disposing long calls, busy tones, and unanswered calls. Auto dialers proved to be helpful in boosting the productivity of an agent up to as much as 300%. This happens due to less idle and talk times per hour.
What Is An Auto Dialer?
An auto dialer works by automatically dialing from a list of phone numbers. In addition, some auto dialers have the capability to detect if an actual person answers an outbound call. These dialers can also detect if the calls were disconnected, answered, or if it encounters busy tunes and answering machines. Once a person answers the outbound call, self-service options will be presented in order to save time and effort. Aside from customer service, auto dialers can be helpful in political campaigns and the banking industry.
Other features of auto dialers include the capability to transfer calls between office phone numbers, as well as other departments seamlessly. An agent can use different options available while using the auto dialer. These options can consist of preview dialers, power dialers, and predictive dialers. The option the agent will choose will depend on the precise needs of the company’s telecommunication operations.
With this many benefits both for businesses and the consumer, it is noteworthy to understand the advantages of using an auto dialer. This list will highlight the ways in which auto dialers can help you, as the business owner in terms of getting connected to your customers.
How Auto Dialers Connect You To Your Customers
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Maximized Customer Connection
Telecommunications companies must increase their revenue through their business and one way to improve income is to reduce the cost of proactive dialing. By reducing the amount of manual proactive dialing, there will be an increase in productivity and more customers will be served in a certain amount of time. There will be an optimized customer connection and a higher customer satisfaction.
The smarter the algorithm of the auto dialer, the higher the number of customers it can connect to and, in turn, there will be a higher number of sales. Auto dialing ensures that the agents of a company can reach more customers from the prospective list without wasting too much time on trivial matters such as manual dialing.
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Increased Agent Productivity For Customer Service
The predictive dialer of auto dial machines ensures that the agent will be talking to a prospective customer instead of manually dialing numbers from an infinite number list in the database. With this, the agent will have more talk time with customers, thereby increasing the chance of having more sales for the company. In addition, this also makes the customer talk to an agent without the robotic tone of the dialing machine.
With an increase in the productivity of the agents in terms of talk time also comes minimized idle times and improved call connect ratios. The smart algorithms of auto dialers cause an increase in the talk time from 15 to 20 minutes to around 40 to 50 minutes per hour.
Using a progressive dialer, business can customize the wait time in between the calls for the agents and provide them with necessary information before connecting them to the customers. This ensures that agents will not waste time getting information that should be available firsthand. It can lead to better customer engagement and higher morale for the agents.
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Improved Operational Efficiency
When a company uses auto dialing, it means that there would be no manual dialing anymore. Using an auto dialer removes the unnecessary process in a business operation such as long wait times, manual dialing, misdialing, and dropped calls.
With an auto dialer, the algorithm makes sure that only connected calls will be routed to the agent. In addition, the algorithm also detects if the connected call encountered a voicemail, a busy line, or a disconnected call. As mentioned, this increases the call connect ratio.
When the agent notices that the call is routed to a disconnected or busy line, he or she can leave a voicemail and proceed to the next customer. In this way, no customer will be waiting on the line, thus boosting productivity for both the agent and the customer. Also, outbound calling options provide the callers with self-service options.
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Reduction In Idle Time
In manual dialing, agents tend to have more idle time as they wait for the next customer to be assisted. They’ll have to wait until the call gets connected and in a worst-case scenario, the call will be routed to a busy tone or a dropped call. Agents also waste time by being routed to voicemails and answering machines, which is counterproductive.
With an auto dialer, the system is enabled to recognize these events and it will skip the call if any of the above is encountered. Predictive auto dialers are effective in minimizing these idle times as it ensures only connected calls will be given to the agent. Also, predictive dialers can check which agent is available and routes the succeeding call to that agent.
This can help save time for both the agent and the customers since they can both have more talk time. The agents can also get more calls per hour if predictive auto dialers are in use. As the time to interact with the customers increases, so does the chance of getting a sale without wasting too much time and effort.
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Improved Lead Conversion Ratio
Using an auto dialer brings agility to the outbound processes, which eventually encourages higher leads for complex inside sales processes. Preview dialers provide a quick glance at the contact details of the customers before dialing them, which helps agents prepare for the call before being connected. With this prior information, the agent can personalize his or her approach based on the customer, which can drive more sales and higher customer satisfaction. It helps engage the prospect customer for better chances of lead conversion.
Managers of the business can also import several contact numbers into the system, which can increase the efficiency of auto dialers in generating more promising leads. Auto dialers also have the capability to have its functionality set depending on the customer’s time zone and age range. This way, the agent will know how to talk to the customer more effectively.
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Optimized Real-Time Monitoring
Some auto dialers have their settings customized to give real-time report of the metrics and other key performance indicators of the company. These auto dialers can provide insights into the reports and the dashboard to actively monitor the company’s performance in serving the customers. These real-time reports are helpful as they provide some factors in the manager’s decision-making ability. It also gives the agents an insight into the things they might want to improve on, such as their call productivity, wait times, talk times, and the number of their sales.
Auto dialer software also give quick access to call recordings that help managers monitor agents’ performance and ensure call quality levels. Key call center metrics can be easily tracked and measured at specific intervals to achieve higher operational efficiency. Through both live and recorded calls, call quality levels and agent skills can be evaluated. This makes it easy for managers to come up with the right decisions at the right time, as well as streamline their call center operations.
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Custom Messaging For Customers
The company can also benefit from auto dialers by providing customized voicemail messages. With this, agents can send the automatic voicemails directly to the customers just in case the call dropped, or if it is an outbound call. This can reduce the amount of time the agent spends on the call by removing the time it takes to record a message and dialing a number pin.
In addition, the agent can also send a personalized message through text-to-speech or email if the voicemail is either unavailable or full. This process can cut down the call time by almost one third and it also lessens the time needed by the agent to wait for someone to answer the phone.
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Launching Of Press 1 Campaigns
Sometimes, customers will be provided with self-service options before talking to an agent. Through these options, customers can acquire information about products or services offered by the business, or they could have their concerns solved right away without waiting in line. Further, these self-service options help in generating more leads for the business as they allow more customers to be served by a live agent after being presented with the pertinent self-service options.
The self-service option will be available once the customer calls the company. It could start with the Press 1 Campaign to promote products or services that the company offers. As mentioned, it could generate more leads as the customer who will be talking to a live agent has a higher success of being a sale. It should be noted that not only Press 1 Campaigns are available, but businesses can also provide other self-service options for customers.
- Better Separation Of Unproductive Numbers
Some numbers are enrolled in a Do Not Contact (DNC) list. Others have an option for Do Not Disturb (DND). With their sophisticated technology, auto dialers will be able to detect which numbers are considered unproductive, such as those belonging to DND and DNC lists, as well as fax lines. Furthermore, in determining whether a call will be productive, a business can choose to integrate cloud-based auto dialers with their customer relationship management (CRM) system.
Updated customer data will allow the software to detect and filter unproductive numbers. This filtering feature thus minimizes the time and effort wasted on calling these these unproductive numbers.
- Management Of Multiple Marketing Campaign Strategies
By using auto-dialing solutions, a business can effectively conduct market research as well as political campaigns for surveys and banking industries. Polls for the political sector are now possible as an auto dialer will be able to handle large amounts of customer database for banks and businesses. Moreover, auto dialers that come with high-end features are equipped to help businesses run and monitor multiple marketing campaigns.
By viewing the most recent campaign reports, managers won’t have to unnecessarily waste time and effort as they can easily assess the services and marketing campaigns that have been launched based on a specific criteria, goals or objectives. Aside from saving time, this can also provide customers with real-time updates.
Bottom Line
Not all call centers are the same and the use of auto dialers must fit the goals and missions of the business. Individual enterprises can take advantage of auto dialers to pick the right automated dialing solutions. The auto dialer must be very specific for the company so it can maximize all the benefits mentioned in this article.
Auto dialers have been used by companies worldwide to improve their processes and metrics such as lead conversion, talk and idle times, number of sales, and agent productivity. With the right auto dialer, the company can make sure that each customer is satisfied with the processes, which then builds loyalty and gains higher revenue for the company.
It can’t be denied that the benefits of auto dialers in connecting with customers is enormous. A proactive dialer can help the company refine their processes, define problems, and automate the best possible solution for the issues encountered by the company. It can help companies build better strategies equipped to serve the customers with efficiency.
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