All about progressive auto dialer
A progressive dialer is an auto dialer that connects calls to a live person. That is, the call is only dialed when both the agent and the receiver on the other line are available and ready to talk. Progressive dialing allows the system to go through the contact list and makes a call that will definitely go through without any delay. The phone system also disregards numbers that are busy, numbers that go to the answering machine, and numbers that are disconnected. This reduces the amount of time agents in a progressive dialer contact center use as manual dialing is no longer necessary. The agents can then use this time to increase their efficiency and hence lead to workforce optimization.
How does the progressive dialer software work?
First, the system optimizes depending on the call agent performance and call abandonment rates. The call center agent is then only connected to an actual person on the other line. After the call is done, the next number is dialed automatically, thereby progressively optimizing for call agent availability. The call is then connected, and the agent and customer begin the interaction. This automation process continues as the system keeps dialing when someone is available.
The benefits of progressive dialing
The importance of a progressive dialer in the call center business
A progressive dialer has many benefits to any business phone system. Here are the advantages of progressive dialing:
The agent is always assured of making a connection
All the calls dialed using progressive dialer are always connected to a live person. There are no dead ends like disconnected numbers, busy signals, or the calls going to an answering machine.
Progressive dialing increases efficiency
Contact centers that use a progressive dialer waste little amount of time with manual dialing and instead talk more to the live prospects. This generates more sales and, eventually, better revenue gains.
Progressive dialers improve the call agent experience
Progressive automated dialers give contact center agents the right tools, information, and guidance needed for every moment.
Progressive dialing allows you to tailor your campaigns
Most progressive dialers have data integration and rule-setting features for determining who you are calling when you are calling, and how often you call.
Progressive dialers help to identify any issues easily
Most progressive dialers allow you to easily see the live reporting dashboards. Analyzing this can help determine any issue and help gauge agent success.
Progressive dialing improve quality management
This is made possible with feedback loops from call recordings that are readily available.
Features of progressive dialers to look for
Progress dialers work well with any business size, large, small, and midsized businesses. Regardless of the business size, there are features and capabilities you will want in your progressive dialer. These include:
- Call monitoring
- Call recording
- Call analytics
- Interactive voice response IVR
- Call center management
- Inbound contact center for inbound calls
- CRM integration
- Power dialer
- Supports multichannel contact center with unified communications
A progressive dialer should also have a safe office that ensures all regulations are following. The dialer should have safe dial and all its features.
How progressive dialers help sales teams?
Most business transactions today are made over the phone, be it a cloud phone or other phones. This means that the sales agent must utilize their time well by keeping the phone calls rolling.
Agents manually dialing each call and waiting for them to connect to the other line and going through the entire call list to repeat the same process is very ineffective and tedious.
The progressive dialing software will maintain a high level of output and efficiency at each stage. Agents will not manually dial each number, and no time will be wasted in dead-end numbers. Simply put, the automated system is good for everyone; the business, the sales team, and the clients.
Predictive dialers vs progressive dialers: what are the differences and similarities
Comparing progressive dialers and predictive dialers
Any contact center solution that longs for increased agent efficiency and productivity have to adopt an automatic dialing phone system. These auto dialers include the preview progressive and predictive auto dialers.
With all these automated dialing options, businesses often wonder which to pick between predictive and progressive dialers for contact centers. Progressive and predictive outbound dialers are similar in such a way that they both go through the contact list to find a live person before letting the automatic call distribution ACD technology connect the call to the agent. This is very helpful to the contact center staff as they will avoid dialing disconnected numbers, busy lines, or answering machines.
The role of the progressive dialer is to find the perfect balance between agent availability and automatically dialing phone numbers. This is different from the main goal of a predictive dialer, which is to quickly reach to as many customers as possible.
Automatically calling numbers is okay, but when there is no free agent to attend to the call, then that can lead to dropped or abandoned calls. This is the problem with predictive dialers. For better call management, progressive dialers will stop the automatic dialing when there is no agent available to attend to the call. The dialing will then resume when an agent is available.
Which dialer should you use for your call center solution, progressive or predictive?
Predictive dialers are always looking for a live person to answer a call. It has a call routing system. This system automatically connects the next call to an available agent when a live person is reached. This makes predictive dialing a great solution for large outbound contact center solutions with proactive calling campaigns for market research, sales, debt collection, and telemarketing that connects agents to clients.
Small and midsize businesses usually have fewer agents, and using a predictive dialer would not make sense. In this case, progressive dialers are used so that connected agents can dial to live people available for the call.
Progressive dialers start dialing the phone immediately when an agent becomes available and thus ensures that every outbound call has a connected agent available for customer engagement.
This auto dialing technique is a good compromise between manually dialing a phone number and relying on auto dialers. This does not rule out from being an auto dialer. It still eliminates the need for the agent to manually dial using a VoIP phone but also takes into consideration the availability of an agent prior to dialing.
The contact rates with progressive dialers are not as high as those of predictive dialers, but the call analytics will tell you that there are fewer dropped calls as call center agents are always available.
The difference between progressive dialer and preview dialer
Progressive and preview dialers what’s the difference?
The main difference between progressive and preview dialers is that preview dialing involves analysis a number and making a decision whether to call the number or not. The call center agent gets prior information about the phone number, and if the details are promising, the call will be made. This prepares the agent for better customer engagement. Preview dialing also improves the chances of making a sale as the contact clients are relevant and not just random people.
Both progressive and preview dialing promotes better customer engagement as no calls are delayed nor eventually dropped. Satisfied customers are good for a referral program.
Are progressive dialers good for the business?
Progressive dialers are a must-have for contact centers and the sales teams. Progressive dialers increase the productivity of the call center agents that make outbound calls, plus it provides comprehensive management reporting. This means the calling efforts can be better managed.
The automatic dialing technique allows call agents to spend the bulk of their time talking to customers and very little time managing their call lists. Automation also comes with reporting and management control, which ensures an increase in team efficiency, productivity, and workforce management.
