Auto Dialler (or Auto Dialer)

Contact centres strive for seamless customer interactions and optimised operations in today’s fast-paced business landscape.

To achieve these goals, many contact centres turn to automated solutions, and if your contact centre involves outbound calls, an auto dialler can offer some significant benefits.

What is an Auto Dialler used in a Contact Centre?

Whether you call it an automatic dialler, auto dialler or outbound dialler, the objective is to automatically dial customer telephone numbers to deliver an automated message or connect to a live contact centre agent once the call has been answered to improve efficiency.

In this glossary term definition, we will delve into the benefits of using an auto dialler in a contact centre and explore the various types available.

From boosting agent productivity to improving customer satisfaction, there is no doubt that auto diallers have been, and continue to be, a must-have for any contact centre making outbound contact with customers.

Benefits of using an Auto Dialler

For contact centre managers, marketing managers and CX leaders, an auto dialler provides a range of benefits as opposed to manually dialling numbers which is prone to error and highly inefficient.

1. Improved Agent Productivity 

Auto diallers eliminate time-consuming manual dialling, allowing agents to focus on what they do best—interacting with customers.

With automated dialling, agents can make more calls in less time, leading to increased productivity.

Agents can maximise their talk time by eliminating dialling errors and streamlining the dialling process, resulting in more customer interactions and potential sales opportunities.

2. Improved Call Efficiency

Auto diallers optimise call campaigns by automatically dialling numbers from a predefined list.

With features like call queuing and automatic call distribution, auto diallers ensure a steady flow of connected calls.

This minimises waiting time between calls, reduces idle time, and keeps agents engaged, resulting in efficient call handling and reduced downtime.

3. Improved Customer Interactions

Auto diallers empower contact centre agents with valuable customer information before each call.

They can access details like previous interactions, purchase history, and preferences, enabling personalised and tailored conversations.

With relevant information at their fingertips, agents can deliver exceptional personalised customer experiences, build rapport, and provide practical solutions, thereby increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

4. Advanced Analytics and Reporting

Auto diallers provide valuable insights into call performance and campaign metrics.

These tools generate detailed reports on call duration, call success rates, agent performance, and more.

By analysing this data, contact centre managers can make informed decisions, and identify areas for improvement at both agent and campaign levels, enabling them to optimise campaigns for better results.

The analytics capabilities of auto diallers enable data-driven strategies, leading to enhanced efficiency and better resource allocation.

Types of Auto Diallers

Not all Automatic Diallers are created equal and there are different types of auto dialler functions and modes to suit different circumstances.

Preview Diallers 

Preview diallers allow agents to review customer information before initiating a call.

By providing a glimpse into customer history and previous interactions, agents can personalise their approach and have relevant information on hand.

Preview diallers are ideal for complex or sensitive interactions that require agents to be well-prepared prior to making the call.

They aren’t quite as efficient as other auto dialler modes as typically it requires the agent to manually activate the call when they are ready.

Power Diallers 

Power diallers automatically dial a new contact as soon as an agent becomes available.

These diallers eliminate manual dialling, waiting for unanswered calls, and navigating voicemail systems.

Power diallers maximise agent talk time, improve connection rates, and eliminate delays between calls, resulting in increased efficiency.

Predictive Diallers 

Predictive diallers leverage sophisticated algorithms to optimise call campaigns.

By analysing historical data and call metrics, predictive diallers predict agent availability and call abandonment rates.

They make multiple simultaneous calls and adjust the dialling rate based on agent availability, ensuring a steady flow of connected calls while minimising wait times and dropped calls.

In other words, the job of a Predictive Dialler is to ‘predict’ when the next outbound call centre agent will be ready to handle an outbound call and just before that moment, it dials the customer in advance.

When the customer answers the call, it ‘drops’ the agent into the call so they can say their greeting.

A Predictive Dialler is an incredibly efficient way to make the most of call centre agents valuable time and is used in practically all outbound sales and telemarketing contact centres.

The Predictive Dialler will eliminate answering machines, no answers etc, so your agents won’t have their time wasted dialling wrong numbers, no answers etc as the call will only be dropped into the agent when the predictive dialler has detected there is a ‘live’ human at the other end.

A Predictive Dialler can also be programmed to leave little to no breaks between calls for call centre agents, albeit this can lead to agent burnout if not managed appropriately.

For the customers, it’s the cause of the delay when you answer the phone and no one is there.

The delay is caused by the Predictive Dialler not quite getting the algorithms right, so it’s connected to a live customer and there wasn’t an agent immediately available to be dropped into the call.

Progressive Diallers 

Progressive diallers strike a balance between power diallers and preview diallers.

They automatically dial the next customer as soon as an agent is ready, eliminating manual dialling while still allowing agents to preview customer information.

Progressive diallers are ideal for scenarios that require agents to handle complex or sensitive interactions while maintaining efficiency.

It’s not just about the technology

There’s no question that auto dialler software and technology can be great for your business.

But it’s not the only ingredient you need for success.

You need to have someone to call!

Auto Diallers can be used to contact your existing customers or existing prospects where you have already captured their information in your CRM tool and have also captured the appropriate consent to be able to make contact with the customer depending on your local regulations.

Auto Diallers are also used extensively in telemarketing, typically to conduct ‘cold calls’ where there there is no existing relationship with the customer.

This could be to conduct surveys, lead generation or direct sales as examples.

That typically requires data, and the quality of your data can have a huge influence on the success of your campaign.

Good data is not cheap so make sure you speak to a specialist telemarking lists supplier to provide you with the best chance for success.

And in Australia, if you are contacting consumers, you’ll most likely need to wash your data through the Do Not Call Register as well, otherwise, you run the risk of huge fines.

As well as data, having agents who are trained in outbound skills and how to have quality conversations is also (obviously!) important and given the hard nature of outbound calling, equipping your agents with resilience skills can also provide them, and you, with significant benefits.

How to choose the right auto dialler supplier

Technology continues to play an increasingly important role in the contact centre and if you are in the business of making outbound calls, then an auto dialler is going to be a critical decision.

There are a number of different suppliers of auto dialler software and technology, so it can get pretty confusing as to what’s best for your business.

Whilst not an exhaustive list, some considerations should include:

• Is the dialler stand-alone or part of a broader contact centre technology solution?
• Can you blend calls (i.e. easily stop outbound campaigns to take inbound calls during a surge)
• How accurate is the Answering Machine Detection (AMD)?
• How good are their algorithms? Does it optimise calling times and callbacks to maximise efficiency?
• Is it compliant with all local regulations?
• What are their typical silent and abandoned rates?
• How easily does it integrate with leading CRM tools?
• Do they have current customers using the dialler for outbound campaigns?
• What is the available reporting?
• Does it record all calls, and in what definition?
• What is the user interface like to use for agents? Can it be easily customised?
• Is it easy to schedule dial-backs?
• What is the commercial model? Per month, per agent, number of calls etc?

Summary

Auto diallers have revolutionised contact centres by optimising operations, enhancing agent productivity, and delivering personalised customer experiences.

The various types of diallers, including preview, power, predictive, and progressive, cater to different requirements and objectives so it’s important to ensure the auto dialler you opt for can cater to your current and future needs.

By harnessing the power of auto diallers, contact centres can unlock efficiency, improve customer satisfaction, and achieve tangible business results which all seem like pretty good outcomes to us!