The
Smell of Predictive Dialing Success
The software suite made predictive dialers more versatile and accessible to call centers. Here's what's new, and what's to come.
by Lee Hollman
If you've been avoiding buying a predictive dialer
because agents at your call center make too few calls to
justify the cost of purchasing one, your wait is over. By
adding a predictive dialer module to software suites you
might already use for managing customer interactions and
service, e-mail, company data or other resources, you can
achieve effective outbound campaigns with a rapid return on
investment.
Just ask Larry Mark, the chief technical officer for VorTecs,
a Shelton, CT-based consulting firm for call centers.
"Predictive dialing is one of the clearest returns on
investment that you can make in a call center," he
says. "You don't need to call millions of people,
especially as the prices have come down. And you can have
fairly small outbound call centers now."
Predictive dialing software has found growing acceptance
among large numbers of call centers that can't afford the
more traditional proprietary hardware dialing systems. Many
of these software dialers are modules of comm servers, which
can route messages from different mediums to agents. But
call centers that focus primarily on outbound calls
appreciate the power and efficiency of a hardware dialer,
since they can typically accommodate more agents and handle
greater volumes of outbound calls. Both types of dialers
have their strengths and liabilities, which we will explore
later in this article.
Predictive dialers have dramatically impacted how call
center managers run their centers. Mark says that agents who
answered outbound calls from a dialer typically worked
separately from inbound agents, leaving "islands of
information" between them (i.e., agents handling
outbound calls weren't able to view the same customer
information as agents handling inbound calls). "Upon
the realization that there were these islands, [vendors]
wanted to start sharing agent resources," he says.
Mark says that software-based predictive dialers emerged to
bridge these islands of information. He explains that
vendors of dialers and software for call centers contributed
to the development of software-based dialers. "The
traditional dialer vendors added products to their offerings
that enabled them to work with software suites, and software
vendors added outbound [modules] to their suites," he
says.
As a module of a suite, predictive dialing software can work
with other applications. That lets agents, for example,
answer customers' e-mails and text chat requests, in
addition to inbound and outbound calls. But Mark cautions
that requiring agents to respond to blended calls, let alone
blending different media, can confuse them.
"Blending information is the present and the future of
predictive dialing," says Mark. "But people just
don't seem to adapt well to call blending. You've got the
human factors of switching modes between inbound and
outbound calls."
He doesn't foresee hardware-based predictive dialers
becoming obsolete. That's because hardware dialers often
have more features than their software counterparts. For
example, a hardware dialer might be able to associate more
phone numbers with a given customer or include more options
for finding customers' names on a calling list.
Predictive dialer hardware still grabs by far the largest
share of the market. Brian Huff, technology analyst at New
York, NY-based research and consulting firm Datamonitor,
says that 68% of the revenue earned by predictive dialer
vendors in 2000 came from sales of dialer hardware. Huff
notes that centers that have already invested in a
legacy-based dialer won't rush to replace them. But he also
anticipates a rise in demand for soft dialers during the
next five years.
Call centers are increasingly using predictive dialers for
applications besides collections and telemarketing, such as
assessing customer satisfaction. As more predictive dialing
options come to market, say observers, they'll spur
additional apps. Below, we detail how the latest products
can help you design successful outbound campaigns.
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Controlling Predictive Dialing Options
Can't decide if you want to purchase a turnkey predictive dialing system or dialing software for your call center? Calltrol
(Hawthorne,
NY) offers its Object Telephony Server (OTS) preinstalled on an industrial PC or
as software for a Windows NT server.
Calltrol installs, configures and tests the software for you when you purchase
it with a Calltrol server. You can connect the server to your phone switch or
directly to your call center's phone lines. If you don't have a switch, you can
use OTS as a comm server to set rules for routing inbound and outbound calls to
appropriate agents, monitor and record calls, and create touchtone menus for
customers. The OTS software comprises 12 modules that you can purchase together
or separately, depending on the features you want.
David Friedman, vice president of marketing and sales for Calltrol, says that
most of Calltrol's customers rely on OTS for more than predictive dialing. He
says that customers often purchase the complete comm server system, and those
who don't often license the complete software suite eventually. But Friedman
adds that if you use OTS exclusively as a predictive dialer, the software still
includes call monitoring and coaching features.
The majority of call centers that use Object Telephony Server purchase the
software with its own server. But Friedman says that a growing number of centers
select the software-only version. He explains that as more call centers gain IT
sophistication, they collect their own assortment of servers, voice cards and
other hardware and don't need to purchase another server. These centers save
money, if not time, by installing the software on their own.
Friedman concedes that some businesses expressed concerns that the Windows
server running OTS software isn't as dependable as a proprietary predictive
dialing system. But he notes the server isn't necessarily the cause of problems.
"These [Windows] systems are extremely reliable, so the bug, crash or
lock-up rate isn't significant enough to make a material difference in the call
center," he says. "It depends on what vendor's software you're
running. Implementing a Windows NT solution doesn't make it less reliable, but
predictive dialing software may vary in quality."
A starting version of the OTS software that handles predictive dialing for a
server with 24 ports for analog or digital phone lines lists for $274 per port.
An upgraded version of the same software with all OTS features, including call
blending, recording and routing, costs $398 per port. The same versions of OTS
on preinstalled servers cost $9,699 and $12,371 respectively. Each server can
reach nearly 500 ports and the OTS software supports multiple servers.
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Super-Dialing To The Rescue
If you're managing a small call center with a limited budget, Digisoft (New
York, NY) offers Super-Dialing as a less costly alternative to predictive
dialing. Super-Dialing is a module of Digisoft's Telescript 5.3 software that
lets you create outbound calling lists based on your own criteria, like
customers who live in a specific region or who want to learn more about a
particular product. You can then assign individual agents or groups of agents to
answer calls from each list. And you use Telescript to provide them with
customized call scripts.
Digisoft recommends using Super-Dialing for outbound campaigns that focus on
customers who have previous histories with your company. After you create your
calling lists, the software enables you to set outbound dialing times for each
list. For example, the software can dial every number on a list on weeknights
between 6 pm and 8 pm. If agents receive no answer or a busy signal for some
customers, Super-Dialing can dial their numbers again on another evening between
8 pm and 10 pm.
You connect the server running Telescript 5.3 to your phone switch. You can also
use the software without a PBX by installing the app on agents' PCs that have
dial-up modems.
Digisoft also offers Telescript 5.3 as a call scripting supplement for
Calltrol's OTS-NT server. Andrew Davidson, director of marketing for Digisoft,
says that many of the company's customers use Super-Dialing primarily during the
early stages of their call center operations. "A lot of them do
Super-Dialing first, and when they need a more powerful dialing platform, at
that point they upgrade to a dialer," he says.
Telescript 5.3 recognizes the phone numbers that OTS-NT or Super-Dialing dials
to provide agents with the appropriate call script for each customer. Agents can
also transfer calls with customers' information to you and to each other. And
they can resume interrupted calls at the same point in the script where they
left off. New features for version 5.3 enable you to monitor calls using OTS-NT.
Pricing for Telescript with Super-Dialing begins at $1,350 per seat. Telescript
with predictive dialing functionality begins at $3,000 per agent for ten agents.
Originally Published in Call Center Magazine, December 05, 2001