Share what you know with millions of people
Focus is the best place to turn what you know into remarkable content
0
What is a predictive dialer system and who uses it?
I saw a question about a predictive dialer system and I was wondering what that is? What types of companies is a predictive dialer system made for?
Events
- Dos and Don'ts of Small Business Marketing May 29 @ 11 am PT
- Lead Nurturing 202: The Next Generation May 31 @ 11 am PT
- The Tricks to Paid Media June 6 @ 11 am PT
- Display Advertising for Brand Awareness June 20 @ 11 am PT
Related Activity
5 Answers
Predictive dialers are a uniquie product that is designed to dial large quantities of telephone numbers for telemarketing, collections, advertising, etc.
Essentially, it is a table of telephone numbers that the dialer dials at specified times in an attempt to reach a live body. Most of the time, they are integrated into an ACD where the live body answering the phone is connected to an Agent to discuss a product for sale, a collection effort, or even a political message.
They are also heavily used to call customers for appointment reminders, delivery schedules, etc. when they are incorporated with an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system.
THey can be an affective tool telemarketing/telesales tool in many industries
Good answer Todd. I think it's important for people to know that there is a difference between Predictive and Power Dialing. Predictive can actually look at the past performance of your data and predict the dialing method and rate of which calls need to be made to keep your agents busy while preserving low abandonment to abide by FTC rules. Power Dialing is a much simpler "ratio" based dialer that will dial 1,2,3,4+ phone lines per agent.
Just to elaborate there are actually different types of predictive dialers. There are proprietary or I-house system that run off of hardware in the same location as the agents dialing on the system and their are Hosted Dialers which are web based and can be accessed fro any computer with high speed internet. Both types of systems work just as John and Todd explained but the initial cost of the Hosted Dialer is far less. For more information on the subject visit. Http://www.ytel.com/hosted-dialer
Great answer Todd. Just to add on another non-Telemarketing use I've seen for these tools: In a customer/tech support center that allows customers to submit cases online and set an appointment time for callback, a predictive dialer can be combined with the ACD (automated call distribution) system to place those calls, confirm a live voice response, and then connect a support rep. This is done to reduce agent time on the phone, especially when they might not get a live body on the other end. In a high-volume Call Center even saving a few seconds per call makes a difference in number of reps required and customers served.
Todd Hodgen's answer is correct - predictive dialers are used in various industries, by call centers that need to dial many phone numbers and are seeking to maximize the % of time a live connection is made. Basically, they auto-dial by algorithmically adjusting the pacing of their calls so that if a live party is reached, the chance that party can be connected with an agent is maximized.
I would add that, in addition to telemarketing, predictive dialers are also heavily used in the credit and collections industry - for instance for payment reminders and overdue/collection calls.
Answer This Question