What is Predictive Dialer?

A predictive dialer is a dialing system that helps organizations connect to their intended clients for a marketing campaign or other purposes by automated dialing. The main purpose of a predictive dialer is to maximize the resources of your call center. The traditional calling methods where a person dials single numbers per dial tend to be very ineffective when it comes to large organizations who want reach to out to as many people as a campaign.

How does a predictive dialer work?

There are many predictive dialers software out there, with each having its own system configuration and mechanics. Every system that is being offered out there has different results and efficiency varies considerably among them. However, the basic elements of some of the system are similar. A predictive dialer consists of a statistical algorithm that works to maximize the number of successful calls that go through and are answered by the receiver. The system dials a batch of phone call numbers. It then analyses every call and eliminates the calls that go straight to voice mails as well as those that take longer to be answered thus retaining the calls that are most likely to be answered.

For optimization purposes, predictive dialers are also developed to reduce instances where a client answers the phone call, while the agents are unavailable resulting to inconveniences to the client.

Types of Predictive Dialers

The first predictive dialers to be developed were hardware based. The system is purchased as a standalone hardware device that was purposely built for the predictive dial. It is then integrated into the phone system of the company.

The second type of predictive dialer is software based where predictive dial software is purchased installed, and run on a computer to provide predictive dialing capabilities. These systems have risen to prominence and their use has increased lately due to improvements in computing powers available to organizations as well as increases in broadband sizes.

Regulation of Predictive Dialer Technology

As with every technology that has been developed, predictive dialer works under regulations from governments. The regulations vary with different countries. However, the various aspects of this technology that are usually placed under regulations include the number abandoned calls on a daily basis (in the UK and USA it should be less than 3% while in Canada the threshold is 5%), the availability of agents and what happens when an agent is unavailable (generally the company is supposed to play an automated message when there is no agent to answer a call).

Advantages of Predictive Dialing Systems

One major benefit for using predictive dialing is that it optimizes the services offered by calling agents. Organizations that hire call agents to reach out to customers are therefore able to get value for money spent in hiring the services of the call agents. With this system in place, call agents do not have to dial individual numbers each time. Instances of no answers are reduced thus ensuring that the call agents do not have to waste time on numbers will not be answered.

Hosting of Predictive Dialer; Cloud-Based or On-Premises

Predictive dialer software may be hosted in an in-house system within the company and another alternative provided by software companies is hosting the service in a cloud, from which any company may access the services.