Predicting Which Dialer is Right for You

When it comes to automated predictive dialing systems the market is flooded with players, both old and new. The offerings include dialers designed for telemarketing, collections or other industry specific designs. When deciding which predictive dialing solution makes the most sense for your collections efforts, it is important to carefully consider how a proposed solution predicts when and how to dial, in order to have a live contact on the line when your agent is ready to take the call.

Any predictive dialer worth its salt uses extensive mathematical algorithms, calling patterns, list details and agent specific data to anticipate when each agent will be ready to accept a call. Designing algorithms that consider all the details and circumstances is the science behind developing a first rate system and this science is something you must consider when determining which solution would work best for your agency.

Keeping your agents speaking with live debtors, and as a result increasing your revenue, is the major reason most agencies invest in a predictive dialing solution. A predictive dialer that does not consider every factor involved in predicting when and how to dial could result in:

• Too many live contacts on hold
• On hold debtors hanging up due to wait times
• Your agents scrambling to catch up with holding calls
• Extended agent ready times while waiting for the next transferred call

In order to get the highest performance from the dialing solution you chose, whether a hosted service, site-premised or hybrid, you should ensure that the predictive dialing system considers:

• Agent specific talk time
• Agent specific wrap-up time
• List specific hit rates
• Number of calls on hold
• How long calls are on hold

If the system you are considering does not combine all of the above traits in determining how and when to dial, perhaps you should keep looking for a true predictive dialing system. Considering that every predictive dialer does not “predict” in the same way, it is important to understand what the differences are and what result those differences will have on your bottom line.