Cold calling has always been one of the most common lead generation techniques of businesses from many industries. However, many people claim that cold calling is now obsolete, but you need not listen to their words. After all, success lies with your overall strategy
Speaking of which, there is one very effective cold calling strategy that’s slowly becoming popular these days, and it involves the use of a predictive dialer system.
People that have already used this system claim that it’s possible to make cold calling a lot more seamless with predictive dialers, yet some are questioning its efficiency.
This guide will show you how well predictive dialers can help your business, but it might be best to get rid of a misunderstanding about predictive dialers before anything else.
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Auto dialers are calling systems that allow businesses to dial contacts from a list automatically. When the person on the other end of the connection responds, the auto-dialer will automatically pass the call onto an agent of the business.
Predictive dialers pretty much have the same function, but there are a few additional features.
To start with, if an auto dialer receives a response, it’ll naturally pass the call into an agent, but what do you think will happen if that particular agent isn’t available? Usually, the prospect will think that they’re on the line with someone, when in fact, they aren’t, and this can lead to many problems. For example, the prospect might lose interest in your business thinking that it’s a prank call.
Hence, it’s much better if the dialer temporarily stops operating rather than randomly passing calls to anyone even if they’re on break—that’s what predictive dialers are.
Predictive dialers like Call Cowboy can slow down operations or even stop operations when agents are currently on a break or if the agency is busy. Simply put, predictive dialers will ‘predict’ the times when agents are not available and adjust its operation accordingly.
Of course, that’s not the only difference. There are many more, and you will learn of them soon as you go through the following benefits of predictive dialers.
When an autodialer receives a response from multiple prospects, it usually waits until an agent is finished with their current call before passing the baton.
Now, what happens if, after a long time, the agent is still not done with their call? You guessed it—the prospect is likely to get tired of waiting and hang up. This usually happens two minutes after the prospect receives the cold call.
Hence, the key to cold calling is speed. Agents must talk to prospects that are on hold as soon as possible, but there’s a huge problem—auto dialers don’t have the ability to sort the queue.
More precisely, an autodialer might pass a 30-second old call to an agent before passing the call from a prospect that’s been waiting for three minutes. Simply put, most auto dialers can’t queue prospects intelligently, and this is where predictive dialers come in.
Unlike most power dialers, predictive dialers can sort the queue so that the people waiting for longer will be the first to hear a response from agents. Furthermore, predictive dialers can also help agents finish their calls much faster, and they do this by preventing mistakes that may take up some time for agents to fix.
Regardless of which industry your business operates in, your workplace will always be prone to different kinds of human error. While some are harmless, others will be quite detrimental to your business, especially if you’re dealing with prospects—one mistake can make them lose interest.
This is especially true if you rely mostly on your agents to run your business. Usually, the best course of action is to turn your workplace more comfortable and less stressful.
The following are examples of things that can contribute to a stressful workplace:
The problem is that most businesses don’t have time to focus on these things. If you’re looking for a quick way to eliminate human error, a predictive dialer might help. With a predictive dialer, you don’t have to worry about your agents forgetting that they’re on a call, making typos with telephone numbers, accidentally hanging up on a call, and the likes.
Plus, when agents make mistakes, it’s their responsibility to clean the mess up. As a result, the time that they would’ve spent calling another client is wasted due to their mistakes. So, not only will a predictive dialer prevent potential issues, but it can also improve your agent’s productivity, which in turn will increase your sales.
Besides, employees aren’t the only ones prone to such errors. You, as their employer, may also make mistakes when fulfilling your tasks, and those mistakes can be worse than theirs.
One particular mistake that can be quite detrimental is calling prospects more than once.
Every sales-driven business has a sales lead sheet—a sheet that lists down information on each potential customer, including their number.
Usually, agents will look through the sheet to call each number individually and try to connect with the number owner. Every sales-driven business should have its own sales lead sheet. Usually, a team is dedicated to building this list.
Building a sales lead sheet consists of several steps, such as:
Unfortunately, teams in charge of the sales lead sheet tend to duplicate a number in the sales lead sheet. Thus, there might be a telephone number that appears more than once on the list. It may seem harmless, but it can lead to severe problems.
For instance, if the duplicate number owner receives a call twice from your business, chances are they’ll think of you as a hindrance, and as a result, they’ll block your number. This is a big no-no for sales-driven businesses since it’ll essentially rid you of one potential customer, but how will a predictive dialer help in this situation?
For starters, predictive dialers can check through your sales lead sheet automatically. Once it deals with a certain number, it will check through the list and remove all duplicates, if there are any. As such, the chances of calling a number twice are basically zero.
However, take note that not all predictive dialers have this function, which is why it’s essential to look for a platform that has the functions you need.
You may even find predictive dialers that can integrate with CRM systems.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is when a business manages its interactions with customers. It usually involves storing information about customers. You can think of CRM as a fancy term for a customer database, but what does it have to do with predictive dialers?
For starters, if an agent knows more about a prospect, such as their address, age, interests, and other information, it would be much easier to convert them into customers.
In other words, by integrating your cold calling system with CRM systems, the conversion rate of your business has the potential to skyrocket. After all, they say that CRM and cold calling goes hand in hand since the combination can solve problems like:
The good news is that some predictive dialers can integrate with database and CRM systems.
With this combination, it’s also possible to save a lot of time, especially if you require your agents to do individual assessments on your prospects.
Typically, an agency will have a team that answers the call and a team in charge of prospect research—a technique that involves researching a prospect to obtain personal and sometimes corporate information that can be invaluable during cold calls.
The bad news is that most of the time, the information they procure is not used by the cold calling agents. After all, agents only have so much time in their hands, so it’s understandable if they can’t assess the information given to them.
However, that’s only from a normal standpoint. If you have a predictive dialer, the process will be much easier. It displays the necessary information, such as the prospect’s address, hobbies, and occupation, as you go through the sales lead sheet.
If you look at it in another way, a predictive dialer practically allows even amateur agents to convert prospects into customers with minimal effort.
To build a successful sales-driven agency, you’ll need to hire skilled agents… is what many people think, but that’s not entirely true.
Even with beginners, a business can succeed as long as its strategy is fool-proof. For example, you can prepare scripts that employees must strictly follow. It doesn’t require a skillful agent to read it, but if the scripts are effective, the agents will also be effective.
The same goes for when you have an effective cold calling system like predictive dialers. With a predictive dialer, most of the mundane tasks that agents usually do are automatically taken care of, so there’s not much room for error for your agents.
However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tend to your workers. You should also take the initiative to improve your agents, and one way of doing that is by giving them clear standards.
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Setting a standard is important because it provides a way for your workers to determine if their performance is acceptable or not, but how do you set the standards for cold calling agents?
To begin with, you can inform them how long you want cold calls to last. However, even if you say that it should last for around 30 or 20 seconds, some agents will inevitably go beyond that. After all, not everyone can do everything according to plan. Chances are, they’ll exceed that time limit that you set unless you find a way to limit the duration. The good news is that predictive dialers can pre-determine the duration of calls.
For example, you can make it so that after 30 seconds of a cold call, the agent will receive a notification that they should end it as soon as possible. At first glance, it seems to be quite an ineffective technique and might even ruin the agents’ momentum, but over time, they’ll get used to this standard.
Speaking of which, if there are standards, there are also policies for cold calling.
Many people ask whether auto dialer is illegal or not. While it’s completely legal, have you ever wondered why they ask this kind of question?
This is mainly because there’s actually a national policy among businesses involving cold calling. It goes like this—if a person blocks your number, you shouldn’t attempt to call them anymore with a different number.
The bad news is that you might be violating the policies without knowing it. To be precise, your business might be contacting those that have you blocked even to this day, and it’s not like you can keep up with your growing list of contacts.
Fortunately, predictive dialers can make it easier. As always, predictive dialers record numbers that already have a history with your business. Those that you’ve already called, those that are already customers, and those that have you on their blocked list. In other words, a predictive dialer can help you comply with policies.
Auto dialers have become quite popular over the years, but not many know of predictive dialers despite their similarities. Perhaps it’s because it hasn’t been around for long, but considering its benefits to businesses, it’s only a matter of time before predictive dialers take the business industry by storm.
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