In today’s global marketplace, businesses must increase productivity, improve efficiency, enhance quality, and out perform the competition. Effective communication tools enable client service teams to focus on their core competencies while improving operational effectiveness and customer satisfaction.

Progressive Dialers vs. Predictive Dialers offer client service teams an effective and quality enhancing dialing Platform. Progressive

Dialing Platforms dial successive calls, but are more advanced and customized then old Predictive Dialer configurations.

Progressive Dialers are able to rapidly contact thousands of contacts in minutes, provide a customized message by contact, filter contacts by multiple data points, enable detailed reporting on each call, and enable the contact to return calls receiving the same message or information provided on the outbound campaign. Progressive Dialers provide the cutting edge functionality and features not available to a restrictive and inefficient Predictive Dialer systems.

Progressive Dialers are so successful in their contact rates and functions, Predictive Dialers are unable to compete. Predictive Dialer systems have become a challenge in recent years due to their inability to effectively make contacts without the negative client experience. This challenge is a direct result of the “predictive nature” of the system design.

Call Centers or Telemarketing operations that utilize Predictive Dialers hope to support a cost effective contact rate within their agent centers; this is far from accurate. What is achieved is an easier manner for the administrator is to facilitate the systems they are responsible to control.  The predictive dialing efficiency occurs when the predictive dialer dials ahead of the agents becoming available or when the predictive dialer matches a forecast number of available agents with a forecast number of available called parties. As a result, the system is most suitable for low quality lists and large numbers of agents since an unexpectedly high contact rate can overwhelm the system leading to negative call abandonment rates.

In most cases, the system will get more live parties on call attempts than there are agents available to take those calls. Consequently, the dialer will disconnect or delay distribution of calls that cannot be distributed to an agent. This is known as a Silent Call or a nuisance call. The called party hears only silence when the predictive dialer does not at least play a recorded message. The experience for those who receive a predictive dialer call can be less than satisfactory.

Progressive Dialers enable contacts to review a message interact with the system, route to a voicemail system, route to an external number, OR enable Return Call Functionality. Progressive Dialer Platforms provide the perfect client experience with the highest levels of contact satisfaction rates.

To summarize,

Predictive Dialers:

• Tend to “over dial” due to their predictive nature resulting in low contact satisfaction rates
• Create high abandonment rates in the early connection hours and are “corrected” in later connection periods.
• Low efficiency connect rates creating higher than necessary agent “wait times” and costing the operation
• Only benefit “low quality” contact lists.

Progressive Dialers:

• Enable Return Call Features and Functionality
• Enables Managed dialing to ensure effective contact rates and high contact satisfaction results
• Provide the ability to rapidly contact thousands of contacts in minutes
• Can provide a customized message by contact
• Filter contacts by multiple data points
• Auto Schedule campaigns
• Enable the contact to return calls receiving the same message or information provided on the outbound campaign
• Enables customized Greeting, prompting, routing and messaging not possible with predictive systems

The choice is really between utilizing old technology or stepping up to the customizable Progressive Dialer Platforms. How effective does your organization need to be and what client satisfaction rate is expected?