Dialer: What is it, Types, Features & How to Select

What is a dialer?

A dialer is a type of call center software used to automate the dialing of customer phone numbers and to easily document the outcome of these calls. Dialers can also be used to broadcast recorded messages through interactive voice response (IVR), push notifications, and SMS.

Based on whether a customer answers the outbound call, a dialer system can route the call to an agent, use voice bots for automated collection, play a message, or move on to the next number on the list of contacts.

Dialers bring contact center agent productivity,, call documentation, and customer experience to the table as they save time, process call data the way your business prefers, and also minimize cold transfers.

Who uses dialers?

Dialers are used by most customer-facing teams distributed across a company. While sales representatives are the primary users, dialers have evolved to meet the demands of marketing and support teams too.

Outbound sales teams

Outbound sales teams and telemarketing professionals use a sales dialer to add efficiency to their outreach efforts and sales process. For instance, an outbound sales reps can pre-load sales call queues or prioritize high-value customers, reducing idle time and increasing talk time.

Marketing departments

Online lead generation campaigns are a treasure trove of engageable prospects. Dialers help marketing departments identify leads and engage with them based on their interest shown in different ad campaigns.

Customer service representatives

Customer service teams handle a high volume of phone calls. With the help of a smart dialer, these queries can be deflected through Outbound IVR or routed to the right agent based on availability, expertise, and other customizable rules.

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What are the different types of dialers for outbound call centers?

How do you choose a dialer for your business?

There are different types of dialers and dialing modes that an outbound call center can use, based on its goals. For example, one business might need a dialer for heavy outbound calling for sales and marketing purposes, while the other needs it to review customer information through contact center CRM or solution for customer experience management.  

Auto dialer

Auto dialer, as the name suggests, is an automatic dialing system which helps sales reps execute low-touch but high-volume campaigns, where they need to reach out to as many prospects as possible. With the sheer number of leads, an auto dialer software places simultaneous calls to prioritize prospects who pick up the call.

Power dialer

Power dialers are also called outbound dialers since they are mostly used by outbound sales teams, who have a high number of contacts to pitch to. A power dialer sequentially moves to the next caller once the previous call is complete, unanswered, or busy.

Preview dialer

Preview dialers help call center agents review customer information through a window when they initiate or receive a phone call. Preview dialers add significant value to customer service teams as the preview can also offer omnichannel information required to support the customers with full context.

Predictive dialer

Predictive dialing is a dialing mode made for businesses that handle a high contact volume, both inbound and outbound. Predictive dialers prepare an algorithm based on call center data trends such as peak calling times, agent availability and workload, and average handle times to automate the dialing intelligently.

Progressive dialer

Progressive dialer is similar to a predictive dialer with the exception that it dials only one contact per agent at a time. A progressive dialer moves on to the next call only when the previous call is complete. Progressive dialers are ideal for B2B outbound calling where drop-offs and call abandonment rates are less.

Bot dialers

Bot dialers are used to minimize agent interaction at first contact. They work like outbound dialers, except that they include an IVR system to send out multiple phone calls at once. The recorded messages with bot dialers are usually reminders or notifications, with an option to transfer to an available agent.

5 common dialer features

Here are the key features that dialers offer to the customer-facing functions across the organization:

Real-time agent monitoring

Sales and customer care managers can monitor customer calls in real-time and also constantly audit agent performance with AI and automation.

Automatic call-routing

Comprehensive dialer software can make use of routing rules and AI to assign calls to the right agent based on skills, availability, previous resolutions, customer intent, and workload. 

Call-backs and call recording

Record calls and store them on a cloud for performance evaluation and also create highlights to jump to the important parts of the call. Customer-facing teams can also schedule call back to go back to a prospect or customer for updates.

Read More: Your Go-to Guide on Call Center Recording 

Conversational IVR for self-service

Modern dialer systems offer a conversational IVR system to deflect calls through user-friendly self-service paths. For outbound campaigns, IVR can be used to get customer opt-ins, feedback, mass broadcasting and spray campaigns.

Customer experience management

Companies will get more value from dialers that are not just point-solution offerings but a part of a larger call center platform. These auto dialer platforms push the limitations of conventional dialers and enable companies to manage customer experience with sales and support coherence. A few functionalities of deploying a cloud-based dialer that can also double-up as a customer experience platform:

1. Contact management: With help desk and CRM integrations, dialer lists can be managed on auto-pilot mode, with the ready-availability of customer data.

2. Omnichannel context: Gather omnichannel customer information from otherwise disparate channels, and add personalization and diligence to your sales and support calls.

3. Agent assistance: With pre-loaded call scripts and AI suggestions, agent assist helps sales reps and support agents improve their customer handling with higher productivity and efficiency.

Key factors to consider while choosing your call center dialer

To offer the agents and customers a connected experience, dialers are usually integrated with VoIP software, help desk software, customer experience platforms, or CRM tools. As you zero in on the ideal dialer for your company, these are some of the critical questions you need to answer:

What are the demographics and behavior of your customers?

Understand the persona of your customers to determine whether you need a support-focused dialer or an outbound-heavy dialer (or both). For instance, B2C companies have a higher volume of interactions on social media and instant messaging than phone as a channel — so a dialer with omnichannel capabilities might be the right one.

❓How do you go about this?  

Imbibe your customers’ personalities. Let your customer service go in tandem with your customer psyche. Map your customer journeys thoroughly. To know the best dialer for your call center, you need to find out how they are typically likely to behave when interacting with your brand.  

What is your call volume and lead quality?

Evaluate whether your business thrives on high-volume leads and mass campaigns, or a more nuanced approach toward a niche of targeted leads.

How do your existing outbound and inbound operations flow?

Understanding the flow of your existing sales and support operations will enable you to define dialer requirements clearly. Workflow configurations, routing mechanisms, and customer service reports are some important functionalities you need to look for in a dialer.

Do sales, marketing, and support have to work in tandem?

Modern businesses prefer an integrated approach, no matter which customer-facing team is involved. This will help fill gaps in communication necessary to orchestrate organization-wide campaigns that reach the right audience, procure quality leads, and delight customers with benchmark voice support.

Integration with your CRM and other systems

Dialers are more resourceful when they are integrated with CRM tools and other customer experience systems. Evaluate if you want your dialer to work more intuitively, with a complete history of customer conversations and omnichannel engagement options.

Attain your campaign goals and catapult your outbound contact center into the future with an AI-first dialer. With Sprinklr Outbound Voice, you can connect with the right audience, driving your connection rates up to 30% with AI-powered outbound voice campaigns. 

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How does Sprinklr help you seamlessly integrate your inbound and outbound dialing?

Dialers are traditionally perceived as tools that make sales calling easier. But if the dialer resides on a platform that manages the length and breadth of the customer lifecycle, your support teams can also leverage it to deliver world-class customer experience.

Sprinklr Voice is powered by the world’s only Unified Customer Experience Management (Unified-CXM) platform. With this advanced call center software, your business will no longer require disconnected point-solutions to automate dialing, accept calls, manage outbound campaigns, set up routing rules, generate agent performance reports, and much more.

Sprinklr functionalities that can transform your call center:

• Accept calls and resolve queries with AI-powered voice bots and self-service 

• Automate call routing with configurable rules and AI matching 

• Defer calls to social media and messaging channels when the dialer queue is full 

• Manage outbound, cross-sell, and upsell campaigns with dialer history on customers across channels 

• Uncover hidden customer cues with AI-led speech recognition and sentiment insights, forecast call volume, manage workforce, and real-time insights 

Leverage Sprinklr to provide your support and sales agents the knowledge of a 360° customer view before every call they place or receive. Register for a free trial now 👇