Outbound calling: the basics explained

MANUAL dialling wastes at least half of your agents’ time.

The reason why it is so inefficient is because agents must carry out such unproductive tasks as dialling the number and waiting for the call to be answered before they can perform their job — talking to the person answering.

With manual dialling, one agent will only talk to people for 15-20 minutes per hour. Automated diallers make the calls, determine that a live person has answered and connects the call to an outbound agent.  This means that agents can spend 40-50 minutes per hour talking to people.

It’s easy to justify predictive dialling with just these productivity improvements.  In addition, there are many other benefits — such as improved management of outbound dialling operations — that can be equally important.

Automated diallers are evaluated on a quick pay back, on the basis of cost reduction, improved quality of service and dramatic increases in productivity.

Diallers normally include:

Predictive Makes outbound calls based on anticipated agent availability as extrapolated from real-time campaign event information including number of agents logged on, average agent talk times, answer rates, connect rates.

Progressive Only makes a call when an agent is available to take the call.

Preview presents a screen pop with the customer information prior to the call being placed, affording time for the agent to review the information before being connected to the customer.

No single dialling method is best for all outbound campaigns.  In general, the characteristics of the campaign — such as type of campaign, calls to be made, call volumes and the number of agents involved — will dictate the method of dialling.

In many cases different campaigns will require more than one type of dialling method.  For example, predictive dialling to handle mass calling with progressive and preview dialling used to handle more complex calls where actions are potentially different for each call made.

Outbound/inbound call blending is another way to fully take advantage of predictive dialling functionality to maximise agent efficiencies and reduce costs. These capabilities can optimise the assignment of agents between outbound and inbound call handling.

By increasing campaign efficiency, heightening agent productivity, and optimising agent effectiveness using call blending, automated dialling is able to boost your bottom line, thus ensuring a successful outbound calling operation.

Paul Moorman, managing director, MX Digital; paulm@Mxdigital.co.uk