Customer Experience 
If you’re planning any kind of outbound call campaign for your organization, you’ll need an outbound dialer. By leveraging advanced dialing technology, you can significantly boost your team’s productivity and ensure that every call counts.
In this guide, we’ll explain how outbound dialers help you automate the calling process, free up time for agents to focus on closing deals, collect customer feedback, and achieve other goals tied to your core business outcomes.
What Are Outbound Dialers?
An outbound dialer is a cloud-based telephone dialing system used in contact centers to make outgoing calls. It’s sometimes referred to as an auto-dialer. The purpose of an outbound dialer is to connect live agents with prospects in a reliable and professional manner.
Instead of searching for contacts and dialing numbers manually, outbound call center software automatically dials numbers on a contact list and routes answered calls to available agents. This allows agents to focus on actual customer conversations instead of getting bogged down by manual dialing and other time-consuming tasks.
Outbound dialers also reduce downtime between outbound calls and increase the number of successful connections with customers — making your call center more efficient.
Types of Outbound Dialers
Call centers deploy one or more of these outbound dialer software.
1. Predictive dialers
A predictive dialer places calls to multiple numbers simultaneously, aiming to connect agents to a live person as soon as they’re available.
It uses algorithms to forecast when an agent will be done with a call and dials multiple numbers ahead of time. It then routes the next answered call to the agent as soon as they complete their current conversation.
Predictive dialing is typically used in environments with high call volumes such as telemarketing campaigns. It ensures that agents spend more time speaking with customers and less time waiting for calls to be answered — boosting agent efficiency and productivity. However, good forecasting is required to avoid overwhelming agents with calls.
2. Progressive dialers
A progressive dialer places calls to one number after another based on the agent’s availability.
Unlike predictive dialers that dial multiple numbers while the agent is still on a call, progressive dialers only dial the next number on the list after the agent has finished the conversation and is available to take a new call.
This gives the agent a bit of time to review customer information, allowing for more personalized outbound calls. Progressive dialing is often used in sales and customer service environments where personalized and attentive customer interactions are crucial.
3. Power dialers
A power dialer gives live agents more control and flexibility over the outbound calling sequence.
Unlike progressive dialers that dial the next customer as soon as the agent completes a phone call, power dialers allow the agent to determine the speed for automated outgoing calls.
For example, let’s say you want to take a quick break after every call. In that case, you can configure the power dialer to automatically dial the next phone number on your call list one minute after a conversation.
Due to its high degree of flexibility, power dialers work best for contact centers with low call volumes and those seeking highly personalized interactions.
Related: 4 Types of Dialer Software for Call Centers & Top Tools
Benefits of Outbound Dialers
Let’s look at a few reasons why auto-dialer software is an excellent addition to your outbound call center.
1. Improves contact rates
Outbound dialers reduce the idle time agents experience between calls.
The system automatically dials the next number as soon as an agent is available, minimizing downtime and keeping agents engaged in active calls. That way, they can speak with more people — boosting agent performance.
Most outbound dialers have a filtering feature for weeding out unproductive calls, such as busy signals, no-answers, disconnected numbers, and answering machines. This means agents spend more time speaking with actual contacts rather than dealing with these interruptions.
2. Boosts campaign efficiency
An outbound dialing system streamlines your marketing outreaches and similar campaign efforts.
Automated dialing modes, such as predictive, power, and preview dialers, reduce downtime and ensure that your agents spend more time talking to potential customers than manually dialing numbers.
An outbound dialing system can prioritize and segment your call lists based on predefined criteria, ensuring that the most critical calls are made first. It uses intelligent routing and automatic call distribution to direct live conversations to the most appropriate agents, balancing workloads and enhancing call outcomes.
3. Increases agent talk time
Picture this: You’re an agent who needs to make 1,000 phone calls for a predictive dialer campaign. You manually dial each number on your call list and wait for a response before moving to the next one. It’s a tedious process — apart from all the time spent, you might mix up a few numbers.
An outbound dialer solves this problem. It automatically dials numbers and connects agents to answered calls, minimizing errors and wait times. Agents get more talk time and can focus on having productive conversations with prospects and customers.
4. Provides data-driven insights
Outbound call center software provides insights into the performance of outbound calling campaigns, agent productivity, and overall call center performance.
First, it provides high-level metrics, such as the total number of calls made, answered, and missed. Then you can drill down further to monitor the number of calls per agent, average call length, and the average time agents spend between calls.
You’ll use these insights to improve outbound campaigns and optimize call center operations. For example, let’s say you discover that some agents spend too much time on calls. You can provide scripts to guide conversations and help them complete calls more efficiently.
5. Integrates with CRM systems
Outbound dialers sync data with CRM software like Salesforce, providing a unified view of customer interactions and campaign results.
CRM integration allows agents to access up-to-date customer information in the dialer to personalize interactions. Any updates in the dialer are automatically reflected in the CRM software, giving you accurate customer information.
Related: Automated Outbound Dialing: How It Works & How to Use It
Use Cases and Examples of Outbound Dialers
Outbound dialer systems are useful for every aspect of your organization.
1. Sales and marketing
Outbound dialers are integral to successful sales and marketing campaigns. You can use them to cold call prospects to introduce products or services, follow up with leads and sales conversations, and set up appointments for sales meetings, product demonstrations, and consultations.
Sales teams can also use outbound dialers to engage with existing customers for upselling, cross-selling, or renewals to maximize customer lifetime value.
Related: Sales Dialers: Top Tips for High Connect Rates
2. Customer service
Outbound calling software makes it easy for customer service teams to facilitate one-on-one conversations with your users and collect real-time feedback.
They’ll use it to administer customer satisfaction surveys and collect qualitative feedback on your products and services for marketing insights. This process personalizes the feedback collection, allowing you to uncover a valuable perspective to improve the overall customer experience.
3. Debt collection
Use outbound dialers to follow up on outstanding payments and work out a repayment plan.
You can develop and load call scripts into the dialer to guide agents’ conversations with debtors — ensuring that they comply with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and other related legal requirements.
Outbound dialing solutions also have call recording and monitoring features for tracking agent-customer interactions, maintaining call quality, and improving call center performance.
4. Nonprofit fundraising
Nonprofit organizations can use outbound dialers to reach out to potential donors and supporters to share information about their cause, upcoming events, and fundraising campaigns. These personalized conversations help you build stronger relationships with the people passionate about your nonprofit’s causes — typically translating into more donations and awareness.
Outbound dialers also play a crucial role in recruiting volunteers for various nonprofit activities and events. You’ll use it to contact individuals interested in volunteering, learn more about their motivations, and find the perfect fit for your team. It’s a great way to quickly build your volunteer base and support network.
Step Up Your Outbound Game With Nextiva
Nextiva offers a unified contact center solution that helps agents field blended calls (outbound and inbound calls) with ease in a single platform that integrates well with their customer data sources. It’s flexible and has affordable pricing plans for businesses at every growth stage.
Check out Nextiva’s contact center solution to see how we can help your business. 👇
Your flexible contact center solution.
With Nextiva’s contact center offerings, you’ll find a perfectly suited package for your organization.
Outbound Dialers FAQs
Find answers to frequently asked questions about outbound dialers.
Outbound dialers are legal in many jurisdictions, but there are usually regulations that govern their use.
In the United States, for example, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and the Telemarketing Sales Rule impose restrictions on using outbound dialers for telemarketing and commercial purposes. Research Do Not Call lists and follow telemarketing laws in your region to ensure full regulatory compliance when using outbound dialers.
In most cases, yes. Typically, agentless dialers used for surveys and reminders can send pre-recorded messages. In some instances, outbound agent dialers have a voicemail drop functionality that allows call center agents to leave pre-recorded messages when a dialed phone number goes to voicemail.
When used ethically, outbound dialers reduce frustrating call wait times, providing timely, relevant, and personalized communication to enhance the overall customer experience.
