Auto Dialer Vs. Predictive Dialer: The Difference

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Technology has changed the way of doing call center business. With AI and machine learning getting integrated into automated cloud telephony software, repetitive processes are reduced to a minimum. The main focus is on nurturing leads and customer satisfaction. In the same way, your sales teams also need to be equipped with the best call center automation tools to reach maximum people and increase conversions. 

Auto dialers and predictive dialers are helping immensely to fill the gaps that were initially created by redundant and monotonous operations in the call center department. These dialers help the calling agents focus on leads, which generate high conversion rates and close the deals in a few steps with minimum follow-ups. 

Knowing how well such dialers are helping call center businesses to take things to the new level, as many as 56% of the companies globally are planning to invest in AI. About 33% of them are even planning to invest in robotics and process automation.

For determining the best call center automation tools for your business, we will walk you through some of the functionalities of both the dialers first.

Why Do You Need an Auto Dialer or a Predictive Dialer Software?

The first thing that comes to your mind when you think of expanding your business is – What are the strategies in place that will boost sales? 

Generating leads, nurturing, and converting them is a regular task for any call center. One of the most important things that play a significant role in lead conversion is excellent communication with the customer. And, having a right outbound dialer can help you achieve this task.

Apart from maintaining excellent communication, automating calls eliminate various mundane tasks, such as 

• Choosing the list of clients to call and manually dialing their numbers
• Tracking any previous communication with clients
• Waiting for the clients to pick up the call
• Redialing the number in case of call drop due to busy signals
• Remembering the key points of the conversations and noting it down
• Recording voicemails 

Although an automated solution can never replace your sales representatives’ human touch, they instead act as a brain behind your sales process. Automation tools like auto dialer and predictive dialer help to remove the repetitive tasks and let the representatives focus primarily on maintaining excellent communication. 

Companies that employ such technology along with human touch consistently grow in terms of sales. As shown in McKinsey’s research, companies with sales automation tools witness a 5x more growth rate than those with no automation. 

Having understood the need for automation in your sales process, let us look at the difference between an auto dialer and a predictive dialer.

Difference Between Auto Dialer and Predictive Dialer

Here’s a comparison table to help you understand the differences between the auto dialer and predictive dialer: 

While both the tools handle sales operations and help in streamlining the dialing process, yet there are some significant differences between both – 

Auto Dialer

An auto dialer is an electronic device that automatically dials the loaded contact numbers, plays recorded messages, and connects calls to the company’s sales agent. You just need to upload the contact numbers list of potential clients and start the campaign. 

Auto dialer will start making the calls in the sequence of the list uploaded. The software will not miss any single contact and then connect the call to your sales representative. Your agent can also get an option to drop the call if it moves to voicemail when unanswered. 

This saves time for an agent to dial the numbers manually or record voicemails separately for every unanswered call.

There is also an option of cool-off time that gives agents sufficient time to make notes of the previous call and look at the next call’s details before starting any conversation. With all these functions, an auto dialer can make around 70-80 calls per hour. 

There are various cloud-based auto dialers available that help agents to work from remote locations.

An Auto Dialer is Suitable For

An auto dialer is suitable for a small support team. It can also be utilized in case of a remote working scenario. Since there is only one line needed, the agents wil be attending one call at a time. 

Small and medium businesses can benefit from an auto dialer by increasing their sales efficiency. Also, an entrepreneur or single agent can take maximum advantage of this tool. 

It is suitable for businesses that are looking for having more personalized and meaningful communication with their clients. Auto dialers also integrate with CRM that helps to ensure that the calls are logged in correctly, and individual notes are saved for each call. 

Benefits of an Auto Dialer

1. Advertisement Purposes

A study conducted by Annuitas Group stated that nurtured leads tend to generate 47% more purchases than the unnurtured leads. An auto dialer software ensures that advertising campaigns are carried effectively, and agents are giving due attention to leads with high conversion rates. 

2. Maintaining Interaction With Customers

Interaction with customers is the main target that is to be followed by call centers. A good auto dialer software can quickly do this process. Agents can focus on calls rather than performing unnecessary tasks.

3. Utilize Agent’s Call Time 100%

Auto dialers help you utilize an agent’s talk time at an optimum level as compared to the manual dialing process. Minimizing the idle time makes your agent more productive and also ultimately helps in improving the call connect ratio.

Predictive Dialer

Predictive dialer works with the help of statistical algorithms and AI technology. This dialer dials multiple contacts simultaneously. The algorithm is designed based on various factors such as the number of calls answered, calls unanswered, time taken by the agent on each call, and the amount of time taken to answer each call.

Based on all these factors, a predictive dialer starts dialing numbers even before the representative ends the previous call. This helps the agents to have another call in the queue when they are done with the current call. 

This ensures that there is zero wastage of time, and agents can connect with maximum potential customers. 

Various predictive dialers seamlessly integrate with other business functions such as ERP, CRM, HR, etc. 

Predictive Dialer is Suitable For

Large enterprises, big teams, and large contact centers can use predictive dialers to increase their sales revenue and speed up their marketing campaigns. Since a predictive dialer connects to many calls at once, you need to have a large team that can handle all these calls. 

Predictive dialers are most useful for outbound sales campaigns that have a high volume of calls. 

Predictive dialers are of great use to contemporary call centers, where the sales agents can productively listen to many customers and eliminate the mundane and repetitive tasks.

Benefits of a Predictive Dialer

1. Increase in Agents Productivity

Predictive dialers can dial multiple calls at a time. This means that there is a next call waiting for the agent when he finishes an active call. This ensures zero wastage of time. 

Also, the software will direct the call to the right department that saves time for the agent from picking any wrong call. All this helps to enhance the productivity of agents and, at the same time, ensure maximum customer satisfaction.

2. Highly Scalable

Predictive dialers are highly scalable and can add multiple agents or remove agents from a row. They can be used for numerous marketing campaigns. This is the reason they are mainly suitable for large organizations and call centers. 

3. Customizable List

A user can create and customize his own list of customers. Any agent can also create his own marketing campaigns. A predictive dialer will help them to achieve targets by making dialing easier. 

4. Call Monitoring and Analysis

In any call center, call managers are required to keep a constant eye on their representatives’ performance. It is challenging to monitor calls in the case of outbound calling campaigns, which is why a predictive dialer solution comes in handy. 

Predictive dialer makes it easier to monitor calls by providing various metrics such as – total dialed calls, average call duration, entire call duration, etc. all these metrics can help understand the performance of an agent.

Auto Dialer vs. Predictive Dialer: What Should You Choose?

Auto dialers and predictive dialers should be your go-to automation tools if you are looking to maximize your sales representatives’ potential. 

You can choose any of these dialers depending on your team size and the volume of calls. The size of a marketing campaign is also an essential factor to consider before choosing any tool.

Small and medium businesses that are looking for more personalized communications should opt for an autodialer. This tool will contact one customer at a time, and your agent can be well prepared with notes and historical data of that contact.

On the other hand, predictive dialers will speed up the calling process of large companies with huge call centers. The sales team can handle more customers at a time with various features such as call logging and monitoring. 

So, have you decided which one should you utilize for your call center requirements? Let us know your call center business criteria in the comment section below and we can help you get the best.