If you've been avoiding buying a predictive dialer because agents at your call center make too few calls to justify the cost of purchasing one, your wait is over. By adding a predictive dialer module to software suites you might already use for managing customer interactions and service, e-mail, company data or other resources, you can achieve effective outbound campaigns with a rapid return on investment.

Just ask Larry Mark, the chief technical officer for VorTecs, a Shelton, CT-based consulting firm for call centers. "Predictive dialing is one of the clearest returns on investment that you can make in a call center," he says. "You don't need to call millions of people, especially as the prices have come down. And you can have fairly small outbound call centers now."

Predictive dialing software has found growing acceptance among large numbers of call centers that can't afford the more traditional proprietary hardware dialing systems. Many of these software dialers are modules of comm servers, which can route messages from different mediums to agents. But call centers that focus primarily on outbound calls appreciate the power and efficiency of a hardware dialer, since they can typically accommodate more agents and handle greater volumes of outbound calls. Both types of dialers have their strengths and liabilities, which we will explore later in this article.

Predictive dialers have dramatically impacted how call center managers run their centers. Mark says that agents who answered outbound calls from a dialer typically worked separately from inbound agents, leaving "islands of information" between them (i.e., agents handling outbound calls weren't able to view the same customer information as agents handling inbound calls). "Upon the realization that there were these islands, [vendors] wanted to start sharing agent resources," he says.

Mark says that software-based predictive dialers emerged to bridge these islands of information. He explains that vendors of dialers and software for call centers contributed to the development of software-based dialers. "The traditional dialer vendors added products to their offerings that enabled them to work with software suites, and software vendors added outbound [modules] to their suites," he says.

As a module of a suite, predictive dialing software can work with other applications. That lets agents, for example, answer customers' e-mails and text chat requests, in addition to inbound and outbound calls. But Mark cautions that requiring agents to respond to blended calls, let alone blending different media, can confuse them.

"Blending information is the present and the future of predictive dialing," says Mark. "But people just don't seem to adapt well to call blending. You've got the human factors of switching modes between inbound and outbound calls."

He doesn't foresee hardware-based predictive dialers becoming obsolete. That's because hardware dialers often have more features than their software counterparts. For example, a hardware dialer might be able to associate more phone numbers with a given customer or include more options for finding customers' names on a calling list.

Predictive dialer hardware still grabs by far the largest share of the market. Brian Huff, technology analyst at New York, NY-based research and consulting firm Datamonitor, says that 68% of the revenue earned by predictive dialer vendors in 2000 came from sales of dialer hardware. Huff notes that centers that have already invested in a legacy-based dialer won't rush to replace them. But he also anticipates a rise in demand for soft dialers during the next five years.

Call centers are increasingly using predictive dialers for applications besides collections and telemarketing, such as assessing customer satisfaction. As more predictive dialing options come to market, say observers, they'll spur additional apps. Below, we detail how the latest products can help you design successful outbound campaigns.

Comm Servers Serve Outbound Campaigns

Many communications server vendors offer predictive dialing components to help manage outbound campaigns. David Fuller, the director of marketing for Interactive Intelligence (Indianapolis, IN), explains that call center managers appreciate the convenience of adding outbound dialing capacity to a software package. "They want to buy a module that fits in with the rest of their communications system," he says. "And," he adds, referring to the limitations of standalone predictive dialers, "they've been through the CTI mess of the past.

"The problem with more traditional dialers is that they're proprietary solutions and they limit customization options," he says. "They have to be connected through trunks to a PBX in many cases. When you run out of physical trunks, you can't do any more [outbound] dialing."

Let's say for example, you dedicate a certain number of ports to IVR and to predictive dialing. If you want to devote additional ports to predictive dialing, you would need to physically free up those IVR ports, creating extra work for your center's IT staff.

Using predictive dialer software like Interaction Dialer 2.0 lets you reallocate your call center resources from your PC. The software works as a module of the Customer Interaction Center comm server software suite. Version 2.0 also includes new features, like multi-server campaign support. You can set rules to filter phone numbers from your outbound calling list to other servers also running Interaction Dialer. If you work on the East Coast, for example, you can send numbers with California area codes to a call center on the West Coast so that agents at that center can answer West Coast-directed calls.

For every outbound campaign, the Interaction Dialer 2.0 automatically determines how often to make calls on behalf of agents based on statistical data collected from prior calls. For example, let's say that your center places 100 calls, 20 of which end with the customer hanging up after ten seconds. The next time a call reaches the same stage, the software knows to make another call.

To keep track of multiple outbound campaigns, the software features a real-time statistics display. The information details how many agents work on a given campaign; how many calls they answer; the number of times they call the same customers; the estimated time of completion for each call; and the number of calls that agents answer per hour. All statistics can be displayed on agents' PCs.

Pricing for Interaction Dialer Server and the Interaction Dialer Workstation are approximately $5,000 and $3,000, respectively. Interaction Dialer comes with the Interaction Scripter, software that enables you to write call scripts for inbound and outbound campaigns. You can also purchase the last as a standalone product for $750 per agent.

If you've been avoiding buying a predictive dialer because agents at your call center make too few calls to justify the cost of purchasing one, your wait is over. By adding a predictive dialer module to software suites you might already use for managing customer interactions and service, e-mail, company data or other resources, you can achieve effective outbound campaigns with a rapid return on investment.

Just ask Larry Mark, the chief technical officer for VorTecs, a Shelton, CT-based consulting firm for call centers. "Predictive dialing is one of the clearest returns on investment that you can make in a call center," he says. "You don't need to call millions of people, especially as the prices have come down. And you can have fairly small outbound call centers now."

Predictive dialing software has found growing acceptance among large numbers of call centers that can't afford the more traditional proprietary hardware dialing systems. Many of these software dialers are modules of comm servers, which can route messages from different mediums to agents. But call centers that focus primarily on outbound calls appreciate the power and efficiency of a hardware dialer, since they can typically accommodate more agents and handle greater volumes of outbound calls. Both types of dialers have their strengths and liabilities, which we will explore later in this article.

Predictive dialers have dramatically impacted how call center managers run their centers. Mark says that agents who answered outbound calls from a dialer typically worked separately from inbound agents, leaving "islands of information" between them (i.e., agents handling outbound calls weren't able to view the same customer information as agents handling inbound calls). "Upon the realization that there were these islands, vendors wanted to start sharing agent resources," he says.

Mark says that software-based predictive dialers emerged to bridge these islands of information. He explains that vendors of dialers and software for call centers contributed to the development of software-based dialers. "The traditional dialer vendors added products to their offerings that enabled them to work with software suites, and software vendors added outbound modules to their suites," he says.

As a module of a suite, predictive dialing software can work with other applications. That lets agents, for example, answer customers' e-mails and text chat requests, in addition to inbound and outbound calls. But Mark cautions that requiring agents to respond to blended calls, let alone blending different media, can confuse them.

"Blending information is the present and the future of predictive dialing," says Mark. "But people just don't seem to adapt well to call blending. You've got the human factors of switching modes between inbound and outbound calls."

He doesn't foresee hardware-based predictive dialers becoming obsolete. That's because hardware dialers often have more features than their software counterparts. For example, a hardware dialer might be able to associate more phone numbers with a given customer or include more options for finding customers' names on a calling list.

Predictive dialer hardware still grabs by far the largest share of the market. Brian Huff, technology analyst at New York, NY-based research and consulting firm Datamonitor, says that 68% of the revenue earned by predictive dialer vendors in 2000 came from sales of dialer hardware. Huff notes that centers that have already invested in a legacy-based dialer won't rush to replace them. But he also anticipates a rise in demand for soft dialers during the next five years.

Call centers are increasingly using predictive dialers for applications besides collections and telemarketing, such as assessing customer satisfaction. As more predictive dialing options come to market, say observers, they'll spur additional apps. Below, we detail how the latest products can help you design successful outbound campaigns.

Comm Servers Serve Outbound Campaigns

Many communications server vendors offer predictive dialing components to help manage outbound campaigns. David Fuller, the director of marketing for Interactive Intelligence (Indianapolis, IN), explains that call center managers appreciate the convenience of adding outbound dialing capacity to a software package. "They want to buy a module that fits in with the rest of their communications system," he says. "And," he adds, referring to the limitations of standalone predictive dialers, "they've been through the CTI mess of the past.

"The problem with more traditional dialers is that they're proprietary solutions and they limit customization options," he says. "They have to be connected through trunks to a PBX in many cases. When you run out of physical trunks, you can't do any more outbound dialing."

Let's say for example, you dedicate a certain number of ports to IVR and to predictive dialing. If you want to devote additional ports to predictive dialing, you would need to physically free up those IVR ports, creating extra work for your center's IT staff.

Using predictive dialer software like Interaction Dialer 2.0 lets you reallocate your call center resources from your PC. The software works as a module of the Customer Interaction Center comm server software suite. Version 2.0 also includes new features, like multi-server campaign support. You can set rules to filter phone numbers from your outbound calling list to other servers also running Interaction Dialer. If you work on the East Coast, for example, you can send numbers with California area codes to a call center on the West Coast so that agents at that center can answer West Coast-directed calls.

For every outbound campaign, the Interaction Dialer 2.0 automatically determines how often to make calls on behalf of agents based on statistical data collected from prior calls. For example, let's say that your center places 100 calls, 20 of which end with the customer hanging up after ten seconds. The next time a call reaches the same stage, the software knows to make another call.

To keep track of multiple outbound campaigns, the software features a real-time statistics display. The information details how many agents work on a given campaign; how many calls they answer; the number of times they call the same customers; the estimated time of completion for each call; and the number of calls that agents answer per hour. All statistics can be displayed on agents' PCs.

Pricing for Interaction Dialer Server and the Interaction Dialer Workstation are approximately $5,000 and $3,000, respectively. Interaction Dialer comes with the Interaction Scripter, software that enables you to write call scripts for inbound and outbound campaigns. You can also purchase the last as a standalone product for $750 per agent.