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A Guide to the Best Outbound Dialing Software

Iryna Koshelieva
Iryna Koshelieva
Senior Growth Marketer, Ring.io
A Guide to the Best Outbound Dialing Software

There are many ways customers can communicate with companies today—email or chatbot, Zoom, or Skype. But the phone call remains the most popular kind among them. So, when someone has questions about the product, price, or company, he prefers to pick up the phone and call you.

That’s why outbound call center services are still in demand. But how to understand you need to have an outbound call center? And then, how to improve its work to increase customer satisfaction and your income, respectively? Let’s talk about this.

What is an outbound call center?

What do you think, what is an outbound call center? Maybe, it is a room where are a lot of managers sitting at their tables and making outgoing calls?

The definition

Technically, you are right if you think so. But two nuances give an understanding that such a definition is not accurate and complete:

  • When the COVID-19 pandemic began, almost all employees had to start working remotely. Thus, everyone stayed at home, so call centers changed. So they stopped looking like a cluster of agents in one room, but they didn’t stop being call centers, did they? So, the call center is not only about people sitting in one place.
  • Another essential component besides call center employees is a system that brings them together and makes the process smooth and efficient. No matter how many professional managers you hire, you will have no results if there is no system. Instead, the system helps your agents understand how they should work and allows you to control the quality of their work.

So, the outbound call center is a group of managers who make outbound calls using software that supports smooth work, facilitates tasks, and provides information for analyzing the effectiveness of the call center. They can work in the office or remotely. It doesn’t matter.

Can you use the inbound call center software for outbound calls?

Has your company already had an inbound call center? If yes, that’s great. But beware of making the mistake of trying to use the same software for both inbound and outbound calls!

Inbound calls are usually about customer support. Your prospects call you to solve their issues and to get some help with processing orders and making payments. You can also inquire them about renewals and upgrades within these calls.

On the other hand, outbound calls are made by your sales team to generate leads via a cold outreach, for example. Or your agents can also call the customers to conduct market research or take feedback. Ideally, you should provide phone support for proactive customer service as well.

As you see, the functions of the two types of calls are entirely different. It is logical that for practical work, not only two separate groups of managers are needed, but also two sets of software.

Thus, if you want an effective outbound call center, you require the appropriate outbound call center software.

Companies that may need an outbound call center

Are you sure you need to spend money to organize an outbound call center? Maybe, it will be more profitable for you to invest in other departments like marketing or support center?

There are three reasons why you should have this kind of call center:

  1. Cold calling is one of the main ways you generate leads and make sales.
  2. Your sales funnel based on phone communication. For example, you set appointments or do upsell through calls.
  3. You use outbound calls to create customer surveys or ask for feedback.

If one of them is about your company, you indeed have to organize the practical work of your outbound call center.

Components of productive outbound dialing software

Every business process has 7 general stages:

  1. Goal setting.
  2. Planning the process of achieving the goal.
  3. Defining actions and their distribution among employees.
  4. Process testing.
  5. Process implementing.
  6. Results monitoring.
  7. Adjusting the process or repetition of successful actions.

The workflow of your outbound call center also goes through this life cycle. Then, you should use software that can cover all the steps. Let’s see what it can be.

CRM system or help desk

Integrating different departments and business structures without any software is complex, especially when more than 10 people are working at your company.

As you know, businesses use CRM systems or help desks for this purpose. It is impossible to overestimate its role, but we will look at CRM from the point of view of the outbound call center working process.

Firstly, the CRM system contains all information about your customers and leads. Thus, you can easily find it before making a call, and you may add new data after calling, so everyone can see it and know about the progress or difficulties with the client.

Secondly, your managers will have their tasks visible to them, their colleagues, and their supervisors. So, it is easier to monitor how the work process is going on and make corrections if needed. Also, you can see who is responsible for what actions and tasks.

If you don’t have the CRM system yet, we recommend selecting the one that can integrate successfully with the types of software we will talk about further.

Software for call recording, tagging, and monitoring

When you have several outbound agents, it’s challenging to correctly organize and control their work. This type of software can make it easier to do.

Tagging helps organize and filter calls. For example, if your agent calls a new lead, and the last one is interested in the offer, he can assign the tag “interested” to the contact. Then, it is easy to look back or find the required information.

Call recording is the essential instrument for training your managers. You may also provide disciplinary actions depending on the records and do performance reviews.

Monitoring is a series of features that allow you to listen to live conversations with customers and even help agents communicate correctly. This is especially useful when training new employees and working with underperforming agents.

So, this software facilitates and improves your core workflow.

Software for analytics and reporting

Remember the sixth stage, called result monitoring?

Analytics is essential for achieving your goals. So, use some tools to improve this process for your outbound call center.

Reporting should be regular. For example, the weekly reports from all call center agents. It is crucial not only for you as a boss but also for them. Because they will see the actual situations, it will motivate them to change something in their approach or ask for help in achieving better results.

Outbound dialer

And the last thing you should have is an outbound dialer itself. It helps to automate the work process and eliminate the time your agents could waste on manual processes. How does it work?

Commonly, the outbound dialer can send prerecorded voicemails, show brief information about the client from the CRM system during the call, and update the data after the call if needed. For that, it should be perfectly integrated with your CRM.

We’ll talk about different types of outbound dialers next.

Types of outbound dialers

There are 4 main types of outbound dialers. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of each.

Preview dialer

Remember what we said about the brief information the agent can see during the call? This type of dialer shows customer data for preview before making a call. Then, the manager has time to prepare. It is vital for sensitive calls or complex cases.

Progressive dialer

Do you want to save time and make more calls? You should try a progressive dialer that gives the customer information while the call is being made. It speeds up the outgoing call, but your outbound call center agents won’t have time to prepare.

There is another feature you should know about this dialer. If the prospect doesn’t answer, it automatically proceeds to dial the next contact.

Predictive dialer

It is a perfect solution for large outbound call centers that have to make thousands of calls daily because it is the fastest dialer among others. That’s how it works:

A predictive dialer automatically calls many customers at once. The agent is connected only when someone answers the phone. Every agent has a specific status in the system, so it knows who is busy and who is free.

The system is speedy and productive, but there could be a problem. The situation may arise when the client picks up the phone and all managers are busy. He will hear silence and hang up if he is not answered within a few seconds. You will waste money on the outbound calling, and the system will move on to the subsequent contacts, thereby losing sight of some customers.

Power dialer

The last type is deservedly the most optimal for most businesses. Why is that so?

A power dialer generates a list of contacts the agent plans to call. But calls do not start automatically if the user does not set up such a function. It also shows the customer information before the call is made and allows the agent to end the call or leave a voice message. Such opportunities help to enhance customer service in outbound call centers.

How to select the right software for making outbound calls?

There are 3 key metrics that you can rely on for making a choice:

  1. The new software fit with the old one. Especially with your CRM system. It is also important to remember about your team. You can even offer them to select the features they would like to work with because no one else knows their needs better.
  2. It meets your requirements and is affordable at the same time. Don’t forget about the price and ensure you don’t require the more expensive software. Maybe, it will be better to choose the cheaper one?
  3. The right software has a short time to value (TTV) because the quicker it is, the faster your agents and executives will see its value.

Ideally, it would help if you tried to find a dialer that would cover as many of your needs as possible. So, take a look at those tools, which have a lot of different functions and can give you many instruments to improve the workflow.

The Ring.io Sales Dialer is one of them. And there are reasons why we can say so.

This dialer perfectly integrates with the most popular CRM systems, such as Salesforce, Zoho, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Thus, it will quickly become a part of your work process.

Also, you will find out many useful features built into this software. For example:

  • Voicemail Automation – agents can leave voicemails with just one click;
  • Next Action – add the information straight to your CRM after the call;
  • Call Recording – you can use record calls for training your managers or analyzing confusing situations;
  • Live Call Monitoring – it helps assist new reps;
  • RingInsights – you can see the complete statistic of outbound calls and have deep insights into the team’s performance and productivity of each manager.

As you can see, the Ring.io Sales Dialer can not only dial numbers but also helps to automate most tasks, analyze the efficiency of the workflow and facilitate the work and training of your employees.

Is this software suitable for your company? Do not think in vain; it is better to take a try. What’s more, it’s free for 14 days. Choose your CRM system if you are ready to start!

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