Telemarketing is as popular today as it’s ever been for one simple reason: it works. But while the phone is still a viable sales tool in a world in which almost everything else has moved on to the web, the digital revolution has still resulted in major changes to telephone sales, primarily through the introduction of power dialers – a synthesis of web-based technology and traditional calling.
Power dialers are software platforms that streamline and automate all aspects of the calling process using voice over internet protocol (VoIP) technology. Their purpose is to optimize the efficiency of telephone sales by eliminating the wasted time associated with manual telephone operations – like the need for a human operator to dial numbers one by one. Power dialers also collect and collate data on calling operations to provide management with the information needed to improve processes and develop effective training programs. Finally, because power dialers utilize VoIP rather than hard telephone lines, they can replace an office’s entire legacy phone system, simplifying in-office systems, reducing the need for hardware and support, and eliminating monthly phone bills in the process.
Common Features Included in Power Dialers:
While there are a wide variety of power dialers currently on the market, each with their own unique twists, there are some features that are almost universal across all dialers.
Call Queuing and Auto-Dialing
One of the primary functions of essentially auto dialer software is the automation of dialing using pre-built call queues. Once a call queue has been created, the software will automatically dial the next number as soon as the current call completes. As a result, there is no downtime between calls and agents can significantly increase their daily call rates – an invaluable benefit in a game that is so heavily dependent on maximizing volume. However, it might be a prudent decision to integrate a phone number validation tool with this system, as this helps in eliminating any invalid or disconnected numbers that might be on the list. By verifying the phone numbers that are being dialed, there can be an overall efficiency increase plus greater chance of connecting with the right leads.
Voicemail Drop
Leaving voicemail messages manually is incredibly inefficient. Not only do manual voicemails require an agent to sit through a greeting and wait for the beep, but they also introduce the potential for error in the form of unclear or poorly formulated messages. Voicemail drop eliminates both factors by enabling agents to leave a pre-recorded voicemail with a single click, both ensuring the message left is perfectly on-script, and eliminating wasted time, further maximizing an agent’s daily call capacity.
Local Presence
Companies that sell over the phone outside of their local markets face an additional barrier in the sales process. When prospects see an out-of-area or out-of-state telephone number on their call displays, they’re far less likely to answer the phone. That makes just getting out-of-area leads to pick-up a major challenge. Local Presence knocks down that barrier by enabling agents to choose the phone number they dial out from specifically to match the geographic location of the prospect on the other end of the line. Area codes and numbers can be easily preselected from a list of available numbers, and all automated calls will then dial from that preselected number until the agent reconfigures it.
Interactive Voice Response
Interactive voice response (IVR) provides automated call routing for incoming calls, using either voice-activated or touch-tone controls to direct calls to the correct extensions. These familiar systems, which are in use by essentially all medium and large businesses, provide users with a preconfigured list of options, the ability to choose specific employee extensions, or the ability to bypass the system entirely to connect with a general support agent. The use of IVR significantly improves the ease and effectiveness of inbound call handling, making the lives of support and administrative staff much easier.
Advanced Dialer Integration with Customer Resource Management
One major advantage of using power dialer software is the ability to integrate it with advanced customer resource management (CRM) tools. The synthesis of power dialing and CRM enables users to access lead and customer profile information from right within the calling dashboard. That supercharges the overall effectiveness of the sales process and makes it easy for agents to reference information from prior contacts, add call notes to a lead’s profile, or even to send out paperwork or take electronic payment for an order right from within the call. It also enables easy reporting and a much deeper analysis of the calling data generated by the power dialer software, resulting in an end-to-end improvement of the sales process in addition to the improvements in calling volume and efficiency.
CRMDialer is a leading customer resource management platform that comes with a full-featured power dialer built right in. That seamless integration makes CRMDialer the ultimate sales and productivity tool for all industries in which phone-based selling makes up an important part of the sales mix. For more information on the full set of features included in CRMDialer’s industry-leading calling software, or to schedule a guided demonstration of the software, visit CRMDialer.com today.