Call Centre Technology - Information Resource for the Call Center Manager

Advice for the Call and Contact Centre Supervisor. Effective Agent Monitoring and Management.

Predictive Dialers in Outbound Call Centres

Improve Call Centre Efficiency

There are a variety of dialers in use but in the case of outbound call centres the predictive dialer is most pertinent as it generates the greatest agent efficiency. Manual dialing by the agent results in an average productive time per hour of just 15 to 20 minutes, whereas predictive dialing elevates this figure to 40 minutes per hour and even up to 57 minutes per hour - a significant increase and a major factor in the efficiency of modern outbound call centres.

Phone Number Dialers

Other less sophisticated forms of dialer include:

Preview Dialer
The call recipient's information is displayed on the agent's screen and the number is dialled manually.

Power Dialer
Calls a list of numbers and connects live answered calls to an agent. If no agent is available then the call is abandoned or a pre-recorded message is played.

Progressive Dialer
Ensures at least one agent is free to take the call before dialing the next number on the list.

Anticipatory Dialer
Anticipates when an agent will be free using statistics generated by that agent for the next call.

All these systems have drawbacks from direct involvement in the dialing by the agent through to lack of efficiency as the dialer is judging when to call on an individual basis rather than a call centre wide basis.

The predictive dialer is more sophisticated in that it connects the next free agent with the next answered call having anticipated when an agent is about to become free. This produces the most efficient use of agent time and call centre resources.

Predictive Dialer Technology

A predictive dialer is a computer hardware or software system that dials numerous telephone numbers simultaneously, the numbers having been loaded from a database. It is the most automated and sophisticated outbound calling method. The dialer only connects the agent to the called party if it detects a live hello from a human. It can recognize answering machines, modems, fax machines, busy signals, no answers, disconnected numbers and operator interception, in which cases it terminates the call.

If a live hello is detected, the dialer transfers the call to a free agent. If a live hello is not detected the dialer discards or reschedules the call.

The predictive dialer maintains an overview of the whole process, producing reports for supervisors which can then be used to refine the system. Efficiency is greatly enhanced as the agent is not having to make the call or wait for a free line.

Agent Availability Prediction

A predictive dialer is an intelligent outbound call processing system which uses complex mathematical algorithms to predict when the next agent will be available and when the next call will be answered by a human. Once the agent is connected to the call recipient all the information pertaining to the call is displayed on the agent's screen.

The predictive dialer adjusts it's call rate based on the following factors:

	Number of agents currently logged into the system
	Percentage of dialed calls which are answered by a human
	Average number of rings before a call is answered
	Average length of each call
	Abandonment rate i.e. where the call recipient hangs up before am agent is connected

Complex mathematical algorithms dynamically calculate the rate at which phone numbers are dialled in order to keep all agents connected, balancing the availability of agents and minimizing the number of abandoned calls.

Maximize Agent Efficiency

The predictive dialer maximizes the efficiency of both agents individually and of the outbound call centre. It's use in Telemarketing is now widespread with calls being made all over the world from a call centre locations where overheads will be most cost effective. For more information review the X-on Predictive Dialer.