Slow and steady wins the race. It’s not about the slow, it’s about the steady, really. Preview dialing can be slow. Predictive dialing can be a bit unpredictable at times. With progressive dialing, your agents are always doing something. Progressive is the default method most call center software uses to route calls to agents. A lead pops up on the screen at the same time it begins dialing. Bec
ause it is dialing on behalf of a specific agent, that agent does hear call progress. If the call is connected, the agent is there the moment the caller picks up.
Progressive dialing has a few knocks against it. Let’s cover those right away:
- It’s slower than predictive dialing. Your agents will not spend as much time talking to clients, and it won’t connect leads to agents as quickly, as the agent has to wait for call progress. That means if you’ve set the system to wait 20 seconds before marking a call as not answered, your agent will have to wait 20 seconds before giving up on a ringing call.
- It’s not slow enough to do a full preview of the lead being dialed. While the agent does have to sit through call progress, there’s little time to look at the lead data if the person picks up right away.
- Since it’s not being auto-dialed in some way, the agent is responsible for choosing the disposition. If it’s a no answer, the agent might mistakenly mark it as “busy”.
In cases where going through the maximum number of leads in the shortest time possible is key, progressive dialing may not be for you. If familiarizing your agent with the client’s story before dialing the lead is necessary, progressive dialing may not be for you.
So why would anybody use progressive dialing?
- Smarter dialing. Predictive dialers can have trouble with answering machines, business Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems, or interpreting other results from a dial. Disconnected numbers don’t always get reported the same way, and certain jurisdictions may wind up with disconnected numbers being marked as busy or some other type. An agent can hear the message, or leave a message, or dial extension 474 to reach their prospect. Machine intelligence just isn’t as reliable for these things.
- Lead conservation. If you have a bazillion low-value leads, or can go through them multiple times without hurting your success rate too much, predictive dialing could be for you. Otherwise, you’ll want to set a longer no-answer timeout than is good for predictive dialing to make sure that clients have a chance to answer. You also spare yourself the embarrassment of having your Answering Machine Detection (AMD) software play a message at the wrong time, or to a live person. AMD success rates are still less than 100%. If you play a message to a live caller, you may wind up with them on your Do Not Call list. If there’s an agent there, you might get the sale instead.
- Regulations. As mentioned in the post about predictive dialing, there are a lot of regulations surrounding predictive dialing in most major markets. Progressive dialing usually doesn’t fall under those regulations, as the dial is initiated at the agent’s request. The people you’re calling also don’t have to deal with the annoyance of having the call abandon after two seconds.
- An agent is right there right away. This ties in with lead conservation, but it might be important. Have you ever answered the phone and heard a full second or two (or *gasp* more?) of silence? That’s a dead giveaway that’s somebody has autodialed you, and they’re having trouble connecting an agent fast enough. For some, that’s enough time to say “Hello? Hello?” and hang up the phone. Access denied! If there’s a friendly voice on the other end, you’ll keep them on the line longer.
- It’s faster than preview dialing. With preview dialing, the agent can have a wrapup period after the last call AND a period to review the lead pre-dial. With progressive dialing, there’s no pre-dial period where the agent can delay calling. Add in a maximum wrapup time and forced wrapup, and your agents have a limited amount of time they can delay between calls.Your dialer probably came with progressive dialing as a default. You owe it to yourself to see if that’s your best option.