Predictive dialer software can increase productivity and efficiency for businesses that need to make large numbers of phone calls. The software uses mathematical algorithms to predict the frequency at which the calls it places will be answered and when the numbers should be dialed in order to ensure that a member of the call center staff will be available to take the call if somebody does pick it up.
The predictive dialer must be able to differentiate between answered and unanswered calls and it must also be able to determine why a call was not answered and adapt it's future strategy accordingly. If no one picked up the phone or if the number was already engaged, then the dialer will need to call back at another time. If there was no answer because the number has been disconnected then the number must be flagged so that someone can check up on it. The dialer also needs to be able to tell the difference between a call that is answered by a real person and one that is picked up by an answering machine, otherwise call center agents will be erroneously connected to unanswered calls.
The predictive dialer software needs to match the number of calls it expects to be answered with the number of agents it expects to be available. The exact number of calls that the dialer needs to place will depend upon the number of agents that are working in the call center, the expected length of the calls and the proportion of calls that are likely to be answered. These figures will vary according to the type of calls that are being made from the center. A basic ratio of calls placed to the number of agents in the center is between 1.5 and two calls per agent.
Predictive dialer software can adapt as it gathers data about the calls it has already placed. If it finds that more calls are being answered than it expected or that each call is lasting longer then it will adapt the ratio of calls per agent accordingly. This means that predictive dialers improve over time, as they learn more about the way a specific call center functions.
A predictive dialer that is working well can ensure that there are very few abandoned calls where a customer answers, but there is no agent available to speak to them while also minimizing the amount of time that the call center staff members sit idle in between calls. It will work best when there are a large number of agents and there are many calls that need to be placed.