What is a progressive dialer?
A progressive dialer is one of auto dialing modes that are used by outbound call centers to launch outbound calling campaigns in purpose to generate leads, cold sales, and other telemarketing activities. A progressive dialer is used generally for warm calls as it is based on the algorithm of the power dialer. Progressive dialers show high dialing pace performance rates that can be compared to predictive dialing mode performance, but they also bear some features that are available for power dialers only.
First of all, let’s differentiate a progressive dialer from predictive dialer. Predictive dialer can start new dialing attempts when agents are busy as it measures average call duration and starts dialing when agent is going to finish the call, so the new one will be right there to pick up in a second. Progressive dialer works differently: it waits agent to finish the call and post-call work and only when it will start dialing. Based on that, Progressive dialers never generate dropped calls as predictive dialers do.
The difference between progressive dialer and power dialer isn’t that huge: power dialer calls only one phone number at a time, while progressive dialer can use 2:1 or 3:1 dialing ratio, which means it calls a few contacts at the same time. Thus, if power dialer needs only one agent to be all set, the progressive dialer may need a few.
As with all other auto dialers, progressive dialers also identify unsuccessful calls, including answering machines, busy rings, and disconnected calls, and can redial those contacts in accordance with pre-set redialing rules. You can also run multiple campaigns simultaneously.
The average dialing speed of progressive dialers is a bit slower than for predictive dialers, around 90 dials per hour with a success rate that depends on the quality of your leads, but rarely lower than 50%, sometimes up to 75%.
Progressive dialer: benefits of use
Improved agent productivity
Progressive dialers boost agent occupancy rate, reduce agent idling time, increase agent performance by boosting the conversion rate and provide agents with some features like call scripting.
High success rate
For manual dialing, the success rate is rarely higher than 30%. In the case of Progressive dialer, it is often around 70%. This means you get 40 additional successful calls from each 100 dialing attempts, which seems to be a great deal.
Improved conversion rate
The progressive dialer can provide conversion rates at the level of 2,5% compared to less than 1% manually, and this is the main reason why progressive dialer truly boost your revenue.
FAQ
How does a progressive dialer work?
A progressive dialer calls phone numbers from the contact base only when the agent is free, but instead of a power dialer, it can call a few contacts at a time, so it offers faster dialing pace.
When do you use progressive dialers instead of predictive dialers for your contact center solution?
Progressive dialers are great for massive warm calling campaigns, they are also more preferred than Predictive dialers for smaller businesses as they rarely require many agents to be involved in the campaign. Progressive dialers are also more used in the B2B, there the hang-up rates and average success rates are just higher than in B2C and you don’t have to process endless contact bases simultaneously.