Why does your company need a dialer?

How I wish the opera company had a telephone dialer!

When I was in seventh grade I was “volunteered” to help the Opera Company in my home town with their fundraising one spring. I was given several pages of names and phone numbers. These people had previously donated in the past. My responsibility was to call each of them and give them the pitch I was taught. The fundraising was fairly successful; most of the people I was calling were repeat contributors. But what I remember is sitting in the kitchen, my cheek flat against the table top, bored out of my mind looking up, then dialing, then sitting through ring after ring after ring. At least a third of the messages went to voicemail and then I had to clumsily come up with a message that would get these people to call me back. I only ever got through half of my list, I gave up before I finished.

While a seventh grader may not be the best comparison for a professional sales agent, the symptoms I experienced may not be dissimilar to those experienced by call center reps. Sales agents who manually dial through lists of contacts often experience a high degree of job burnout. This leads to slower job completion and lower job quality. The potentially monotonous tasks associated with remote sales may also increase the number of employees who are actively seeking different employment. This leads to a higher number of employees quitting soon after they complete their job training. These companies are losing money a lot of money.

Simple telephony tools dramatically reduce these problems by removing the busywork from remote sales. The flagship solution is the telephone dialer. Dialers are software solutions that automatically dial through a list of leads or contacts. They remove one of the largest time wasters from remote sales, manually dialing. Besides reducing the amount of time spent looking up and dialing numbers they also increase the number of people each sales agent is able to talk to in a day. Sales would already become a lot less monotonous.

Dialers also offer software solutions to reduce the time dealt with unanswered calls and voice mail. Many dialers allow pre-recorded messages to be saved for future use. Some dialers allow these messages to be broadcasted through the dialer to the numbers called. Contacts who answer the phone can then choose to speak to a live agent. Alternatively some dialers call through a list of names, and only patch through to the live agent when calls are answered. In this scenario the prerecorded message is left to those numbers where a voice message system picks up. A third alternative is a dialer that patches every call to the agent before it is answered. The agent can then opt to move on to another call while the dialer leaves the prerecorded message when voice mail is encountered.

There are many different variations of telephone dialers. Each serves to speed the sales process, increase sales, and make the sales process more enjoyable for sales agents. It is worth the time and attention of any remote sales organization to look into which kind of dialer would work best for them.

Hosted CRM

While some companies may choose to host their own Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRMs), the cost of hardware and software, as well as development and maintenance is prohibitive, intimidating, and obnoxious for many organizations. A hosted CRM becomes a viable alternative, especially when the host company provides all of the support business solutions necessary for successful sales.

A hosted CRM with built in outbound dialing tools creates a system where sales team professionals can focus on making sales instead of generating leads, tracking statistics, filling out paper work, and identifying sales trends.

The most fundamental outbound dialing tool is the outbound dialer itself. There are many dialers on the market, but not all dialers are created equal. Two of the first major outbound dialers created for remote sales were the auto dialer and the predictive dialer.
An auto dialer automatically dials telephone numbers for sales agents who are idle or waiting for a call.

The predictive dialer instead uses a variety of algorithms to predict both the availability of agents and how many called leads should answer, adjusting the calling process to the number of agents it predicts will be available when the calls it places are expected to be answered. Both of these dialers have their limitations, including a percentage of dropped calls that are made while waiting for an available sales agent. A better alternative to either of these dialers would be what is known as a power dialer.

A power dialer automatically calls through a programmed list of phone numbers, and patches those calls through to sales representatives. As long as the sales rep does not hang up his receiver the power dialer will continue to patch through the calls it is making. This system increases productivity over an auto dialer, and because it is still only making one call at a time it removes the dropped call rate that is inherit in a predictive outbound dialer.

A hosted CRM that has an outbound power dialer offers many other business solutions for a remote sales organization. One simple, but effective and convenient, solution is Click-to-Call software. The purpose of the software is to make calling easy. On the hosted CRM each and every phone number will have a link to call that contact. The computer contacts the CRM which activates the power dialer. The dialer then carries out its function by calling the sales rep and also the lead.

The integrated CRM dialer combination also has great potential in voice messaging. These innovations in voice mail come from two main sources. First, the power dialer will have the option to leave a prerecorded voice message with a single click on the computer. This allows a sales team professional to leave a message in his or her own voice when they encounter a voice mail system, but without having to take the time to do so. Instead the system automatically finishes the call while the agent moves on to contact the next lead. The second source of improved voice messaging is provided by message broadcast systems. A prerecorded message is again programmed into the system, and the message broadcast system automatically calls through a programmed call list and by design plays the recorded message. Contacts listening to the message may at any time press preprogrammed numbers to talk to a live sales agent, receive an email, or be removed from the call list. These voice broadcast systems automatically checks contacts programmed against the do not call list. They also check for duplications in the call list to prevent one contact from receiving the same message numerous times.

The combined hosted CRM and outbound power dialer increase productivity by increasing the rate at which new leads are contacted. This starts with automatic lead generation. This works by adding code to the company website. This code tells the web forms that are filled out to automatically create a lead within the CRM. The lead is then routed to a sales agent’s call list and within minutes of that web form being filled out online that lead is being contacted by a representative of the organization.

Such quick lead generation, routing, and calling has several benefits. First it dramatically increases the rate of contact. After all, those leads are most likely still at their computer by a telephone. Second, the rate of lead qualification goes up significantly. By contacting a lead soon after they fill out the web form they are still thinking about the company still highly interested in the product. Third, the fast rate of response by the sales agents creates an atmosphere of competency about their organization. Leads will see the company as one that gets tasks done quickly and efficiently.

These dialing tools also work with the CRM to quickly manage data, track sales, and process analytics. The data that the telemarketing department needs to operate can then be swiftly compiled and reported to other departments. The hosted CRM serves as the foundation for the entire outbound dialing system.

Use telephony software to make remote sales profitable

Telephony software grants the ability to effectively accomplish many of the different tasks within a business that sales remotely. By combining the different telephony software solutions out there any company can dramatically improve how they accomplish sales tasks.

All sorts of good telephony software and solutions are used for lead management. This includes: power or predictive dialers, blended inbound call routing, voice messaging, faxing and emailing. A suite of these tools is able to fully track the metrics and analytics involved in tracking contacts, qualifying leads, and all the other tasks associated with sales lead tracking. Above and beyond simply tracking sales, these telephony tools increases the number of calls, contacts, faxes, emails, leads, follow-ups, proposals, and closes. These tools help you increase sales.

The reason telephony software solutions are able to increase sales is because they increase the number of quality interactions a lead has with the company.

Beginning with lead generation, potential clients are given a unique experience when a company is utilizing telephony lead management solutions. Any web form submitted by an interested lead automatically gets converted into a lead. This lead is then qualified, and routed through to the telephone dialer. Within minutes of that lead first submitting the request online a live sales agent is on the phone with them. In addition to the speed of this routing, new leads are assigned to the sales agent that has been identified as the best one for those types of calls. This assignment may be based on such things as which web form is submitted, or the area or zip code of the new lead.

This automatic call routing is designed to blend perfectly with outbound calling. The newly created lead will be held until the current outbound call is complete, and then be pushed through to the sales rep. This allows sales professionals to be engaged in outbound calling while waiting for new leads to generate and not to worry that new leads will be missed or current calls will be interrupted. Also, inbound calls are routed to these same sales reps allowing sales professionals the ability to use their time as effectively as possible.

Once a call is answered, the sales agent has many telephone software solutions at his disposal. Email and faxes can be sent instantly from the dialer interface. Often sales agents spend 5 or 6 hours a day on the phone, and a huge 2 to 3 hours following through on those calls by sending emails or faxes with additional information. Email or fax software solutions shorten those 2 to 3 hours to minutes.

Telephony software solutions continue to aid in the sales process on through closing the deal and following up with repeat customers in the future. With so many different business tools available it is worth the time and attention to research the options.

So, what can my CRM do anyway?

The power and versatility of telephony software allows inside sales companies to increase their calls, contacts, impressions, faxes, emails, and callbacks. All of this serves to increase conversions and revenue. Telephony software solutions are available to complete the myriad of tasks that call centers or remote sales organizations need to accomplish. The software that manages all of the processes that need to occur for a remote sales professional to meet the needs of their clients and their employer is Customer Relationship Management software.

Customer Relationship Management software, or CRM, serves as a database for the storage of an organization’s information. A CRM calendars private and company events and tasks. It automatically captures information on new leads and incoming calls, and a CRM manages customer accounts through the entire sales process.

CRMs can be integrated with other computer telephony integration (CTI) software solutions. Perhaps the most important piece of software to use alongside Customer Relationship Management would be a telephone dialer.

Dialers automatically call through a list of leads, or a similar list of phone numbers pulled from the CRM. A dialer then patches that call through to a live sales agent. Several different dialers exist, from the speedy but sometimes unreliable ratio dialer to the effective and methodical power dialer. No matter what dialer is being used, they all become more effective when they are allowed to pull info from, and up load data too, the CRM.

CRM can also integrate other telephony business solutions with their own database and the dialers they empower. Voice messaging software allows sales reps to leave prerecorded, relevant voice messages on the voicemail of leads they attempt to contact. The CRM will automatically leave the message while the sales rep may move on to take another call. Alternatively these messages can be broadcasted by the CRM. The dialer will call through the list of contacts and automatically play the prerecorded message, freeing the sales rep to receive inbound calls or dial through a separate list. Generally, at any time the contact listening to the message may choose to speak to a live agent.

Email messaging is another example of a CTI solution. Pre-composed email templates may be selected and sent by the CRM during a conversation by a sales agent. These messages can automatically pull information to be included within the email, such as the contacts name or business. Instantly the lead can receive additional information promised to them by the sales agent.

Customer Relationship Management is the backbone of remote sales, and the industry has responded by producing plenty of business solutions to amplify it.

Email, the shorthand version of electronic mail, revolutionized the way we communicate. It predates the internet with the earliest versions of it coming out in the mid sixties. This mode of communication has potential to increase customer satisfaction and the speed by which new leads convert. Telephony email software has integrated the power of email with the efficiency of Customer Relationship Management.

Email marketing is also an old idea. Successful marketing teams still frequently rely on email marketing as a staple to their campaign strategies. Email marketing is a form of direct marketing, where commercial information is mailed directly to potential clients. Email often replaces other forms of text delivery, such as direct mail or printed newsletters, for several reasons. First, it is cheap to send massive amounts of electronic messages compared to printed paper alternatives. Second, email is fast. Email messages can reach their intended audiences within seconds of sending. Often printed mail takes several days to be delivered to those same people. Additionally, email is a “green” advertisement practice that reduces paper waste. Considering that over half of all internet users check their email each day, email reaches people.

Remote sales telephony software adds business solutions to the already useful email marketing machine. One of the ways it does this is by facilitating the sending of email messages. First off, a Customer Relationship Management system may have email templates stored in them. These templates are designed to fit the purposes of the company, and can automatically import important information from the CRM, including their name or business to write into the salutation, and of course their email address. With a simple mouse click these custom email messages can be sent to leads on the phone with a sales agent, allowing them to quickly provide additional information to leads. Potential clients receive not only an email, but also the impression that the company is responsible.

Contacts can be automatically placed on email campaigns, slowly warming them up to products that they previously turned down. These emails build trust with the lead when the emails provide helpful content. This process is call lead nurturing. Using email leads can be nurtured into conversions without taken sales reps away from calling and contacting new leads.

Email marketing business solutions also offer the ability to track when emails are opened. When potential conversions open an email about the company, automatically the Customer Relationship Management system routes a call to that lead. Sales reps contact him or her within minutes of them having read the email while the company is still on their mind.

This partnership of email marketing with Customer Relationship Management creates less work and more sales for sales agents. It increases contact rates, conversions, and revenues. And best of all it saves money.

Voice Messaging

Voice messaging software provides many options to sales agents. These software solutions are an example of CTI, or Computer Telephony Integration. They provide telephone automation for sales, customer support, and marketing programs within an organization’s Customer Relationship Management, or CRM.

Customer Relationship Management captures, contains, and retrieves the important information on leads, contacts, and clients. A CRM may be implemented with a major investment by the company to purchase or design software and hardware to support the processes of managing all the jobs associated with inside sales, or a host company may provide the software and hardware for the organization to use. The companies that provide the hosted CRM sometimes offer voice messaging solutions through their same company.

The voice messaging software creates voice broadcast initiatives from the contact lists within the CRM. Voice broadcasting is where a series of calls are made from a selected list and a prerecorded message is automatically played. Those listening to these messages generally have the option to press a button to be removed from the list or to speak to a live agent. Good voice messaging systems will allow these messages to be any length and allow these messages to be recorded from anywhere.

Different messages may be played if the call goes to voicemail versus whether or not the lead is contacted. Both of these messages can be prerecorded in the sales agents own voice and catered to whether it is a voicemail or a live-call scenario. Additionally multiple numbers may be called simultaneously for one contact. Whatever number answers first is where the voice message will be broadcasted to.

The time that these voice messages will be broadcasted is also customizable. This allows a sales team to ensure voice messages will be sent out at the best times of day to contact their leads. The CRM voice message pairing can identify the time zones different contacts live in and call numbers from the same contact list at different times based on their geographic location.

Voice messaging software also enhances inbound calling. These features start with the option for listeners of broadcasted messages to press a number to talk to a live agent. Similarly automatic messages can be set up as the default answer to toll free numbers, such as help lines. Answers to the most common questions can be recorded and the option to contact a live agent is presented also.

If an inbound call is not able to be answered by a sales agent voice message software provides a solution for that caller. He or she may then choose to leave a voice mail his or her self, which will be transferred to the first available agent for them to listen and respond to.
Voice messaging enhances many of the primary functions of Customer Relationship Management. It allows sales reps and contacts to get in contact with each other quickly and efficiently.

Find a Host, don't do it yourself!

Customer Relationship Management is used by businesses that use call centers or any other form of remote sales. A Customer Relationship Management, abbreviated as CRM, captures and stores important information on leads and clients. This data is retrievable by sales agents whenever they need it. CRM become more versatile and less of a hassle for companies when they allow another company to host the software. Hosted CRM provide many opportunities to integrate with other telephony software and solutions to create an effective sales organization.

The powerful data management that CRM offers has many applications within a sales team. They serve as platforms for the management of individual and group calendaring, managing both office events and deadlines as well as providing reminders for follow-up calls to be made by specific sales reps to specific leads.

Hosted CRM may also be linked with the telephone dialer used by a business. Regardless of the type of dialer (ration, predictive, auto, or power) the CRM will pull up the previously stored data associated with any number called. With this the sales rep can easily see when the lead was last contacted, what the result of that contact was, and what action needs to be taken next with that lead. The sales rep can easily edit that information, or add additional notes and details about the call.

Hosted CRM linked with a dialer in this way provides additional options to the sales rep that would not be available if he used the dialer alone. Customer Relationship Management should give the sales agent the option on their computer screen to instantly send an email or a fax to the lead they are contacting. Additionally, the CRM allows the sales rep to leave a prerecorded voice message when a lead is not reached. While the voice message is being left by the Customer Relationship Management system the sales agent may move on to his next call.

This integration of CRM and a dialer helps sales teams be more productive. Hosted CRM makes this setup even more profitable. The host company maintains and manages all hardware needed to run the software, which is also housed by the host company. The software is accessed by the remote sales organizations over the internet. This option opens up the possibility of having sales representatives work from home, or completely separate offices since they do not need either the hardware or software they need at the site from which they work.

Lead Response Research

Lead response management is the combination of business practices and software solutions to guarantee that all newly generated leads are contacted as quickly as possible after that lead is generated. It also entails the effective contact and conversion of that lead into a valued customer.

The driving economic principle behind lead response management is ROI. ROI stands for return of investment. Synonymous terms are rate of return (ROR), rate of profit, or just the return. The return of investment is the ratio of money gained, or lost, in an investment relative to the amount of money lost. The profit or loss calculated as the ROI is what motivates all business decisions.

Lead generation is an investment for a company. It takes time and effort to gather or create leads, not to mention money. Thousands of dollars may be spent on Marketing, SEO, and purchasing leads to give organizations the contacts they need to make sales. Related to lead response management, this return of investment becomes important in determining if the leads generated are worth the amount of money invested in them. Lead response management is designed to increase the return of investment and increase overall profit.

Lead response management includes numerous different responsibilities within lead management. These include lead generation, lead capture, lead scoring, lead routing, lead distribution, lead qualifying, and lead tracking. Because lead response management is encompasses so much, and since it is influential on the overall success of a remote sales business, the independent research company Incoho performed a in depth research of web site response practices.

Incoho made inquiries, using a fabricated identity, on five hundred and twenty-six web sites from four hundred and sixty-nine separate companies through web-based forms. They tracked all responses they received.

Incoho used the initial findings of a joint study between InsideSales.com and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as the ideological framing of their research. The MIT study found that odds of contacting a lead increased one hundred times if the attempt to contact that lead happened within five minutes that the lead was generated as compared to contacting them with in thirty minutes. It likewise found that those leads contacted in the five minute window were also twenty-one times more likely to be qualified. A third relative finding by MIT is that each attempt to contact a lead after twenty hours of generation became increasingly less productive.

In Incoho’s study each web form submitted was filled out and submitted five separate times on five separate days. Their goal was to observe what percentage of businesses would follow the lead response practices that MIT identified as being the most efficient at increasing ROI.

When the results were compiled 45.1% of companies never responded to the web form submissions. Of those who did respond nearly all of them (47%) responded by email, and on average not until fifty-four hours after the initial web form was submitted. Only 15% of the inquiries were responded to within the ideal five minute time frame.

Lead response management software aids inside sales companies in being one of the few businesses to respond to leads within the optimal first five minutes. Lead response management software assists in all of the tasks previously mentioned that are associated with lead response management, but they’re especially useful in three ways:
1. Automatic lead qualifying
2. Automatic lead routing
3. Effective lead tracking

Automatic lead qualifying recognizes a potential lead. This is done by having all forms on a company web site upload into the CRM. Within seconds of filling out a form the software checks to see if proper contact information is provided and compare the query against other leads in the system. The management software separates duplicates from new sales leads, and allows sales agents to call the leads that are most likely to become a conversion.

Automatic lead routing is the process in sales lead management where those newly acquired and qualified leads are sent straight to available sales agents. This prevents leads from becoming uninterested during the hours they wait for a representative to call them. It also insures you contact the lead before a competitor within the important first five minutes.

Effective lead tracking is required for those leads who do not convert immediately. By keeping in touch with those leads it increases the chance of a conversion from that lead in the future. This is called lead nurturing. Lead management software tracks previous contact attempts, the results of those contacts, and can automatically perform a long-term email campaign with those unconverted leads without taking more man-hours from the organization.

Lead response management can be simple with well designed lead response management software. The research shows it’s incredibly effective and produces a high return of investment on leads generated. Remote sales companies using lead response management software see increased profits compared to those who do not.

How voice messaging systems work together

Voice messaging software solutions provide remarkable time saving solutions for remote sales professionals.

A voice broadcast system is one voice messaging tool that vastly increases the speed at which a sales rep can reach a large audience. With voice broadcasting a prerecorded message is automatically sent out to those on the call list. This frees the agent from making each of those calls individually.

One criticism of voice messaging systems, like broadcast systems, is that they lack the personal feeling that customers like to experience. IVR call routing is one solution for those contacts that are interested in a businesses product or service, but do not want to deal solely with a computer voice message.

IVR stands for Interactive Voice Response. An interactive voice response system provides all of the functions traditional reserved for touch tone menus. These include the users response to a recorded menu or survey. When the contact desired to respond to what was said over the telephone, a push on one of the number pads conveyed the message. Instead, an IVR listens for the responses a contact will give vocally, and reacts accordingly, including transferring the lead to a live sales agent. Other options that the listener may choose would be to have a fax or email message automatically sent to them, or to be removed from the call list.

An interactive voice response system is not only beneficial when broadcasting voice messages, but can also be helpful when used for inbound calls. Specifically inbound toll free numbers can be set up to transfer callers to the IVR system. Automated responses to common questions can be prerecorded, freeing up sales agents from needing to respond to the same inquiries time and again. Alternatively an IVR may be set up to direct the caller to whichever department they need to reach. This option eliminates a good portion of the work a secretary or telephone operator may need to do in a large organization.

Voice broadcasting and IVR systems both become more efficient when coupled with an ACD call routing system. The ACD (Automatic Call Distributor) routes whatever call is received to the best available sales agent. As contacts opt to talk to a live agent as opposed to working with the recorded messaging system, the ACD will connect them to the best sales rep for their call. All of these options serve to increase productivity without decreasing any of the personal aspect of sales that lead to conversions.

What does a CRM do?

A good Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) has all the features needed for it to be the brain behind a remote sales team. Individual agents update information on their leads and clients, and the CRM stores all of the data in one place. CRMs facilitate the quick and effortless management of that information, and provide many solutions for increasing customer satisfaction and lead conversion.

CRMs have several parts to them. These include Sales Force Automation (SFA) and Marketing Automation software. These manage the data in the CRM for the sales and marketing processes of remote sales. An SFA should be able to manage contact and account information, track sales from specific geographic territories, control the ‘pipeline’ of how often new leads are fed to sales reps, and store the product and service catalogue for the business. The marketing automation portion of the CRM tracks email marketing, controls campaign and leads management, captures leads from online sources, and automatically responds to inbound emails.

Customer Relationship Managers speed customer support by following individual cases and automatically assigning them to specific sales representatives. They may also store documents that can be retrieved for use by the agent or shared with leads when appropriate by fax or email.

A CRM is also a powerful analytics tool. This software tracks all aspects of the sales process and can quickly produce custom reports on performance. These reports include a record of how many leads were contacted and what ratio converted, how long an individual sales person stays on the phone with their customers, and the total amount of calls a sales team typically makes in a business day.

High customizability is not only provided in the analytics solutions of a CRM. A well engineered Customer Relationship Manager offers customization of any and all forms sales agents use and display of information. These customizations can even happen on a department by department level, not strictly company wide. This allows each department to have access to the information that is most needed to them, which in turn helps the whole sales process to perform better.

Customer Relationship Managers can also have the remote sales team’s dialer software embedded into it. By connecting the power dialer into the CRM, much of the data that needs to be inputted by sales agents are captured by the system automatically. Additionally the CRM will automatically retrieve and display previously captured information on inbound calls.

Get the most out of your Web Forms

Web form callback technology enables sales reps using dialers to reach leads as soon as they are generated. This telephony tool can increase the productivity of a sales team, and it does so in elegantly simple ways.

This whole business solution starts with a web form. This application is placed on a website and encourages those interested in the organizations services or products to fill it out and submit it. The data from these web forms could sit, filed away on some computer, for a long time before an agent gets the time to look at them. Web form callback technology captures the information submitted and converts them into a lead in the company’s CRM (customer relationship manager). This quick and automated lead capturing assures that all new leads are looked at in a timely manner. Additionally, it provides a way to disqualify potential leads that do not submit all of the requisite information, or who have already been added into the CRM. This stops sales agents from wasting time qualifying leads when they could be on the phone talking to contacts.

A web form callback dialer solution will then ensure that the newly captured lead is routed to the best possible sales representative. This can be determined by several factors: which agents are available, which agents are responsible for specified geographic regions, and which agents are responsible for different toll free numbers.

The call to the new lead is routed through the dialer to the sales agent within minutes of the web form first being generated. The speed at which this call is made enhances productivity by increase the number of leads that are successfully contacted by the sales team. This contact ration increases because the lead is most likely still in a position to be thinking about the company and to be able to receive a telephone call. After all, it was within minutes of the call that the lead was filling out the form on the company website.

Web form callback technology has another important benefit. It increases the confidence that potential clients have in an organization. By reaching a lead quickly the message sent is that the company will fulfill all of its promises that quickly. This feeling of trust allows a lead to feel safe when purchasing a product or service. Because of this automated web form callback increases the ratio of leads contacted to leads converted.

Increase Sales 800%

Lead response rates greatly influence the ratio of leads contacted to leads converted. The purpose of lead response management software or solutions is to aid sales team professionals to make more contacts, close more sales, and increase revenue.

Lead management software creates contact lists for sales representatives to call. One way it does this is by exporting contact lists from the Customer Relationship Management system. This is generally easy for the sales rep to do, often with only a few mouse clicks. These lists can be generated from a number of parameters, such as their geographic location, their response to the last successful contact, or whether or not they’ve ever been in contact with a sales agent. These lists are then called through by whatever dialer the sales professional uses in conjunction with their Customer Relationship Management system.

Alternatively contact lists can be generated by web form capture solutions built into the lead response software. This business solution utilizes the web forms on the company website. When potential clients fill out and submit a form including their name and phone number that information is automatically captured and stored within the Customer Relationship Management system. These leads are then routed by the lead management software immediately to the best sales agent for the call, usually based on the agents designated responsibility over that particular web form, website, or the leads geographic location in addition to the agent’s availability. These newly captured leads are given high priority by the lead generation software, allowing sales representatives to attempt to contact newly generated leads within minutes of when they enter the Customer Relationship Management system.

This rapid response rate may be the largest contributing factor to the increase in successful lead contacts, successful conversions, and successful sales. The rate of contact and conversion decreases dramatically as the amount of time it takes to respond to new leads increased. By using lead response software in conjunction with a Customer Relationship Management system to contact new leads in minutes, companies who sell remotely have reported upwards of an eight hundred percent increase in sales.

This sales solution is one of the few business implementations that bring immediate results. Within 24 hours of implementing software that captures and redirects newly created leads sales representatives will see an increase in the amount of sales closed. A lead management software solution is an important improvement for any sales team.

Hosted CRM revisited

Customer Relationship Management is used by businesses that use call centers or any other form of remote sales. A Customer Relationship Management, abbreviated as CRM, captures and stores important information on leads and clients. This data is retrievable by sales agents whenever they need it. CRM become more versatile and less of a hassle for companies when they allow another company to host the software. Hosted CRM provide many opportunities to integrate with other telephony software and solutions to create an effective sales organization.

The powerful data management that CRM offers has many applications within a sales team. They serve as platforms for the management of individual and group calendaring, managing both office events and deadlines as well as providing reminders for follow-up calls to be made by specific sales reps to specific leads.

Hosted CRM may also be linked with the telephone dialer used by a business. Regardless of the type of dialer (ration, predictive, auto, or power) the CRM will pull up the previously stored data associated with any number called. With this the sales rep can easily see when the lead was last contacted, what the result of that contact was, and what action needs to be taken next with that lead. The sales rep can easily edit that information, or add additional notes and details about the call.

Hosted CRM linked with a dialer in this way provides additional options to the sales rep that would not be available if he used the dialer alone. Customer Relationship Management should give the sales agent the option on their computer screen to instantly send an email or a fax to the lead they are contacting. Additionally, the CRM allows the sales rep to leave a prerecorded voice message when a lead is not reached. While the voice message is being left by the Customer Relationship Management system the sales agent may move on to his next call.

This integration of CRM and a dialer helps sales teams be more productive. Hosted CRM makes this setup even more profitable. The host company maintains and manages all hardware needed to run the software, which is also housed by the host company. The software is accessed by the remote sales organizations over the internet. This option opens up the possibility of having sales representatives work from home, or completely separate offices since they do not need either the hardware or software they need at the site from which they work.

The Dialer

Historically sales were done with a store front that customers could visit or by door to door vendors bringing their wares and services directly to their customers. Recently shifts in sales practices have led to the development of “Inside Sales”, a very different focus with very different tools.

Inside sales differ from traditional, or outside sales, in several ways. The clearest distinction is how customers are encountered. Inside sales are often conducted from an office or call center, through the use of a computer and telephone. Sometimes visits or appointments are set up for a face to face visit, but the phone becomes the primary tool of communication.

Numerous different kinds of hardware and software have been developed to aid in the process of inside sales. Dialers have emerged as a staple in the inside sales industry. Dialers, or dialer software, are programs that monitor, record, alter, and streamline the calls that are made by any single sales agent. Not all dialers are the same, but many fall into a few basic categories.

Predictive dialers are designed to give increased control and flexibility to sales teams to improve the amount of talk time each agent has over the course of a workday. A ratio dialer works by calling a set amount of leads per available sales agent. This call per agent ratio takes into account that some calls are never answered by the lead. Ratio dialers can leave a prerecorded message when they encounter a voice mail system, and never bother the sales agent with the machine. The salesperson’s time is spent only with prospects.

A second type of dialer is the auto dialer. With auto dialers, the dialer will call through a list of leads automatically, patching them through to the sales representative as the call starts to ring. If a call is not answered the salesperson can choose to leave a voice message. An auto dialer reduces the amount of dropped calls from unavailable representatives or pauses between when the client answers and when the sales person connects to the call that may occur with a ratio dialer.

Power dialers are a third kind of dialer used in inside sales. A Power dialer can call through a list of numbers, similar to an auto dialer, but a power dialer gives more control to the call agent. The agent is able to control the rate of calling, by calling the agent as it makes a call to a lead. The salesperson answers the call, which is then patched through to the lead. Power dialers also have the ability to leave voice messages, emails, and faxes if a call is not answered.

All dialers are designed to increase productivity of inside sales departments. They all require a preprogrammed list of leads, but each have their own nuances to allow dialers to meet the needs of the diverse inside sales community.

Hosted CRM

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems allow departments that are a part of a remote sales team to coordinate information about their customers. This is why companies contract with a hosted CRM service provider. A CRM prevents new leads from being lost in the shuffle between those agents who generate, qualify, contact, and nurture leads.

These hosted CRMs fulfill all of the functions of other CRMs, but have several benefits.

First, no additional hardware needs to be purchased, and generally no additional software needs to be downloaded on to the company’s own computers. The hardware and software will be hosted by the CRM company’s location and on their network. This lowers the cost of acquiring, storing, and maintaining a Customer Relationship Management system. This also places the responsibility of fixing problems and “bugs” onto the shoulders of the host.

Second, company’s that use a hosted CRM gain the added business solutions that have been designed to work alongside the management system. Sales Force Automation (SFA) is one example. An SFA automates many of the simple tasks that sales agents have to do. These include automated lead management and tracking, account management and tracking, business reporting, and workflow management. All of these business solutions remove the tedious nature of record keeping from inside sales. SFA allows one agent to be able to handle all the needs of a single customer, no longer forcing them to pass their leads back and forth through different departments.

Finally, a hosted CRM with proper software support from the host company will have dozens more powerful efficiency building tools for their clients. Perhaps the most powerful of these would be a outbound auto or power dialer that will route incoming leads to an available sales reps within minutes of those leads being generated. Inbound calling should also be integrated into this same system so that agents making outbound calls may also receive inbound calls. A CRM combined with both inbound and outbound will save hundred of man hours by eliminating wasted down time between callers for all members of the sells team. Simple automated email and fax marketing with preprogrammed templates and simple prerecorded voice messaging that start with just a single button click amplifies sales agents selling power.
A hosted CRM with this support from the host company will allow any individual sales rep to take care of multiple customers, no longer multiple reps for each lead!

Why should you be using Lead Management Software?

Organizations act wisely when they utilize ways of bringing potential clients to their websites. Most successful businesses spend large amounts of time and resources on driving those clicks exactly where they want them. In addition, landing pages and entire websites are optimized to convert those visitors into leads. As an organization gains prominence, and as it streamlines its marketing campaigns, the flow of leads has the potential to overwhelm sales teams.

Lead management software provides businesses with several tools to help them take good care of their leads. The most basic function of any sales lead management system is tracking where the lead came from. This provides useful information on what marketing strategies are working well, which ones need some work, and which endeavors should be dropped.

Lead management software does not stop at this most fundamental function. In addition to simple tracking, sales lead management allows you to contact your leads more efficiently. Finding well designed lead management software should have a direct impact on the number of sales you are making. Sales lead management has the potential to double and quadruple an organization’s sales that previously did not use such software.

One way lead management software accomplishes this is by helping your sales team representatives contact those new leads within the first few minutes that they enter into your lead pool (such as when they fill out a form on that newly optimized company website). This is often referred to as lead response management. Because it is so crucial to conversions to contact leads quickly and efficiently, a lead management system worth its price must facilitate rapid response.

Lead management systems do this best when they incorporate other telephony software used in remote sales. Power dialing, automated prerecorded voice messaging, and embedded ties to company websites are all valuable features in lead management software. A sales lead management system that already features these tools will remove the need for additional software and will streamline the process of making more calls and contacts, sending more emails and faxes, and having more demonstrations, proposals, and sales. Ultimately, if your lead management system does not lead to more closes, it is not living up its promised role in the sales process.

Companies that will host your lead management system will not only make installation and maintenance easier for you, they will also save you the cost of purchasing hardware and developing software yourself. Since lead management systems have so much potential to increase productivity, the pay as you go fees available from system hosts are well worth the investment.

Hw does an eCRM decrease the price of performing remote sales?

The internet can offer a business the opportunity to cut the cost associated with customer service, increase customer satisfaction, and personalize marketing customization. These needs are often met as previous business tools become incorporated into the World Wide Web. Customer Relationship Managers, or CRMs, are one example. When a CRM is used in conjunction with the Internet it is known as an eCRM.

CRMs are often hosted on a company’s server that companies using it pay for each month or year. These hosted CRMs are accessed by the internet and become eCRMs. All customer relationship management systems include the processes and activities an organization uses to track and organize their contacts. The challenge a CRM has to face is being able to access the information and offer the communication on the right topic, in the right amount, at the right time that the customer needs.

The internet provides many facets by which the eCRM can accomplish its task. Websites and web pages become important sources for leads in a customer relationship manager. Many company websites contain web forms. These forms collect personal information and are voluntarily filled out and submitted by visitors who often are interested in buying the company’s product or service. If a CRM was not connected to the internet, a sales agent would have to wait for an email notifying him that the web form had been completed, impute that telephone number into the CRM manually, and wait for it to be brought up for a sales rep to call.

Alternatively, an eCRM can be set up to work with the web forms on a company site. As these web forms are submitted, the customer relationship manager captures the lead. The software can accomplish this within seconds of the form being submitted, and sales agents can follow up with the prospect immediately. Lead management solutions built into the CRM push the newly captured lead to the top of the call list. The contact that filled out the web form may realistically be called within minutes of submitting their information over the web. Such a rapid response not only impresses potential customers, but it also ensures that the lead is contacted before a competitor is able to, or before his or her interest fades. This fast response rate is one way that the use of an eCRM increases sales.

Remote sales is often less expensive than face to face sales. The use of telephony business solutions like a Customer Relationship Manager, especially an eCRM, increases the difference in price between the two practices even more.

The connection between CRM and SFA

In inside sales – also known as remote sales – sales agents and customers don't meet face to face to do business, at least at first. Instead your call center contacts potential leads with the intent of turning them into lifetime customers. Leads that have already become customers in turn can call the business at any time during operating hours, and request the service they need. Inside sales departments succeed by making a large volume of calls, receive a large volume of calls, adequately addressing the needs of prospects and customers, and by keeping track of all the calls and interactions that take place.

A CRM is the system used by companies who sell remotely to handle the large amount of information shared during inbound and outbound calls. These systems collect and record the important data a remote sales team needs. With a CRM, a sales agent will be able to track which of his or her leads have been successfully contacted and also when other leads need to be followed up on.

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. A customer relationship management system tracks all phases of the sales process: sales, marketing, support, ordering, and services.

The part of a CRM that controls and documents the sales process is called Sales Force Automation (SFA). This allows sales professionals to schedule call back appointments and phone meetings, track responses to sales and marketing campaigns, and manage individual sales accounts. The data that the SFA collects during the sales process on leads, customers, and performance will be kept in the Customer Relationship Management database.

The idea behind sales force automation is that when analytical data is shared between departments and those involved in the different stages that sales professionals will be able to ensure that they are productive as possible.

An SFA facilitates successful lead management, and is designed so that no lead will ever be lost in the transfer from lead generation to lead qualification. This allows a sales agent to contact a lead as soon as it comes in. These valuable leads generated from web forms and ad campaigns will never again sit stored in a forgotten computer file where they could be overlooked and ignored. Leads are able to be imported in from a variety of sources including spreadsheets and web captured forms automatically with sales force automation. As those leads are converted into customers sales teams can view trends and analyze those trends in their SFA, which shows how individual employees and sales teams are performing so they can figure out how they could improve.

Sales force automation also consolidates all company information into one accessible place within the CRM. This includes contact information for leads, product purchase orders, and the communication history between clients and sales agents. This information facilitates collaboration across all departments in an organization and aids the effective coordination of sales campaigns and initiatives.

Using Sales Force Automation to track the communication history of individual customers with an organization helps the company to keep their clients happy. Well designed sales force automation systems provide easy templates to be used in creating effective emails or print mailers for customers. They also provide tools for personalization, allowing companies to reach the individual needs of their clients while providing them a good experience with the organization. By tracking communication with individual leads and customers you can avoid the annoying repetitive emails, and all contact with the customer can be rewarding and relevant. SFA also provides information for an organization on whether or not emails sent to contacts are opened by them, as well as how long it took after they were sent for them to be opened.

Using the information gathered by sales force automation, a Customer Response Management system can analyze data recorded and provide reports for employers. These analytical reports will allow a company to know exactly how many calls the whole sales team is making each day, how long each one talks to individual leads and customers, and just what percent of their contacted leads convert into customers. This allows sales managers to accurately make decisions and changes to how their sales team should continue based on their current performance.

Analytical reports also become important in managing an organization’s marketing campaigns. With a customer relationship management system sales professionals can track where the majority of new leads are generated from and which of those new lead bring the company money. If one particular lead source, a lead generation company or ad space on a website, is not producing the quality of leads expected for the business, a CRM will show that in its reporting and inform the company that it should reallocate its resources into a source that will bring higher returns for its investment.

Converting leads and keeping customers happy is what inside sales is all about. A customer relationship management system (CRM) which incorporates sales force automation (SFA) provides remote sales teams the tools they need to do that.

These Software Solutions will Increase your Lead Nurturing Success

Lead generation practices can produce a large volume of leads for a sales team agent to contact. Even with the best of sales reps not every lead contacted becomes a conversion. But not every lead that does not convert is a lost cause. Lead nurturing is the process of preparing contacted, but unconverted leads, into profitable sources of revenue in the future. Unconverted leads become not-yet-converted leads when lead nurturing is implemented.

A potential client needs to think and feel several things about a company before they will purchase their product or service. The lead needs to be familiar with the company and what it does. He or she needs to perceive the company as a group of experts in their field. The lead needs to feel like his or her specific problems are understood. Lastly, the company needs to be well liked enough for the lead to consider doing business with it.

This gradual changing of a lead’s feelings or attitudes cannot be accomplished by a monthly phone call asking if he or she was interested in the product yet. Instead, the lead needs to become comfortable with the organization and the employees there. Much computer telephone integration (CTI) software has been designed to manage the consistent and meaningful communication during the lead nurturing time. These telephony software solutions also incorporate several media formats to be used in the process.

Task management systems, such as an electronic labor force (ELF), manages lead nurturing from one source. These integrate with customer relationship managers (CRMs) to keep track of callbacks, events, and other tasks. These systems also control the various marketing solutions: email, voice broadcast, fax messaging, direct mail, and others.

Fax or email messaging campaigns can be particularly useful during lead nurturing. Faxes or emails can be designed previous to their sending, and cover topics that the majority of leads would be interested in. Many fax or email messaging systems also contain templates made by the host company to help in lead nurturing campaigns. These messages can then be automatically distributed to individual leads that are being nurtured periodically throughout the process. In addition, these emails, or original ones, may be sent by using the straightforward features of the ELF. The interspersion of these text based messages between phone calls from sales reps fosters a feeling of trust with the lead.

These are only a few of the software solutions available to aid the remote sales team to increase sales and customer loyalty through lead nurturing. Sales marketing tactics become more effective and more leads become conversions as lead nurturing becomes an important part of the sales process.

Which sales tools will help your company perform best?

A company’s Customer Relationship Management System (CRM) tracks all of the information a sales team needs to capture about prospective and current clients, but there is more to being a successful salesperson than keeping track of numbers and reports. Vendors that develop and distribute sales automation software have provided many sales tools to enhance the productivity of a CRM and the sales agents using it.

Telephony sales tools vary widely in their functions. Some provide ways to perform the tasks associated with remote sales easily, while others can drastically reduce the amount of paperwork and form filing an agent has to do.

Voice messaging systems are one example of a sales automation tool that speeds up the job of sales professionals. Instead of forcing each agent to wait through long answering machines and leaving their own voice messages – mistakes and all – a voice messaging system allows an agent to leave a pre-recorded message with a simple click of a button. Voicemails then become sales tools. Individual agents are not wasting time that could be used to contact a live lead, but their messages sound more professional since they were recorded (and possibly rerecorded several times) without the pressure of having to get it right the first time. Additionally those messages are still left in their own voices, bringing a personal feel to the automated responses.

An important sales tool to include in a CRM is a permission marketing tracking system. This allows an organization to be in complete compliance with anti-spam and “Do Not Fax” regulations without increasing the workload of their sales department. Permission marketing tracking systems automatically include at the bottom of each fax and email the date and time that permission to send the message was given.

Other sales tools that work in conjunction with the permission marketing tracking system are Do Not Call Maintenance systems. These record “do not call” or “do not contact” requests from contacts directly into the CRM, and records the time and date the request was made.

The most powerful of sales automation tools that incorporate with a CRM are power dialers. These drastically increase the call per hour rate for phone sales professionals by automatically providing leads for them to contact. After uploading a phone list of leads or contacts into the power dialer from the CRM, the power dialer cycles through the list allowing the salesperson to call the next lead with a single click.

Sales tools enhance the already useful and powerful CRM. Many different telephony tools are offered in the industry. They give an organization of any size the resources to be successful.

Embed your dialer into your CRM

A dialer is a type of telephony software that enables a sales agent to call a large volume of leads in a business day. These dialers have many incarnations such as auto dialers, predictive dialers, ratio dialers, and the efficient power dialers. Many dialers operate by calling numerous numbers at once, and they all serve to move a sales rep through a pre-programmed list of leads. All dialers operate at their best when they are used in conjunction with a CRM or ERP.

ERPs (Enterprise Resource Planners) and CRMs (Customer Relationship Managers) create, store and manage important company information, including the contact information on all leads and clients. Some popular providers of ERPs and CRMs include RightNow Technologies, InsideSales.com, Salesnet, and SalesForce.com. The ERP or CRM a company uses becomes a vital part of their sales process. A dialer should be fully integrated to work cooperatively with these systems.

The combining of the data management system with the telephone dialer enables tightly-coupled data management, tracking and analytics with an organization’s telemarketing efforts. The software combination allows quick and easy transfer of important information which powers other telephony business solutions. These include the automatic capturing of leads from submitted web forms, the routing of those leads to the best suited remote sales agent to accept that call, the automatic sending of an email or fax message by a sales agent to a lead while they are on the phone together, and the recording of important follow up tasks and dates associated with each contact.

Some providers of hosted dialer solutions also provide their own CRMs or ERPs. An alternative to a hosted solution that still provides both a CRM and ERP is a company whose telephone dialer can be fully embedded within another company’s management system.

By using a hosted dialer, a remote sales organization gains the telephony power tools associated with the dialer solution, but does not have to develop their own dialer software or download another company’s software onto their computers. Instead the software is housed on the host provider’s network, and accessed by the businesses acting as their clients.

Depending on the combination of data management and telephone dialer systems chosen, reports consistently find that the volume of sales made by any particular remote sales professional can increase three or four times than before. In addition, the ratio of contacts successfully made and contacts that become conversions increase as these telemarketing solutions are used.

How can the use of Toll Free Numbers help telesales?

800 telephone numbers have become a staple in the business world. An 800 number is a toll free phone number, meaning the called party is charged for the call instead of the calling party. This allows customers to call the businesses and organizations they do business with without being charged extra for the communication. Businesses should consider the implementation of toll free numbers when they make a profit from the call in other ways. These profits include collecting fees for technical support, making a sale during the call, or seeing an enhancement in sales because of the implementation of the toll free number.

Including one or more toll free telephone numbers increases company visibility and productivity. There are numerous telephony software solutions that have been designed to help remote sales teams use tool free numbers most effectively.

By linking inbound toll free calls to a lead management CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) incoming calls can be captured. This means that the most relevant, real time information on the caller will immediately and automatically be updated into the CRM. These leads are saved as future prospects for call or email campaigns.

Inbound/outbound call blending telephony software allows sales agents to “double up” on both duties. These sales reps may make outbound calls while they wait to receive an inbound call. This call blending can be additionally enhanced by the use of a CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) system. These solutions often involve pop-ups or pop-screens, windows that open automatically when the inbound call is answered. This immediately displays all relevant information and allows the sales rep to easy update the contacts data in the CRM.

Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) is another business solution that increases the effectiveness of toll free calls. ACD software is known as call routing software, and it automatically forwards incoming calls to the best available agent. Individual agents can be specified as the primary agent for individual toll free numbers or geographic locations. If preferred agents are not available, incoming calls can then be routed to a designated fail-over destination. This could be the company’s general telephone line, an internal messaging system, or a private cell phone.

With the analytic capabilities of an industry standard CRM, an added toll free number can be used to quickly track the progress of a new marketing strategy. The amount of time each call is left on hold and the length of each call can also be monitored and be used to create service standards for inbound calls. Toll free telephony software creates many opportunities to increase customer satisfaction and sales.

All about CRMs and SFAs

In inside sales – also known as remote sales – sales agents and customers don't meet face to face to do business, at least at first. Instead your call center contacts potential leads with the intent of turning them into lifetime customers. Leads that have already become customers in turn can call the business at any time during operating hours, and request the service they need. Inside sales departments succeed by making a large volume of calls, receive a large volume of calls, adequately addressing the needs of prospects and customers, and by keeping track of all the calls and interactions that take place.

A CRM is the system used by companies who sell remotely to handle the large amount of information shared during inbound and outbound calls. These systems collect and record the important data a remote sales team needs. With a CRM, a sales agent will be able to track which of his or her leads have been successfully contacted and also when other leads need to be followed up on.

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. A customer relationship management system tracks all phases of the sales process: sales, marketing, support, ordering, and services.

The part of a CRM that controls and documents the sales process is called Sales Force Automation (SFA). This allows sales professionals to schedule call back appointments and phone meetings, track responses to sales and marketing campaigns, and manage individual sales accounts. The data that the SFA collects during the sales process on leads, customers, and performance will be kept in the Customer Relationship Management database.

The idea behind sales force automation is that when analytical data is shared between departments and those involved in the different stages that sales professionals will be able to ensure that they are productive as possible.

An SFA facilitates successful lead management, and is designed so that no lead will ever be lost in the transfer from lead generation to lead qualification. This allows a sales agent to contact a lead as soon as it comes in. These valuable leads generated from web forms and ad campaigns will never again sit stored in a forgotten computer file where they could be overlooked and ignored. Leads are able to be imported in from a variety of sources including spreadsheets and web captured forms automatically with sales force automation. As those leads are converted into customers sales teams can view trends and analyze those trends in their SFA, which shows how individual employees and sales teams are performing so they can figure out how they could improve.

Sales force automation also consolidates all company information into one accessible place within the CRM. This includes contact information for leads, product purchase orders, and the communication history between clients and sales agents. This information facilitates collaboration across all departments in an organization and aids the effective coordination of sales campaigns and initiatives.

Using Sales Force Automation to track the communication history of individual customers with an organization helps the company to keep their clients happy. Well designed sales force automation systems provide easy templates to be used in creating effective emails or print mailers for customers. They also provide tools for personalization, allowing companies to reach the individual needs of their clients while providing them a good experience with the organization. By tracking communication with individual leads and customers you can avoid the annoying repetitive emails, and all contact with the customer can be rewarding and relevant. SFA also provides information for an organization on whether or not emails sent to contacts are opened by them, as well as how long it took after they were sent for them to be opened.

Using the information gathered by sales force automation, a Customer Response Management system can analyze data recorded and provide reports for employers. These analytical reports will allow a company to know exactly how many calls the whole sales team is making each day, how long each one talks to individual leads and customers, and just what percent of their contacted leads convert into customers. This allows sales managers to accurately make decisions and changes to how their sales team should continue based on their current performance.

Analytical reports also become important in managing an organization’s marketing campaigns. With a customer relationship management system sales professionals can track where the majority of new leads are generated from and which of those new lead bring the company money. If one particular lead source, a lead generation company or ad space on a website, is not producing the quality of leads expected for the business, a CRM will show that in its reporting and inform the company that it should reallocate its resources into a source that will bring higher returns for its investment.

Converting leads and keeping customers happy is what inside sales is all about. A customer relationship management system (CRM) which incorporates sales force automation (SFA) provides remote sales teams the tools they need to do that.

All about Auto Dialers

A keyword search for “auto dialer” on Google Search will find over seven hundred thousand sites. Out of the first fifty sites that Google displays, a quick perusal of the page summaries show that at least ninety percent of them are trying to get you to buy their autodialer. What is this hot item and what do you need to know about it?

An auto dialer's job is to allow just one sales agent to make a large volume of calls quickly and efficiently. When making B2C calls (which stands for Business to Customer) an autodialer will save an immense amount of time for any organization. For an auto dialer to work it must be programmed with a list of phone numbers to call, such as your list of leads. As your business generates leads from its own website or purchases new or old leads from any of the lead generation companies out there (a search of “lead generation company” will give you over sixty thousand sites to explore) they can be fed into the autodialer. The same is true for lists of previous and current clients or leads that you are nurturing. The autodialer will then give these numbers for your sales team to call.

When shopping for an autodialer look for a system that will phone the numbers given to your sales agents with just a click of the mouse. Additionally those sales agents should be able to leave a prerecorded voice message, or send a fax or an email with just another click.

Traditionally auto dialers haven't been used as much in B2B calls (which stands for Business to Business). Businesses are much more likely to have a receptionist or a voice recognition message systems an agent has to maneuver through that would defeat a purely automatic auto dialer or gatekeeper. Now “hybrid” auto dialers are available, which allow the auto dialer to take care of the basic tasks of calling, and call resolution, while giving the sales agent the needed control to successfully contact other businesses.

When shopping those seven hundred thousand search results for an automatic dialer search for one who's auto dialer software can provide these benefits; which enables hands free dialing, displays lead information, displays lead notes, displays lead activities, displays daily call statistics, allows leaving a voice message, allows sending email and faxes, and enables quick data entry.

The purpose of auto dialers and the corresponding auto dialer software is to allow you and your sales team to contact thousands of leads each day. An autodialer has the potential to increase the amount of calls your call center makes 'four times' the amount they are doing calling manually.