Trying to stop time wasting in your call center? Start using a Power Dialer

There are common obstacles that waste sales representatives’ time. It can take a lot of time to manually dial each lead on a long contact list. Sales representatives then have to spend more of their time waiting for someone to answer their calls. Often those calls are sent to voice mail systems, and sales reps have to wait through automated responses before leaving their own message when they could be moving on to a new lead. Sales agents often have to take a significant portion of their work day to follow up on those calls, including sending emails or fax messages. Inside sales companies with a complex sales process who perform business to business sales have the added obstacle of negotiating with receptionists and navigating around “gatekeepers”.

A power dialer is a software solution that calls through an uploaded list of contacts. This automated process immediately removes the dullness of manually dialing from a sales agent’s routine. Between dials the agent stays on the line, there is no hanging up after each call when using a power dialer. The next contact is immediately patched through. This feature of the power dialer can increase call volume three or four times from what it was previously.

Power dialers also incorporate voice messaging capability. Sales agents prerecord the messages they plan to leave. This lets agents proof the messages they will leave during the day to ensure those messages are exactly what they want to leave. These prerecorded messages can then be automatically left when an answering machine is encountered by the telephone dialer. This saves time for the sales agent who can move on to another call while the message is being left.

Power dialers work similarly in regards to email or fax messages. Templates for these messages can be created before calling through a list. When a sales rep promises to send an email or a fax message he or she can select the template on their computer. This message is automatically sent with very little work on the part of the sales representative, and the lead wouldn’t be able to help but be impressed by how quickly their requests are met.

Power dialer software provides many benefits. It saves so much time for sales representatives and with all of that time saved sales reps can spend more time selling. It is hard to find an excuse not to have one.

Two big problems with Predictive Dialers

Predictive Dialers are old news.

Predictive phone dialers are a staple of call centers whose business plan involves cold calling a large volume of contacts each day. These calls centers have generated not only profit, but a good deal of contempt, and have been the targets of sweeping FCC regulations. Because of changes in how both consumers and lawmakers view telemarketers call center technology has also had to change. The problem with predictive dialers – and cold calling in general – is the lack of respect given to the contacts.

This is how a predictive dialer works. The sales manager uploads a list of contacts into the dialer. The dialer checks how many representatives are available to take calls, and then it starts dialing. When calls are answered they are automatically patched through to a sales rep waiting for a call. Because call centers using predictive dialers want as little down time as possible their dialers call more numbers than there are available reps - sometimes as many as 10 calls for each sales rep - and starts dialing new contacts before the reps finish their former call. This certainly ensures that all sales reps will be busy all the time, but it also frustrates contacts.

This frustration arises out of two things, the inconvenient times telemarketers call and the famed “telemarketer pause.”

Call centers using predictive phone dialers often call at times when they are most likely to reach a contact at home. But, these contacts are not in a buying mindset when called, and frequently view the sales rep as a nuisance. This annoyance is even greater when the contact answers their phone and has to wait on the line until a sales rep pitches him something he does not want.

Since the predictive dialer calls more contacts than there are sales reps, those “extra” contacts who answer are left on the line with no one on the other end of the line. If contacts are patient enough, and a sales rep becomes available fast enough than a sales rep will be patched into the call after a few moments of silence, the telemarketer pause. What is more likely is that the contacted lead will be annoyed with the dead call and disconnect before they ever speak with a sales agent.

A power dialer is an alternative to the archaic predictive dialer, and fixes the frustrations that a predictive dialer causes. A power dialer calls through a list of contacts for each rep, one at a time. Each answering contact is guaranteed to have a representative available to talk with them immediately. Power dialers can also help sales reps contact leads at the best possible moment with web form callback technology. This software solution captures leads from submitted web forms from a company’s website, and immediately dials that lead for an available rep. This lead is contacted at the time they are thinking about the product being sold – not over their family dinner.

Power dialers still increase call center productivity three times that of a call center that dials manually, but eliminates the predictive dialer’s flaws that make cold calling a less effective method of selling.

Steps for Tracking Sales Leads

Sales lead tracking analytics makes sure that all leads are given the care and attention they need to become a profitable client. Software available with CRMs (customer relationship managers) aids greatly in the sales lead tracking process.

It takes both time and money to gather leads. The internet is a powerful resource for lead generation. Company websites are frequently developed to lead visitors to fill out and submit a web form. With the submission of the form that visitor becomes a new lead for the company’s sales representative to contact. Alternatively, companies can purchase leads from third party lead generation businesses.

Sale lead tracking for these newly captured web leads or purchased leads begins by having these leads imported into a CRM database. The CRM qualifies these leads based on the information gathered and converts these leads into “prospects” within its system.

These prospects are then routed through to sales people who move them through the sales process. The specific actions that the sales people offer the prospect are predefined within the CRM, and as prospects progress through the sales process that is recorded within the database. Based on defined probabilities that of a sales closure for each step of the sales process, sales lead tracking software can then give a prediction of sales revenue for the week based on prospects within the sales pipeline.

Visibility reports can easily be created in various formats with sales tracking software. These reports allow managers to evaluate the individual, team, or company return on investment. Added to this, forecast reports give important insights to the rest of the operational and support teams to stage the resources necessary to support the sales and marketing efforts.

These steps of sales analytics are important in maximizing ROI, and making sure each sales person is doing their part for the sales team.

Get more out of your CRM by using a Power Dialer

A power dialer is one piece of software that will instantly increase the productivity of your current CRM. CRMs (customer relationship management) track all of the processes associated with sales and store all the data about your clients. A power dialer enhances the outbound calling functions of the CRM.

A power dialer can be integrated into all major brands of CRM. The power dialer and CRM work together like this: The CRM stores a list of contacts and their relevant information. That contact list is then uploaded into the power dialer. The power dialer then calls through each contact on that list automatically one at a time. These calls are then patched through to one of your sales agents.

The power dialer provides several benefits. Leads and contacts can be called on average of four times faster when using a power dialer as compared to manually dialing, which cuts down the amount of wasted time between calls. Because of this three to four times as many calls can be placed in a typical work day. Both of these benefits allow your sales agents to spend more of their time selling. Not only does this increase the number of sales closed it also boosts employee moral – sales agents want to be selling, not dialing!

These are not the only benefits a power dialer can give you when integrated with a CRM. It automatically makes the CRM a more powerful tool for your business, which also makes the CRM a more valuable investment. With both of these software solutions, it becomes easy to measure results with real time metrics and clear analytics.

Power dialers that have been designed to be added to a CRM can be installed in minutes. Training to use power dialers is minimal. There is no additional, costly hardware to purchase when acquiring a power dialer. Instead a power dialer uses your existing phone lines.
Other telephony tools built into a CRM work perfectly with a power dialer. Automated voice messaging is a perfect example. Voice messaging works by having your sales agents record messages to be left for clients which are then stored within the CRM. Normally these messages can be left while the sales agent stays on the line with a voice mail system. With a power dialer, that recorded voice message is left without the sales agent having to stay on the line. The sales agent can move onto a new call, saving even more time and giving him the chance to make even more sales.

An Online CRM will earn Money for an Inside Sales company

A company is performing inside sales if it a company that sales its services or products from a remote location, meaning they interact with clients using the telephone and internet instead of face-to-face. These companies often cut costs associated with travel and store front upkeep while having access to a more reliable stream of potential clients. If a company’s own marketing efforts are not enough to bring in the desired amount of leads, they can be purchased from lead generation sources and divided up among sales representatives.

Like any type of sales, inside sales requires several steps from start to finish. From lead generation all the way through closing the sale, many different sales agents may interact with any particular lead or client. In order to track all of the interactions that a contact has with the company, and to plan what needs to be accomplished with that lead next, CRMs were developed. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, and these systems are the brains behind inside sales. Particularly, an online CRM saves an inside sales organization time and increases their sales volume.

The difference between an online CRM and other kinds is how convenient it is for the companies that use it. Instead of having to purchase and download software on each computer used, the CRM is hosted completely online. This is especially helpful for companies where employees work from home and also a time saver for companies who use a call center. The information within the online CRM can be accessed anywhere the internet is available.

All CRMs benefit from the integration of other telephony tools. This integration creates the most powerful and convenient package of software solutions for the sales agents. Power dialers are a very important telephony tool that should be fully integrated with the CRM. Dialers double or triple the amount of calls sales agents can make in one business day. The prerecording of voice messages, as well as the function to automatically leave them on answering machines, is a time saving integration that also increases the quality of the messages and impressions sales agents leave. Automatic enrollment of new contacts into a campaign, a predetermined series of tasks that the online CRM will automatically schedule to be completed at specified intervals, is another software solution that greatly increases the productivity of sales professionals.

Venturing into inside sales offers many benefits to any sales organizations. Researching, purchasing, and using a trusted online CRM can help increase contact volume and sales closure in those companies.

Explore your options in Telephony Software

In telecommunications, when the term telephony is used it encompasses the general use of equipment and software to link two or more telephones. The goal is to allow individuals to communicate over great distances. Telesales has moved telephony software outside of the realm of simply allowing two people to talk. Today, many different telephony software solutions have been developed to aid sales agents through the entire sales process.

A key advancement in telephony software is known as CTI. This stands for Computer Telephony Integration. This technology allows telephones and computers to interact with each other and to share information. Here is an example of CTI in action: when an incoming phone call is received by a sales agent the computer automatically recognizes that phone number, finds that number within its database, and displays on the computer screen of the sales rep all of the information stored on that individual. With this automatic data retrieval the sales agent is prepared to have a profitable interaction with the caller.

The database that makes this possible is called a CRM (Customer Relationship Management). In addition to storing information on each contact, this piece of telephony software organizes, calendars, and tracks all of the processes that are done as part of inside sales. A customer relationship management system is most useful when another telephony software solution is utilized, the power dialer.

One of the most basic tasks for a sales representative is placing a call. He or she can make three times their previous volume of calls per day by switching from manual dialing to using a power dialer. A power dialer is programmed with an uploaded list of phone numbers, and then automatically dials those numbers one at a time for the sales agent. When a call is answered it is instantly routed through to the agent. This telephony software solution capitalizes on the incredible data management capabilities of a CRM.

A myriad of additional telephony software can be incorporated with the CRM and power dialer pairing. Web form callback technology allows leads to be created with in the CRM every time a web form is submitted on the company website. Voice message broadcasting technology allows sales representatives to automatically send prerecorded messages to an entire list of leads. Automatic call distribution technology removes the need for an operator to route incoming calls through to the appropriate agent.

These are just a few of the different telephony software tools available to inside sales departments today. Look for a company that offers a variety of software solutions that are already fully integrated with their CRM and power dialer.