Phone Dialer for the Complex Sale

Business to business (B2B) sales occur when commerce happens between businesses, such as a manufacturer trades with a wholesaler or a wholesaler selling to a retailer. When a remote sales operation participates in B2B sales, those sales are often more complex than business to consumer (B2C) sales. These complex sales require different telephony software than the simpler B2C sales, such as a different kind of auto dialer.

All auto dialers work in a similar way, but not every kind could be described as a complex sale dialer. The purpose of any dialer is to increase the amount of calls and contacts a sales agent can complete in a business day. All auto dialers load a previously generated list of phone numbers and then systematically call each of those numbers. These calls are then routed through to a sales agent. This method is significantly faster than manually dialing, often bringing an increase in call volume upwards of four times what it was previous.

One of the largest differences in telephone dialers is the amount of phone numbers that the dialer calls at a time. Ratio dialers or predictive dialers call several at a time. This ensures that on each dialer a customer will be reached, but comes with some very large drawbacks. First, when a call is answered the dialer has to determine that there is someone on the line before they patch that call through to the sales agent. During this process there is a few second gap between when the contact answers the phone and when the sales rep starts speaking. This “telemarketer pause” is one of the negative experiences that contacts often complain about. Another problem that these kinds of dialers face occurs when more contacts answer the phone than there are available reps. When this occurs the extra calls are dropped, even when their was a person on the contacts line.

Both of these problems are not acceptable for a complex sale dialer. One of the unique qualities of the business to business sale is the “gatekeeper.” This can be either a recorded message system to navigate through or a receptionist whose job could very well be to prevent sales calls from reaching his or her employer. In order to speak to the important decision makers, sales teams cannot afford to come across as automated and impersonal. That is why power dialers are a much better solution for complex B2B sales. These complex sale auto dialers call only one phone number at a time for each available agent. This still speeds up the sales process dramatically, but eliminates the problems of dropped calls and telemarketer pauses.

Inside sales is the process of collecting leads, making contacts, and closing sales from a remote location – typically over the telephone. This differs in several ways from outside sales, where sales professionals meet with their prospects face to face. Because it is different inside sales professionals need to utilize sales technologies in order to be the most effective, and compensate for the personal touch. An auto dialer is one such technology that is essential to productive inside sales call centers.

Call centers need to make as many quality calls in a day as they possibly can. A high number of outbound calls also allow call centers to contact individual leads numerous times, if necessary, in order to convert as many customers as possible. Many call centers use ratio auto dialers or predictive auto dialers because of the high level of calls that can be made each day with these solutions.

Ratio and predictive dialers both burn through a large number of leads very quickly because both types of dialers dial more leads than there are available sales agents to take those calls. This is done to account for the number of calls that are not answered or busy. These auto dialers also come with a percentage of dropped calls. For B2B call centers that have a more complex sales process and typically a higher profit on each call, dropped leads are not an option. In this case a power dialer is the only type of auto dialer that should be used.

Power Dialers call only one lead for each sales agent at a time. When a call starts to ring it is routed through to the agent. If the answering machine picks up the auto dialer can be instructed to leave a prerecorded message while the sales agent takes another call. Since these B2B sales are complex and could require a significant amount of time, the power dialer will not begin dialing other leads until the sales agent finishes his call. This solves the problem of burning through leads, dropped calls, and lag time.

Companies using a power dialer can expect to triple their daily call volume compared to manually dialing, but cannot dial the same volume of leads that a company using a ratio or predictive dialer can in a day, which for B2B companies is not necessary. What this kind of auto dialer may lack in shear call volume it more than makes up in its ability to provide each lead with a quality sales experience.

How to use an Auto Dialer... aka Don't be a rude Telemarketer

What can separate a Remote Sales Professional from a Telemarketer?

Even those of us who work in telephony software can find ourselves annoyed with telemarketers. Perhaps we are even more annoyed with the tactless tactics these sales people use because we see how telesales should be done. We know that there are types of auto dialers that fix many of the “problems” with remote selling by telephone.

Telemarketing originated in the 1950’s, and by the 70’s telemarketing companies were experiencing a tremendous amount of success. By the 1990’s telemarketing was often seen as a public nuisance, and by the end of the decade legislative action was taken with the implementation of the “Do Not Call” registry.

There are several reasons why telemarketers fell out of favor with the American public. These calls were often placed at the least opportune times, right about the time dinner was being served and the family was gathered together. Telesales professionals were often aggressive and refused to respect their contacts wishes not to purchase what they were selling.

On top of this is added the insult of the “telemarketer pause.” This occurs when the telesales company uses a predictive auto dialer. A predictive dialer calls more numbers than available sales agents. It does this based on the amount of dropped calls or busy signals it has been encountering, as well as how much time the sales agents are spending on an average call. Since there is no guarantee that there won’t be more calls answered than there are sales agents to take those calls a percentage of calls trigger a telemarketer pause. This is when there is no agent on the line when the contact answers – the phone is dead.

It is a possibility that such a call will be routed to a sales agent shortly, but in these cases the person called is expected to remain on the line and wait. Most often these contacts simply hang up the phone. With practices like these it is no wonder that we all find ourselves annoyed with these telemarketers.

Responsible remote sales professionals opt for a different kind of auto dialer – a Power Dialer. A power dialer only calls one number at a time for each available sales representative; there is no opportunity for a telemarketer pause to occur. This kind of auto dialer not only satisfies the call center’s need to make more calls but also gives the potential customers being called courtesy that a predictive auto dialer cannot.

It is up to the sales people to deal with the problems of over aggressiveness internally.

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