When should you invest in a predictive dialer?

When should you invest in a predictive dialer?

A predictive dialer makes selling so much more exciting, doesn’t it?

Sales teams that have it, have superpowers of sorts—they can close more sales, can reach a wider audience and don’t have to worry about wasting time listening to voicemails or busy tones when making outbound calls.

Isn’t this what every sales team is after? You betcha!

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It's for this and many other benefits, that having a predictive dialer is on the mind of most sales teams.

If your sales team is toying with the same idea, you need to know that investing into a predictive dialers should be a decision that’s taken after much consideration. After all you really, really want the tool to give you value for money.

Wondering when you should invest into one? We’ve laid down 4 key points for you in this post. Let’s look at them:

1. When you’re gunning after an efficient sales process

Having a workable and efficient sales process is what dreams are made of. A good sales process comprises of many different steps—in fact from prospecting... to connecting... to researching...to presenting and finally closing—there’s a whole lot that goes into each step.

The most demanding of all these is the “connect step” which involves cold calling prospects who meet the company's buyer persona. Many might debate this, but the truth is that there’s absolutely no other way to exceed your sales quotas than by talking to more people.

It is for this reason that you want more and more value to come out of the “connect step”. In reality you’re essentially are after two things:

  1. You want your sales reps to be able to speak to as many prospects as possible—the more people they reach, the better are the chances of getting qualified leads.
  2. You want them to give quality time to these leads—instead of them being under constant pressure, you want them to better handle the objections. And you want them to empower the prospects with all the information that will guarantee a sale, without frantically jumping between their call list.

A predictive dialer simplifies this step for sales teams, and is known to cut the gap between answered calls to just 3 seconds which helps reps save 45 minutes per day—the time they can devote talking to more people and doing so by giving them a good ear.

With a predictive dialer, your reps are able to dial a lot more numbers than they would otherwise:

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Improving the quality of the “connect step” also ends up impacting the other steps of the sales process–in other words it makes it more efficient. It’s a win-win for everyone!

2. When you are selling high-ticket items

Predictive dialers are an excellent tool, but when it comes to selling high-ticket items they may not be your best bet.

Before you think of this as a lame piece of advice, hear us out...

Unlike products with low or medium value (say a $50 product), high-ticket item or acquiring a customer with a lifetime value of at least $1000 and up requires that the company knows “more” about their leads.

Before you even reach out, you need to build trust and you need to build context.

As a company you want this step to be slow, because if they’re willing to write you a check straight away, it shows their desperation. They may think they’re ready to sign up for your product, but the truth is that they haven’t done their homework—they don’t know much about the benefits and USP of your product, how it will solve their problem and what they can expect from it.

With all this missing from the equation, these are the worst kind of customers to have. They are extremely demanding and you’ll spend more time servicing them.

Bottom line: if you offer a high-value product, stick to the long game and know that predictive dialers may not be your best bet.

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3. When the focus is on “real” sales

Every company expects maximum sales productivity from its sales team. But despite a clear focus on improving productivity, it is often seen missing.

Sales reps have a ton on their plate—they are busy handling paperwork, manually documenting sales activities, developing and seeking approval on proposals, wasting time switching back and forth between tools and so on…

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All these factors impact the productivity of a sales reps and takes them away from “real sales”...in other words, it takes them away from the time they should be investing in talking to prospects, making follow-up calls and closing deals.

It isn’t surprising that this impacts their sales quotas—57% of sales reps missed their quota last year as per Forbes.

If you’re observing a rise in missed quotas, it is a sign that your sales team isn’t fully focussed on ‘sales calls’. It’s also a sign that you should start thinking about adding a predictive dialer that integrates with your sales CRM.

Here’s how it will help you with improving productivity of your sales reps:

  • It allows sales reps improve their reach rate— because sales reps aren’t wasting time on waiting, they are able to make more calls and significantly improve their reach rate. By using Close’s predictive dialers, MakeSpace was able to significantly improve their team’s efficiency and reach rate.
  • It helps your sales reps focus on calls that matter—sales reps get routed directly to prospects the moment they pick up the call, when they use a predictive dialer as opposed to them wasting time on ringing, dial tones and automated answering machine.

No doubt there are multiple reasons that lead to low productivity and poor sales quotas, but if we make an attempt to make a small change, we can significantly improve the end result.

4. When you understand the regulatory challenges

Companies using predictive dialers might experience call delays between a person picking up the call and a rep joining the call. This may seem insignificant, but it may impact your predictive dialer strategy as such time lags are governed by regulations and the rules differ from one country to another.

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For example, according to US FCC regulations, calls that don’t get a response in 2 seconds should be considered abandoned and a dialer must play a recorded message. UK companies also follow the same 2-second rule.

Canada on the other hand, follows a strict Do Not Disturb policy and predictive dialers cannot call a number registered in such directories.

These regulations inevitably raise the call abandon rate, which then impacts the cost that you’re incurring.

As a company, if you understand the challenges & limitations, then predictive dialers make sense for your business. If not, it’s not a wise investment.

Thankfully, Close users makes it easy for companies to set a custom pre-recorded message.

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Wrapping it up

As much as we love them, predictive dialers don’t suit the needs of every business out there. If your company is looking to invest in one, make sure to understand the real challenges faced by your sales reps and how a tool like this can help them achieve their goals.

If you sign up for a free trial of Close or request a demo, our sales reps can help you to quickly figure out if a dialer is a good addition to your sales stack, and if yes, how to implement it in the most efficient way possible.

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