Overview
Better Via Bullets – Predictive Dialer Edition
Collection Advisor spoke with Jeryl Smith, director of operations at IAT to get his thoughts surrounding the progression of predictive dialers and how he thinks they should continue to develop. Here is a no-frills, meat and potatoes breakdown of his thoughts on helping the collection industry using a bullet point format.
What do you think have been some of the most helpful innovations in predictive dialers in the past decade?
• The ability of dialer products to integrate inbound and outbound call management.
• Interface to call recording systems for call evaluation and scoring.
• Cloud-based predictive dialing use and cloud-based availability for extra resource usage during abnormally high demands.
What do you think are the biggest obstacles for predictive dialer users today?
• Legislation is always a major obstacle; e.g. restriction on calling cell phones with automated dialers without express written consent, conflict between the FTCP and the FDCPA on leaving messages on answering machines.
• Threat of litigation over consumer complaints and the conflict of recording agent calls between protection and condemnation.
What advancements in predictive dialer technology would you like to see in the future?
• Better ways to identify the called party to improve “right party contacts.”
• Improved “best time to call” logic and software available to dialer companies for increased contacts.
• Integrated voice mails with agent call management, i.e. allow agents to listen to voice mail messages and do call backs off of messages left.
Reviews
Add Accounts Mid Campaign
Castel Connect
- Users can define a schedule and let the system manage agents from campaign to campaign.
- Accounts can be added to projects in real-time without ever stopping a campaign.
- Users can define new inbound queues and assign agents to ensure service level.
- Users can manage call pacing, state and federal regulation compliance as well as add queues to sets and change routing rules real- time.
- Uses ISDN directly, allowing the user to hear the called party’s first “hello.”
- Responds immediately to network ‘disconnect’ requests, tears down the completed calls quickly.
- Recognizes and differentiates very granular special information tones, capturing numbers no longer in service or disconnected.
What Users Say
“Eastern Account System’s several hundred agents depend upon the Castel Connects’ solution to deliver unmatched customization and support for our breadth of clients and their businesses”, said, Steve Zank, vice president of Eastern Account System. “As a strategic business partner, we rely upon Castel to continue to pioneer and implement technologies that succeed in the call center industry.”
Castel Connects | Castel Communications
castel.com | 800-657-8215
Set Up Pre-Determined Call Scrubs
GC1 Peak Dialer
- Users can route calls to the correct agent based upon predefined account criteria and agent profiles. Each user has the ability to set up account and agent profiles, allowing for flexible set-up and changes in real-time.
- Users can set pre-defined 24, 48, and 72-hour call scrubs based on connected calls, total number of attempts, call time curfews by state, and area code/zip code scrubs. Users can run in different dialer modes across multiple dialer campaigns without the risk of double dialing a phone number within a specific account.
- The automated IVR solution allows contacts to interact with the system without the involvement of valuable agent time.
- Users can blend inbound and outbound calls into call centers, allowing agents to manage more than one call at any given time.
What Users Say
“As effective as the GC1 Peak Dialer is, Global Connect is constantly working to update and enhance it,” Jamie Sullivan, general manager at United Recovery Solutions. “Not only do they take my suggestions and quickly respond by programming custom features at no cost to my company, but they also solicit my advice on how to improve the system to meet our needs. I feel like we’re truly working together on the same team.”
GC1 Peak Dialer |Global Connect
gc1.com | 888-421-4151
Tracks for Optimal Dialing Rate
IAT SmartDial
- Tracks various factors to calculate the optimal outbound dialing rate and required resources. Call pacing automatically slows down or speeds up to accommodate changing circumstances in hit-rates, inbound call volume and individual agent work habits.
- Utilizes a pooled resource environment. Phone or session initiation protocol lines are distributed among prioritized tasks such as inbound, outbound agent-attended, and IVR messaging so no dialing resource goes unused.
- Features a variety of compliance tools including time of day control, PCI compliance, and call recording.
- Available as cloud services, site-premised systems or hybrid solutions. Each solution offers comprehensive IVR functionality used for payment reminders or other messages and predictive dialing to feed agents a steady stream of live contacts.
What Users Say
“After having customer service and quality issues with our previous vendor, we reached out to a number of our friends and they suggested IAT’s dialer solution,” said Brian Watkins, president at Southern Oregon Credit Service. “Our staff was able to learn and use the features easily, working lists and campaigns is simple and effective, and the supervisory features have been very helpful. They are an important partner for us and we are grateful for their customer-first approach.”
IAT SmartDial | IAT SmartDial
iatsmartdial.com | 800-574-8801
Roll-Up View of Campaigns
Interaction Dialer
- CCS Switchover enables the system to switch to a duplicate redundant campaign server.
- The new Interaction Supervisor Views adds views for agent management, penetration rate, phone type stats, stage overview, wrap-up overview, and time zone overview.
- The Campaign Command Center provides a roll-up view of campaigns, including their progress and status, along with the ability to adjust priority, start, stop, and pause.
- Multiple campaigns can now share the same contact list.
- Users can now filter by column values, add custom columns, access custom columns in call policies, and assign skills at the phone number level.
- Users can now place an expiration on the DNC record, and can tie phone to a record thereby excluding all phone numbers on the record.
What Users Say
“If we’re not dialing, we’re not making money, so we couldn’t tolerate a week-long deployment,” said Robert Ezsak, director of IT at Apex Financial. “We were able to turn off the old system on a Friday, and turn on the new one on Sunday. Once Interaction Dialer connects to a person, we can route the call to the right agent on our end. This means that calls are handled more efficiently, which increases our chance of collecting revenue.”
Interaction Dialer | Interactive Intelligence
inin.com | 800-267-1364
Manager, Agent and Call Flow Dashboards
Platform 3
- As users begin making contact through the Agent Gateway, customer information appears onscreen and notes can be recorded.
- Features cell phone identification and manual dial-only for TCPA compliance.
- Calls can be routed based on the skills level of the collector.
- Features real-time manager, agent, and call flow dashboards.
- The blended inbound/outbound calling can eliminate the need to designate specific inbound or outbound agents.
- TCN is a hosted contact center suite of cloud-based solutions and services.
- Collectors can be coached with scripted responses, manager barge-in, manager-to-agent messaging and manager dashboards.
What User Say
“Performance and dependability are so important in this industry,” said Tom Backal, operations manager at Lazarus Financial Group. “While there are many dialer options out there, TCN gives us the latest technology and the best service and consultative support that we have ever experienced. Your dialer should be a solution and not a headache. TCN has been a solution that has helped our business grow.”
Platform 3 | TCN, Inc.
tcnp3.com | 866-305-8262