How Auto Dialers Help Large Sales Teams Hit Quota

The truism that time is money applies to sales more than any other department. Yet, salespeople waste about two-thirds of the day performing mundane tasks, like incessantly dialing potential prospects. Auto dialers offload those tasks, boost productivity, process higher call volumes, and ultimately close more deals. So, your company should invest in one.

Salespeople are pulled in many different directions. Today’s salespeople spend almost two-thirds of their time on non-selling activities. Often, they sit at their desks and call prospects in a lottery-ticket-like manner: hoping they are lucky enough to catch someone who will pick up the phone. Auto dialers streamline that tedious work and deliver many benefits.

Maximize Agent Time

These solutions reduce idle time by eliminating the need to manually dial every number. Therefore, agents spend more time talking to prospects and less time dealing with busy signals, voicemails, or disconnected numbers.

Increase Call Volume

With auto dialers (especially predictive and power dialers), sales teams can place hundreds of calls per hour, far more than they could complete manually. More calls, more potential prospects, more money. 

Improve Lead Conversion Rates

AI has made today’s auto dialers quite intelligent. In fact, many are integrated with customer relationship management (CRM) systems, extending the information at their disposal. Features like call scripting, screen pop, and lead prioritization ensure that agents call the right leads at the right time and present them with the right information, enhancing conversations.

Corporations are investing in this technology because of its many potential benefits. The global auto dialer software market is projected to reach $506.6 million in 2024 and top $1.22 billion in 2034, a compound annual growth rate of 9.2%.

What To Look for in Enterprise Auto Dialer Software

Many potential auto-dialing solutions are available today. Here are a few features that help customers understand their options.

Voicemail Detection and Drop

Listening to a phone ring a handful of times and then being dropped into voicemail is a total waste of a salesperson’s time. Auto dialers detect voicemail greetings and quickly move on to the next call.

Call Scheduling and Callback Automation

Individual calendars are often jam-packed. The system identifies open slots during the day and reaches out to prospects during those times, increasing the likelihood of a connection.

Call Recording

Customer service agents have varying levels of expertise. Call recording allows managers to identify calls that did not go well, as well as instances where employees need coaching, improving the customer experience.

Recommended Auto Dialer Solutions

Nextiva

Founded in 2008, Nextiva is a leading provider of unified customer experience management software. Its top-rated outbound dialer solutions span the business gamut: small, medium, and large enterprises that need scalable, flexible, unified communication and customer experience tools. Popular use cases include call centers, sales support workflows, multi-channel support, and automated customer journey orchestration across digital and voice channels.

Strengths

CRM and Sales Tools Integration: The dialer seamlessly integrates with leading CRM and sales solutions. The product offers built-in contact management tools that streamline outbound calling.

Scalable VoIP Infrastructure

Nextiva runs on a reliable cloud VoIP network. As a result, its products mesh with distributed and hybrid sales teams.

Call Analytics and Monitoring

The product provides call tracking, team performance dashboards, and supervisor features, like call whisper and barge. These features are especially helpful in tracking and coaching large numbers of agents.

Weaknesses

North America Focused

Nextiva excels as the best dialing software for North America, but has a lesser presence globally. If your business is based in the United States, you’re a perfect fit for Nextiva.

Dialer Features Are Only in the Contact Center Tier

Auto dialer tools are not part of the core VoIP plans. Customers must upgrade to Nextiva Contact Center.

Five9 Power Dialer

Five9 focuses on enterprise contact centers. Operating since 2001, the vendor, which is based in San Ramon, CA, delivers a wide suite of cloud software solutions. Mike Burkland became CEO in 2008, transitioned away in 2017, and returned in late 2022.

Strengths

Multiple Dialing Modes

Customers can deploy predictive, power, progressive, or preview dialers. Businesses choose the dialing method that best suits their workflow and gain the deployment flexibility needed for different types of campaigns.

Enterprise Scalability

The solution was built for large-scale operations. As a result, the Five9 Power Dialer handles high call volumes and multiple users well.

Weaknesses

Cost

Product pricing is at a premium, especially for companies that need advanced features and those with large sales teams. The total system cost rises quickly as the number of users and add-ons increases.

Steep Learning Curve

The user interface, while powerful, can be intimidating for new users. Therefore, proper training is essential to maximize productivity.

Occasional System Lags or Bugs

Users report that the source of glitches can be difficult to pinpoint and fix. Delays in response times occur in high-traffic scenarios, which can be damaging during peak calling hours.

Talkdesk Outbound Dialer

In 2011, Tiago Paiva and Cristina Fonseca created Talkdesk, which is valued at $10 billion. Talkdesk’s platform integrates IT service management and customer service management, enabling businesses to streamline their service operations.

Strengths

Real-Time Monitoring and Coaching

Supervisors have access to dashboards and key performance indicators (KPIs) that outline company, department, and individual performance. Consequently, they can coach agents when problems and opportunities arise.

Compliance Features

The device includes call recording controls and consent management tools. These tools provide the foundation for organizations to put processes in place that ensure compliance with standards like TCPA, GDPR, and DNC.

Weaknesses

Weak User Interface Design and Performance Glitches

Customers find the system difficult to use. They also report user interface slowdowns when managing high-volume call lists and switching between modules.

Limited Out-of-the-Box Reporting

The solution has basic reports in place. However, firms that require high levels of customization, work with complex sales KPIs, and track multiple campaigns find that the system lacks functionality.

Limited Customization and Reporting

The reporting tools are inflexible. Furthermore, advanced analytics often require higher-tier plans or extra add-ons, increasing system cost and complexity.

Genesys Predictive Dialer

Genesys, which has been operating since 1990, is an American software company that sells customer experience and call center technology to mid-sized and large organizations. The company caters to a diverse range of sectors, including banking, healthcare, retail, insurance, and government.

Strengths

Advanced Predictive Algorithms

The company has fine-tuned its AI functionality. The system optimizes call pacing, minimizes agent idle time, and reduces dropped calls.

Omnichannel Integration

Genesys added various modules to its product line. Since the applications are designed to work together from the ground up, integrating voice, email, SMS, chat, and social media channels is relatively straightforward.

Weaknesses

Finetuning Needed

Care needs to be taken with the predictive dialing features. In some cases, customers encounter abandoned calls and compliance issues with regulations like TCPA.

Limited Flexibility for Smaller Teams

The dialer is built exclusively for enterprise-grade environments. Small- and mid-sized businesses and other firms with small teams might find certain features unnecessary.

Dependence on the Genesys Ecosystem

The solution was not built to work with other vendors’ solutions. Consequently, businesses with applications from multiple suppliers find connecting and maintaining those links difficult, time-consuming, and expensive.

VanillaSoft

Located in Plano, Texas, VanillaSoft was founded in 2005 and specializes in sales engagement technology. The solution optimizes inside sales, telemarketing, lead management, and fundraising features.

Strengths

Queue-Based Lead Routing

The system relies on next-best lead logic to assign calls. Customers can customize the criteria using metrics like lead score, call history, and time zone.

Flexible Dialing Modes

Teams choose the most appropriate dialing method (preview, progressive, or VoIP) based on campaign type and staff experience. The product balances productivity with personalization, which is useful in complex conversations.

Weaknesses

Simple Analytics

The solutions’ reporting tools are basic compared to other platforms and offer limited AI insights. As a result, larger teams struggle to analyze areas like campaign performance in depth, conduct analysis, and ensure optimization.

Limited Integration

The product does connect to leading CRMs. Their APIs are difficult to use, and in some cases, they require custom workarounds.

Scalability Concerns for Massive Teams

The product was designed for mid-sized sales teams (about 100 employees), and may not scale cleanly beyond that number. So, the products are not well-suited to global organizations that require hundreds of seats.

How Each Vendor’s Feature Set Stacks up

Why Sales Leaders Choose Nextiva for Their Dialing Campaigns

In the field of auto dialers, one product stands above the rest. Nextiva offers an unrivaled set of features and functions.

•       Its built-in analytics provide sales professionals and their managers with quick, simple insights to current and historical individual, team, department, and company performance.
•       The solution’s design makes it easy to launch, monitor, and complete outbound campaigns of any size.
•       Nextiva Contact Center includes a power dialer that offers seamless outbound dialing, CRM integration, and call analytics.
•       Over one million users and 100,000 businesses rely on Nextiva, making it a trusted enterprise-ready platform.
•       Flat pricing at $25 per user per month makes Nextiva significantly more cost-effective than comparable enterprise dialers.

Your Next Step

Competition is fierce and is becoming more so every day. Sales teams are under tremendous pressure to keep the leads coming. Outdated dialing tools have simply become an unnecessary burden that companies can no longer afford to carry. Organizations must invest in auto dialers to ensure a bright future. Protect your business by starting a trial with an auto dialer built to scale with your outreach: Nextiva.