Power Dialer Software: All You Need to Know

Want complete control over calling speed? Check. Don’t want your agents to waste time between calls to collect customer data? Check. Don’t want your sales agents to worry about contacts waiting in line and/or dropping off? Check. You can achieve all this and more with a power dialer in your hands. In this blog, we will detail everything you need to know about the power dialer software. Let’s jump right in.

Let’s start with setting some context. Did you know that according to research, salespeople routinely find themselves struggling with sales call anxiety (SCA)–an intrusive, pervasive emotion in personal selling situations, which can negatively affect the performance outcome, the quality of communication, and the sales volume?

Typically, it has been seen that a lack of the right sales processes, tools, and systems can compound the issue of SCA. If your sales team is unable to meet their targets or is struggling with reaching out to quality leads, it’s time to get your hands on a power dialer software. 

What is a Power Dialer Software?

A power dialer is also known as an auto dialer. Think of a power dialer as any sales rep’s best friend. Here are a few of its defining characteristics:

• Lead identification: It automatically dials numbers on a contact list to identify quality leads for the agents to speak to.
• Saved time + effort: It enables the agent to save time and effort that goes into typing a new contact’s number after every call–a big advantage considering that according to the Harvard Business Review, around “48% of business-to-business salespeople are afraid of making cold calls.”
• CRM integration: It seamlessly connects to your organization’s existing systems and processes, such as the CRM, for instance. The power dialer will do the grunt work for the agent, which includes accessing the contact list and dialing the numbers when the agent is ready.
• 24×7 interconnectedness: Another thing to note about power dialers is that the rep is always on the line with the prospect. This means that the lead is always connected to an agent as soon as they pick up. The system proceeds to another call only after each call is completed.
• Personalized calls: Power dialers are also useful in helping provide a context to the agent about the prospect. As soon as the call connects, the rep gets a pop-up with each customer’s personal information. 

The takeaway: Power dialers come in handy if you wish to automate the dialing process and save the agent’s valuable time. Once the call is connected, it will be handed off to the sales rep, who will take the conversation forward (quite literally).

How Does a Power Dialer Work?

At this point, it is important to understand how a Power Dialer app or software works. Here is a step-by-step lowdown:

Step 1: You need to create a calling list either by adding numbers from saved contacts within your account or by building a list from scratch.

Step 2: The power dialer tool will sequentially dial the phone numbers from the list you just added.

Step 3: If the contact answers the phone, the power dialer will immediately connect it to your call center agent. If the call gets disconnected, is busy, or goes unattended, the power dialer will instantly dial the next phone number on the contact list unless you pause it. This means that your sales agent won’t have to manually select the next number to call. Plus, your prospects/contacts won’t have to experience any pauses after they pick up a call.

Note: The power dialer software can be programmed to call the next number from the outreach list, even in unusual scenarios. For example, when the prospect does not pick up or when the number is busy, leading to no live connection.

The takeaway: A power dialer software is a must-have cold calling automation tool for outbound contact centers or for call center teams that have to deal with and dial hundreds of phone numbers every day. If your sales calls is voluminous, you need to think about automating the time-consuming and tedious process of making phone calls. This is where power dialer software comes into the big picture.

Pros and Cons of a Power Dialer Software

With the foundational understanding of a power dialer out of the way, let’s quickly run you through the pros and cons of power dialer software.

The takeaway: As is with any tool or technology, there are pros and cons to each solution. Before you invest in one, it makes sense to do in-depth homework and understand which solution works for your organization’s needs as well as sales rep goals.

360-degree Benefits of Using a Power Dialer

It’s important to understand how a power dialer works and the kind of benefits it offers for your business before you invest in one. Whether you are a solopreneur or a large-scale enterprise, a power dialer benefits one and all. Here are its top advantages:

• Maximizes customer reach: A power dialer software automates your outbound calls, improves your outbound call center’s efficiency, and enhances the quality of your customer conversations. 
• Reduces agent idle time: Since the power dialer automatically dials a list of customer phone numbers one after another, your sales agents benefit from reduced manual effort and saved agent time. They don’t need to waste time copy-pasting numbers or listening to busy tones/answering machines. They also don’t need to waste time facing disconnected calls. As a result, their productivity skyrockets, and they are able to find more leads (as well as convert them) to high-powering sales opportunities. This also helps them to engage in more targeted sales campaigns and allows them to deliver a highly-personalized customer experience.
• Allows for contextual selling: A power dialer software worth its salt is one that seamlessly integrates with third-party apps to boost sales efficiency. For instance, a power dialer CRM can be integrated into your existing CRM software and help you create a solid dialing list. You can get instant access to your customer’s data in real time, reduce the agent’s time spent dealing with multiple tabs/screens, and gain greater control over sales agent operations. Plus, you can streamline your call center workflows at the click of a button.
• Helps execute diverse real-time sales and support use cases: Whether you wish to run product promotions on the go or wish to promptly return missed calls from prospects/customers, a power dialer software is key. An improved call-connect ratio allows agents to spend more time talking to prospective and current customers on call and driving personalized conversations.
• Helps coach agents during calls in real-time: Most power dialer software today comes with unique features such as  “barging in” or “whispering.” These basically empower call center managers to:

A. provide notes to agents and coach them during the call

B. Take over the call completely if the agent is struggling or if the account is too important for the company

• Ensures you get through the entire call list: Power dialer software allows you to make your number appear like a local number to the prospect, thereby boosting the pickup rate by as much as 4x. This adds a local flavor to your brand and adds authenticity to it. Plus, if the lead doesn’t pick up the phone, you can get real-time notifications and reminders to call them again, ensuring no leads slip through the cracks.

Top Features of a Power Dialer Software

This brings us to the most important section of the blog: What does a robust, high-performing power dialer software look like? Here are the top must-have features you should look out for in a power dialer tool:

• Low to no learning curve and easy setup: You should be able to set up and configure the power dialer tool quickly and easily.
• Increased visibility during calls: You should be able to see the power dialer in action as it auto-dials the phone numbers from the contact list.
• Greater flexibility: You should be able to pause and resume the dialing as needed, allowing for greater flexibility.
• Advanced analytics: You should be able to measure the campaign performance as well as agent performance by leveraging a comprehensive analytics dashboard and reporting options. These reports provide actionable insights and can help improve your performance.
• Improved compliance: You should be able to record calls to adhere to the compliance requirements, monitor and train agents properly, and understand what’s going right (and wrong) with every call. In fact, some power dialer software allows you to make a ‘playlist’ of your call recordings. You can make a ‘best-practice’ playlist for your agents and a playlist with calls where improvements are needed and train agents with greater organization and clarity.
• Better and useful salespeople-friendly features: You should be able to access a host of useful features to deliver a stellar sales experience, which includes:

– The ability to take notes during calls and add a layer of context to every conversation

– Access to call tags where agents can categorize as well as label the calls

– Access to inbound and outbound caller IDs where the agents can instantly identify callers and see customer-related information before taking the call

– The ability to leave automated yet personalized voice messages when making outbound calls, especially when a prospect’s answering machine starts

– The capability to engage in real-time call monitoring and witness multiple active calls while leveraging transcribed live calls as well as offering real-time sentiment analysis

– The ability to use an interactive script to pave the way for dynamic conversations instead of having agents scroll up and down the script

– The ability to schedule automated callbacks if you need to follow up or send follow-up texts as needed

– The ability to add unlimited agents to the campaign at no added cost

The takeaway: As you can see, a power dialer can offer a broad spectrum of features and benefits. It can increase agent efficiency and drive better lead management. help deliver personalized customer service, and of course, boost sales conversions. So, look for a custom tool with all the necessary features you might require to take your selling to the next level.

Top Tips to Remember When Investing in a Power Dialer Software

Before you buy a power dialer software, it makes sense to familiarize your team with the following pointers:

• Ensure that the tool can fit into your existing tech stack and integrates with them easily
• Always try a demo of the tool before your sales team starts using it
• Get buy-in from all the stakeholders in the very beginning by providing the team with a first-hand experience with the tool
• Conduct training sessions on the new features as well as benefits of the tool so that your agents can get familiarized with the software
• Make sure that your agents understand the purpose of using the power dialer software and how it will only add to their work productivity (as opposed to taking away from it)
• Ensure that the power dialer helps agents in selling; it is not meant to take over the sales agent’s job–it is present to amplify the agent’s efforts in closing deals and getting more leads

The takeaway: Make sure to keep these expert-approved tips in mind and get buy-in from all the stakeholders before investing in robust power dialer software.

Top 8 Best Power Dialer Software

There are thousands of power dialer software options that you can choose from. 

1. JustCall

Price: 

JustCall’s power dialer software is perfect for boosting your sales performance. You can:

• Create a campaign by uploading a contact list and letting the software dial the numbers for you
• Ensure that your agents answer only the connected calls and drop voicemails whenever a call goes unanswered
• Increase your sales exponentially by making more calls per agent
• Arm your agents with useful features to make their job super easy such as reading call scripts during the calls, taking notes, tagging contacts, and leaving ratings post the call

2. Aircall

Price:

The basic package starts at $35 per month per user

This power dialer software automatically extracts phone numbers from your prospect’s website and adds them to your agent’s call queue.

This way, the agents can quickly get through their call listing. More importantly, they can look up customer information via screen-pops that are synced with data from Salesforce. Agents can also follow up with tags and notes, thanks to the Aircall power dialer app, which is automatically synced to your CRM.

3. CloudTalk

Price:

The starter package starts at $20 per month per user

If you are looking for a simple-to-use interface that can easily sync with your devices, CloudTalk is for you. Its click-to-call power dialer helps reduce downtime drastically and empowers your sales team to have holistic and meaningful conversations with prospects. More importantly, the tool’s live coaching feature helps drive sales and boosts your ROI in the process.

4. Grasshopper

Price:

The basic plan starts at $26 per month per user

The biggest benefit of this power dialer is that you can add a business line to your personal device, allowing you to access it anytime, anywhere. This makes it perfect for smaller businesses or startups who wish to minimize costs and start out simple. It also helps them to keep the business and personal numbers separate. All you need to do is select a number and a relevant plan, and Grasshopper will take care of the rest.

5. PhoneBurner

Price:

Starting setup cost is $149 per month per user

PhoneBurner is a cloud-based power dialer system that comes with two dialing modes: ‘Fast’ and ‘Really fast.’ This power dialer system’s biggest USPs are increased flexibility and 100% delay-free connections. It also offers intelligent CRM features (think: smart search), making it a robust option for businesses of all scales and sizes.

6. Five9

Price:

Available on request from the vendor

If you want greater control over your power dialer system, Five9 is for you. You can choose from different dialing modes and even set your own calls-to-agent ratios. This tool also comes power-packed with diverse CRM integrations and offers unique features such as multi-country call campaign and list management, answering machine detection, and more. You can leverage this tool to prospect, qualify, nurture, or convert leads to achieve your sales goals.

7. CallHippo

Price:

The basic package starts at $14 per month per user

Here’s an easy-to-use power dialer tool that makes the sales process more productive. With this tool, you can easily:

• Import contacts directly from a spreadsheet
• Kickstart a campaign
• Allow the power dialer app to dial through the list for your sales agent

It also offers other sales-friendly features (think: smart call forwarding, call conference, call transfer, and more) to skyrocket your team’s performance. 

8. Dailer.ai

Price:

The basic package starts at $199 per month

If you want a power dialer tool that offers great onboarding and excellent support throughout, Dialer.ai should be a top tool you must consider. You can leverage a variety of features such as text-to-speech, phone surveys, dynamic caller ID, and more to allow your agents to get the most out of every call–be it for performance, sales, or customer experience. 

To Wrap Up

Cold calling has a bad name because of its low success rates. This means that in order to be successful at cold calling, you need to drive a greater volume of calls. This is where a power dialer can help–from assisting your agents to get through their call list with speed to reducing the need for manually entering numbers into your CRM, a power dialer software offers 360-degree benefits for the agents, the customers, and the organization at large.

Additionally, if your sales agents are afraid of cold-calls and are unable to hit their quotas due to constant stress, it’s time to augment their efforts and empower them with the right kind of power dialer software. According to the HBR, salespeople struggle with two major fears:

1. The fear of sounding like a sales person

2. The impending fear of failure

More often than not, sales agents dread cold-calling because of a  limiting belief–one where they feel that they won’t be successful at it. You can help the team by providing them with custom tools that can take off their workload (instead of adding to it). And a power dialer is a great way to start. Try one and see for yourself.