In the UK, outbound operators are getting a raw deal, and Sytel says “Enough is enough!”
The fact is that virtually no predictive diallers deliver good performance under Ofcom rules.
But Sytel is changing the game, fighting for better productivity and a healthy future for the industry by offering a way out of this dilemma.
What’s the problem?
At the centre is the issue of abandoned calls (a.k.a. silent calls). Ofcom introduced laws in 2003 to limit the number of abandoned calls allowed.
These compliance rules make it extremely difficult (if not impossible) for predictive diallers to deliver excellent performance; virtually none were designed to tackle this challenge. In fact, most struggle to deliver predictive performance that is any better than a progressive dialler.
This fact is brushed over by vendors who prefer to focus on promoting the fact that their technology is certified to operate under regulation. But the fact that a dialler is compliant does not mean it delivers good performance. No amount of position papers or marketing activity changes this.
The challenge for outbound operators
There is a strongly held belief among UK and US call centres that any predictive dialler can consistently achieve good or even great performance under compliance. But this is just not the case.
In trying to gain some improvement in dialling performance, most outbound operators manually control the dialling rate. This effectively gambles on achieving an acceptable overall abandoned call rate and not breaching the rules, in return for squeezing out what are really only marginal productivity increases.
However, a human simply cannot be aware of all dialling conditions and then react quickly enough to affect a good performance gain.
This is a major reason why some operators get into trouble with the regulators and find themselves facing severe fines.
A culture of control
What is amazing about this practice is that the big brands in the predictive dialler industry have convinced a whole generation of users that this is the way to manage a dialler. Users have been attracted to the idea because it gives them a sense of control of their destiny. Even today, the vast majority of the users of big-brand diallers are convinced that unless they have control over pacing, the dialler can’t be any good!
However, by employing a predictive dialler that automatically adjusts the dialling rate with unparalleled accuracy, dialler managers are freed to focus on other areas of the dialler operation, such as management of calling lists, which itself often delivers further gains.
The question of predictive performance
"Our predictive dialer gives us 45 mins talk time per hour." That's great! Or not so great if you would get 44 mins per hour using progressive dialling! The only way to evaluate the performance of your predictive dialler is to measure exactly how much predictive benefit you are getting over progressive dialling. Simply run the Predictive Performance Gain Test.
The Sytel predictive advantage
The Sytel design delivers a substantial impact on our users’ bottom line that other predictive diallers cannot. Very quickly, using our simulation and planning tool, it is possible to gain an accurate picture of what predictive performance gain a user can achieve with Sytel. Typically, this is an extra 10 mins talk time per agent per hour over other diallers under the same conditions.
We operate an Opex commercial model and require no upfront investment in our software, so users can realise the bottom-line benefit immediately. Payback is measured in weeks and months, not years. We are very happy to be put to the test.
Who is Sytel?
You may not be familiar with Sytel or our technology. We have an extensive list of users and partners with agents in over 50 countries, and would be pleased to discuss what Sytel can do for your company. Simply contact us.
