Power Dialer vs. Predictive Dialer—What’s Better For Your Needs?

Learn more about what a power dialer and a predictive dialer are so you can determine which is most suitable for your business needs. Keep reading to find out more.

RELATED: 9 Best Predictive Dialers for Your Business

In this article:

1. What Is a Power Dialer?
2. Who Would Benefit the Most From a Power Dialer?
3. What Is a Predictive Dialer?
4. Who Would Benefit the Most From a Predictive Dialer?
5. Similarities Between a Power Dialer and a Predictive Dialer
6. Differences Between a Power Dialer and a Predictive Dialer

Power Dialer vs. Predictive Dialer| Which is Better For Your Sales Team?

Dialer Software Definition: These are tools that aid salespeople in automating some elements of call tasks. Sales dialers come in different types, such as power dialers and predictive dialers.

What Is a Power Dialer?

A power dialer enables salespeople to automatically call a prospect from a pre-set list of contacts. After the sales rep finishes the call, the power dialer will automatically dial another call on the way.

Depending on your choice of software, there could be additional features that can further develop the call process. Integrating your dialer to your CRM can give access to said features.

Other useful features that can be unlocked by CRM integration is the ability to pause between calls or show essential data on a lead you’re currently in a call with.

Who Would Benefit the Most From a Power Dialer?

A power dialer works best if you’re looking to add a more personal touch in your calls.

Personalization is a good move, especially for businesses that are yet to establish a strong reputation in their industry. Thus, a power dialer is ideal for small or medium-sized sales teams.

With the “pause feature,” agents can use the time to jot down notes about the prospect they just had a call with. This data will appear onscreen at a future date the next time a rep places another call to that prospect.

A power dialer will be a great fit for a growing business that’s just starting to build its own personal brand. The undeniable human touch of this dialer is precisely what they need to make their brand.

What Is a Predictive Dialer?

A predictive dialer dials multiple calls all at once to get the most number of calls possible. Once a prospect takes the call, it will hand it over to the sales rep.

The predictive dialer takes note of how many calls are answered among the multiple calls it dialed. From here, it can determine how many to dial to avoid idle time for the reps.

This dialer uses algorithms and historical data to quantify the likelihood of getting a response from a prospect. With the data in hand, it would then make the appropriate number of calls all at once to ensure at least one response.

A predictive dialer will call prospects even before there’s a rep available to take the call. They do this so reps can save on time normally spent on waiting for someone to pick up or leaving a voicemail. 

Who Would Benefit the Most From a Predictive Dialer?

A predictive dialer is best for businesses that have already established their brand.

Since this dialer doesn’t really offer opportunities to add a personal element to a call, agents won’t get the chance to add that human touch. With that said, a Predictive Dialer will best suit larger sales teams who are aiming for volume rather than personalization.

RELATED: 9 Ways A Predictive Dialer Can Increase Your Business

Similarities Between a Power Dialer and a Predictive Dialer

One thing that both dialers have is they help increase the number of calls a sales team can reach. When compared to the traditional way of calling prospects, the automation of dialers significantly speeds up the process.

Aside from that, the ability to integrate with CRM software is available for both dialers. This can allow users to access more features that can help develop the efficiency of their dialer.

Overall, both of them have similar goals: to enable sales reps to call as many prospects as possible and have as productive a call as they can. The differences between them lie heavily in the methods they use to try to reach these goals.

Differences Between a Power Dialer and a Predictive Dialer

A power dialer queues up a call after a call is done. On the other hand, a predictive dialer doesn’t wait for the call to end before dialing another number.

Another difference—a predictive dialer calls regardless of a rep’s availability, while a power dialer only dials another call once the current call has ended. Since predictive dialers “predict” the availability of agents, sometimes the prediction can go wrong, and prospects are left talking to no one on the other end of the call.

With power dialers, however, this won’t happen because reps are on-hold, meaning the dialer won’t dial any other calls, during the call process.

Predictive dialers can be more efficient because reps won’t be on-hold while waiting for someone to pick up at the other end of the line. On the other hand, Power dialers can be less efficient in the fact that they have to queue up each call for reps, even when they’re just waiting for the person on the other end of the line to pick up.

Sales dialers, like power dialers and predictive dialers, are powerful tools that, when executed right, can help increase productivity and efficiency of sales reps. Before incorporating a dialer into your sales processes, it’s essential to identify what you need from a dialer first.

If you need a more hands-on and personal approach to your calls, then it’s ideal to use a power dialer. If your primary purpose is to reach a large number of people, then a predictive dialer would probably be better.

Whichever you choose, just remember to consider your goals so you can ensure you can make the most of the sales dialer you’ll integrate into your sales team.

Which dialer do you think will be a better fit for your goals and organization? Why? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below. 

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