A Complete Guide To Auto Dialers In 2022

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Mar 10, 2022

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If you are thinking about incorporating an auto dialer into your 2022 strategy, you’re in the right place.

Using an auto dialer can be a great way to disseminate information quickly to a lot of people over the phone.

At Arbeit, we know auto dialers. We built one of the most powerful and reliable auto dialers on the market that became the foundation of our organization, and is still sold today as one of our legacy products.

To make sure you find the right solution, at the right price and with the right features, we recommend you refer to this guide as you make your purchasing decisions.

Or, if you’d prefer to skip to a certain topic, use the links below!

📞 Do Consumers Still Want To Talk On The Phone?

🔨 How Does An Auto Dialer Work?

✨ What Are The Key Features Of An Auto Dialer?

💰 How Should You Measure The Success Of Your Auto Dialer?

🤑 How Much Should You Pay For Your Auto Dialer?

📝 How Can You Use An Auto Dialer And Still Be Compliant?

To start off, we’re making a case for consumers who still want to communicate with you via phone call, and why you should invest in a software that allows you to make voice calls at scale.

Do Consumers Still Want To Talk On The Phone?

In January 2022, we asked 250 consumers how they prefer to communicate with debt collection agencies. We were expecting that digital channels were going to emerge as the front runners in every situation.

What we found surprised us, especially as it related to phone calls.

"If you wanted to initiate a conversation with a debt collection agency, which channel would you most prefer to use?"

Although digital channels were preferred for things like ongoing correspondence and notifications, most consumers still preferred a good old fashioned phone call if they wanted to initiate a conversation.

It tracks – we’ve all had that exasperating moment, shouting “LIVE AGENT” into the phone, desperate to speak to a real person.

Here are the results that sealed the deal for us:

It goes to show that organizations need to make it easy for consumers to speak to a real person on the phone.

It’s an option that will always be preferred by all generations. If you make it difficult or impossible to speak to a real person, it can do severe damage to your brand.

Enter in the auto dialer – a system that initiates the spread of information over the phone, and it most cases, makes it easy for consumers to connect to a live agent right away. Here’s how it works.

How Does An Auto Dialer Work?

An auto dialer an outbound calling software that automatically dials numbers from a list, and plays a prerecorded message when the call connects.

In other words, it is the perfect substitute for calling 500 numbers and leaving the same message.

It’s a great solution for industries like debt collection, sales, call centers or insurance companies who rely on a high volume of calls, but are communicating a repetitive message.

All you need to start using an auto dialer is a computer, a phone system and a voice modem. Once you upload the list of numbers you want called, the auto dialer will broadcast the call out to the numbers and your prerecorded message will play.

While the calls are being made, auto dialers should collect data into what we refer to as a CDR (or call detail report,) with information on: Connected, Disconnected, Date, Call Result, Account Number.

You can also choose to run a press-1 campaign, inviting those on your list to press a key on their dial pad to be connected to an agent.

What Are The Key Features Of An Auto Dialer?

There are a few key features to look out for when you are weighing options for an auto dialer.

Call Monitoring

Due to the legalities surrounding auto dialers (which we’ll get into later,) a good feature to look for is the ability to monitor or record calls.

This way, you can track what your agents are doing and saying, collect insights on your agent’s interactions, collect data for training, and keep a record of conversations as a way to protect yourself from liability.

DNC Lists

Oftentimes when you are making calls at scale, the consumers you are calling will request to be put on the DNC list. There may also already be numbers who have added their number to the national DNC registry.

In cases like these, it’s crucial for your auto dialer to have the option to add numbers to a DNC list. This feature will keep your system from calling numbers that do not want to be called, further protecting you from liability.

Press-1 Campaigns

This feature makes it easy for a consumer to be connected to a live agent, at any point after hearing your message.

By pressing “1” or the key you choose, they’ll be linked back to a phone number that you choose, making a conversation easy and convenient for both parties.

Customizable Call Scripts

A call script is used to bundle messages together.

The call script has the ability to play a different message depending on whether the call is connected to a live contact or a voicemail box.

It also has the ability to play a message to the agent when a live party links back to your office. It’s an important feature to make sure you are engaging the highest number of contacts possible, with the appropriate information.

Call Reporting

The ability to pull reports on your auto dialer’s performance, or what we refer to as a CDR (call detail report) is an important feature that can give you valuable insight into your activity.

You should be able to see items like the number of calls made and connected, and the amount of time spent on connected calls, and other key insights.

This will make your ability to measure your success a lot easier, which we’ll talk about next.

How Do You Measure The Success Of Your Auto Dialer?

Whether you are evaluating the dialer you’ve always used, or interested in trying something new, it’s important to analyze how well your dialer is working for you.

1. Connection Rate

Your dialer’s connection rate vs. failed rate is a great way to begin measuring the success of your dialer.

Be sure to observe the connected vs. fail rate of your total number of calls made. (Most vendors can provide this via a CDR, or call detail report.)

This will give you an indication of the reliability of the carriers used by your vendor. A benchmark for a good dialer connection rate is between 65-70 percent.

2. Number of Calls Made

It may seem straightfoward, but the number of calls you are able to successfully deploy during a campaign will directly affect inbound calls, which is tied to both your revenue and your collector engagement.

3. Revenue

Of course, all of this should tie back to your revenue. If you notice your revenue increasing alongside the use of your dialer, that means your dialer is working for you.

How Much Should You Pay For An Auto Dialer?

The cost of an auto dialer will vary depending on the vendor, and you will also have the option to pre-pay, or pay-as-you-use.

Our starting rate for Arbeit Dialer is $0.025/minute.

All you need in order to use an auto dialer is a phone system and at least one computer, and you’ll be good to go.

If you are evaluating whether the investment is worth it, think about the auto dialer as another employee on your team who is able to blast out informational calls that, if executed well, leads to call backs from the right people.

When you consider that this can lead to an increase in business activity without actually having to go through the process of hiring anyone, it may be worth it to invest in an auto dialer.

How Can I Use An Auto Dialer And Still Be Compliant?

Auto dialers have faced a lot of scrutiny over the years, given the rise of illegal robocallers. Unfortunately, these bad actors have made it difficult for businesses who rely on a high volume of outbound communication.

As of March 2022, when this article was written, there are essentially two ways to use an auto dialer and stay compliant.

1. Capture Consent

Under the TCPA, calls to a consumer’s cellphone using an ATDS are prohibited if the consumer did not consent to being called.

TCPA damages can add up fast, so make sure that if you are using an ATDS to call consumers, you have a way of capturing and tracking consent, and your system has the ability to add numbers to a DNC list.

2. Use a TCPA Compliant Manual Dialing Solution

A Supreme Court decision called Facebook v. Duguid resolved a long-standing circuit split on the official definition of an auto dialer.

The Court ruled that to qualify as an ATDS under the TCPA, a device must have the capacity to either:

Store a telephone number using a random or sequential number generator, or
Produce a telephone number using a random or sequential number generator.

In other words, having the capacity to store numbers and dial them automatically is not enough to make a device qualify as an ATDS.

The role that human intervention plays in determining whether equipment is an auto dialer, however, has always been a key focus.

Using a TCPA compliant manual dialing solution can keep you as productive as an auto dialer would, without putting you at risk for a TCPA lawsuit.

We created Arbeit Click as a solution to that exact problem. It contains all the power of an auto dialer, but with 3 layers of human intervention.

Take Ownership Over Your Auto Dialer's Success

If you are embracing the phone channel, it’s important that you do it in the most efficient way.

An auto dialer is a great solution for organizations who still want to give consumers the option to reach them by phone, but don’t want to take up the time to manually dial.

There is still a need for phone calls, and there likely always will be.

We know auto dialers, so if you have any questions about how to get started or if you are using the right one, we’d love to talk shop. Book a time below if you want to harness the power of your auto dialer.

This information does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; and may not be used as legal advice. Instead, all information is for general informational purposes only.

About The Author

Alex Villafranca

Alex is the CEO, co-founder and Head of Revenue at Arbeit, a better outbound communication software that makes businesses more profitable.