6 Reasons Why Salesforce Users Need Hosted Dialer Technology
Even though Inside Sales is becoming noticed more and more as a primary method of lead generation and sales, many people are unaware of the potential leverage they can bring to bear to dramatically increase productivity.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software has become commonplace in almost every sales department, whether tradition face-to-face, or a remote selling model like inside sales. Salesforce is the leading provider of on-demand CRM software on the planet. I get asked a lot why saleforce.com users should consider on-demand power dialer solutions. Here are 6 reasons:
1- More Revenue: In 2005 a landmark study was done by CSO Insights that showed companies that use CRM software have 17% more revenue. That is notable, but not overly compelling. Dialers coupled wth CRM software often increase overall revenue by 200%, 300%, or more by significantly increasing dials, contacts, appointments, and talk time, while lowering costs and wasted time.
2- More Dials: Our internal lead generation department department and many of our clients make 300 calls per rep per day. Most internal lead generation departments in companies we come across fall between 20 and 70 calls a day. Most outsourced lead generation companies we are familiar with make between 70 and 110 calls a day.
3- More Contacts: By combining immediate response (web-form callback technology) with consistent response (power dialer technology) we have documented 700% increases in contacts on the first call and increases from 45% of all leads contacted to 92% of contactable leads contacted. It becomes obvious that the most basic, but overlooked practice of lead management and sales is just making contact with more leads. Our research is showing that as much as 45.1% of leads NEVER get contacted at all (see Omniture ’08 Study.)
4- More Appointments: It becomes obvious if you make 300 calls a day versus 40 or 50, you will make a LOT more appointments. Besides the power dialer for Salesforce technology that is becoming popular as an integrated tool within salesforce.com, immediate response technology that calls a web lead back in 8-10 seconds from a visitor inputting their information on a website shows the odds increasing by 21 times according to the groundbreaking MIT Study by Dr. James Oldroyd of qualifying the lead or setting the first appointment.
5- More Phone Time: While Lead-Gen reps in an inside sales department make a lot more dials, Closers who take the appointments set by Lead-Gen are able to do eight hours of work in two or two and a half hours. This is in the form of talking to a lot more prospects through the entire sales process. A dialer increases quality time as well as quantity of time.
6- Lower Capital Outlays: Whether it comes in the fact that sales reps can cover three to four times as much ground in the same time, or in the incredible savings in lessened time wasters (see 15 Time Wasters), money and time are saved in large increments by using the power of dialer technology that is now integrated natively within salesforce.com and other CRM solutions.
As you can see, sales is still about numbers. And while CRM helps salespeople bring order to the sales process, a dialer offers the leverage to dramatically impact the numbers. That is important, especially in todays economic adventures.
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I am looking for a hosted dialer for my direct marketing campaign. I have found three companies that provide this type of service.
http://www.ytel.com
http://www.cellfires.com
http://www.five9.com
Any suggestions as to the difference in these companies? The main difference I see is costs – what other features are important while using a hosted dialer?
First, out of pure self interest, add InsideSales.com (http://www.insidesales.com) to your list of potential providers and see if they favorably compare to your choices. If you’ve already looked at InsideSales.com as a potential dialer provider and decided one of your other choices is a better fit, feel free to ignore this shameless plug. =)
As far as features to consider for the dialer you’re going to use, that’s an interesting question. On the surface the basic concept is the same for all of them–make more calls and make better use of agent time.
The differences really depend on:
1. The number of agents you want to have active on the dialer at a time.
If you’re only planning on having 1-5 reps, certain dialer technologies, namely predictive dialers, don’t really work effectively until you scale up to 7-10 agents. In these cases, a “single agent-single call” dialer system will work much, much better, while still giving you additional leverage for the work you’re doing.
2. How much access the system gives managers on both the front and back end.
Hosted dialer systems can vary in how they manage adding data to the dialer, how it’s organized, report visibility, and the level of control management has over how the data gets processed.
For example, one of the cool things the PowerDialer for InsideSales does is it allows managers to intelligently control nearly every aspect of how the calls get sent out to the agents–time of day, how often they want to be called, the order they should be called, priority based on status/age of the lead/last time of contact, etc.
I’m not saying you necessarily need this type of flexibility, but it’s something to consider.
The dialer system should allow you, the people who need to make work, to be both flexible and effective in how you set up and run it.
3. How capable is it in mixing additional media along with your calling efforts?
Calling by itself can be effective, but combined with email, voice messaging, and/or fax capabilities you’ll have more success.
4. What’s your process for managing the “down time” like gatekeepers and voice message systems?
Different dialer systems have varying capabilities in working through this; make sure the technology can work with your process the way you want it to.
5. And the #1 feature to consider: Who’s going to run it, and ultimately “own” the project?
I realize this has nothing to do with the product itself, but this will ultimately have more effect on the outcome of your initiative than which technology you choose. I see more failed sales automation technology initiatives because of this than any other factor combined.
Someone needs to be in charge, they need to own it, and they need to be the “go to” point of contact for both the company buying the technology, and the vendor who is going to help them implement it.
If you haven’t nailed down who this is going to be–or they haven’t accepted the role, and the time and energy requirements it’s going to demand–don’t bother choosing a vendor. Take care of this first, then go back and make your technology choice.
this is great information – I will bring this up at our next business meeting since we are looking to implement a hosted dialer to our CRM – and we are now just getting started with salesforce – thanks.
If I can be of further help let us know. InsideSales.com is quite proud of being in the Top 20 most popular apps on the salesforce.com AppExchange for four straight years. Good luck!