Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Predictive Dialers In Outbound Call Centres

A predictive dialer is a computerized system that automatically dials batches of telephone numbers for connection to agents assigned to sales or other campaigns. Predictive dialers are widely used in call centers.

The autodialer preceded the predictive dialer. While the basic autodialer merely automatically dials telephone numbers for call center agents who are idle or waiting for a call, the predictive dialer uses a variety of algorithms to predict both the availability of agents and called party answers, adjusting the calling process to the number of agents it predicts will be available when the calls it places are expected to be answered.

The predictive dialer monitors the answers to the calls it places, detecting how the calls it makes are answered. It discards unanswered calls, busy numbers, disconnected lines, answers from fax machines, answering machines and similar automated services, and only connects calls answered by people to waiting sales representatives.

Thus, it frees agents from the task of manually dialing telephone numbers and subsequently listening to ring tones, unanswered or unsuccessful calls. Predictive dialers perform the same function but the architecture and delivery methods can vary greatly between manufacturers.

There are several types of predictive dialing: Software, Hardware, Smart, and Hosted dialers. A predictive dialer can dramatically increase the time an agent spends on communication rather than waiting; a 2002 survey indicated an increase in talk time from twenty minutes in the hour to almost fifty.

The system is most suitable for low quality lists and large numbers of agents; however, an unexpectedly high contact rate can overwhelm the system leading to call abandonment. Before running a campaign, Call list data is loaded into the dialer. The data is generally derived from a large database such as a telephone directory or similar listing from CRM software. Some predictive dialers generate call lists and report call attempts.

Unsuccessful calls are often analyzed to determine if the number called needs to be called back later or needs special treatment, such as a manual or autodialed call by an agent to listen to an answer machine message.

Predictive dialer systems are commonly used by telemarketing organizations involved in B2C (business to consumer) calling as it allows their sales representatives to have much more customer contact time. Predictive dialers may also be used by market survey companies and debt collection services who need to contact and personally speak to a lot of people by telephone.

More commonly predictive dialers are now being used as a quick and easy way to automate all sorts of calls which would otherwise be made manually by a call center, such as welcome calls for new customers, customer service call backs, appointment confirmations/reminders, or even for the automation of large numbers of ad hoc calls that might need to take place (such as by a taxi company, or parcel delivery service etc).

The predictive dialer exhibits predictive behavior when its dialing algorithm produces more call attempts (dials) than the number of agents currently logged in and available to handle calls. The predictive dialing happens when the predictive dialer dials ahead of the agents becoming available or when the predictive dialer matches a forecast number of available agents with a forecast number of available called parties. The matching and dialing ahead perspectives provide the large increases in dial rates and agent productivity.

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

Saving on Your Hosting Bill with Squidoo Lenses

Hosting can cost from $1 to over $100, though the average price is usually less than $20. Sound cheap? Well, it is until you multiply that number by 100 or even 1,000. And, if you're going to be a serious Internet marketer, eventually, you will have that many sites in your repertoire. This is why it's important to consider free hosting alternatives. One of the best is Squidoo.

What is Squidoo? Squidoo is a powerful Web 2.0 site that allows people to create their own blogs, (also known as lenses). There is no charge for hosting, and virtually no limit to how many lenses can be created. Additionally, Squidoo participates in Adsense revenue-sharing. This means that they will allow you to keep revenue from your Adsense clicks a certain percentage of the time. The exact percentage will depend on what is being promoted.

So, what's the best way to create a money-making Squidoo lens? Well, first make sure you can write solid articles surrounding whatever your official website or affiliate program is about. Don't fall into the temptation to just post a bunch of advertisements on your lens. Readers will only be put off by your lens and not click on any ads, whether they are your own links or Adsense. It's much better to provide valuable information that will build up interest to your product or service rather than advertise it outright.

Anyway, as you are writing your articles, don't forget that you want to try and make secondary income from Adsense, should your reader not click on any of your links. To do this you will need to incorporate keywords that Adsense bots will pick up. Try to use more popular keywords, since this will net you more money. In fact, if you can, consider buying a list containing the most expensive Adsense keywords. You should be able to find these easily by doing a basic search on Google or another search engine. Once you get it, find the keywords that best match what you're talking about and use them 2 to 6 percent of the time throughout your text. If you do things right, the more expensive keywords will get integrated into your lens. Granted, you won't always get the revenue, but at least when you do, you can be assured that it will be high.

Okay now, at this point many Adsense gurus might feel uncomfortable at the thought of sharing any revenue with another company. They may feel that it's better to just get a regular hosting account for their blogs than to go that route. Well, again, there's still the issue of the numbers game if you do massive Internet marketing. But there's another issue at stake presence. Squidoo is already indexed by search engines, and has a high page rank. This means that any lenses produced on their network are more likely to get noticed by search engines than a new, no-name website. And for newbies who may not know how to rank high on their own, this is a major advantage that can't be overlooked.

In conclusion, Squidoo is the best place to turn if you're looking for an affordable way to create a blog or series of blogs. There are no recurring charges, but you will have to share any Adsense revenue you make. This is a disadvantage, but Squidoo's popularity in search engine listings should overcome it at least for the newbie.

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The 12 part E-course walks you through step by step on how to get the traffic coming to your site. This is traffic that you just put your time into, you don't have to spend any money for it. Find out more at www.newwebtraffic.com

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