How Do Predictive Dialers Help the Loan Modification Industry?
December 22nd, 2008
If you are a loan modification company please read our article regarding how our dialer will best serve your company. Predictive Dialing for the Loan Modification Industry
First let’s look at the loan modification industry. What is a loan modification?
A loan modification is when the lender modifies your current mortgage in order to work with you because of a hardship. The purpose is to help make your loan more affordable. Usually it is in the form of a rate reduction and fixing the rate for a certain amount of time. In today’s financial market many mortgage companies are folding as homeowners default on their loans. This is bad news for the mortgage companies, but great news for companies that specialize in loan modifications.
One of the biggest challenges that loan modification companies face is simply reaching new customers. How do you go about letting people know that it is very possible that their current debts may be renegotiated? One of the most effective ways to generate new, qualified leads is to use a predictive dialer system. A predictive dialer does several key things that are very specifically beneficial to the loan modification industry.
- A predictive dialer automatically dials phone numbers for you. It only connects you to a call if the call is answered. This saves a huge amount of time because you do not manually dial the number, listen to it ring, and then hang up the phone if no one is there, or if you reach a fax machine, answering machine, busy line, or disconnected number. Being able to do other work while you wait for a live call saves you and your company hours every day of precious productive time.
- The Razor Predictive Dialer scrubs your calling list against the Do Not Call list, so you never have to worry about dialing someone who is registered on the DNC. Furthermore, with my company’s Razor Dialer, you can add a customer to your DNC list with the touch of a single button. This really ramps up productivity as you can be guaranteed that you will never dial that customer’s number again after an agent marks them as DNC. The average phone call including dialing time, ring time, and speaking to the customer can be as long as one to two minutes. Add up all the calls that would be dialed if your list was not scrubbed against the DNC and it is easy to see how much time is saved by using predictive dialer software.
- The razor predictive dialer also manages your lead lists beyond even the DNC feature. On a razor dialer, you can set several different identifiers on a lead once it has been called. These identifiers are called Dispositions. Each disposition can have a HotKey assigned to it allowing agents to disposition a call with a single touch. Some examples of dispositions are: Not Interested, Sale, Call Back Later, Do Not Call, No Answer. What sets our predictive dialer apart from other dialers is that our dialer lets you control how you interact with each type of dispositioned lead. For example, you may tell the dialer that you want to call back each ‘Not Interested’ a total of five times before deciding that you do not want to spend any more time calling them. After they have been called five times, the dialer will automatically set them aside so they are not called until you tell the dialer you want to try them again. You can also control how long the dialer waits to call them back in between each attempt. A common setting for ‘Not Interested’ is to have the dialer call five times each but wait one week between each call.
- There is more to predictive dialing than just simply calling phone numbers for you. The top reason that predictive dialing is able to increase your productivity is the same reason it is called Predictive Dialing. The Razor Predictive Dialer is able to predict how many phone numbers it should call at the same time in order to connect to a live call the fastest way possible while not dialing so many numbers that it accidentally hangs up on a person. It is able to do this by collecting and analyzing information about your calls such as how many agents are available to currently take a call, how long each agent’s average talk time is for each call, how many numbers have had to be dialed in the past before reaching a live person and much more. Predictive dialers literally ‘predict’ how many calls it will take to get a live person on the line. This most often involves dialing more lines than there are agents and the result is that you are able to call up to four times the amount of phone numbers compared to manual dialing.
If you are in the Loan Modification Industry or a legal representative that aids loan modification officers, please call Orion Communications at 1-877-812-7251 to learn more about predictive dialing and to receive a live demonstration of the Razor Predictive Dialer. You can start dialing millions of residential and business leads faster than ever before so don’t wait to learn about this outstanding technology!
Orion Communications Business Blog
December 3rd , 2008
Branched Scripting is a tool that predictive dialer software uses to provide a script that changes based on the input of the sales agent. The system administrator can program in drop-down menus, check boxes, radio buttons and text fields. As the agent reads the script, depending upon what conditions are set on the different answers; when the agent tells the script to go forward a new page will be displayed based on the previous answers. For example; Joe is on a call with Diane. Joe reads his script to her and at the end he asks, “Are you interested in refinancing your home?”. Joe then selects “yes” from the drop down menu and presses “Next”. The script advances to a page that asks further questions to qualify Diane as a refinance customer. Had Diane answered “no”, the script would have advanced to a page with objection rebuttals. This works because the drop down menu had the condition set to branch the script. Branched scripting can do much more though. Let’s say Diane had said yes; the qualification page would have questions concerning her mortgage and other debts. As Joe fills in the fields with her answers, those fields can be programmed to save that data in Diane’s lead file. When Joe sets her disposition to “Sale”, Joe’s supervisor can retrieve that information and pass it along to a Mortgage Analyst.
As you can see, branched scripting is a powerful tool for predictive dialers however there is more. Branched Scripting is also the way IVR (Interactive Voice Response) works. Joe’s supervisor decides that the first page of the script will be the same every single call and has the bright idea that it would be more productive to have that portion pre-recorded. Joe’s supervisor, David, records the message and loads it into his predictive dialer as an IVR-Script. He then programs a condition into the script that asks the user to “press 1 to speak with an agent, press 2 to hang up this call”. Now when Diane is called, she will hear a recording telling her that she can save thousands of dollars by refinancing. The recording asks “Are you interested in refinancing?” If Diane presses 1, she will then connect to Joe who is waiting with the rest of the script to help her. IVR scripts can be very in depth and even do the same recording of answers as mentioned above. In fact, the script can be programmed to ask an entire series of questions with multiple choices based on touch tone answers, and the entire IVR call can be stored in a database.
December 1st, 2008
IVR (Interactive Voice Response) is a type of technology that allows people to interact with a database (usually one that routes calls or records information) by using their telephone touch pad or by voice recognition. IVR systems can save business money by routing calls to the correct person and also making information or automated services available to the public 24 hours a day.
There is also a type of Outbound IVR that is used with a predictive dialer system. The predictive dialer software dials phone numbers from a large database known as a lead list. When a person answers the call from the dialer, a pre-recorded message is played and a list of voice prompts is given. Depending on which touch tone or voice command the listener gives, the dialer plays a specific matching recording. Most outbound IVR systems will have an option for the customer to “press 1” to speak to a sales agent. The dialer then routes the call into a call center where agents are waiting for IVR routed calls to come in. An example of this technology would be political campaigns where a pre-recorded message is played and then the listener has the option to ‘press a key to make a donation’.
Inbound IVR systems are very common place today. Anytime you call a company and go through a series of menus, you are using an IVR. Outbound IVR scripts can be very complex offering a wealth of information to the listener as they go through a series of questions and can retrieve answers based on their touch tone responses.
November 30th , 2008
Predictive dialers can double your agents’ sales. It does this by minimizing downtime between calls through a handful of processes. The first process is the predictive algorithm, a mathematical formula that quite literally ‘predicts’ when the next available agent will be and dials out phone lines in advance so a live call connects at the right time. There is, however, more to the algorithm than just that. It takes into account how many calls it takes before a live person answers the phone, it can detect an answering machine, and it tracks how long agents spend on each call so it can predict when an agent will be available.
One of the biggest time saving measures a predictive dialer takes is the actual act of dialing. When you manually dial a number; it takes, on average, around thirty seconds to dial the number and let it ring four times. Additionally, if no one answers, the caller must keep track of that. On a predictive dialer, the dialer instantaneously connects the call to the agent only after a live person has picked up the phone. This is accomplished through first hello technology. Most dialers will detect disconnected phone numbers, answering machines, fax lines, and busy signals. Since the dialer only connects to an agent once a call has been identified, call agents do not waste any time on these type of calls. This can lead to a 150% to 400% increase in overall productivity.
Predictive dialers also help in saving management time by keeping an up to date do not call list, scrubbing lead lists against the DNC list, cataloguing leads by disposition, scheduling call backs and appointments, and managing a time clock. You can also control your lead list by setting parameters on how often to call a lead and how many times to call it back before taking it off the active list.
The Razor Predictive Dialer has a ‘hotkey’ for Do Not Call Requests, that allows an agent to permanently mark a phone number as Do Not Call. This is a one-touch solution for when a customer requests to be listed as DNC. The hotkey will immediately end the call and place the agent back into the queue, saving a lot of time. The Call Back feature works similarly. When an agent hits the Call Back Hotkey, it pops up a calendar and clock and the agent can tell the dialer to call back this lead at a specific date and time.
Predictive Dialers give a real-time feedback and the manager can monitor and maintain optimum performance and productivity.
The real-time displays give information about inbound queues, current status and statistics, dialer statistics, and list performance. It helps to identify agents who have exceeded preset goals, monitor and train an agent for immediate corrective action and feedback.
November 28th, 2008
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a new technology that allows you to place phone calls over your broadband internet connection, instead of using traditional analog phone lines. Some VoIP services limit you to only calling other people that have the same service, but other services may allow you to call anyone who has a telephone number. Some VoIP services only work on a computer, others allow you to plug a traditional phone into a VoIP Adapter. Many call centers have already made the switch to VoIP phone systems including predictive dialer systems.
How does Voice over Internet Protocol Work?
VoIP takes your voice and converts it to a digital signal that is then transmitted over the internet. If you are calling a standard telephone number, the VoIP service converts the signal back to analog before reaching its destination. You can dial from VoIP using a regular telephone that is hooked into a special adapter, a special VoIP phone or directly from a computer. You may also be able to connect to various “hotspots” wirelessly at airports, parks, hotels and cafes.
What kind of equipment is needed to use VoIP?
The first thing you need is a broadband connection (high speed internet). You can get this through Cable or DSL or through a local area network of a business with another high speed connection type. You must have a computer, adaptor, or a special VoIP phone. If you choose to use your computer you will need the appropriate software and a microphone. There are special VoIP phones that plug into a broadband connection and then work, for the most part, like a regular telephone. To use VoIP for your call center you will need a VoIP service and then a predictive dialer or other call center software solution.
