5 ways a dialer manager’s life changed when the dialer changed

In Part One of this post, Michael Velardi shared the challenges, and the concurrent stress, he faced as an outbound dialing manager trying to meet daily goals handed down from upper management. When he was informed by the executive team that they decided to change dialers, he had a crisis of confidence and a bout of anxiety. How was he going to deliver the expected results on a completely new system?

When he realized he had a proactive support team helping him onboard and optimize the Convoso dialer, the skies began to clear, and rays of possibility began to shine.

Michael Velardi is the former Senior Vice President of Resource Marketing Corporation. In Part Two of this guest post, Michael describes 5 key areas that transformed his day-to-day experience as a call center admin. He also reviews how his call center's new dialer differed from the previous dialer and the new outbound dialing tools he had to drive dramatic improvements.

In my new "Convoso life" I'm living a bountiful dialing day. I've settled in and the stress is lower. When I look back at why I’m far more effective today, I see 5 key areas that made the difference in both our transition from our old dialer to Convoso and my subsequent experience expanding results and managing the hourly and daily operations of our call center.

I was initially dreading the change-over from our previous dialer. But then it morphed into something I looked forward to as Convoso's support team stepped up to address solutions to my concerns about how I was going to manage productivity and achieve the results I needed. What happened is that I ended up surpassing what I thought was even possible.

When we were first onboarding, rather than scheduling me for some broad topic training on their system, my Customer Support Manager went to work with me on my task list. So it was specific because they listened to what I needed to accomplish and what my issues were. They worked with me to figure out the necessary adjustments and where the areas that needed refining existed (I call them shady corners — the place where efficiency thrives). We reviewed what I was accustomed to using with the previous dialer, and then they showed me the parallel controls with the new system, and pulled them into my dashboard.

We discussed the value of transparency, reporting, and actionable data and how Convoso's tools worked in real time throughout my day. This new approach is how we set about our plan of automating and systemizing the day-to-day prep that had been absorbing valuable time with the prior dialer.

In my experience, one of the standout offerings that differentiates Convoso from other support channels is their attention to detail at every level. They have an amazing support ecosystem that gives a measurable return on investment. It feels like an accountability partner who is there in the workout with you, and keeps you motivated to get up and move. When we switched from our former predictive dialer I found myself more than ever needing simple guidance and my go-to was Convoso Support—still is.

It has never been more vital for a company to understand their costs to acquire a customer. Convoso gives me the tools via reporting capabilities to measure cost per lead, hourly pay for talent, and cost of goods sold. So now I can maximize the viability of campaigns and strategies by understanding the profitability of my lists. Focusing on cost of leads, cost of sales, and cost of talent has made it much easier to meet with management to review the company's growth strategies and to properly identify what needs the most attention. These are commonly misdiagnosed because most companies pursue a strategy of adding more data and more people which can significantly alter a company's profit model.

The ability to accurately determine our cost per acquisition has enabled me to make quicker strategic choices based on seeing the big picture, so I can target the energy where it's needed.

The AI of Convoso's system has made a huge impact on what I can achieve as a dialer admin. It is leading edge. The platform intelligently adjusts the predictive dialing pace to help the call center stay in compliance, which has been a big stress reliever. No longer are the days of managing the drop rates, because the predictive dialing software ensures that the admin is successful without sacrificing quality. With the automations baked in, we've saved countless hours of management time and pushed the dialer efficiency beyond what an admin would be able to achieve on their own.

So now, when a distraction comes up and I need to takes my attention away from the predictive dialer, I don't get spikes in the dialing rate that would increase the likelihood of dropped calls and put the operation more at risk of blowing compliance. With Convoso I've been able to intelligently avoid the pitfalls of compliance audits, because the AI autonomously adjusts in REAL TIME  so I don't need to absorb a strategy that requires post analysis and applying a correction.

Actionable real time data and list reporting have changed my life. With our previous dialer, if I encountered a lower performing time, I couldn’t tell if it was attributable to my list or to my agents. But Convoso has so many valuable tools to structure a dialing day, that now my day is rectified hourly and I can section the data and solutions into a productive set of systems. I can see how my lists are performing in real time, and because of that I can make effective changes and predictions. The reports for list performance are vital and let me cross section my data, and ensure I'm targeting proper list management techniques to gain the competitive edge.

Does your current dialer show what list is top performing?  Can you see what list is most profitable? I'm telling you, if you have this actionable real time data, it will has change the way you approach your dialing day and the effectiveness of your strategy and decisions. The new capabilities that I have with the Convoso system have allowed me to solve problems quickly and efficiently because when I see a problem, I can quickly find the source of it.

The hardest data to analyze is agent data. If you've ever had a full house of agents and didn't achieve expected results, you know what I'm talking about.

So you can imagine what a relief it was to learn about how Convoso has simplified the process. Now I can measure a timeframe of lists and agents to determine the solutions. I can quickly isolate and match up the agents against a timeframe to see who is performing above or below standard. The reporting enables me to save both management time and agent time, which is huge since staffing costs make up a big chunk of the call center's overall costs.

Now I have access to several live reports and panels that are like a GPS that I manage and use to navigate, rather than just historical post reporting. This has enabled me to achieve a more productive hour, which becomes a more productive day, and...well, you get the picture.