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In the average contact centre, thousands of customer conversations happen daily. Each one contains valuable insights about customer needs, agent performance, and operational opportunities. Yet most of this intelligence remains locked away in audio recordings that are time-consuming to review and impossible to analyse at scale.

The challenge facing contact centre managers is clear: how do you extract meaningful insights from vast amounts of conversational data without dedicating entire teams to listening through recordings?

The answer lies in AI-powered speech-to-text analytics—technology that transforms every spoken word into searchable, analysable intelligence that drives better decisions, improved performance, and superior customer experiences.

The Hidden Cost of Unanalysed Conversations

Without reliable speech-to-text capabilities, contact centres operate partially blind. Quality assurance becomes a lottery based on random sampling. Compliance issues hide in unmonitored calls. Training opportunities remain invisible. Customer sentiment goes unmeasured.

Consider the typical contact centre challenges:

• Limited Quality Insight: Managers can only review a tiny fraction of calls, missing critical performance patterns

• Reactive Compliance: Issues surface only when problems have already occurred

• Inefficient Training: Without systematic analysis, coaching becomes guesswork rather than targeted improvement

• Lost Intelligence: Customer feedback, concerns, and preferences remain buried in audio files

The cost isn't just operational inefficiency—it's missed opportunities to transform customer relationships and business outcomes.

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How Advanced Speech-to-Text Technology Works

Modern AI speech-to-text solutions operate through a sophisticated multi-step process that delivers accuracy rates exceeding 90%:

Audio Capture and Cleaning: The system captures incoming calls and removes background noise and distractions to ensure clear audio for accurate transcription.

Phoneme Analysis: Advanced algorithms break down audio into smaller sound units and compare these to extensive databases of words and phrases.

Contextual Intelligence: Rather than simply matching sounds to words, the AI considers conversation context to assemble meaningful sentences with proper punctuation and speaker identification.

Real-Time Processing: Transcripts become available immediately after calls, providing instant access to conversation intelligence.

This sophisticated process transforms every customer interaction into searchable, analysable data that reveals patterns, trends, and opportunities that would otherwise remain hidden.

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Five Ways Speech-to-Text Analytics Transforms Operations

1. Accurate Transcriptions That Reveal Truth

High-quality transcripts provide managers with deep insights into customer needs, concerns, and emotions. This understanding enables agents to tailor responses more effectively, leading to improved satisfaction and reduced call handling times.

When you can see exactly what customers are saying—not just what agents think they're saying—you discover opportunities for service improvement that were previously invisible.

2. Lightning-Fast Analysis That Spots Trends

Post-call transcripts enable rapid analysis of conversation patterns across hundreds or thousands of interactions. Instead of waiting weeks to identify emerging issues, managers can spot trends as they develop and address problems promptly.

This speed transforms contact centres from reactive to proactive operations, preventing small issues from becoming major customer experience problems.

3. Targeted Agent Performance Improvement

Transcripts reveal specific areas where agents excel or need development—from communication skills and product knowledge to objection handling techniques. Managers can identify common errors, successful approaches, and training opportunities with precision.

This targeted insight makes coaching dramatically more effective, focusing development efforts on areas with the highest impact on performance and customer satisfaction.

4. Automated Call Summarisation That Saves Time

Intelligent summarisation eliminates manual transcription and analysis, freeing up valuable time for agents and managers. Key conversation points, outcomes, and action items are automatically captured and presented in easily digestible formats.

This automation means quality assurance teams can review more interactions in less time while maintaining comprehensive oversight of customer service standards.

5. Bulletproof Compliance and Quality Assurance

Transcripts can be instantly searched for specific keywords, phrases, or compliance indicators. Managers can quickly identify potential regulatory issues, quality problems, or training opportunities across their entire operation.

This comprehensive monitoring capability provides valuable evidence for legal disputes while ensuring adherence to industry regulations and internal standards.

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The Foundation for Advanced Analytics

Accurate speech-to-text transcription isn't just valuable in itself—it's the foundation that enables sophisticated speech analytics capabilities. When you have reliable transcripts, you can layer on additional intelligence:

• Sentiment analysis that reveals customer emotional responses

• Keyword tracking that identifies trending topics and concerns

• Performance benchmarking that compares agent effectiveness

• Compliance monitoring that ensures regulatory adherence

• Customer journey mapping that reveals experience patterns

Without accurate transcription, these advanced capabilities lose their reliability and value.

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Real-World Impact on Contact Centre Success

The benefits of implementing AI speech-to-text analytics extend throughout contact centre operations:

Enhanced Customer Understanding: See exactly what customers value, what frustrates them, and how they respond to different approaches.

Improved Agent Development: Provide specific, evidence-based coaching that addresses real performance gaps rather than assumptions.

Faster Issue Resolution: Identify and address emerging problems before they impact broader customer satisfaction.

Stronger Compliance Posture: Monitor adherence to regulations and standards comprehensively rather than through limited sampling.

Strategic Business Intelligence: Use conversation data to inform broader business decisions about products, services, and customer experience strategies.

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Making Every Conversation Count

In today's competitive landscape, the contact centres that succeed are those that learn from every customer interaction. They don't just handle calls—they extract intelligence that drives continuous improvement.

AI speech-to-text analytics makes this comprehensive learning possible. By transforming every spoken word into actionable insight, it turns your contact centre's most valuable resource—customer conversations—into a strategic advantage.

When you can see, search, and analyse every customer interaction, you discover opportunities everywhere: in the agent who needs targeted coaching, in the process that creates confusion, in the customer concern that signals a broader trend, and in the successful approach that could be replicated across your team.

The conversations are happening anyway. The question is: are you learning from them?

With AI speech-to-text analytics, every word becomes wisdom, every call becomes insight, and every interaction becomes an opportunity to improve performance and delight customers.

Ready to transform your customer conversations into actionable intelligence? Discover how AI speech-to-text analytics can provide the insights you need to improve agent performance, ensure compliance, and drive better customer outcomes across every interaction.

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Introduction

The competitive nature of contact centres means that achieving exceptional customer service and keeping costs under control is a balancing act. Traditional landlines aren’t an option, and some contact centres opt for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) as a cost-effective and flexible solution to ensure effective communication with customers.

This guide explores the inner workings of VoIP, how it exists in call centre operations, and its potential limitations. We’ll also talk about UCaaS and CCaaS – and discuss how it could be a more efficient and customer-centric solution for omni-channel contact centres. And if you’re a BPO contact centre? We’ll explain why neither VoIP or UCaaS is the right solution for your contact centre model (and what is).

How do VoIP calls work?

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has become a well-established technology for making and receiving phone calls over an internet connection instead of traditional landlines. VoIP technology has been around for years and is still used by some call centres seeking cost-effective solutions.

Here’s a breakdown of how VoIP calls work:

1. From Voice to Data: When you speak into your microphone, analogue sound waves are converted into digital data. This process is called analogue-to-digital conversion.

2. Compression Efficiency: The digital data is compressed to significantly reduce its size, which optimises internet transmission speed.

3. Packets for Travel: The compressed data is broken down into smaller packets, a bit like sending a large file in multiple parts. These packets are individually addressed and routed over the internet using the IP protocol.

4. Reassembly and Playback: At the receiving end, the packets are reassembled and converted back into digital data. This data is then transformed into analogue sound waves through a digital-to-analogue converter. This allows you to hear the caller’s voice through your speaker.

How is VoIP used in contact centres?

There are some reasons why call centres may choose to use VoIP, and its use cases extend beyond simply making and receiving calls.

1. It can handle inbound customer service

VoIP supports high-volume call management in customer service industries. VoIP distributes calls across your call centre agents to reduce wait times.

2. It enables flexible remote technical support

VoIP allows contact centres to deliver remote technical support.

Removing geographical limitations also means that call centre teams can handle a wider range of technical support cases without having to visit sites in person.

3. Appointment scheduling

Manual appointment scheduling is prone to error, but VoIP allows call agents to schedule appointments during calls. Additionally, VoIP gives customers greater flexibility by enabling them to choose their preferred date, time and even the specific agent they want to speak with. Automating appointment reminders further boosts efficiency by reducing missed appointments and maximising valuable agent time.

The advantages and disadvantages of VoIP

Although VoIP is still used by contact centres with moderate needs, other platforms, such as UCaaS are gaining traction. Therefore, it is important to understand the benefits of VoIP and also be aware of its limitations.

Here are the advantages of VoIP:

1. VoIP can save you money

Traditional telephone services often come with inflated long-distance charges and require costly specialised equipment and maintenance investments – particularly if you’re a growing business. By leveraging the internet for calls, VoIP significantly reduces costs. With no bulky phone line installation or complex setups, VoIP doesn’t require extra equipment and you only pay for the lines you need. VoIP services also save you money by offering unlimited long-distance calls and affordable international calls. By ditching the per-minute model, you will benefit from predictable, lower rates.

2. It gives you more flexibility

An advantage of VoIP is you can make and receive calls anywhere, regardless of location. Contact centres have the flexibility to grow remote teams, with a stable internet connection and sufficient bandwidth being the only conditions.

3. Scale up or scale down

Predicting call volume can be a guessing game, but with VoIP, you’re equipped to deal with changing demands. Scaling up or down is easy as you can add or remove lines in minutes, adapting to seasonal fluctuations or unexpected surges without hefty upfront costs.

Here are the disadvantages of VoIP:

1. VoIP relies on a stable internet connection

When you’re reliant on an internet-based phone system, the customer service you provide is only as consistent as your internet connection. Slow internet speeds can lead to poor call quality and dropped calls – which is frustrating for call agents and customers.

2. VoIP calls are more likely from network jitter

Poor internet connection, inadequate routers and incorrect cables are all connection issues that can cause latency and jitter. Network jitter happens when data packets hit delays in transmission or don’t get properly reassembled. It leads to choppy and unprofessional audio.

3. Limited mobility and device flexibility

While remote capabilities are a VoIP strength – it does come with some caveats. Yes, it minimises traditional phone line infrastructure, but VoIP still requires compatible hardware like VoIP phones and adapters which restricts remote access.

4. Power outages can cause disruption

Traditional phone lines function even during power outages, but VoIP systems lose all functionality without connection to the internet. In most cases, WiFi is powered by WiFi routers which rely on electricity to work. So, if your call centre experiences a power outage, your service will suffer. To mitigate the risk of power outages, backup solutions such as generators or mobile hotspots are required.

5. VoIP doesn’t encourage collaboration

VoIP is great for voice communication, but its functionality can fall short of modern needs. Features like video conferencing, instant messaging, file sharing and collaborative tools tend to be absent and require integration with separate platforms.

6. It can be costly to scale

Scaling your VoIP system for additional features like video conferencing can get tricky. This often requires separate systems, which can impact your budget and introduce complexity.

7. Additional security demands

Integrating additional communication channels that go beyond voice increases vulnerability. Adding features to your VoIP software requires robust security measures to protect your system and data.

Is a VoIP system the right choice for your contact centre?

VoIP focuses solely on basic voice calls, so it typically has lower initial costs than feature-heavy platforms. But will you need to expand your communication channels or functionality requirements in the future? While it’s possible to do this, it might require separate platforms alongside VoIP for an additional cost. So, before committing to VoIP, consider if you are comfortable juggling separate systems. Ask yourself, do the potential cost savings outweigh the limitations?

If your contact centre requirements extend beyond voice calls and integrations, analytics and optimisation of processes are on your must-have list, alternative solutions such as UCaaS could be a better fit.

VoIP vs UCaaS: What’s the difference?

Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) is a cloud-delivery model that enables a more complex communication platform combining voice calls, video conferencing, instant messaging, file sharing, collaboration tools, and more.

UCaaS is for contact centres that want to upgrade from outdated VoIP systems or need a unified solution across multiple communication channels.

UCaaS can easily integrate into your existing business ecosystem, like CRM systems, streamlining data flow and simplifying operations. UCaaS offers impressive scalability and can adapt well to fluctuating call volumes. By integrating other communication channels, such as voice and chat, UCaaS encourages team collaboration and improved efficiency. Better still, your customers have diverse communication options, leaving them feeling valued and heard.

Here are the main differentiating capabilities and features of VoIP and UCaaS.

UCaaS offers more versatility and integration capabilities than VoIP, but we should also acknowledge its limitations when adapting to specific types of contact centres, such as BPOs.

Why is CCaaS more suitable for BPO contact centres?

For BPO contact centres with high call volumes, complex customer interactions and tight margins, even UCaaS lacks the capabilities that are needed. Cloud-based contact centre solutions also known as CCaaS, offer the scalability, cost-effectiveness, agility, omnichannel support and data-driven insights that BPO contact centres require.

CCaaS supports multiple communication channels and gives BPOs access to all the latest features and functionalities without the need for costly upgrades or complex integrations. Outsourced contact centres can use these advancements to stay competitive and offer cutting-edge customer service solutions to their clients.

CCaaS uses a pay-as-you-go subscription model, which is more cost effective for BPOs. What’s more, you only pay for the features and resources used, reducing overall operational costs.

Conclusion

VoIP is an upgrade from traditional landlines but does not offer the functionality required to grow a business, UCaaS offers increased functionality however, for call centres that are looking to grow, increase revenue and meet KPIs, having a CCaaS solution is far more suited to your needs and has the capabilities to grow with your business.

Learn how MaxContact’s contact centre solutions can help you. Book a demo today or get in touch with the team to find out more.  

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Let’s face it, Contact Centre workforce management (WFM) is a bit of a minefield.  

The goal of WFM is obvious enough. You want the right number of agents with the right skill levels in place for every shift. Get it right and you maximise revenue opportunity, reduce churn rates and create better customer experiences, while lowering operational costs.

Get it wrong and the opposite happens. Either you’re left with too many agents, or you’re left with too few. In the first instance, agents are left twiddling their thumbs while you hemorrhage money. In the second, customer dissatisfaction grows and overworked staff contemplate less stressful futures elsewhere.

Now add the pandemic into the mix, and the fact that team leaders can’t physically judge the overall productivity of their agents by simply scanning the room. In these circumstances, WFM becomes trickier still.  

Getting the balance right?

So how do contact centre managers go about getting the balance right? Traditionally, it’s been a mix of intuition, experience and basic number crunching, but this analogue approach is no longer enough.  

That’s because scheduling staff shifts in modern contact centres is more complex than ever. It starts with a forecast of the likely number of inbound enquiries, based on previous experience and known upcoming events. Anything from a Bank Holiday to the start of your latest marketing campaign can seriously impact your inbound forecasting.  

Then you have to match that forecast to your available agents, while considering rotas, workload, skill sets, contracted hours, holidays and workforce wellbeing, among other factors.  

And depending on your business, you may have to factor in the SLAs you offer your customers, and the ever-changing metrics your C-suite uses to measure the health of the business.

And let’s not forget that contact centres are often omnichannel these days, meaning your responsibility isn’t just to customers who pick up the phone. If you advertise SMS, web chat, email and social media as ways to get in touch, you’d better have the right people on hand to answer digital queries in a timely manner.  

We could go on, but you get the picture. Like we say, it’s all a bit of a minefield.

Workforce management: the old school approach

So how do contact centres absorb this tsunami of information, create an accurate forecast of need and allocate agent resources appropriately?

Many of them still do it using a spreadsheet.  

It’s an admirably old school approach, but it makes WFM a hugely complex and time consuming task, as businesses manually try to match call volumes to staff availability while also meeting all the criteria mentioned above.

The spreadsheet method also introduces the very real possibility of human error. Put the wrong figure in the right box, or the right figure in the wrong box, and your entire plan could be pushed out of balance.  

In fact, this manual WFM approach simply isn’t equipped to handle the complexities of a modern call centre. Many WFM spreadsheets use what’s called an Erlang formula, a mathematical calculation for matching staff numbers to service needs.

If that sounds high-tech, don’t be fooled. The Erlang formula can’t take into account peaks and troughs in call rates, priority callers, omnichannel solutions are scores of other criteria that affect the resource requirement of contact centres today. It’s an outdated solution that errs on the side of caution and frequently leads to overstaffing.

Modern workforce management: accuracy and insight

The alternative is a digital WFM solution. The best of these use sophisticated statistical analysis to make sure call centres always have the right staff in place to reach their goals.

They do all the number crunching for you, freeing up management time for more productive tasks. They take away both human error and the over reliance on outdated mathematical formulas.

So how do they work? Well, MaxContact’s industry-leading WFM uses statistics from the last 12 months to create highly accurate forecasts based on the actual reality of your business, rather than vague assumptions about the sector, or educated guesswork. By analysing data from a full year, the algorithm accounts for seasonal peaks, historical trends and more. By doing so, it provides a highly accurate and cost-effective workforce schedule.

It takes all this information and automates the labour intensive task of shift creation. This takes minutes with MaxContact, though it can take much longer with competing solutions. Rotas can then be assigned to agents with a single click, via email, SMS or calendar integration.

Predicting the future

And MaxContact’s WFM goes further. It lets you build ‘what if’ scenarios, predicting future performance based on past performance and new variables. For example, if you want to answer more calls or reduce call waiting times, feed the figures into the WFM solution and it will estimate the extra resource you need to meet your goals.

Importantly, it also allows you to measure the performance of home based agents, and provides real time reporting on call traffic, cost analysis and more. This data-driven approach makes it much simpler for contact centres to adopt permanent remote or hybrid working models without sacrificing efficiency.  

In addition, it makes it much easier to fill in gaps in cover with part-time, home-based agents who need to fit work around childcare or other responsibilities. By doing so, MaxContact WFM gives you the flexibility you need to succeed in a new world of work.

MaxContact’s powerful WFM solution automates a highly labour-intensive process and adds a whole new level of precision. Use it to make the most of your talent, while reducing churn, minimising costs and adopting new, more flexible ways of working. It’s a big step up for your staff, your business, and your customer experience.

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In the 1970s, big players in the burgeoning computer industry coined the phrase FUD.

It stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, and it’s what behemoths like IBM tried to sow in the minds of customers in relation to plucky young upstarts like Microsoft and Apple.

It’s fair to say that the FUD strategy didn’t work too well in that particular instance, but it’s still used today whenever a large enterprise wants to scare customers away from a smaller and often more nimble competitor.

FUD for thought

It’s easy to see FUD’s appeal. When an agile new company comes into the market with new ideas and innovations, it can be hard to argue with their technology, which is often leading edge.

So FUD attacks ignore the product, and focus on the business. Will a smaller Independent Software Vendor (ISV) have the resources to support your solution? If they’re not widely known, can you even trust them? Will they even be in business a year or two down the line?

Get your FUD attack right and the flipside hardly needs to be mentioned because it’s staring everyone in the face. With a big, long-established market leader you get security, longevity and a safe pair of hands.

The FUD attack works because nobody ever got fired for taking the safe option.

The problem is that the safe option is often the wrong option for businesses (small or large) that want the best technology combined with the best support.

ISV vs enterprise

MaxContact is an ISV, and we come across the “small supplier” problem a lot. A potential customer will ask why they should go with us over a big name contact centre supplier like Cisco or Avaya. Isn’t it safer to go with the big behomoths?

In response, we ask them why they think a large provider is better for them, and respond on a point by point basis. It tends to go something like this…

Customer:  A bigger supplier will have more resources

MaxContact: They will, but most of those resources will be pointed at large enterprise clients. A common complaint from customers who eventually make their way to MaxContact is that they were forgotten by the large players. For small and medium sized businesses using enterprise providers, it can be difficult to even get an engineer on the phone.

That’s because enterprise providers are focused on enterprise customers. Or as one of our customers put it, after leaving a multinational supplier for MaxContact: “At 250 seats we thought we were big enough to have some influence, but we came to realise that we were little more than a rounding error on the provider’s P&L.”

C: A bigger supplier will have more and better skilled staff

MC: It will certainly have more staff, but SMBs are likely to spend most of their time in conversation with non-specialist support staff with limited technical knowledge.

The right technical people definitely exist, but getting to them can be a time-consuming and frustrating undertaking, especially for smaller businesses. In large providers, departments are siloed and staff roles have strict limitations. The person you’re talking to is likely to be competent in their area of work and no other.

By contrast, your small business isn’t an afterthought to an ISV. If you have an issue, you’ll get to the right people straight away. Every employee at MaxContact is aware that, when your organisation wins more business and adds more seats, we win too. We have a vested interest in your success.

As to skills, with an ISV you’ll be dealing with people who are closer to the heart of the business, who have an in-depth knowledge of the entire organisation. If they need an extra pair of eyes on your problem, they’ll call in an individual, not pass you on to a different department. It means issues get sorted more quickly and more completely.

And at least in MaxContact’s case, at the top of the business you’ll find industry specialists with long experience in contact centre software, who are still actively involved in the development of the solution. If you want to talk to one of us, just pick up the phone.

C: A smaller provider might get bought out

MC: While that’s true, it’s also unlikely to affect the customer experience. Businesses get bought because they’re successful, and why change a winning formula? It’s also the case – as with MaxContact – that when specialist investors take a stake in a company they bring business nous, but are happy to leave product development and customer service to the people who do it best.

And things can change just as easily at large providers, especially when shareholders want better returns. For example, one enterprise recently outsourced its entire first line support services to Romania. It’s a move that will look good on the balance sheet but might not seem such a great idea to an SME with a system outage.

C: Large providers listen to their customers more

MC: In reality, the opposite is true. When you deal with an ISV, you’re dealing with the people who make the product. We’re agile enough to listen to what you have to say and take suggestions on board. In effect, your feedback becomes part of our product roadmap.

When you go with a large provider, in many cases you won’t be dealing with them directly at all. Instead you’ll be dealing with a reseller that operates its own support team and is several steps removed from the development of the software. You can feedback all you like, but the team that develops your solution will likely remain entirely ignorant of your existence.

The takeaway

The takeaway here is that while nobody should be fired for choosing the safe option, nor should they be promoted for missing out on a solution that is a better fit for their business.

Innovation in contact centre software is often concentrated in ISVs where industry expertise still permeates from top to bottom. These businesses build great relationships with customers, go the extra mile, and strive to create mutual success, because it’s in their interests to do so. In an enterprise environment, SMBs are too easily ignored. Organisations that feel undervalued by their provider should remember that great things really do come in small packages.

MaxContact is a cloud contact centre solution provider, offering predictive outbound dialling and PCI-compliant omnichannel solutions built around your needs. Find out more about us.

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Put simply, outbound dialling is the process of making calls to customers or contacts, typically for sales or marketing purposes.

While outbound dialling can be performed manually on a mobile or business phone, this is not practical when dealing with a high volume of calls. A range of additional features can enhance outbound calling in a contact centre setting through the use of an automated dialler.

What does an outbound dialler do?

An outbound dialler is generally a cloud or software solution that automatically dials phone numbers and makes calls on behalf of your sales, collection or customer service teams. As such, it’s an essential ingredient in any organisation where you need to make outbound calls to clients and prospects throughout the day.

What are the different types of call centre diallers?

The main options are a manual dialler and an auto dialler.

Manual Dialler

A manual dialler is like a traditional phone. A call agent manually dials numbers from a call list, one after another.

Auto Dialler

As the name suggests, an auto dialler automates much of the dialling process. It digitally dials numbers, and can also dial multiple numbers at once, passing answered calls to available agents.

Manual vs Auto Dialler

Why would you choose one over another? Most call centres now opt for auto dialling, because it significantly boosts productivity. Agents spend more time talking to customers and less time dialling unresponsive numbers.

Manual dialling can still be useful, but only for campaigns involving a small number of high value customers who demand a more personal approach.

The different outbound dialler modes

If you’re using an auto-dialler, there are likely three dialler modes that you’ll frequently use, depending on the type of outbound calling you are doing. These are predictive diallers, progressive diallers and preview diallers.

Predictive dialling

What is it? When most people think of outbound dialling software, they tend to think of predictive dialling. Predictive dialling places calls based on the software’s predictions of agent availability. It dials multiple numbers simultaneously, so that when agents finish one call they can be instantly connected to the next.

What are the benefits? The best predictive diallers minimise abandoned calls (and the amount of time customers spend on hold) and maximise the time your agents spend having conversations. When should I use it? Predictive dialling is the standard for straightforward, high volume sales campaigns (like commodity sales) or debt collection activity.

Progressive dialler

What is it? Progressive diallers are predictive diallers that slow the pace down by only dialling a number when an agent is available to take the call. Dialling is instant and automatic, so the system still allows for a relatively high number of calls.

What are the benefits? Progressive dialling eliminates the risk of customers abandoning calls or waiting a frustratingly long time before being connected to an agent. Because an agent is always available, the customers you have painstakingly nurtured over a period of time feel valued and importan

When should I use it? It is often used in campaigns that target current customers. It’s a low risk option that can improve customer experience and effectively help agents upsell additional products and services.

Preview dialler

What is it? A preview dialler takes the pace down another notch. When an agent indicates availability, information about the next call is sent to the agent for preview.

After a set amount of time – say, one minute – the number is automatically dialled. This delay lets the agent prepare for the call, using information typically taken from the company CRM system – which are often integrated into the dialler.

What are the benefits? Agents can have more in-depth, focused conversations, based on a customer’s real experiences and challenges. It can improve customer experience and increase the number of positive outcomes.

When should I use it? Preview diallers are particularly helpful when the reason for the call is complex or sensitive. For example, following up with web leads or dealing with customer complaint calls.  

Explore the three dialler modes in more detail >

How are automated diallers used?

Outbound diallers can be integrated into many industries. Any company with an outbound contact centre who are cold calling or making high volume phone calls can benefit from outbound dialler software.

Power up your sales teams

Sales campaigns are often high volume and low touch. Predictive dialling is the gold standard for straightforward, high volume outbound campaigns (like commodity sales). It can quickly and efficiently work through large datasets, making sure leads are contacted while they’re still warm.

The best predictive diallers minimise abandoned calls (and the amount of time customers spend on hold) and maximise the time your agents spend having conversations. They can be set to play messages if they meet an answerphone, and will recycle numbers (placing unanswered calls back into the call queue) in a way that ensures your customers or leads are contacted, but never pestered.

The right outbound dialler can make selling straightforward by helping to connect your sales people to the right customers at the right time. Combined with the contact centre-specific features mentioned earlier, it can offer powerful tools for contacting customers, winning business and exceeding customer expectations.

Increase debt collection rates

Your credit and debt resolution teams can use effective targeting to reach priority customers at times that suit them. Maximise collection rates using advanced data segmentation and encourage self-serve with automated communications. Automate payments with self-serve options providing customers choice and improving satisfaction.

Preview diallers are particularly helpful when the reason for the call is complex or sensitive. For example, debt collection calls are more likely to end positively if agents have the time to gather all the information they need beforehand.

Elevate your customer service teams

Customer service teams often use progressive dialling to target current customers with after sales information or courtesy communications. It’s a low risk option that can improve customer experience, help nurture loyalty and effectively help agents upsell additional products and services. Because an agent is always available to have a conversation, the customers you have painstakingly nurtured over a period of time feel valued.

5 must-have outbound dialler features

Answer Machine Detection (AMD)

Answer Machine Detection (AMD) lets your auto-dialler software identify answering machines before connecting calls to agents. This means agents only spend time on live conversations, saving them valuable time and boosting productivity.

AMD is particularly helpful for high-volume sales campaigns where every minute counts. MaxContact’s AMD boasts a 90% success rate in detecting answering machines, freeing up agents to focus on reaching real people.

Speech analytics

Forget manually reviewing call recordings! Speech analytics uses AI to analyse every conversation, automatically identifying customer sentiment, call quality, and agent performance. This lets you:

• Spot frustrated or vulnerable customers who need extra care.
• Ensure agents follow compliance guidelines.
• Understand what customers are saying about your products and competitors.

Speech analytics gives you valuable insights from all calls, not just a select few. It saves time and helps you improve the overall performance of your contact centre.

A secure payment manager

A secure payment IVR gives customers the payment options they want, while giving teams the time they need to deal with more complex or sensitive cases.

Payment automation helps you speed up debt collection and improve cash flow. When you give customers more convenient ways to pay, they’re more likely to stick to payment schedules.  

MaxContact’s payment IVR is fully PCI compliant, protecting customer information at all times. We offer both assisted payments, in which staff safely guide customers through the payment process, and automated payments, which are fully self-serve and available 24/7.  

Analytics and reporting

You can only improve contact centre performance when you can measure it. When you’ve done that, you need to present the data in a way that is easy to understand and act on. That’s where analytics and reporting come in.

MaxContact’s pre-configured reporting gives you complete visibility around productivity, issue resolution rates, revenue and customer satisfaction, to name just a few. You can set targets for campaigns, channels, teams and agents and track performance over time.  

All teams – sales, service and debt resolution – benefit from better information. Pre-configured reports give you the data you need in the quickest and most hassle-free way.

Easy integration

A powerful dialler is even better when it works hand in hand with your existing systems. Imagine a sales agent having instant access to customer history, preferred contact methods, and past feedback – all within the dialler interface (thanks to CRM integration).

This allows for personalised conversations that address specific needs, leading to happier customers and improved outcomes. Easy integration applies to after-sales and debt resolution teams too. By connecting your dialler with other systems, you can put all relevant information at agents’ fingertips, reducing hold times and boosting overall efficiency.

The benefits of auto-dialler software you can’t ignore

Improve contact centre metrics like AHT

Average Handling Time (AHT) is a calculation based on the time agents spend talking to a customer, the amount of time callers are on hold and the time taken on follow up tasks, divided by the number of calls handled. The lower your AHT, the better. It means you can handle more calls, improve efficiency and reduce costs. A good dialler can improve AHT and a host of other contact centre metrics, by allowing agents to handle more calls, more efficiently.

Excel at sales and debt collection

Whether it’s sales or debt collection, the best results happen when good agents talk to customers. Whether it’s a high volume, low touch sales campaign, or more sensitive debt resolution calls, the right dialler means your agents spend more time in conversation with customers, and less time processing unanswered calls or connecting to answering machines.

Keep your contact centre compliant

A powerful predictive dialling algorithm speeds up and slows down depending on the conditions in your contact centre. If fewer agents are available, the dialling slows down, helping to ensure you stay within compliant boundaries for abandoned and dropped calls. Or you can switch to progressive or preview modes for more personal contacts. The dialler can also ensure that the frequency of calls to a contact never exceeds official limits.

Seamlessly integrate with your CMS

A dialler that integrates with your CMS system is a huge advantage. It means that the systems feed information to each other, so your agents always have the details of previous contacts at their fingertips. That reduces the risk of customers becoming annoyed by having to repeat information they’ve already previously given. It can also provide insights into customer satisfaction rates, preferred times and methods of communication and so on.

These companies boosted performance with auto diallers

We worked with these companies to replace ageing systems with modern cloud-based diallers – and the results are impressive.

Compare My Insurance

Compare My Insurance is one of the largest independent insurance and protection specialists in the UK. But dialler downtime, data issues and missed opportunities were hampering the business.

MaxContact’s dialler solution integrated seamlessly with the company back office systems. It has significantly increased contact rates while providing complete transparency around performance and progress.

APJ Solicitors

APJ Solicitors, a leading financial mis-selling specialist, needed to increase call volumes and boost efficiency, but its basic VOIP phone system was no longer up to the task.

MaxContact’s solution increased call volumes by 110% in the first year, and improved average agent call efficiency by 36%. Productivity has risen five fold over the company’s previous solution.

Improve your call centre performance with MaxContact

MaxContact offers the most sophisticated outbound dialler currently available. This continually improving cloud-based dialling solution gives you the flexibility to run your contact centre your way, letting you choose the right blend of productivity and compliance for your business needs. With over a 1,000 unique features, MaxContact’s outbound dialler helps meet your contact centre challenges in new and powerful ways.

Learn about how MaxContact’s auto dialler can improve your contact centre operations. Book a demo today to find out more.

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According to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), 27.7 million adults in the UK fall under their definition of a vulnerable customer. This includes having poor health, experiencing negative life events, low financial resilience, or having low decision-making capabilities. This number is predicted to rise even further as the cost-of-living crisis impacts peoples’ finances and mental health.

However, many companies are unprepared to deliver the specific customer service support vulnerable customers now need. MaxContact interviewed 1,000 vulnerable customers who had recently interacted with a contact centre and found:

• • 48% had struggled to find a phone number to contact a company in the past year
• • When they had managed to reach a company’s customer services, 51% felt they were treated unfairly, and their needs were not accommodated
• • The biggest problems revealed by vulnerable customers include:
  • ∙ Being passed between different staff and having to re-explain the problem several times (51%)
  • ∙ Having to navigate too many phone menus (IVR) to reach the right person e.g., press 1 for this, press 2 for this (45%)
  • ∙ Feeling like the person they were talking to was trying to get them off the phone quickly (30%)

As a result, 52% said they had to abandon solving a problem because it was just too difficult, with 57% saying this had a negative impact on their mental or financial wellbeing.  

The main support vulnerable customers say they want from companies is:

• • Having their problem solved by one person rather than being passed between multiple advisors (46%)
• • Being able to reach a real person quickly to explain their problem (39%)
• • Being given enough time to properly explain and address their situation (31%)

The research also shows that vulnerable customers would like customer support services to show more empathy (23%) and 20% want customer service advisors to communicate with less jargon.

Helen Lord, CEO of the Vulnerability Registration Service, says, “Our own recent research underlines MaxContact’s findings. The cost-of-living crisis will undoubtedly place many customers in incredibly difficult circumstances. So, it’s essential that companies identify vulnerable customers early to provide them with the support they need – not only to meet regulators’ expectations but from a corporate responsibility perspective too.

It’s imperative the organisations can adapt their customer journeys appropriately, taking into account not just financial difficulties, but also mental or physical health and life events such as a relationship breakdown or bereavement, coercion or addiction.”

Gareth Morgan, H&T Group’s Operations and Communications Manager, and MaxContact client, says, “Our customer service centre provides instant, direct contact to a waiting agent. Every team member at H&T is trained to identify, explore and support vulnerable and potentially vulnerable customers.”

“It is important to us that vulnerable or potentially vulnerable customers have their account handled in the best way possible at the first time of asking.

“We prioritise call quality and customer service and do not impose limits on call times, wrap times or account updates. Therefore, H&T agents have the ability to focus on providing the best service and outcome possible for the customer. By providing time to ensure detailed and accurate notes can be recorded, we eliminate the customer needing to repeat or re-explain their circumstances in the future.”  

To help customers better support the larger numbers of vulnerable customers who will be contacting them, MaxContact has created a practical checklist of measures for contact centres to consider implementing. Download your copy here to learn five practical ways to support vulnerable customers.

Ben Booth, MaxContact CEO, says, “It’s the perfect storm for customer service teams. Customer complaints are at their highest point ever and there are more complex situations and vulnerable customers to support than ever before. We know that to make a real difference with vulnerable customers, as well as staying compliant with the FCA’s new consumer duty guidance, leaders need practical, easy-to-follow advice which they can put into action at their own organisations right away.”

To see how MaxContact’s customer engagement platform can help you support vulnerable customers more effectively, get in touch.

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