Did you ever hear the story about predictive gain? Hands up, please, those who know what it means. There’s a couple of hands at the back and the rest of you are looking bemused. Not sure whether to fire our marketing manager (actually all of us), or tell all you users out there to take an intelligent interest in the technology you are buying.
The sad truth in our home market (the UK), and in fact most countries, is that many users are still buying predictive dialers without looking under the cover.
In most industries there is a reasonable expectation that technological leads of any kind are short-lived as competitors innovate and play catch-up.
Consider the motor car. Doesn’t matter what model or make; you know you can pick up just about any rental car and it’s going to perform to a good standard. You can just start and go from cold, and it will get you to where you want to go, without you having to worry.
Now let’s think about the call center market. Take an ACD, for example. Loads of them out there. Virtually all of them do a pretty good job. You can put a call on hold, make a transfer, etc. Not rocket science. And if you want more sophisticated facilities such as skills-based routing, that can usually be managed for a premium.
What about outbound dialing? Did I hear someone in the audience mutter that predictive dialers have become a commodity product? Maybe he works for the competition, or more likely he is just plain ignorant. Not necessarily his fault!
In a market where most vendors have not managed or bothered to innovate and update their products, you can expect to find that brand management and marketing hype just confuse the heck out of users. And that’s the predictive dialing market for you.
But it is a serious matter. If you are a predictive dialer user and don’t know what your predictive gain is, then it is a sure bet that your bottom line is suffering. And, especially for some outbound call centers, in these challenging times that can mean the difference between survival and calling in the receiver.
So what exactly is predictive gain, then? If you really care about getting the best performance out of your predictive dialer just give us a call and we will explain. Might be the best 5 minutes you ever invested in a phone call.
(Blog written in the skies over Iraq)