On the other end of the line, you hear a telltale second of silence. Then a cheery recorded voice starts telling you about a special offer on lawn care services from G&G Garden Care. You want to tell him where he can stick his special offer, but it’s less fun to threaten a machine. So you hang up and go back to your chaotic Tuesday evening while somewhere a computer is dialing the next number. “Hello, we’re calling with a special offer from G&G Garden Care!”

After the call is connected, a live operator greets the potential customer, alerting them to that day’s gardening specials. Automated dialing systems, such as this, are often used by telemarketing organizations. 

Automatic dialers, or autodialers, are an example of computer telephone integration (CTI). Using special software and a modem, a computer can be programmed to automatically dial a long list of phone numbers. Depending on the software’s sophistication, the computer can detect whether a live person answers the phone and then hand the call over to a human operator. The computer can also be programmed to play a recorded message, leave a message on an answering machine, or provide a menu of options to the person who answers.

Autodialers aren’t evil. It’s true that some companies use autodialers to power annoying telemarketing campaigns, but they have many other uses as well. A school could use an autodialer to alert parents and students to an unexpected closure. A doctor’s office could set up a system to remind senior citizens when to take their medication. A political candidate could dial out to thousands of residents to participate in a telephone town hall.

How does autodialer technology work? Is it expensive to set up a simple auto-dialing system? What are some of your options when choosing an auto-dialing provider? Read on to find out.

Automatic Dialer Technology

A simple automatic dialing systems isn’t very expensive or complicated to set up. You need four things to create a basic system:

A voice modem allows a computer to play or record audio over a telephone line. On a standard desktop computer, there’s room for two to four internal modem cards. Each internal modem can only be connected to one phone line. So the more modems you have, the more phone calls the computer can make simultaneously.

If the auto-dialing system is going to be used in a call center with multiple live operators, then each operator will need his own telephone with a headset connected to a dedicated phone line. Autodialers can work over both the regular public switched telephone network (PSTN) or Voice over IP (VoIP).

The most important part of the auto-dialing system is the software. The software tells the computer which numbers to dial and how to respond to different situations (if an answering machine picks up, a human answers, a busy signal, et cetera).

Voice detection is the technology that allows auto-dialing software to detect the difference between an answering machine and a human voice. Here’s how voice detection works:

One of the most interesting developments in auto dialing software is predictive dialing. Predictive dialing is most useful in a call center setting, where multiple operators are making simultaneous calls. Predictive dialing technology uses a complicated algorithm to anticipate when an operator will be free to handle another call. Predictive dialing software analyzes several factors:

Using this information, the predictive dialing software can calculate exactly how often to start dialing a new number to maximize the amount of time the live operators are on the phone and talking. The system will often dial numbers when no operators are available, knowing that an operator is likely to end a call right when another one begins.

Interactive voice response (IVR) is an autodialing technology that supplies interactive menus on outgoing calls. For example, a marketing or demographics company can autodial consumers and present them with an interactive poll they can answer with their telephone keypad or voice responses.

Now let’s look at some of the most common services and features associated with autodialers.

Automatic Dialer Services

Voice broadcast — autodialing with a pre-recorded audio message — is one of the most common autodialing services, used predominantly for marketing and sales calls. A marketing company can save money on live operators by making its sales pitch with a pre-recorded message. Using interactive voice response (IVR), the marketing company can include an option for pressing a key to speak to a live representative.

Another useful application of voice broadcast is for notifications and reminders. Notifications and reminders can be automated and customized using text-to-speech technology.

For example, an airline can call customers to notify them of a change in an upcoming flight schedule. The auto-dialing software is connected to a database of customers and flight schedules. When a flight time changes in the database, the software automatically dials all of the customers on that flight. Using text-to-speech technology, the message can be personalized for each customer: “Mr. Johnson, your flight now leaves Denver at 6:02pm.”

Here are some more real-life examples of using voice broadcast for notifications and reminders:

Voice broadcast is designed for pre-recorded or automated text-to-speech messages. But there are several other auto-dialing features, including predictive dialing, that are tailored to call centers with live operators: