Choose predictive dialing for large lists worked by several agents with a short, repeatable pitch. Choose preview dialing when agents need to read the record before each call or the list is small and valuable, and manual dialing for follow-ups and one-off calls. Most outbound teams use all three, matched campaign by campaign rather than picked once for the whole center.
How each dialing mode works
Predictive dialing
The system dials several numbers for each agent who is ready, based on how often the list answers. Calls that ring out, hit a busy signal or reach an answering machine never reach the agent. When a person answers, the call goes to the next free agent with the contact record on screen. The agent's shift becomes a stream of conversations with little waiting in between.
The price is the risk of an abandoned call: if more people answer than there are free agents, someone picks up and hears nobody. Pacing is the job of keeping that risk low while keeping agents busy.
Preview dialing
The agent receives the next contact, reads the record and its history, then starts the call. One call, one agent, no risk of abandoning anyone. Agents hear every ring, busy signal and voicemail greeting, so talk time per hour is lower, but each call starts informed.
Manual dialing
The agent picks a contact in the CRM and dials. It suits follow-ups, calls agreed with the customer and work that doesn't fit a list: a supervisor returning an escalated call, an account manager checking in with a client.
Vendor comparisons also mention progressive or power dialing, where the system dials automatically but only one line per available agent. This article sticks to the three modes OVOKY offers.
Side-by-side comparison
| Predictive | Preview | Manual | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who starts the call | The dialer | The agent, after reading the record | The agent |
| Lines per agent | Several | One | One |
| Agent hears rings and voicemail | No | Yes | Yes |
| Preparation before the call | Little | Full | Full |
| Risk of abandoned calls | Yes, managed by pacing | None | None |
| Talk time per agent hour | Highest | Medium | Lowest |
| Best list size | Large | Small to medium | Individual contacts |
| Typical use | Consumer sales, reactivation, surveys, early-stage collections | B2B sales, key accounts, complex collections | Follow-ups, escalations, agreed callbacks |
When predictive dialing fits
Predictive dialing pays off when three conditions hold:
- The list is large and answers rarely. If most dials end in no answer, voicemail or busy, every one of those is time an agent no longer spends waiting.
- Several agents work the same campaign. Pacing averages out across agents. With twenty agents, a burst of answers usually finds someone about to become free; with three, two people answering at once for one agent is far more likely.
- The conversation doesn't need preparation. The agent learns who they are speaking to as the call connects, so the opening must work from a short summary on screen and a script.
It fits less well when every contact is expensive to lose, when your market strictly limits abandoned calls and your team is too small to pace safely, or when agents need minutes of research before each call.
Predictive campaigns also use more telecom minutes, because the dialer pays for machine-answered calls and the seconds before an agent joins. See unlimited calling or pay as you go for how that affects the choice of calling plan, and answering-machine detection for how machines are screened out.
When preview dialing fits
Preview is the right default when the value of a conversation depends on what the agent knows before it starts:
- B2B calls where the agent checks the company, past orders and the last conversation.
- Collections cases where the amount, the history and any payment plan shape the call.
- Small lists of warm leads, renewals or high-value customers, where an abandoned call costs a real opportunity.
- Callbacks the customer asked for, where they expect a prepared answer.
- Calls where the agent may need to leave a voicemail message.
Preview also suits new agents and new scripts. There are fewer calls per hour, but each one is a chance to learn without the pressure of back-to-back conversations.
When manual dialing is the right call
Manual dialing isn't a lesser mode. It is how agents handle everything that sits outside a campaign: a follow-up promised for 3 pm, a question passed on by another department, a customer who emailed and prefers a call. The point is to dial from the CRM rather than from a personal phone, so the call is logged against the contact and counted in your reports.
Setting the dial ratio
In predictive mode, the dial ratio is the number of lines the dialer places for each ready agent. It is the main pacing lever, and the right value depends on how often your list is answered by a live person.
A worked example, assuming one dial in five reaches a live person (a 20% live answer rate):
| Lines per ready agent | Expected live answers per agent per round | Likely effect |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 0.4 | Agents wait between calls |
| 3 | 0.6 | Agents still wait often |
| 5 | 1.0 | Agents stay busy, but bursts of answers can leave some people without an agent |
| 7 | 1.4 | Frequent abandoned calls |
The averages hide the variance. At five lines, some rounds produce no answers and some produce two or three for the same agent. Large teams absorb those bursts because another agent is about to finish a call; small teams cannot. That is why small teams should start below the theoretical ratio and raise it carefully.
Practical rules for tuning:
- Start low and run for an hour or two before changing anything.
- Watch agent waiting time and abandon rate together. Raise the ratio only if agents wait and abandons stay low.
- Expect the right ratio to change by list and time of day, because answer rates do.
- Change one setting at a time so you can see its effect.
A quick decision checklist
Ask these questions for each campaign:
- How large is the list, and what share of dials reaches a live person?
- How many agents will work it at the same time?
- Does the agent need to read anything before the first sentence?
- What does one lost conversation cost compared with one agent minute?
- What limits on abandoned or silent calls apply in the countries you call?
- Will agents need to leave voicemail messages?
If the answers point both ways, split the work. Run fresh, high-volume lists in predictive mode and move engaged contacts, callbacks and high-value segments into a preview campaign. More on running outbound teams on our outbound sales page.
How OVOKY handles each mode
OVOKY's predictive dialer runs each campaign in predictive or preview mode, and agents can also dial manually from the CRM.
- Dial ratio from 1 to 10 lines per agent, which supervisors can change mid-campaign from the supervision screen.
- Answering-machine detection on predictive campaigns: machines are hung up, so agents only receive calls a person answered.
- Several lists per campaign, mixed evenly, by weight or by priority.
- The contact record and the campaign's call script on screen when the call connects.
- The Predictive Efficiency report shows dial ratio, machine rate and abandon rate, and the Manual / Preview Activity report tracks manual dials and outcomes per agent.