Cold calls have been around for decades. But they still carry a bad rap.
A lot of it stems from manually dialing each number one by one, waiting for the call to connect, and, if it doesn’t, leaving voicemails. Then, moving on to the next call.
Repeating this process for over 100 calls a day is tedious and time-consuming.
Especially when the average cold call success rate is 2%, which means you only have 2 successful conversations for every 100 dials.
It’s understandable that sales reps are frustrated about cold calling.
But what if there's a simple solution that will make cold calling more exciting and help you connect better?
Enter Parallel Dialers.
What Is a Parallel Dialer?
Parallel dialer is a tool that helps sales reps dial multiple prospects at the same time.
In a traditional dialer, each call is placed one after the other (or if you’re doing it manually, you’d be dialing each number sequentially). And you’ll have to wait for the call to connect or go to voicemail before moving on to the next.
But with a parallel dialer, you’ll dial multiple numbers simultaneously.
Why Do You Need a Parallel Dialer?
Increase Productivity
Dialing several prospects simultaneously means reps spend more time having conversations and less time punching numbers into the phone.
A parallel dialer gives you the ability to dial 300 to 350 calls an hour!
Save Time
Parallel dialer reduces downtime between calls - reps don’t have to dial and wait for the next prospect to pick up the call. Also, Parallel Dialer automatically updates the status for you. This significantly reduces rep idle time.
More Connects
Using a parallel dialer allows you to make more calls per day - which means you connect with more prospects and open meaningful conversations.
Improve Rep Performance
Real-time analytics help sales managers understand how many calls were made and how many conversations were opened. With call recording and monitoring, managers can track rep performance and provide in-the-moment coaching for continuous improvement.
Best Practices For Parallel Dialing
Quality List
For an efficient parallel dialing session, you need to have your list of prospects ready. This means you have to scour data providers, LinkedIn, X (previously Twitter), and other sources to curate the perfect ICP list.
Note that the quality of your phone numbers plays a pivotal role here. There’s no point in dialing up to 5 numbers simultaneously if they turn out to be invalid or spammy numbers. While prospecting, consult multiple sources for a more credible list of phone contacts.
Research
Along with high-quality numbers, you also need to gather information about your prospects. Keep details like their persona, company, any recent rounds of funding, if they’re hiring new people or any detail you feel might be useful to strike a conversation handy before going into the calling session.
During your calling session, it's difficult to toggle between tabs to find the appropriate information, affecting the quality of your call. You come across as underprepared; by extension, it dampers your confidence, and, let's face it, it’s impossible to convince a prospect when you’re unsure of the details yourself. Try not to have any distractions.
Which brings us to the next point.
Focus Mode
Eliminate any distractions during your calling session. It should just be you and your prospect. Cold calling requires concentration and active listening - which is impossible if there are distractions. It can lead to misunderstandings and potentially the loss of a deal.
Choose a room with minimal background noise and interruptions to maintain an air of professionalism and add to your credibility as a cold caller.
Most of all, no distractions means no stress - engage in quality conversations with a calm and open mind.
Plan your calling sessions in a way that you’re talking to prospects of the same region, industry, or persona. Heterogenous lists lead to confusion, as you’ll be fumbling between different call scripts and research material, leading to confusion and overall poor conversations.
Call Scripts
This is probably the most important tip. Always keep your call scripts handy. They provide clear direction and structure to your call. Knowing what to say when is key to having a good conversation.
Also, you won’t be thrown off when your prospect raises a question you aren’t prepared for. Just refer to your script and handle it like a pro!
Create a call script for different personas, industries, demographics, and geographies. Include openers, objection handling scripts, gap statements, and CTAs.
Compliance Awareness
Stay informed about and adhere to relevant regulations like the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which protects users who have enlisted in the National Do Not Call Registry.
Look for tools that comply with national cold-calling laws to avoid permanent restrictions.
Parallel Dialer’s Impact on Today’s Communication
The introduction of Parallel Dialer has significantly impacted modern communication in the following ways:
Scalability
As businesses grow, their communication grows with them as well. Parallel dialers are perfect for adapting to the changing demands of a flourishing business.
Adaptability to Call Volumes
The volume of calls a business has to make depends on its strategy. However, parallel dialers can be employed by organizations that either rely heavily on cold calling or whose cold calling is relatively mild.
Time-Sensitive Campaigns
A parallel dialer is particularly helpful for time-sensitive campaigns - like limited-period offers (e.g., Black Friday discounts). The ability to dial multiple numbers at the same time allows SDRs to spread the news far and wide in a short span of time - ensuring maximum visibility and more meetings booked.
How Klenty’s Parallel Dialer Works
Dialer
As soon as you enter dial mode, you can switch between parallel and normal calling modes. Klenty’s Parallel Dialer allows up to 5 dials at once. You can determine this limit based on your calling strategy.
Along with this, select the number you want to dial from - we suggest you use numbers with the local area code, as prospects are more likely to pick up calls from a familiar number.
Parallel dialer takes you into focus mode, which means only the call screen will be visible to you until the session is complete - zero distractions and maximum productivity. During the call, you can take notes as well.
Prospect History and Activity
For every dial made, Klenty automatically pulls the prospect activity and history. Any information from previous conversations via email, LinkedIn, or calls to prospect details like company name can be accessed in a single screen.
You can also view call details like cadence names, the purpose of the call, previous call notes, and call scripts, as well.
Work Sessions
Klenty’s Parallel Dialer offers flexible work sessions. You can pause and resume sessions as you please - letting you work at your pace.
When you resume your session, pick up right where you left off.
Call Distribution System
You have complete flexibility to choose what happens after a call gets connected.
Let’s consider two scenarios here:
A prospect has multiple numbers
In this case, you have 2 options: you can either dial all available numbers, or you can choose to use only the primary phone number.
When a call is connected
You can continue to dial other prospects in the background or drop all calls currently in progress.
Additionally, when a prospect doesn’t pick up your call, or it goes to voicemail, the number will be added to the queue. So once your session is done, you can redial them.
Call Recording
You can access call recordings immediately after the call is done. Not just that - you can also access transcripts and 4 kinds of AI-driven summaries to help make reviewing calls easier.
The summaries include meeting notes, action items, questions asked, and sentiments.
Session Reports
At the end of each session, you get a detailed summary of all calls:
- Duration of the session
- Total number of calls made
- Number of calls that didn't go through, along with the reason (like invalid numbers and attempted but not answered)
- Total talk time
You're free to redial prospects who didn’t pick up your call.
Klenty’s Cold Calling Challenge: A Fun and Healthy Competition
At Klenty, we wanted to push our SDRs' boundaries and see how many cold calls could be made in an hour.
Our SDRs, Arbaz, Ebenezer, and Krishna, jumped at the chance. This soon snowballed into a fortnight-long hackathon - filled with upbeat music, snacks, and 5 dials at a time.
The results were astonishing!
At the end of each day, SDRs would post the number of dials and quality conversations on a Slack channel - the highest being 354 dials a day!
Of course, we awarded them with a gift card - which served as a good incentive, too.
Once the numbers were posted, sales managers, C-suite executives, and reps got together to review calls to find out best practices. Listening to the call recordings, they coached SDRs instantly on their tonality, pace, value proposition, delivery, and script.
Overall, SDRs opened a lot of quality conversations and had fun doing it!
Become a High-Performance Cold Caller
Parallel Dialer could be your game-changer for cold calls. With the ability to dial multiple prospects at once, you’ll save time on punching numbers into the phone and open more conversations.
With Klenty’s Parallel Dialer,
- Call multiple prospects simultaneously
- Reduce 3 hours of dialing to 30 minutes
- Connect with twice as many prospects
- Increase sales productivity by 75%
What are you waiting for? Try our Parallel Dialer today.
