Revenue Rise With Call Centre "Predictive Dialler"

Taking a punt on the latest in “call centre technology” has provided a financial windfall for the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC.

The installation of a call centre ‘predicitve dialler’ for the RIDBC December fundraising lottery has achieved the charity’s highest ever revenue level.

RIDBC Community Relations Manager, Dennis O’Reilly says the organisation has been running three annual lotteries for the past eleven years raising around $3 million a year.

O’Reilly says in that time however costs have increased progressively and profits have shrunk so the organisation investigated ways to reverse the trend and in particular reduce staff costs in the 20 seat call centre.

With the help of an Australian company, Premier Technologies and using software from the US, RIDBC made an investment in new technology installing a ‘predictive dialler’ for its third lottery of the year.

What is this new technology? A ‘predictive dialler’ automatically pre-dials telephone numbers on a database detecting answering machines, busy numbers and numbers not answered.

O’Reilly says the dialler immediately improved productivity in the call centre by between 60 and 70 percent and provided a significant reduction in salary costs. The ‘predicitve dialler’ has nearly doubled the number of tickets sold each hour.

Even more encouraging is the fundraising result. The 3rd Rainbow Lottery attracted a record $1.2 million in ticket sales and achieved a profit margin of 50% or $600 thousand.

O’Reilly says this compares to the previous lottery that saw $200-thousand less in ticket sales and a profit of around 45%.

Taking on the new technology has meant some work in cleaning and formatting the organisation’s database to ensure its smooth operation.

O’Reilly says RIDBC expects to fully pay off the installation costs within 18 months while continuing to support its education programs.

Many large charities already have automated call centres with smaller organisations only now taking the plunge into new technology. If you would like to contact Dennis O’Reilly, you can send an e-mail to href=”mailto:dennis.oreilly@ridbc.org.au dennis.oreilly@ridbc.org.au .