Preview Dialer Workflow: Read the Record First, Then Decide When to Call

Preview dialer meaning

Of all the types of dialers, the preview dialer is the one in which the human sets the pace. Software queues the records and logs the results, but no number rings until the caller has read enough and presses go, so the count of calls ringing while they read is zero. That makes it the slowest type per hour and the best prepared per call, close in pace to the hand dialing weighed in auto dialer vs manual dialer. It is common where every account has a back-story: collections with payment plans, key-account management, support callbacks. The Auto Dialer approaches the same need from two sides. Inside a calling session the lead's name, status and most recent remark appear while the number rings, a short preview that costs no extra time. Outside a session, a single customer screen holds past calls, chat history, notes and reminders under separate tabs, and a tap on the number places the call from your SIM. What the app does not have is a timed preview mode that waits for a button inside the session.

Preview dialer vs predictive dialer

Between the two sits power dialing, along with the progressive dialer, where the next call starts by itself but only one rings per person. It is the default mode of The Auto Dialer. The forecasting end of the scale is explained under predictive dialer.

Preview dialer workflow on a phone

1. Open the shared lead filter and narrow it: due today, status, tag, source, product or a custom field.
2. Open the first lead. Read the tabs: past calls, chats, remarks and reminders.
3. Tap the number. The call goes out through your chosen SIM.
4. On hang-up, set the status, add a remark (by voice if you like) and pick the follow-up time.
5. Return to the filter and open the next lead. The remark you just wrote will show on the next call to that person.

Teams that keep records this way are effectively running a telecalling CRM with the dialer built in, a setup compared with bolt-on dialers under CRM dialer.

Preview dialer example

A made-up scenario with round numbers, not a customer story.

An account manager at a flooring wholesaler in Toronto looks after 30 distributors and calls each one every month. Every account has open orders, a credit limit and last month's complaints. She spends about 2 minutes reading each record and about 6 minutes on each call, so the round takes 30 times 8 minutes, 240 minutes, spread over two mornings. Power dialing would save most of the 60 reading minutes but would put her on the phone with a distributor before she had remembered the damaged delivery. For this list, the reading is the work. For her Friday batch of 80 small retailers with no history, the opposite holds, and a session with the lead card on screen is the better tool.

Preview dialer limits

Preview dialing is slow by design, and it depends on discipline: a caller can sit on a record for five minutes and call nobody. In The Auto Dialer there is no per-record timer to push them along; an owner sees the gap in the team call logs instead. If your list has little history, use a session and let the next call start itself. If you need a contact centre preview mode with timers, forced dial and queue routing, that is a feature of cloud platforms, not of a phone app. Calls in arrears work, where preview is most common, are covered under collections dialer, and starting single calls from a browser under click to call.