What is parallel dialing?

Parallel dialing is calling multiple numbers at once. Orum’s A.I. is constantly scanning for a real human, in which case you will get connected to them and all other calls will be canceled.
A call ends for some reason (went to voicemail, failed, busy tone, etc.), in which case Orum will disposition the call for you, end the call, log the activity, and start dialing the next number - all automatically.

What happens when 2 people pick up at the same time?

Orum operates on the law of firsts. We will always connect you with the first person we detect, canceling on the other calls. Based on connect rates the chances of this occurring are incredibly low. However, if you have a high connect rate and are dialing 10 people at once, the chances would go up.

How is it different from Power Dialing?

Multiple Calls will be placed at once versus one at a time. You will not hear the phone ring or the prospect's initial greeting. Instead, you will be transferred once the AI has determined you’re live with a prospect.

How do I use it? How do I change the number of parallel calls?

Admin settings to control parallelism at both the org and individual rep level. 

Admins, superusers, and ops users can control parallel dialing settings within the Settings tab. They can select the max number of parallel dials for the entire org, or they can toggle on Customize User Limits, if they want to change it at the rep level. To disable parallel dialing, the max number of parallel dials drop down would need to be set to 1. 

Note: Adjusting at the rep level may be beneficial for new users, to ensure they are comfortable in the platform before calling 5+ prospects at a time.

Best practices for parallel dialing?

SFDC

The best number to choose will be based on connect rate. If your connect rate is 10%, that means on average you’ll have to dial 10 numbers to reach one person.

Here at Orum, we have a roughly 5% connect rate and our team calls between 4-5 numbers at a time. If you notice your team is connecting very frequently, it’s likely that you’re calling too many numbers at once, and you should tone it down. In contrast, if it takes a long time to connect to someone, increase the number of simultaneous calls.

Outreach and Salesloft

The best practice is to choose a parallel number that gets you connected roughly every 90-120 seconds. This will give Orum time to complete call tasks for you and move the prospect to the next step of the Cadence/Sequence. Orum will NOT complete call tasks when a call is canceled. For example, if you’re calling 5 people at once and you are connected, we will cancel on 4 calls. These tasks will NOT be completed, since Orum did not fully complete and disposition the call.

Additional Best Practices

There are a number of best practices to be aware of while dialing.

1. While the system is dialing, anything highlighted in blue is currently being dialed. When you see Orum show a blue “Connect” icon, it means we’ve connected and it is determining whether or not it’s a live person. Users should focus their eyes on the real-time text, you will see patterns that will let you know it’s a VM versus a person. Trained users can accurately predict not only who they are going to get connected to, but also when they should be ready for the connect.

2. We highly suggest writing pre-call research down into fields that can be shown in Orum. This way you can be prepared for the conversation and keep conversion rates the same as manually dialing. In Outreach, we also suggest bringing in the “first sequence email” - which for many orgs is customized and provides a talk track. Once added, The First Sequence Email field will show the first email that was sent in the sequence you are calling on in the Dialer. If a call task precedes an email, the First Sequence Email field will appear blank.

3. Once you hear a beep and see the screen change - you’re live with the person. You need to speak immediately in order to reduce hang-ups or awkward intros.

What is a canceled call and how should I manage these?

In parallel dialing, once someone picks up and we connect you, Orum will cancel the other calls. For example, if you’re calling 3 people at once and we connect you, that would result in 2 canceled calls.

These canceled calls will show up at the bottom of your list and our system will pause dialing when reaching these prospects. We recommend you change your "Fallback number" before dialing these Prospects again. If you only have a handful of Cancelled Calls, reps will often switch to Power-dialing to finish up.