Twelve questions to ask a dialer vendor before you sign
Every demo goes well, because demos are built to. These questions are about the awkward moments instead, and the answers tell you more than any feature list will.
The short answer
Demos are built to look good. Ask instead about the moments that go wrong: what happens when detection is unsure, when someone opts out mid-campaign, when a number is dialled days after import, and what it costs when you go over your minutes.
A dialer demo is a performance. That is not a criticism, it is just what a demo is. The list is clean, the network behaves, the campaign was built by someone who knows the product, and nothing goes wrong.
Your floor will not look like that. So the useful questions are not about what the product does when everything works. They are about what it does when something does not.
Here are twelve worth asking. We would rather you asked us these too.
About dialing
- 01How many agents does predictive mode need before it works properly, and what should a smaller team run instead?
- 02What happens when answering machine detection is not sure? Does the call go to an agent, or get dropped?
- 03How is the abandon rate controlled, and can an administrator turn that control off?
- 04Can I change dialing mode and speed on a running campaign, or does it have to be paused?
The second one is the most revealing question on this page. Detection is never perfect, so every vendor has decided what to do with the uncertain cases. Dropping them means occasionally hanging up on a real person. Routing them to an agent means occasionally making an agent listen to a voicemail greeting. Both are defensible. Not having an answer is not.
About compliance
- 01When is a number checked against do-not-call lists: at import, at dial time, or both?
- 02Someone opts out halfway through a campaign. What happens to their number, which is already in the queue?
- 03Are calling hours worked out from my time zone or the customer's?
- 04Can you show me the audit trail for one specific call, right now, in this demo?
Ask the last one live
Do not accept a screenshot or a description. Ask them to pick a call in the demo account and show you who touched it and when. It takes a minute in a product built for it, and rather longer in one that is not.
About money
- 01What is the total monthly cost for my seat count, including everything I would actually switch on?
- 02Which features on this call are extra, and what do they cost?
- 03What happens when the included minutes run out: do calls stop, or does the bill grow?
- 04Is the price per named seat or per concurrent user, and what happens when I add ten seats in month four?
Ask for a realistic month, not a headline. A per-seat figure that excludes recording storage, an extra channel and the reporting module is not a price, it is an opening position.
The most useful answer any vendor gives you is the one where they say no. It tells you the rest of the answers mean something.
How to read the answers
You are listening for three things, and none of them is enthusiasm.
Specificity. A good answer contains a number, a setting or a screen. A weak one contains the words fully configurable, which usually means somebody on your team will be configuring it.
Willingness to say no. Every product has limits. A vendor who names theirs is telling you where the edges are, which is the only way to judge whether the edges matter to you.
The difference between shipped and planned. Ask when a feature shipped and who is using it. Roadmap items are fine, as long as everyone agrees that is what they are.
One more thing to do
Ask to see the product with your own list, or a realistic sample of it. Not the demo data.
Your list has duplicates, dead numbers, odd formatting and records with three phone numbers attached. How the import handles that mess, and what it tells you about the rows it rejected, is a better preview of daily life than any feature tour.
And if a vendor answers all twelve of these without hesitating, that is worth something on its own. It usually means the person in front of you has actually run a floor.
Common questions
- What should you ask a dialer vendor in a demo?
- Ask about failure cases rather than features. What happens when answering machine detection is unsure, when a customer opts out mid-campaign, when the abandon rate climbs, and what your invoice looks like in a heavy month.
- How do you compare dialer pricing fairly?
- Get the total for a realistic month, not the per-seat headline. Ask which features cost extra, what happens when bundled minutes run out, what the per-minute rate is after that, and whether the price is per seat or per concurrent user.
- What is a red flag when buying a dialer?
- A vendor who answers every question with yes. Every product has limits, and one that will not name its own is either not being straight with you or does not know the product well enough to say.
See the real thing