The Administrator's Guide to the CRM Smart Dialer Follow

What is the CRM Smart Dialer?

The CRM Smart Dialer is a built-in softphone that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to always prioritize the most important calls that could have the greatest financial benefit to your firm. By default, the Smart Dialer is configured as a simple and turnkey system for your firm to hit the ground running.  As a proven system to increase lead conversion and ensure that calls are being made, the Smart Dialer is ready to help fuel your firm’s growth trajectory!  🚀

If you are an agent or non-admin user and would like to learn more about using the CRM Smart Dialer, then please review The Agent and Non-Agent User Guide for the CRM Smart Dialer.

 

Table of Contents

Smart Dialer Hardware and Software Requirements

Configuring Your Smart Dialer Administrative Settings

Custom Greetings and Hold Music for the Call Queue

Managing How Calls Route

Managing Call Forwarding

Reordering Call Priorities

Managing Call Outcomes

Configuring Each Agent’s Permissions by Lead Source and Case Type

Setting Up Outbound Call Automations

Call Monitoring

 

Smart Dialer Hardware and Software Requirements

⚠️ Please note, your headset must be a USB headset, no other type of headset is authorized to work with the CRM dialer, and not having the right kind of headset can increase the likelihood of audio and mic issues.

You will need the Google Chrome browser and a wired or wireless headset for each agent to get started. 

The Smart Dialer is only compatible with desktop and laptop devices, some tablets with a full OS version, but not mobile phones. Currently, there is not any compatibility with mobile operating systems (OS) due to a limitation with the underlying VOIP framework from Twilio, the world’s largest internet phone company. Thus, a Microsoft Surface that has a full Microsoft OS version will work, but an Android tablet, phone, or iPhone will not.

It is strongly recommended to update your system to have the following minimum or recommended requirements to avoid potential service impacts:

Windows Platform

Apple Mac Platform

The Smart Dialer administrative settings should be reviewed and tested before using the Smart Dialer in a live agent environment.

Using the main navigation menu on the left-hand side of the screen, go to "Setup".

Next, navigate to the "Call Center Settings" page.

You must be a user with admin access, or you will not be able to see these menu options. Please ask your firm administrator or IT department if you need these changes made.

First, we will review the Smart Dialer timeout settings that govern how long a call will stay in the queue before forwarding to an external phone number. Many firms will have an external answering service or call center set up for "live answer" of overflow or after-hours calls to provide a better user experience for new and existing clients. A voicemail feature does not exist in the Smart Dialer so it is strongly recommended to have an external call center for any inbound calls that cannot be answered.

The “Maximum Time for Incoming Calls to Stay in a Queue” is set to “30 Seconds” by default. Based on industry statistics, this is enough time for about 4 rings and is a standard. However, if you would like to make it longer then you may select another option from the timeout dropdown. Longer than 30 seconds will increase the risk of callers disconnecting and abandoning their call due to increased hold times.

⚠️ Important: It is strongly recommended that before you go live with the Smart Dialer that you make some test calls to your firm’s main CRM number that was provided to you at sign-up. Try it without any agents available, and with 1 or more agents available to make sure it works as expected and that everyone is properly set up and ready to go. It is much easier to provide training and correct issues before your marketing campaigns go live. 

 

Custom Greetings and Hold Music for the Call Queue

The Smart Dialer comes equipped with a ringing sound mp3 file as the default hold music when calls enter the call queue. Callers are more likely to stay on hold if they hear a ringing sound because it provides the image of a phone ringing and thus, they are not actually on hold. By default, the ringing sound is set to 30 seconds. 

Custom hold music can also be configured on the Call Center Settings page.

There are currently two available settings for hold music:

1. Hold Music for the Queue – This setting is used when an inbound call comes in but 0 agents are available in the queue to answer the call. 
2. Hold Music When Ringing to Agent – This setting is used when an inbound call comes in and there is at least 1 agent available and the call starts ringing to that agent.

You may upload any custom hold music or greeting messages by clicking the "Choose Files" button on the right side where it says "Upload mp3/wav Audio for Hold Music".

After the file uploads, use the available Hold Music dropdowns located on the left side to select the file. An "Apply Changes" button will appear. Press this button to save changes.

Some firms have custom needs, e.g. playing a popular song or playing a custom greeting message that greets callers and advises them if calls will be recorded (if call recording is activated). You could even set it up to first play a quality assurance greeting message, then play the ringing sound, and finally, have a popular song as hold music. Regardless of your needs, the CRM's Smart Dialer comes equipped with the ability to customize the greeting and hold music for your firm.

 

Managing How Calls Route

Most call centers/firms prefer a round-robin workflow, meaning that for both outbound and inbound calls, those calls are given to one agent after another, to ensure the calls are evenly distributed. 

However, some call centers/firms only want that to happen for new inquiries, and once an agent has spoken to the client, they want all future conversations to be with that agent only. 

To accomplish this, the CRM will allow you to activate the "Only allow callbacks for assignees" setting. This setting will route all outbound and inbound calls to the Assignee set on file for a specific lead/case. 

 

Managing Call Forwarding

The focus of this article is the administrative setup of the Smart Dialer, but a related topic of importance is managing call forwarding after the “Maximum Time for Incoming Calls to Stay in a Queue” setting is exceeded and times out. If you need to review how to manage call forwarding settings, then please review this article.  

It is important to verify that everything is working properly and verify the correct forwarding number is set up for your Smart Dialer number, especially if you make changes or set up a new external call center or answering service. To access your call forwarding settings for each lead/marketing source, go to “Setup” using the main navigation menu on the left-hand side, and then navigate to “Marketing Sources & Call Tracking #s”.

Inside each CRM system, there will be a source labeled as “Main SMS” and this is the source where you will want to ensure that the forwarding settings are as they should be. You may need to also configure call forwarding settings for additional call tracking numbers that your firm may be using.

 

Reordering Call Priorities

As part of the Smart Dialer, the CRM includes preloaded call prioritization settings based on industry best practices. This means that the Smart Dialer will always prioritize the most important calls that could have the greatest financial benefit to your firm. This is provided in a turnkey way so that your firm should not have to spend time reinventing the wheel. To keep it simple, this setup is already done by default since it is a proven system to increase lead conversion.

In the “Call Priorities” section of the Call Center Settings page, you will see that by default, inbound calls from new leads are the top priority and will always be presented to agents before any other inbound or outbound calls. Any inbound calls from other callers are prioritized second. The third priority is outbound calls to new leads. These would normally be calls made to new leads who come from web form submissions and live chat inquiries. 

If you would like to reorder the call priorities, use the up/down arrows to make any changes.

⚠️ It is not suggested that you modify these settings without first speaking to your CRM account manager about the potential effects on your sales/marketing funnel. 

Additionally, if your firm would like to add call priorities for specific statuses, then please contact the support team so they can assist you with implementing any custom settings.

 

Managing Call Outcomes

The CRM has found that the most efficient way to manage call campaigns is to require a “Call Outcome” to be selected by agents after each call is completed. The purpose of the “Call Outcome” dropdown in the Smart Dialer pop-up is to save time. This is accomplished by allowing the agent to summarize what happened on each call with a call outcome, without requiring an administrative user to read every note and happening on each client record to see what occurred.   

Call outcomes do not change statuses nor perform any actions in the CRM. For example, if you need to mark a client as rejected or opted-out, then you will need to do that inside of the client record, not in the Smart Dialer pop-up.

With that said, as an administrative user, you may modify, add, reorder, and deactivate call outcomes inside the Call Center Settings page.

If you need to add a new call outcome, click the “Add Call Outcome” button in the upper-right corner of the Call Outcomes section.

After adding a call outcome, you can use the up/down arrows to place it in the proper order. The order that you set up on this screen will be the same as the order shown to each agent in the Smart Dialer pop-up.

You may change or reword any existing call outcomes that you would like. To modify a call outcome, click the "Edit" option on the left side of each call outcome. After editing the call outcome, click the “Update” button to save your changes, or click “Cancel” if you do not want to save your changes.

To deactivate call outcomes, click the “Deactivate” option on the right side of each call outcome. It is not recommended to deactivate any call outcomes that are currently being used by agents. If you deactivate a call outcome and want to reactivate it later, then look for it at the bottom of the call outcomes list, and click the “Activate” option to put it back in use. 

 

Configuring Each Agent’s Permissions by Lead Source and Case Type

One of the features of the Smart Dialer is segmenting calls based on user permissions. One common occurrence that could happen from limiting agent access to campaigns is that a call can come in and none of the available agents will be able to answer it. 

😱 Remember! If an agent's access to certain sources or case types is removed, they will not be considered available agents for those particular types of calls. This is true even if you see available agents in the queue, so please be careful! Many successful firms start out with all agents having access to all case types and sources, then evaluate the call flow, and then decide what to limit. It is not recommended to do this without a careful evaluation since you could miss live calls!

For example, if certain agents are needed to answer sensitive campaigns, then it is suggested that you do not give other agents permission to those case types or lead sources. To make changes to user permissions, you must be an administrative user. Go to “Setup” using the main navigation menu on the left-hand side, and then navigate to “Manage Users”. Next, scroll down to the User Management section and check the appropriate boxes to give users permissions by case type or source, as shown below. If a user has access to “All Leads” then they will be able to answer calls from all campaigns. 

Please review this article for more detailed instructions on managing user permissions in the CRM.

 

Setting Up Outbound Call Automations

The Automations module offered in the CRM allows you to automate outbound calls to your potential and existing clients based on the status of each record. For example, you could automate an outbound call to be loaded in the call queue for the status of "New Lead". This is extremely useful so you do not have to wonder why your lead conversion % is down, or why new leads are just not called quickly enough. Don’t leave it up to chance and human error!

💡 To prevent potential clients from turning to other options, it is strongly recommended to set up an outbound call automation for the "New Lead" status. This will ensure that every new lead, particularly those from website form submissions, is promptly contacted. This is critical to your success! 🚀

Inside the CRM, any user that has been granted the “Command Center” permission will be able to create outbound call campaign automations. To get started, go to “Automations” using the main navigation menu on the left side.

Next, navigate to the “AI and Automation Campaigns” page.

You will want to activate the "Outbound Call" setting inside of a new or existing automation. To create a new automation, click the “New Automation Campaign” button in the top-right corner of the automation screen. If you would like to edit an existing automation campaign, then click the pencil icon on the right-side of the automation, as shown below.

In the first tab of the automation editor screen, Campaign Settings, you will see a toggle near the top-right corner labeled “Outbound Call On/Off”. By default, this toggle is in the red “Off” position. This toggle will need to be changed to the “On” position so that this automation can generate outbound calls.

If the Smart Dialer is not activated in your CRM system, then the “Outbound Call On/Off” option will not be visible. Please contact the support team or your account manager for further assistance. 

After you set the “Outbound Call On/Off” toggle to the “On” position, navigate to the Call Automation tab of the automation editor screen to configure the call settings.

The “Delivery Settings” control when the outbound call will generate. We suggest leaving it at 0 or 1 minute so that calls occur as quickly as you have an agent available. Please note that the outbound call(s) can be configured to generate after the automation itself triggers. For example, if you want the outbound call to generate 4 hours after the status change triggers the automation, you will set the call trigger to 4 hours.

To schedule multiple outbound calls, click the "Schedule Another Call Automation" button. All calls configured will chain together, meaning subsequent calls will not be generated until the previous call is completed. 

 

Call Monitoring

Call monitoring is a powerful tool that can help law firms and call centers to improve the performance of agents as well as overall customer experience. By listening in on live calls, admins can identify areas where agents need training, provide feedback, and ensure that calls are handled in a professional manner.

The Smart Dialer includes several call monitoring features that make it easy to listen in on calls and track call quality. If you would like to learn more, please check out this article.

 

Support/Assistance

If you need further assistance with your CRM system, please reach out to the support team.

🤗 Thank you very much for choosing CRM!