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Talkdesk Dialer™ is an outbound calling solution that helps organizations reach more contacts while maintaining the quality of engagement. 

The Talkdesk Dialer offers two dialing modes to help organizations balance agent productivity with the level of personalization each interaction requires: Predictive Dialing and Preview Dialing.

• Understanding Talkdesk Dialer's Dialing Modes
• Predictive Dialing
• Preview Dialing
• Comparing Predictive and Preview Dialing
• Use Cases

Understanding Talkdesk Dialer's Dialing Modes

When creating an Outbound Dialer campaign, supervisors select a dialing mode, which determines how records are dialed. The dialing mode chosen shapes the agent experience, the pace of outreach, and the level of context agents have before a call connects.

Talkdesk Dialer supports two dialing modes:

• Predictive Dialing: An automated dialing mode that launches calls ahead of agent availability to maximize reach and minimize idle time.
• Preview Dialing: An agent-led dialing mode that gives agents record context before a call connects.

Each mode is described in detail below.

Predictive Dialing

Predictive Dialing is a dialing mode that automatically launches calls at the backend. . Calls reach agents only after a contact picks up, which prevents agents from listening to ringing tones or handling unanswered calls and answering machines. This mode minimizes agent idle time and delivers 200-300% more outbound productivity compared to manual approaches.

To maximize live connections, Predictive Dialing mode allows users to dial more numbers simultaneously than the number of currently available agents, based on a prediction of current pick-up rate and when agents will become free. However, this volume can result in calls that connect with a contact when no agent is available. The system terminates these calls, and they are labeled as abandoned. Each jurisdiction maintains its own regulatory constraints around abandoned calls.

Key Features:

• Automated call launching: The system initiates outbound calls from the campaign list without agent action.
• Idle time reduction: Agents receive calls only after a contact connects, removing ringing and unanswered-call handling from the agent workflow.
• High-volume outreach: Multiple simultaneous calls per agent increase the number of contacts reached.

Important Note: Predictive Dialing can generate abandoned calls, which are subject to jurisdiction-specific regulatory constraints.

Preview Dialing

Preview Dialing is a dialing mode that allows agents to review a record's data before a call connects. During the preview period, the agent decides whether to skip the call (thus moving to the next record's preview) or to place the call.

Key Features:

• Context-first workflow: Agents preview each record’s data before deciding whether to call that contact.
• Agent-driven dialing: Calls are dialed manually or on demand after the preview step, keeping control with the agent.
• Quality-focused outreach: The preview stage supports more contextual, compliant, and personalized conversations over raw volume.

In this dialing mode, agents listen to ringing calls and handle unanswered calls and answering machines directly, unlike in Predictive Dialing.

Comparing Predictive and Preview Dialing

Use Cases

• High-volume outreach: Predictive Dialing supports campaigns where maximizing contact volume and minimizing agent idle time are the priority.
• Personalized engagement: Preview Dialing supports campaigns where agents benefit from reviewing record details before speaking with a contact, and where compliance requirements call for a more controlled approach.