Summary:

• Cold calling software should include a power dialer to speed up calling without harming the contact experience. This boosts agent productivity and avoids issues like dropped calls.
• Look for software that integrates with your CRM or includes a built-in CRM. It’s essential for tracking customer interactions and managing the sales pipeline efficiently.
• Lead distribution features are also essential. They automate the process of sending leads to agents, improving productivity and saving time for admins.
• Your software should streamline tedious workflows like voicemails, follow-ups, and CRM updates—this frees agents to focus on conversations.
• Finally, make sure your software includes reporting tools. This lets you track performance and outcomes in real-time, providing insights to improve sales strategies and team productivity.

Tips for Finding the Best Cold Calling Software for Your Sales Team

Outbound calling can be tough, which is why so many salespeople are hesitant to do it. The uncertainty, the hang-ups, the defensiveness, the monotony—it's a lot to put yourself through multiple times a week.

But there's a reason why we still call prospects: it gives us an opportunity to get their undivided attention, even if it’s just for a few moments. And that gives us a golden opportunity to move a sale forward.

Best of all, cold calling doesn't have to suck. The software you use to cold call can make it or break your experience and your results. The best software can:

• Help you prepare for a call
• Handle voicemails, emails, texts, and other repetitive workflows
• Manage leads and track communication history
• Make sales agents more efficient and set them up to close more deals

In this post, we'll discuss what to look for when choosing your outbound calling software. Let's get started.

Disclaimer: What We Mean When We Say “Cold Calling”

You’ll see us use the term “cold calling” in posts like these, but we need to clarify: It’s vital to call prospects who have opted-in or expressed consent to receive your communications in some form.

Not only does this help you avoid regulatory penalties related to spam calling, but it also means the people you focus your efforts on will actually want to hear from you—and you’ll have better odds of closing.

Learn more about this distinction by exploring our Responsible Communications™ initiative, then keep reading to see what we think every worthwhile “cold” calling platform should have.

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What Features Should You Look for in Cold Calling Software?

What are the most important and non-negotiable features to look for in outbound dialing software? Here’s what you don’t want to miss out on:

Power Dialer

Manual dialing is tedious. Not only is it painfully slow to dial manually, but it's also easy to make input errors and call the wrong number.

Some dialing technology improves dialing speed but at the expense of experience and effectiveness. Take predictive dialers, for example, which drops calls and subjects contacts to an awkward pause at the start of each call.

You can eliminate these off-putting occurrences by using a power dialer as your cold-calling software.

Power dialers increase efficiency without the contact knowing that software is being used. They deliver a smooth experience, while increasing outreach speed and call volume. It’s a win-win. Other benefits include:

• Saving time by automating the repetitive aspects of dialing
• Allowing agents to spend more time in productive live conversations
• Avoid penalties due to dropped calls (a problem with predictive dialers)
• Make up to 4x as many calls per hour

We’ve written extensively about the different types of dialing software. Check out the following articles to learn more:

• 10 Types of Dialing Technology, Explained
• Predictive Dialer Software vs. Power Dialing Systems

Number Reputation Support

A feature that may not even be on your radar is now hugely important.

In today’s skeptical consumer climate, number reputation is everything.

Spam flags are rampant, and call answer rates have dropped dramatically industry-wide. 

While many sales teams report making 100 calls for just a few answered calls, PhoneBurner customers average double-digit answer rates thanks to a platform that is engineered for number reputation and answer rates.

When you get numbers from PhoneBurner we can:

• Register them so that carriers know and trust them
• Monitor your numbers for flags
• Proactively address those flags on your behalf (without you having to ask)
• Deliver advanced analytics to help you optimize your answer rates
• Route your calls over a Tier 1 network to improve deliverability and reduce spam risk

Many dialers simply recycle and replace flagged numbers – making it impossible to build number reputation and leaving customers in a vicious cycle of spam flags and discarded numbers.

This is a shortsighted band-aid approach that carriers can penalize, and that will negatively impact answer rates in both the short and long term.

Related: The most powerful number reputation solution

CRM

CRM is short for customer relationship management software. In sales, CRMs help you manage prospects so you can track them in your pipeline from contact to customer.

There are a lot of CRMs on the market, but not all will provide the level of customer management you need. When vetting CRMs, look for software that can record the following information about your contacts:

• Name
• Phone number
• Local time zone
• Email address
• Profile
• Demographics
• Call history
• Call recordings
• Email opens
• Attachment views
• Link clicks
• Custom fields
• Text exchanges

This information lets you build on each interaction with your prospect and continue to nurture the relationship. CRMs with sales cadence and campaign tools make it easy to know exactly who is on your list to call today and where each lead is in your sales pipeline.

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Integrated vs. Built-In CRMs

Some dialing systems have CRM features built-in, while others offer the ability to integrate with different types of CRM software. Built-in CRMs tend to be simpler and easier to use, whereas integrations tend to give you advanced features and flexibility.

PhoneBurner gives you both options. Our power dialer comes with built-in CRM tools, but we also provide the ability to integrate with over 200 different programs so that you can tailor your CRM experience to match the needs of your business.

Learn about PhoneBurner’s built-in CRM here.

Learn about PhoneBurner’s 200+ integrations.

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Lead Distribution

Manually distributing leads is another time suck. If you're working with a team of agents, you need a way to efficiently distribute leads. This way, you ensure productivity because everyone on your sales team has a list of leads to call throughout the day. And admins can maintain their sanity because there’s no need to distribute the leads manually.

Look for a lead distribution feature that gives you the power to customize your distribution based on goals and rules, and the unique setup of your sales team. PhoneBurner’s lead distribution feature is called LeadStream, and it gives you the following options:

• Blind Pull: Leads go into a shared pool and are distributed to participating agents who are logged in and ready to make calls.
• Preview Pull: Agents can review information about a lead before initiating the dial.
• Round Robin: A pool of leads is distributed to participating agents based on rules defined for each agent, such as a maximum number of leads per sales session.
• First Come: Leads are distributed to one recipient until their allotment is reached before giving leads to the next recipient.
• Lead Blitz: As real-time leads come in, they are made available to participating agents, and the first to claim the lead gets it.

Learn more about LeadStream here.

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Workflow Automation

One of the best ways to improve your sales team's productivity is by automating those tedious tasks that sap time and energy. Here are a few time-wasting tasks that you can easily streamline with the right cold-calling software:

• Manual Dialing: When you're dialing a high volume of prospects, manually inputting those numbers can slow you down.

A power dialer will eliminate the need to manually dial. It saves a few seconds each call, but those seconds add up over the course of a day.

• Contact Management and Cadence: After a call, your agent should update the CRM with new information about the prospect, such as if they answered or left a voicemail, as well as arrange the next step in the follow-up cadence. These tasks are necessary but can slow the agent down and prevent them from moving to the next call.

Your cold call software can speed up the process. Instead of manually inputting information, the agent can click on buttons that you customize for your unique processes. These dispositions can automatically update the contact records and systematize the next step in the cadence.

• Email and SMS Follow-Up: Outreach these days is an omni-channel experience. The best cold-calling software will also facilitate email and even SMS outreach to increase exposure, callbacks, and conversions.

All of these touchpoints can be automated based on call outcome so that email and SMS follow-ups are triggered right as a call ends, with no additional effort needed by the sales rep.

PhoneBurner is designed to automate all of the tasks above so that your reps can save time and spend more of it talking to prospects one-on-one.

Learn more about PhoneBurner's Workflow Automations here.

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Reporting

After setting performance objectives for your sales team, how do you know when you're meeting them?

The right cold-calling software will help you monitor campaigns and measure both productivity and performance. Here are a few features to look for:

Automatic Dial Session Tracking

You should be able to track the dialing activity for individual agents or your entire team. Look for a platform that allows you to see your dialing performance over time, review individual dial session statistics, or drill down to individual call lengths and results.

How many dials are being made? How many voicemails are being left? How many emails are sent? Equally important is outcomes. How many contacts are interested or not interested? How many appointments are being set? The right cold call software will track every call, by every rep, so you understand activity as well as outcomes.

Team Reporting

Because you manage a team of sales reps, you’ll benefit from using a platform that supports team reporting, so that you can see a bird's eye view of what’s working and what needs improvement. This will help you assess training needs, reward top performers, and take actions that promote revenue growth.

Call Recording & Monitoring

Your cold calling software should be able to record calls for future training or listen in live. This way, you can use actual calls to assess skills and training gaps, and have something to refer to in coaching sessions.

Real-Time Leaderboards

Your sales team may already know and love leaderboards, except most of the time, they tend to be manually updated, lagging behind real-time performance. Look for a platform that allows you to broadcast metrics you care about improving — daily call count, talk time, and prospect engagement. These tools not only help you monitor activity throughout the day but can be an effective way to motivate everyone to perform to their best ability.

Automated Reporting Right to Your Inbox

You should be able to build reports at any time with your cold calling software or have them automatically emailed to you on a daily or weekly basis. This helps you stay on top of your team's efforts.

PhoneBurner’s reporting tools include all of the above and are designed to arm your reps with the data they need to move sales calls forward. See PhoneBurner’s Reporting tools in action here.

Best Practices for Outbound Calling

Here are a few things to keep in mind when you're performing first-time calls, or following up on existing leads and prospects.

Learn From Rejection & Hone Your Craft

You can’t prevent cold call rejection from happening, but you can learn from it and eventually reduce rejection by honing your sales techniques. For example, you can create more effective sales scripts and have a better plan for handling rejections.

Perhaps the most important strategy for every sales agent is persistence. A “no” usually means “not right now.” Don’t give up. With a little persistence, you may be able to win them over.

Accept that rejections will happen, but when they do, don’t linger. Let them roll off of you. Instead, focus on the good calls. If you’re particularly sensitive to rejection, build a library of positive sales call recordings that you can then listen back to after a particularly harsh rejection. This little hack will return you to a positive state of mind and remind you that you can do this.

Learn More: Why & How to Embrace Rejection on Sales Calls

Don't Expect to Close the Sale Immediately

A cold call gets your foot in the door, but it doesn't usually close a sale. According to The Brevet Group, it takes an average of eight cold call attempts to reach a prospect. Then, after meeting with a prospect, it takes another five follow-up calls to convert the prospect into a customer. That's a lot of energy but it's worth it when you make the sale.

Use your initial cold call as an opportunity to introduce yourself and make the prospect aware of how your product or service solves a pain point. Then build a well-thought-out cadence that combines follow-up calls, emails, texts, and other exposures that educate them on how your offering provides a solution to their need.

Don't Read Directly From a Script

Good cold calling software provides the ability to add a script that you can refer to during your phone session. However, instead of reading from it, know it, and “ad-lib” to keep things fresh and natural. Give yourself the freedom to switch things up and learn as you go.

The goal of having a script isn't to use it as an actual script that you read off of verbatim. It's to cover the main talking points, hot buttons, and pain points so that you hit on the key motivators during your call. But if you sound like a robot, or your contact feels like a number and not a valued prospect, hitting all the right notes won't close the deal.

Related: The Only Cold Call Script Resources You Will Ever Need

Naturally, if you're working with a new agent, it may be useful for them to read directly from the phone script until they're confident in their selling ability. But that's only a stepping stone to conversational proficiency.

Power Your Outbound Calls with PhoneBurner

Your cold calling software can simplify the dialing process for your reps, but it can also set them up to make more sales and approach their work with more confidence. By reducing the amount of time and energy they spend on make-work tasks like dialing and data entry, the best outbound dialing software lets your reps focus on having the kinds of conversations that drive sales success.

Try PhoneBurner for free to see how it can help your team dial 4x as fast, connect more effectively with prospects, and make follow-ups easier than ever. You’ll find all the features we’ve covered above, plus many more tools to help your team reach peak performance.