Sunil,
The idle time between calls in an Outbound calling scenario is quite complex and is a factor of several settings, leads and equipment capabilities:
Typically a Predictive dialer has a detection system which analyses each call for 1) fax machines 2) answering machines 3) operator intercepts 4) no answers 5) busy tone 6) bad numbers and some more , depending on the design and efficacy of the detection systems. After detecting these and elimating them , the PD throws only live calls to the agent. This is an ideal scenario !
The practical scene is that there are different levels of detection systems with varying levels of accuracy - maybe due to reasons of technology, maybe due to the other factors like type of answering m/c's etc, and a major factor in accurate detection is the TIME taken to detect these calls. Here is where the trade off neeeds to be done - greater time is better detection - with systems with weak detection : weak detection takes longer times to detect these, and therefore calls take longer to be disposed by the dialer and longer to get thrown to the agent. Resulting in longer wait time between calls. The sophistication of the answering machine detection is another variant between different predictive dialing providers. Less sophisticated systems use voice cadence detection -- which assumes that a long burst of words (Hello, this is the Jones residence...) is an answering machine. Cadence detection alone is about 60% effective in correctly detecting an answering machine. Another factor for this long wait time between calls is the number of lines used to dial out from the PD. Typically most systems deploy 2 lines per agent. When on outbound telemarketing needs more , maybe three lines per agent, this is due to the fact that these Outbound calling lists are notoriously contain a large number of unavailable numbers. Even from reputed lead providers , due to the fact that B2C calling is at times when customers are not always available.
As I see it you may improve your performance by using :
1) a dialer with more accurate detection system,
2) increase the number of lines outgoing per agent and increase the pacing
We see a practical wait time below 10 seconds with our dialer.
Regards
Dadi Bhote
dbhote@five9.com