How can I get my Dialogic board to work in Windows and for that matter, with your predictive dialer?

My first response is generally “Our software doesn’t need any additional hardware to run”. But alas, the plot thickens. As of late, this has been a very common question. I can only imagine that this is mostly due to the impending ammendment by the FTC to the auto dialer telemarketing laws. People seem to be flocking to Ebay and taking advantage of what would appear to be a great deal on old Dialogic boards. We are receiving numerous inquires regarding whether or not our software (Voicent Agent Dialer) will work with the older (and newer) Dialogic boards and how to get these Dialogic boards to work and/or be recognized by Windows. The answer is “yes we can” IF 1) You can get the operating system to recognize the hardware, and 2) If it supports/uses TAPI driver. Generally this means I need to explain that our software was designed to replace this legacy hardware setup with software that will run on your average PC without any additional hardware. For some that have been using this type of setup for years this sounds like crazy talk. You do indeed already have the hardware you need. Likely the one you are reading this on right now will work just fine. No additional hardware, no headaches. With that being said, let us dig into what consumers can/will face when trying to go the Dialogic board route shall we?

Couple of issues our customers are finding here. Dialogic nolonger sells or allows you to download the older version 5 driver, from what we understand. Rather, they are pushing consumers to purchase version 6 of the driver (yes, purchase a driver) which, unfortunately, does not support TAPI. In addition, most Windows operating systems do not support the actual board meaning it will not show up under device manager as a supported device. Problem with this is that most software running on Windows pulls what hardware is installed on any given system from Windows. One customer reported that there are some 3rd party developers claiming that if you purchase their product they can trick the operating system into recognizing the hardware with what I am assuming is a dummy .inf file. Personally, I prefer for my system to be stable and if the hardware isn’t supported or recognized by the operating system perhaps there is a good reason for it? Not to mention, hack job inf files to get hardware to work? Does that come with a warranty and does it extend my registry?

“So what should I do if I can’t get Windows to recognize my Dialogic board?” You might ask? Honestly? Go the software route and use what you already have. Save yourself hours of headaches and troublshooting. Save yourself some money. If you have purchased one of these old Dialogic boards off Ebay because like most (including myself) you can’t pass up a sweet deal, put it back up on Ebay and buy a software based predictive dialer. You don’t necessarily have to buy our Voicent Agent Dialer (although likely your best bet *wink*) but please do your research before investing in old computer systems packed with legacy hardware. You (or your IT guy/gal) will thank me for it.

We are looking for some predictive dialing solution linking with our Mitel 3300 VoIP phone System. Would you please provide us the captioned info or any demo arrangement?

Voicent Predictive Dialer should work with most VOIP/IP phone system. To see if it is compatible with your PBX/phone system, just make sure your PBX system support SIP, which is the standard for VOIP. To configure Voicent software to use a SIP based service or PBX system, try to get information about configuring a SIP softphone (such as X-lite). Once the softphone is working, use the same settings to configure Voicent software.

Regarding demo, we have online video you can take a look at. Or just download the predictive dialer software and give it a try.

We found the following news online regarding the Mitel 3300 VOIP system. It seems it should support SIP:

“Mitel, a leading provider of IP communications solutions, has announced the general availability of the 3300 ICP, Release 5. This latest version of the Mitel flagship IP-PBX introduces new options for in-building wireless mobility, hotdesking, enhanced messaging, system management capabilities, expanded PSTN connectivity, and more. Recognizing the increase in large multi-site clients, the number of users that can be part of a network has been increased to 65,000 and the number of nodes that can be supported in a distributed network is now increased to 250. A survivable gateway solution for branch offices has also been introduced. This latest announcement builds on the ongoing Mitel commitment to continuously improve its IP Telephony solutions and offer greater choice and flexibility to enterprises with centralized or distributed enterprise deployments.

This release introduces the new innovative Mitel 5215 and 5220 IP phones, which support the open SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) as well as the Mitel MiNet protocol. Both the 5215 and 5220 IP phones can be deployed as remote teleworker sets that act as fully featured extensions off a corporate network anywhere in the world via a secure and encrypted media and signaling path. The optional Line Interface Module allows these phones to automatically fail over to the PSTN in the event of a WAN failure or the initiation of a 911 call. This release also enables the support of the Mitel 5207 IP Phone designed for enabling key system functionality.”

Can you recommend the optimum set-up for my 25-30 seats call center? What predictive dialer package do I need and how many?

Do I need additional softward to connect my agents on the same network?

How many skype accounts do I need to get?

Agents get about 30% answering machine in their outbound calls. We are doing outbound campaign. Appreciate your soonest reply

One big question is the average time per agent spent on live call. The longer the time, the less lines you need. The second question is how small should the drop rate be. The more line you use, the more calls get dropped. Without these information, it is harder to know what exactly you need.

We recommend to start with two 24 line predictive dialers. If your agent is not busy, then increase the lines. Since we do not offer temporary license, so you have to purchase the products to test with your customers. We do offer monthly lease for call center customers. Please contact our sales to get a quote.

The client software is free, you do not have to purchase anything for each agent.

We recommend SIP based VOIP service for predictive dialing. The response time is better and audio quality is better when SIP is used. Skype also has a 50 call per day limitation on its “unlimited calling plan”. After 50 calls, you need to pay the regular rates, which usually is much higher than other VOIP service. Skype also uses more memory so it is harder to scale up for call centers.