ACD & Dialer

An ACD (Automatic Call Distributor) is a switching system that automatically distributes incoming calls and routes them to the agent who has been waiting the longest. It also generates detailed reports on the system and agent performance.

An ACD is primarily responsible for call routing – i.e., the way the phone calls travel through a contact center; it follows instructions determined by contact center management. Although ACD functionality often comes built into PBX systems and other contact center applications, the ACD is often a standalone system which supports very high-volume, mission-critical business operations.

A dialer is a contact center application that automates outbound voice contact. Outbound refers to calls made from inside a contact center (usually from an agent workstation, dialer or predictive dialer) and are headed to a destination outside of the contact center. A predictive dialer is an outbound calling system that uses software to estimate the correct number of calls to place and number of agents that will be able to handle those calls.

ACD’s and dialers have always been key applications for contact centers and still remain important as inbound and outbound voice contact continue to be the primary methods of customer contact. Recent trends are in moving away from proprietary hardware, and the value proposition of newer solutions is to run upon existing infrastructure or upon converged IP networks.