The term progressive dialing was coined to describe what happens when a predial algorithm is implemented for either individual agents, or groups of agents. No more, no less. But since this kind of dialing algorithm can be used by other dialing methods as well such as this one, rather than talk about the progressive algorithms in predictive dialing, which might be confusing, we have coined the term 'predial' to describe this kind of algorithm.
The basis of progressive dialing in Oceanic® is what we call pooled predial. Dialing resources are pooled for a group of agents, and allocation of connects is usually done on a first in, first out basis. So connects resulting from predialed calls, will be allocated to the agent who has been waiting the longest, rather than to the agent on whose behalf the predial was made.
In this case the agent on whose behalf the call was dialed may still be talking, and pooling connects helps to reduce the incidence or likelihood of abandoned calls.
Another possibility which the Virtual Event Machine (VEM®) can handle but is not implemented in this release, is standalone predial, where no pooling occurs. We don't think anyone does this, but if they are it is likely to be as a kind of auto preview, where another number is dialed from a PC when an agent is at the end of a talk, or in wrap. If this describes the way you operate we would like to hear from you.
In this dialing method, predial for any agent is one line only at a time. If both predial and overdial algorithms are both at work on the same campaign, as may be the case in predictive dialing, then the number of lines dialed, is determined by the overdial algorithm, and may be considerably more than just one for each available agent.
Note
Increasingly the term progressive dialing is being used where there is no predial at all, but call detection is being done by a switch. This is really a variant of auto preview dialing.
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