Power dialing vs. Parallel dialing: How to strategically cold call

Orum’s AI dialer is well known for its industry-leading capability to maximize rep productivity. For years, we’ve efficiently increased the number of dials, conversations, and meetings SDRs and AEs can generate in less time than ever. Thousands of reps use Orum daily to connect with more prospects and dramatically increase their closed-won opportunities.

Orum’s power and parallel dialing options offer a hands-free experience, allowing reps to review call notes and prospect lists and communicate with their coworkers on the Salesfloor while making calls. However, one of the many benefits of choosing Orum over our competition is the nuanced strategy and AI-driven analytics we provide that help you determine when and where to use both dialing options.

You may have previously learned about Orum because our best-in-class parallel dialer empowers reps to dial multiple numbers simultaneously. This feature is great for dialing down large call lists where the likelihood of the prospects picking up is low. However, it’s just one of several dialing options available within Orum. Whether you’re looking to follow up with one prospect at a time or optimize the ability to connect with new organizations, Orum has what you need to succeed.

Orum’s power dialer is strategic cold calling calling at scale

Orum's power dialer is not just a feature; it's the backbone of a platform that has facilitated over 200 million completed calls. Unlike Nooks, which only recently added dialing solutions as a secondary aspect, Orum has perfected its power dialer, ensuring a seamless, no-delay experience that maximizes connect rate, increasing opportunities and pipeline​.

Orum’s power dialer is the predominantly used option, offering a unique approach to strategic, automated cold calling at scale. Unlike parallel dialing, which enables sellers to dial multiple lines simultaneously, the power dialer takes a sequential approach, dialing one number at a time, one after the other, until a prospect picks up the phone.

When to use a power dialer

Orum’s power dialer is the perfect option for organizations using a phone-first, allbound model. While most other 'power dialers' require reps to actively click between calls, Orum’s power dialer is a hands-free, zero-delay solution.

With advanced features like automatic voicemail detection, AI-powered call notes, and objection detection, Orum ensures that sales reps spend time talking to potential clients, not waiting for calls to connect or navigating through dial trees.

Examples of when to use a power dialer align with nearly any time you make cold calls. While power dialing still calls numbers one at a time, it removes the manual aspects of putting in the numbers, navigating dial trees, listening to ring tones, and leaving voicemails. Automating these aspects saves reps countless hours every week.

When deciding whether to power dial or parallel dial, reps should consider several factors. If they’re dialing a call list with a higher pick-up and using Orum’s Hot Numbers, for example, they should use a power dialer to be more prepared to discuss with prospects. Power dialing is great for calling prospects in industries with higher pick-up rates, prospects you’ve previously connected with, and organizations you’ve researched in detail.

Reps new to cold calling prefer power dialing over parallel dialing because the process feels slower. They can more easily follow what prospect the dialer is currently calling, enabling them to mentally prepare for when the prospect picks up.

When to use a parallel dialer

Parallel dialing is identical to power dialing, except you can dial multiple numbers simultaneously. On Orum, you can choose between two to ten parallel dial numbers. This feature acts as a productivity multiplier but needs to be used strategically.

An important note about parallel dialing is that it’s not simply an option to be used based on the companies or industries you’re dialing into. Every rep has prospects they should power dial, and prospects they should parallel dial. Along those same lines, every rep has prospects they should NEVER parallel dial.

Through Orum, cold calls have an average pick-up rate of 5.3%. That means you will have some numbers that result in substantially higher pick-up rates and those with much lower connect rates. Orum works with your organization to help ensure you understand where those higher and lower connect rates are.

When you know a list of prospects is much less likely to be picked up, it’s logical to understand that you should spend less time researching and calling those numbers. This is where parallel dialing helps optimize productivity. You can dial those lists faster, still leave voicemails at scale, and reach more prospects in less time.

The benefits of a power dialer

Power dialers save sales reps hours of time every week, improve psychological safety, and reduce burnout. Call hesitation occurs partly because reps don’t feel anyone will pick up their calls. Cold calling fifty prospects can take a full workday when done manually. If your pick-up rates are low, there is a good chance that reps won’t ever get a connection, causing them to feel like they’ve wasted the day.

Using Orum’s power dialer eliminates that exhaustion. As Eric Watkins, President of Abstrakt Marketing, said, “Watching Orum automatically move on from a prospect that didn’t pick up improves rep mindset. All those dials that don’t pick up are numbers they didn’t have to dial or leave voicemails for manually. It reduces the mental exhaustion that comes with cold calling.”

Using a power dialer doesn’t just eliminate the manual activity connected to dialing. It also removes the need to constantly stare at your call list to find the next number you need to dial. As an SDR from Datarails shared, “Orum improved my productivity by increasing the number of calls I can make during the day, improving the pick-up rate for my calls, and giving leads the ability to call me back. Also, Orum has allowed me to divert my eyes from the screen while working, avoiding straining my eyes.”

The benefits of parallel dialing

Parallel dialers are excellent for small teams looking to do large amounts of prospecting in a short amount of time. They’re a great solution for reps with extensive phone experience and reps who need to generate their own pipeline. Parallel dialing empowers them to spend less time actively dialing while maximizing the number of conversations they can have.

Organizations like Crunchbase use Orum’s AI parallel dialer to increase call productivity by 400% while saving their reps seven hours weekly. The ability to dial multiple numbers at a time also increases the amount of active communication reps can have. Ramp’s team was able to have 80 hours of live conversations in three months alone by using Orum. These are numbers that aren’t possible through manual dialing.

Parallel vs. power dialing

Ultimately, your approach to automating your cold call outreach process depends on your team's experience, the size of your market, the personas you’re dialing into, and historical data about the industries you work with.

The good news is that you don’t need to choose just one option with Orum. When you use our platform, you have access to both processes, and you can toggle back and forth between them, depending on the call tasks your reps need to accomplish at that moment.