Cold Calling: Here's why you should be very concerned about using parallel dialers heading into 2026

Cold Calling: Here's why you should be very concerned about using parallel dialers heading into 2026

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⛔️ Pick-up rates get cut in half

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Happens with every client we've seen. A huge spike in conversations in the first few months.

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Then pick-up rates drop from 6% to <3%. It's hard for dialers to escape from spam.

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⛔️ Conversion rates drop

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1. There's a delay in the pick-up

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You don't hear the prospect say, "Hello." And there's a slight delay between when they pick up and when you start talking. This turns off many prospects.

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2. You don't have time to prep

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You don't have time to gather your thoughts or spend 1-2 min. preparing for the call. This just doesn't cut it at the enterprise level.

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Could you research every prospect in advance before you call them? Sure.

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But with a pick-up rate below 5%, you're wasting your time.

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Most reps resort to doing little or no prep.

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You need a conversion rate of 10% of calls converting to a booked meeting for this to work. Tough to do with a dialer.

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✅ What to do instead

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Invest in cleaner data. Find good, accurate mobile phone numbers.

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Or go a step deeper and use something like TitanX to prioritize prospects most likely to pick up. My personal tests had a 30% pick-up rate calling their data.

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Then call 1:1 with a power dialer or from your cell phone.

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~~~

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At Outbound Squad, we don't recommend you invest in an auto/parallel dialer unless you're selling high-volume SMB.

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