The Single Most Important Phonebanking Metric You’re Missing — And How to Fix It

These days we have performance metrics to measure just about anything under the sun, which can be dizzying. In the world of calling and texting, it’s no different. On any given call list, you could be tracking: how many callers are on a shift, how many dials are left on the next list, how many supporters you’ve identified, future volunteer shifts scheduled, commitments to vote, dollars pledged, percentage of calls connected, and more—you get the idea.

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Not to send anyone into a panic, but we want to highlight one metric that you may not be paying enough (or any) attention to. It’s also arguably the most important metric of your calling campaign:: dials per hour per caller.

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Okay, What’s That Mean?

Dials per hour per caller (DPHPC) is exactly what it sounds like— a measurement of how many dials are going out per caller every hour that your phonebanking campaign is active. This is a metric you want to keep as high as possible, as long as you’re able to keep “dropped calls” as low as possible. A dropped call occurs when someone answers but is hung up on because there isn’t someone on your end to take the call — not a great experience for your potential supporters. If the rate of dials is too low, you’ll have longer wait times between calls — not a great experience for your staff or volunteers doing the calling. 

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Last we checked, elections can still be won by a single vote, and organizations can keep the lights on with that last donation needed, so every call still counts. If you’re already using a phonebanking tool, look at your last calling campaign. Find the number of total dials (X), then the number of hours your campaign was active (Y), then how many callers you had on that campaign (Z). To find a rough estimate of your dials per hour per caller, it looks like this:

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X ➗Z = Dials per caller (DPC)

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DPC ➗Y = Dials per hour per caller

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Got the number? Great! Is it somewhere around 250? If you answered no and started to break out in a sweat, let’s talk NewTalk.

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Manual Dial Pacing — Or, How We Goldilocks Your Phonebanking Campaign

Manual Dial Pacing is one of the coolest things about NewTalk and the best way to get the “just right” dials per hour per caller.

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When you call with us, you’re not just uploading a list into the ether and crossing your fingers until your calling campaign results come back. You’re getting a calling tool built and supported by a seasoned team that understands that a one-size-fits-all, fully-automated approach to calling doesn’t work. This core piece of architecture that allows us to continuously monitor and adjust the dial pace for every active calling campaign is the one thing we carried over from our Legacy ThruTalk product. Why? 2020. That election cycle was full of valuable lessons for us, one of which was the need to be able to have a better bird’s eye view of active campaigns and an easier way of making the necessary adjustments to each campaign’s dial pacing. Put plainly; our Support staff get a zoomed-out view of every calling campaign. If your packing looks good, we love that for you. If your wait times are too high, we can see that right away and will speed up your dial packing. If your drops are too high, we’ll note that immediately as well and slow it down a bit. 

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Why is manual pacing so important? Because every calling campaign is a unique combination of list quality, number of callers, time of day/week/year, and local conditions that may affect pickup rates. A system that always calls at the same predetermined rate simply cannot account for all of these variables. So when a school board race gets hit with half the volunteers it bargained for due to a traffic jam, we’re right there with you to make sure your dial pacing is perfect for those who were able to make it. And when a national union is calling members across the country and needs to do it quickly, we’re with them to ensure the pace is high enough for the unprecedented level of member engagement required to get through a massive call list. No client is too big or too small, more or less important to us. 

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Manual dial pacing means we can and will continuously adjust speed and scalability to connect you with every possible supporter and keep your callers happy. It’s just one aspect of our dialer that, along with things like branching scripts, script previews, mobile-responsive UI, and a unified platform that houses both of our products, helps you cut through the noise and get your message out to the right people at the right time with ease. Because every call counts.

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One Last Thing

If we want to extend the metaphor of Goldilocks and the Three Bears a little further, we should also mention that here at GetThru we don’t condone entering someone else’s home uninvited and helping yourself to their personal effects. So please take this post as an open invitation to enter GetThru’s house any time you like and try on our tools to see if they’re just right for you. We may or may not have porridge when you stop by, but we will always have a fresh batch of best-in-class calling and texting services ready.

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You don’t have to trek through the forest to find us. You can see our tools in action here, request more information about us here, or drop a line directly to us here. We’d love to hear from you.

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