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Cold calling is a great way to sales pitch potential prospects and have real conversations.
However, manually dialing through a prospect list, one by one, then jotting down notes by hand while on a call is a slow, inefficient process for sales professionals that takes you away from the main goal of your cold calling: learning about your prospect.
In this guide, we've rounded up some of the best cold-calling software and tools to help improve your cold-call workflow. You and your sales experts will spend less time on manual tasks and more time talking and understanding your prospects' pain points.
We’ll cover:
Let's dive in.
What Is Cold Calling?
Cold calling is a sales strategy that has been used in the buying process for a long time.
It involves a sales manager or team contacting people over the phone about a product they’re likely unaware of or have not previously expressed interest in.
Data shows that over 50% of decision-makers prefer to be contacted over the phone, and almost 70% of buyers have taken calls from sales reps in the last year.
The reason you hear about it less than other sales channels is that it can be nerve-wracking, and it's a manual process: you can't automate a conversation.
It's also difficult: you need to go into every call with a sales script to keep you on track but still adjust your script to fit the unique interaction with your prospect.
However, if you can nail down a process that works, it's hard to find a sales channel that's more personal and engaging for your sales lead than a cold call.
What Do Cold Calling Tools Help With?
Cold-calling tools help you streamline your cold-calling workflow. In most cases, these tools require you to upload a prospect list with your prospect details, including a direct dial. Then, the tool will let you call prospects with a click and track your call minutes, make notes, and see where prospects are in your sales pipeline.
Look for a cold-calling tool that integrates with your CRM or other collaborative tools in your sales arsenal, like QuickMail.
Depending on your team size, you'll have other considerations. Some tools will charge a flat fee, but most will charge per seat. As your company and sales team grow, the cost of your tool can add up, so make sure you account for that.
Features to Look for in Cold Calling Software
There are several essential sales call software features that you should be on the lookout for. These include:
1. Power Dialers
One of the most essential things you can have in your business for cold calling is a power dialer.
It can help automate your cold-calling sales tactics by dialing one number instantly after the other. If a phone number is busy when you call or ignored, the power dialer will immediately move on to the next call without input from the sales representative.
This makes it easy for the sales team to focus on their script and talk right away without any delay.
2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Integration
Something to consider as you are making a purchasing decision with cold calling software is CRM integration. You want to ensure that it can work with the tools your team is already using. This will allow you and your team to have a streamlined workflow that syncs insights and data.
However, it’s not just CRM that you should consider. Look at what workflows and tools your team is using. If you are using Gmail to manage email outreach sequences, make sure your cold calling software can integrate with that as well.
3. Call Recording
If you want to improve your sales closing techniques, you likely want to be able to record your calls and play them back. The cold-calling software you choose can help with that.
Call recording is extremely valuable to sales teams as it allows you to review calls, train new team members by showing them what a good or bad call sounds like, and coach team members through different interactions.
4. Coaching on Calls
If you’re looking for a tool that can provide feedback on how you’re handling a call, some cold-calling software can help with that. It can give you feedback if you are speaking too loud, too slow, or saying “umm” too much.
This will allow you to gain valuable feedback on how your calls are going in real time and what you can do to improve.
10 Best Cold Calling Software and Tools
The ten best cold-calling software tools to improve your sales conversations are listed below.
1. Aircall: Best Overall Cold Calling Software
Powerful call center platform with features to make cold calling simple and native integration with QuickMail to improve your overall outreach process.
Aircall is a cloud-based call center platform that’s perfect for cold calling.
It has all of the core features and functionality you would expect, including a power dialer that can automatically call your prospect list without you needing to type in any phone numbers, CRM integrations to ensure your records always stay updated and call whispering for when you need to speak to your team while on a live cold call.
Aircall also has detailed call center analytics, so you can track how effective your cold calls are at booking meetings with your prospects and accurately track the ROI of your campaigns.
You can also enable SMS sending and receiving, which is helpful if your prospects want to send a follow-up question to you.
Aircall hasdirect integration with QuickMail. When you make cold calls, your notes will be automatically synced with your prospect in QuickMail, so you have all of the contexts you need to have the most productive conversations and close more deals.
Pricing: Starts at $30 per month per user
Key features:
Sales dialer and one-click calling to easily work through your prospect list
Call whispering so you can talk to teammates while on calls and gather extra information
Integrates with QuickMail
2. PhoneBurner: Great for Managing Outbound Sales Calls
Powerful platform for managing outbound sales calls and eliminating repetitive tasks and workflows
PhoneBurner is a cold calling platform explicitly designed to help you make more calls in less time and streamline your post-call workflow to close sales emails.
You can preload your prospect list, and PhoneBurner will automatically dial through. When prospects pick up, you can have a conversation with them. When they don't, you can leave a voicemail automatically, make a note, or send a text and schedule a time for a follow-up call.
The workflows you can build let you do this with little work. After running your outbound campaign, you can review your campaign analytics and find ways to improve next time.
PhoneBurner lets you stay organized by using folders so you can easily manage multiple campaigns at once, targeting different sets of prospects.
Pricing: $149 per user per month
Key features:
Automate post-call workflows and ensure key actions are always taken
Organize leads into folders to stay on top of your outreach
Work through long prospect lists automatically with the power dialer
3. Kixie: Great Local Dialer Feature
Cold calling tool with powerful features to ensure your calls get picked up and encourage prospects to call you back
Kixie is a sales engagement platform made for cold calls. You can make outbound calls to leads, record calls to review how you did and leave pre-recorded voicemails with one click if your prospect doesn't pick up the phone.
There are integrations with all majorCRMs, so you can easily track your prospects through your pipeline and know if other teammates have had conversations with them.
There’s an automatic local presence dialer that will use a local phone number based on where your prospects are located to improve connection rates, too.
Pricing: $29 per month
Key features:
Automatic local presence dialer to boost pick-up rate
Integrates with all major CRMs and Zapier to link it with other sales tools
Leave voicemails with 1-click
4. CallTools: Strong Data and Filtering Functionality
Inbound and outbound call management platform with everything you need to manage your cold calling campaigns.
CallTools’ call center software is made for both inbound and outbound calling. It has all of the core functionality your sales team will need, including power dialing to speed up call rates, call script visibility, call coaching and recording,
You can also filter your prospect list based on criteria you set, like location, company size, or any custom segmentation criteria you want to include, to ensure you're spending your time contacting the right people.
You can easily export your lead list into a spreadsheet to use in other tools or manage your contacts directly in their lead management system.
Pricing: Available on request
Key features:
Lead management system to keep track of hot, warm, and cold leads
Filter prospects based on any criteria you set
Power dialing to call more prospects in less time
5. JustCall: Strong International Cold Calling Functionality
Cloud phone system to automate cold call outreach and call management
You can get local numbers that work in over 58 countries to ensure your calls come from local, toll-free numbers, improving the chances of your prospect picking up.
There's also an Auto Dialer to reduce the amount of downtime in your process, and after a call, you can set up automatic workflows to start to ensure you get any key assets like a sales deck or quote to your prospect as soon as possible.
As you would expect, JustCall integrates with most CRMs, and you can automatically have your call details added to lead records.
You can also use the Call Monitoring feature to listen in on live calls your team is making so you can collaborate to improve your cold call approach.
Pricing: $19 per month per user
Key features:
Set up call and SMS sequences to get the best engagement
Automatically sync your CRM with JustCall to update records
Call tracking and recording to help you optimize how you run outreach campaigns
6. CloudTalk: Many CRM Integrations
All-in-one call management center with dedicated cold calling tools to help you have more conversations with potential customers
CloudTalk's cold calling software is perfect for big or small teams or even if you're a solo salesperson at your company.
It's relatively easy to set up and start using, and you can upload your prospect list with their phone numbers and quickly start calling through the list with the one-click call feature.
CloudTalk is also compatible with a range of popular CRMs and sales tools, which can help you integrate CloudTalk into your cold outreach workflow.
There's an easy campaign builder that lets you prepare everything you need for your campaign, add your prospects, and then run through it.
There's a Zapier integration so that you can connect it with cold outreach tools like QuickMail, and it integrates natively with most CRMs.
Pricing: $25 per user per month
Key features:
Virtual phone numbers for 140 countries and locations
CRM and Zapier integrations to ensure you always have key information on prospects
Click-to-call and power dialer to improve productivity
7. Myphoner: Affordable Cold Calling Software
Lightweight sales CRM with advanced cold calling tools to help your team call and follow up with leads
Myphoner is cold-calling software that allows teams to collaborate and manage their cold outreach.
The cold calling software makes it easy to work as a team. Multiple team members can work together through your prospect list without getting in the way of each other, as the software will auto-assign the next prospect to an available sales representative.
You can also leave helpful notes on your prospect profiles to help other team members and set reminders of when to follow up with them.
It's also one of the more affordable cold-calling tools on here, starting at $19 per seat per month, so it's ideal for small-to-medium-sized businesses and teams.
Pricing: $19 per seat per month
Key features:
Add notes and follow-up call reminders to keep your outreach organized
Duplicate detection to avoid phoning the same number twice
Lead segmentation to see an overview of your pipeline health
8. VICIdial: Free Cold Calling Software
Open-source cold calling software that’s customizable, powerful, and free
If you're willing to put in some energy to set VICIdial up, it can be an excellent option. It's open-source software and free to use, but despite that, it's packed with powerful features to help you connect with the perfect prospects for your business.
Despite the outdated UI, the software itself has nearly everything you need to run a successful cold-calling program. Thanks to the API, you can create separate tracking IDs for agents, track activity, review overall campaign metrics, and connect VICIdial to other tools.
Naturally, the main downside is that it's a free platform, so there are some limitations, and if you run into problems, you'll need to solve them yourself or use their support forum to get help from other VICIdial users.
Pricing: Free
Key features:
Robust and feature-rich platform available for free
No added costs for new seats or users
API to connect it with any tool in your sales software stack
9. Gong: AI-Powered Insights for Cold Calling
Get AI-powered insights to improve and optimize your cold call scripts and prospect responses
Gong is a sales platform with a vast range of capabilities, but one of the most useful parts of cold calling is the call recording feature.
Gong will record your calls, transcribe them, and, when you're finished, give you AI-powered insights into your call scripts and word choices. It can help you figure out what works and what doesn't.
After a call, you can dive into the recording or transcript to listen back on parts you want to review, then. It will warn you if you're talking about pricing or a certain feature too often in your call so you're aware and can update your approach before your next cold call.
Call recordings can be shared with your team and linked with your CRM records to ensure everyone can access the information.
With a tool like this, we’d always recommend letting your prospect know you’re recording beforehand.
Pricing: Custom, available on request
Features:
Compare your talk ratio with your prospects to see if you need to let them talk more
Identify phrases you’re talking about too often
Keep track of every call interaction with key prospects and sales leads
10. Dialpad: Wide Range of Features
All-in-one business dialing and call management platform with sales-focused features such as a power dialer
Dialpad is a platform to help your business with everything related to your phone systems. It also has a robust sales dialer and outbound phone system to help you and your sales team have conversations with more qualified prospects and get better feedback on your sales process.
You can call prospects from your browser and even send text messages to send them an extra resource after the call.
There's a voice recognition system that listens to your calls and, if it detects a sales objection, immediately surfaces what Dialpad calls ‘battle cards': a pre-prepared answer to handle the objection. This feature is useful for stopping sales reps from getting caught out by questions they haven't heard in a while.
As you'd expect, calls are recorded and transcribed, and you can see detailed analytics on your call performance. You can also create a library of successful calls that you can look back on and use to help train new team members on how best to handle sales calls.
Like with any completely cloud-based cold calling system, there's a risk that if your internet has problems during the call, you will encounter voice delays, but as long as you have a reliable connection, there won't be many problems.
Pricing: $15 per month per user
Features:
CRM and ESP integrations to make calls from wherever you need to
Automatic prompts to help you handle sales objections
One-click dialer to help you talk to more prospects in less time
Wrapping Up
Cold calls are a direct way to start a conversation with a decision-maker. But not every decision-maker wants to pick up the phone from a number they don't recognize.
To ensure you never miss a chance to start a conversation, you can combine your cold calling with cold email.
QuickMail is designed to help you with this. You can send personalized cold emails to your prospects, follow up automatically, and even dial your prospects from QuickMail with the Aircall integration.
There are powerful deliverability features and integrations to make sure your emails always get seen and opened, and most importantly, replied to. If prospects don’t reply, you can send a polite follow-up email and resurface your message to the top of their inbox.
QuickMail integrates with all of your key sales tools, as well as Zapier, and will fit into any outbound sales stack.
Test out QuickMail with a free trial and start getting more replies today.
