Blended dialing

Blended dialing is when the same group of agents handles both directions of traffic — they take incoming calls and make outgoing calls — and VICIdial shifts them between the two based on what's happening right now. When inbound calls flood in, agents get pulled toward answering. When the phones go quiet, the same agents go back to outbound dialing.

Why it matters: it keeps your people busy. A purely inbound team sits idle during slow hours; a purely outbound team can't help when customers call in. Blending lets one agent pool cover both, so you pay for fewer idle minutes and your callers wait less when a rush hits.

How it works in practice: you point your inbound numbers — each a did — at an ingroup, then set up your outbound campaign to allow inbound groups. When a customer calls, the dialer flips an available agent's status toward that inbound call before it offers them another outbound one, so live customers come first.

One thing to watch: blending makes predictive dialing trickier to pace, because the number of free agents keeps changing as inbound calls come and go. The dialer is always guessing how many people will be free in a few seconds, and inbound traffic muddies that guess. Many teams start with gentler outbound pacing on a blended campaign and tighten it only after they've watched a few busy days and trust the rhythm.

Decide up front which side wins when both are busy — usually inbound, since a live caller on hold is more costly than a lead that can wait. Blending works best when your inbound volume is steady and predictable; if you get sudden, sharp spikes, the dialer can't react fast enough and a few callers end up waiting while agents are still finishing outbound calls. If that describes you, it's often cleaner to ring-fence a small group purely for inbound during peak hours and blend only the rest.