Progressive dialing
One call per free agent - the dialer places calls automatically but never overshoots headcount.
Progressive dialing places one outbound call for each agent who is free, and no more. The dialer still does the dialing, so agents never touch a keypad, but because there is never a call in flight without an agent waiting for it, there is nothing to abandon.
How you configure it in VICIdial
There is no dial method literally named "progressive". You get progressive behaviour by setting Dial Method to RATIO with Auto Dial Level at 1.0.
It is worth being precise here, because the ADAPT_* methods are often described as progressive and they are not. ADAPT_HARD_LIMIT, ADAPT_TAPERED, ADAPT_AVERAGE and ADAPT_PERCENTMAX are adaptive predictive methods: they raise and lower the dial level automatically in pursuit of a target drop rate, which means they will happily dial above one call per agent. If your reason for choosing progressive is that you want zero abandoned calls, an adaptive method is the wrong setting.
What it costs and what it buys
Agents wait through ring time, answering machines and busy signals that a predictive dialer would have absorbed in parallel. Expect meaningfully lower occupancy than predictive on the same list - how much lower depends entirely on your connect rate, since every unanswered call is time an agent spends listening to ringing.
In exchange you get an abandonment rate of zero by construction, not by tuning, and agents who are never surprised by a call arriving mid-note.
When it is the right choice
- Regulated or reputation-sensitive outbound where any abandoned call is unacceptable
- Teams too small for prediction to work - with five agents, one unlucky minute is a large percentage
- Lists whose connect rate is unstable enough that a predictive pacer is always tuned for the wrong conditions
- The safe first step when you are bringing a new list or a new team live, before you start raising the dial level