In the ever-evolving landscape of communication technology, selecting the right dialer
for your team has become more crucial than ever before. We all know, gone are the
days of traditional hard phones tethered to desks; instead, businesses use cloud-based
solutions. In this guide, we’ll explore the key features to consider when choosing a
dialer, highlight the differences between parallel and power dialers, and help you make
an informed decision for your team’s needs.
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1. The Evolution of Dialers: From Hardware to Cloud-Based Solutions
   Today, businesses are using softphones or Unified Communications (UC) and Contact
   Center (CC) solutions, which are cloud-based and offer a comprehensive suite of
   communication tools. Don’t be confused by UC, CC or softphone too much though, they
   all help you dial remotely, some with mobile apps, some just for headsets and a laptop.
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2. Key Features to Look For in 2025
   When selecting a dialer for your team, several key features should be on your radar:
   ● Seamless integration with your existing systems and workflows
   ● Real-time analytics and reporting to track performance metrics
   ● Local number capabilities, like JustCall and Cloudtalk
   ● Reputation protection and relationships with carriers, like Frontspin, PhoneBurner
   or Hiya
   ● Integration to CRM as well as Engagement tools, like Quack or Trellus
   ● AI agent support and capabilities
   ● Live call coaching, like Rocketphone
   ● Mobile and cellular, again like Rocketphone
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3. Parallel vs. Power Dialers: Understanding the Difference
   Parallel Dialer: A parallel dialer enables agents to initiate multiple outbound calls
   simultaneously, significantly increasing call volume and efficiency.
   Power Dialer: In contrast, a power dialer automatically dials through a list of contacts,
   presenting the next call to the agent only after the previous one has ended.
   Neither increase connection rates in terms of dial to connect! This is a common
   misunderstanding. Dial to connect is determined by data quality. They can improve
   connection rate, but only from a rate of conversations per hour. Simply because of
   increased call capacity. Data is still king.
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4. Benefits of Each Dialer Type
   Parallel Dialer Benefits:
   ● Drastically increases call volume and productivity, like Orum
   ● Ideal for campaigns focused on quantity and reaching a large number of
   prospects, like Connec&Sell
   ● Enables agents to maximize conversation rate and data coverage, like Nooks
   Power Dialer Benefits:
   ● Maximizes conversation rates and minimizes downtime between calls, like Orum
   ● Provides a steady workflow for agents, reducing fatigue and increasing focus
   ● Ideal for campaigns that prioritize quality conversations and personalized
   interactions, like Cloudtalk or Aircall
   Conclusion: Making the Right Choice
   When choosing a dialer for your team, it’s essential to consider your specific business
   needs, goals, and workflows. Evaluate the key features offered by different solutions,
   and determine whether a parallel or power dialer aligns better with your objectives. By
   selecting the right dialer, you can empower your team to communicate more effectively,
   drive productivity, and achieve success in today’s fast-paced business environment.

Sales Development Representatives in EMEA have access to numerous tools and extensions, but this can leave them toggling between them to locate accurate contact data. Ultimately people want more data, but less licenses or extensions.

Firstly you should monitor your team’s monthly credit usage. Avoid purchasing individual licenses for every SDR. Leverage existing tools that offer data enrichment, or integrate another data source. For instance, LeadForensics provides access to Cognism credits.

Many traditional data tools come with hefty license fees. Transitioning to a credit-based system means paying only for the data your team actually uses, minimizing wasted spend on underutilized licenses. Many providers will do this but only if you ask. 

The challenge can then be how do we avoid the multiple extensions on screen for the SDR?

This is where we recommend tools like Surfe and Upcell. These can create contact records for you from their Chrome extensions straight to CRM. With very good free credit options. Every SDR and AE could have a licence or account with them. 

Upcell is also one of the best for data in the USA and quickly catching up in the UK. Whilst both can provide data enrichment. 

Once you’ve done this you can move other data enrichment providers to automatically enriching in the CRM on credit and usage models. Cognism, ZoomInfo and Kaspr’s can do this in some way. 

Waterfall enrichment tools similarly allow access to multiple providers with only one license or extension necessary. BetterContact is one of the best. And this can also be hooked into Surfe. So each user could have a Surfe license to create contacts, with one company license using BetterContact enrich in Surfe, and therefore CRM. FullEnrich is also fast becoming a close second place for this type of waterfall. 

Remember though waterfall enrichment is only as good as the providers it searches. This is why BetterContact with its 20+ data providers and ability to connect your own other ones can be very powerful. 

In summary, ask all your providers about credit and usage options. Don’t assume the only offer they have is a license per rep model. Consider tools that will create the contact records for you and then work from here to leverage others.

Leaders are seeking tools that consolidate information into a single platform, reduce friction in
workflows, and allow teams to focus on what they do best: building relationships and closing
deals. Here’s a look at the sales tools and trends to watch for in 2025 that prioritize simplicity
and efficiency. We’ve tried to go category by category so that you can quickly head to the area
that is most relevant to you.

1. Data Enrichment – Data is King, after all
   Waterfall data enrichment has been around for the last year or so. However, it is now moving
   beyond a mish mash of the cheapest providers cleverly dragged into another system that you
   can subscribe to. BetterContact is a waterfall enrichment tool with a wide range of data
   providers, the ability to connect your own existing providers and, using their millions of data
   points, they search the providers in varying order depending on the region, persons and data
   you are looking for. FullEnrich are close behind, working hard on integrations to CRMs.
   FindyMail are similar but are really focused on quality data and after blowing Apollo out of the
   water for quality, maybe not quantity, they are now providing mobiles too.
2. Linkedin Automation
   There are a lot of tools in this space, many of which have limits and perhaps encourage bad
   habits from SDRs. The jury may still be out on whether this is true or not, but the genie is out of
   the box now. HeyReach is fast becoming one of the most widely used Linkedin automation tools
   we see. It allows for unlimited senders to connect with one fixed price. There’s several ways to
   use this to your advantage, but we are seeing it in some teams allow for a copy writing expert to
   take on the linkedin prospecting activity across a team. Freeing up that team to call and focus
   on other activities.
   This trend aligns with the growing emphasis on personalization and targeted outreach. By
   presenting data in a structured, list-based format, tools help reps focus their time on the right
   activities while ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.
3. Diallers and call insights
   There are numerous diallers in the market now. Our most reliable is JustCall. Never having had
   or seen a single outage or minute of downtime across our customers. They have also kicked off
   2025 with a new AI voice agent, which can handle some basic inbound Q&A and transfer to theright reps. To be clear we are still against AI SDRs making and taking calls, however JustCall may be onto something here that helps SDRs answer call backs, transfer leads and find some efficiency. The other one to watch is Rocketphone one of the best dialers for Salesforce CRM. However, their AI transcription and being the first softphone able to also run on and default to the mobile network you never have to miss notes from a customer call, ever!

The Simplicity Imperative
As sales teams evaluate their tech stacks for 2025, the overriding priority from the best tools
appears to be simplicity. Using AI not to replace SDRs but help them get insight and data in one
place. Tools that consolidate workflows, present data in accessible formats, and automate
routine tasks are no longer just nice-to-have—they’re essential. As you plan for the year ahead,
prioritize solutions that align with this philosophy. The sales tools to watch in 2025 are those that
keep things simple while delivering the insights and automation your team needs to succeed.

As we move into 2025, the most successful sales teams are doubling down on solutions that centralize data, present it in an intuitive list view, and emphasize follow-up tracking with clear timestamps. These core functionalities make it easier for leaders to provide coaching and training, rather than wondering which tool is causing bottlenecks and think it’s a tech problem. It’s more often a skills problem. 

In this post, we’ll share four examples of simple, effective tech stacks that have driven results in 2024 and are poised to continue thriving in the coming year.

Stack one uses Salesforce, Apollo, Linkedin SalesNavigator, BetterContact and Rocketphone. The traditionalist.

The key here is that Apollo is used to build lists and export to Salesforce. The team then have Linkedin and Bettercontact to source more contacts and find more numbers. They are 90% calling for their outreach and Rocketphone provides AI transcription, prompting and note taking all in real time. It adds this all to the contact notes as it is happening. All contacts have a status based on the next step and a time stamp for follow up calls on each SDRs list view. They are averaging 14 meetings per rep per month, at 80 calls per day.

Stack two uses Pipedrive, Kaspr, Apollo and JustCall. Clean and simple.

This team uses the labels in Pipedrive against the organizations, and then saves a filter against the People view. Making it quick and easy for the team to find and work methodically through a list of accounts knowing they are targeting enough prospects is their guiding rule. Apollo, again, is only used to build an initial list, export to csv and loaded into Kaspr’s bulk enrich to get more mobiles, before finally loading into Pipedrive and calling through. The Pipedrive list shows name, job title, company, linked url, phone numbers, and contact status and a time stamp for next follow up. For every contact stays as “new” until they’ve been contacted, and the status changes to reflect the structure of the follow up call. They are making a meeting every 30 dials. 

Stack three uses Hubspot, Apollo, Ocean, Heyreach, Instantly, Slack and RB2B. The fast, and modern, game. 

This small team has a large TAM in a growing industry with lots of investment: ClimateTech. They build lists in Apollo, enrich and export to Instantly and Heyreach. As they find success they use Ocean to supplement and find new accounts. They are emailing their TAM whilst also running separate sequences in Heyreach on linkedin. All responses land directly in Slack, making it fast and easy for the team to respond to everything. On responding, contacts and the account are automatically created in Hubspot as a lead to be worked. There are custom fields against contacts for prospecting notes, status and time stamps that can all be filled in from the contact page minimising navigation away from their specific list of prospects. They made 23 meetings in month one, and are collecting a database to start calling when they have capacity.

Stack four uses Smartsheet, Kaspr, and Justcall. The anomaly.

This team doesn’t, yet, use a CRM. They are a Smartsheet reseller, which is much like excel or google sheets in many ways. They built simple views that display the same fields in each column as our other stacks. They bought a specific data set of c-level contacts in the renewables space. This forms the base of their approach. Relying again on simple lists that show the contact info and status, notes and next step date is proving the compound effect of tracking conversations, removing distraction and upskilling. They listen back to calls daily with JustCall and leadership coach and share industry developments and insights after every sales call. The SDR averages a meeting a day. 

Conclusion

A tech stack that centralizes data, provides actionable views, and prioritizes follow-up tracking empowers teams to stay focused on connecting to and speaking with prospects at scale. As leaders this allows us to better track activity and conversations, and take the appropriate steps towards upskilling our sales reps. This is what truly impacts the pipeline.

Examine the main place of work, set it up to support conversations and follow ups at scale before you look for more silver bullets in tech. By keeping your tech stack straightforward and purpose-driven, you’ll create an environment where sales reps can thrive and leaders can better support their teams. As 2025 approaches, remember: less is often more when it comes to sales tech.

@Stakki

With tools for everything from email automation to lead scoring, it’s tempting to introduce new software at every turn, particularly when your goal is to empower SDRs. However, this desire to equip SDRs often leads to a phenomenon known as sales tech bloat. But why should it matter to your organisation?

Sales tech bloat refers to the accumulation of unnecessary, and or overlapping features across a company’s sales tools.

Instead of enabling SDRs to focus on high-value tasks, these tools often force them to navigate between systems, leading to decision fatigue and frustration. 

Why Sales Tech Bloat Is a Problem

According to Salesforce, 70% of sales reps say they are overwhelmed by sales tools. Through speaking to leaders we identify the below symptoms of a bloated tech stack.

1. Fractured Workflows

Sales workflows are most effective when they’re smooth and seamless. When an SDR has to switch between multiple tools to complete a single task—checking one platform for contact information, another for call logs, and yet another for pipeline updates—it introduces unnecessary friction. Time that should be spent engaging prospects is instead consumed by toggling between systems, breaking momentum and focus.

2. Distractions

The more tools an SDR is asked to use, the more their attention is divided. Notifications, reminders, and updates from different platforms can become overwhelming, diluting their ability to focus on meaningful prospecting and relationship-building. SDRs may also feel pressured to justify the use of each tool, leading to inefficiency and frustration.

3. Underutilised Potential

Tools that aren’t fully utilised represent wasted budget and missed opportunities. Instead of enhancing productivity, they become yet another layer of complexity for your team. They also make it harder to identify the gap and area of improvement to focus on.

How do we solve this?

The very first thing to identify is if it is a skill gap or an information and data gap. 80% of the time we speak to Sales Leaders at Stakki who think they need to find better accounts or better signals for their SDR team. However, after digging deeper, the skill level of their SDR team is a bigger barrier to growth. This skill gap is caused, and worse hidden, by this switching between tools, reliance on multiple tools and broken workflows.

Subsequently, whilst adding a tool may add some immediate positive impact to the pipeline, it does not equal long term change. We need to first identify and be brutally honest with ourselves if there are skill gaps. From here we can strip back our tech stack, and only focus on the foundations.

Audit your sales tools, look for ones with feature overlap and a lack of integrations into CRM. There are more and more tools that cover multiple fields, so find the ones that are able to pull the information and data you want to one place. One team of 4 SDRs has tripled their pipeline across 3 months using just Rocketphone, Apollo, Surfe, BetterContact, Kaspr and Salesforce. A second has generated a meeting for every 34 dials, using only Pipedrive, Kaspr, Apollo and Justcall. The common thread was a focus on simplicity, creating one list to work from consistently in their CRMs.

Conclusion

Sales tech bloat is more than just a logistical issue—it’s a barrier to SDR upskilling. Focus on streamlining and working on a single “solution of work.” Whether this be a CRM or an Engagement tool, 80% of SDR time should be here. A lean, purposeful tech stack is key to enabling your SDRs to upskill, enjoy work and progress pipeline and careers.

https://www.stakki.io/