IP telephony, customer service and CRM represent the company's unified communications tools – and are great team players. If you want to optimise how you communicate within the company, you need to find out the best way to integrate these systems with each other.
Why should IP telephony, CRM and customer service be integrated?
Historically, a CRM has focused on external communication for salespeople, while customer service is more reactive and all about customer care. Both systems hold customers who can get in touch either to buy more, or with questions about how to reset their password, for example. Telephony is the spokesperson for both of these systems, and integrating it with sales and customer service tools comes with a number of advantages.
First, sales and customer service save valuable time when getting a call from someone who is already a customer. Their contact information is displayed immediately and you never have to check who’s calling. In addition, everything is automatically registered on the customer card, which means that you don’t need to spend extra time on entering the information manually.
In short: Integrating IP telephony with CRM and customer service increases quality, saves time and becomes more cost-effective in the long run.
More detailed info about Telavox CRM integrations:
Common challenges when integrating IP telephony
An integration between the systems has always been something you are expected to do on your own. However, this is usually a rather complicated process involving many systems and few standards. For this it’s required that you have employees with experience of connecting different systems and making them work together – while these people also should have the time necessary to manage the integration.
The system provider can usually offer suggestions on technical tools and API’s to use in order to make it easier for the programs to talk to each other – but after that, you are expected to solve everything yourself.
The most common problem by far is that many companies are simply lacking the skills or resources required to accomplish this integration. However, the task should be the system provider’s responsibility, not yours! Something that is slowly but surely changing.
This is what it should look like
Nowadays it’s more and more common that providers offer to take care of the entire integration for you. This means they also take full responsibility in making sure everything works properly afterwards. The best thing is thus to choose someone that will connect your systems as well as handle updates and troubleshooting. The best approach is if you are able to download an app in a CRM tool, such as Salesforce. You just create a profile and start working – the best apps today are so user-friendly that you don't even need a manual!
Read more:
- Get started with Salesforce telephony integration
- 3 reasons to integrate Microsoft Dynamics 365 with your telephony
What Telavox can offer
When you’re using the Telavox app we are fully responsible for the integration – today and in the future. We do this by delivering apps to all the systems you use and also by already being a part of the common systems. All you have to do is go into your existing CRM system and install the app – we take care of everything afterwards. Easy, right? Get in touch with us to learn more about how it works.
