Cloud to Cloud CTI: 2 Killer Reasons to Connect Voice and CRM in the Cloud

What would you say are the top reasons for connecting your telephone system to your CRM?

Typically the top two reasons we hear are:

Click to dial - the ability for agents to click a number in the database and have an outbound call made from their phone - saving them time entering numbers and re-entering them if they mis-dial.

Screen Pops - allowing inbound calls to 'pop' the relavent record of the person they are speaking to based on the number used to call in on - increasing the personal nature of the call as well as saving time by removing the "who am I speaking to" portion of the call.

And if you have an on-premise CRM system, sat in a rack with an on-premise telephony system, then you are probably right.

Cloud to Cloud

For us though, the true benefits of CTI come when you connect a cloud based CRM system like Salesforce, to a cloud based contact centre solution like NewVoiceMedia.

By connecting the two, in the cloud, you can start to do things with the calls in your queue that you couldn't have done in an on-premise world.

Prioritise: Would you rather answer a VIP client before a standard client? Would you rather answer an escalated support case before a new support case? Whether it is a yes or a no, you now have the option to look out into your call queue and bring forward certain callers, or push others back.

Redirect: Would you like French speakers to be answered by French speaking agents in the US if everyone in your Paris contact centre is on the phone? Would you like a client with an outstanding bill to be redirected to your credit control team? Would you like your callers to be answered by the agent that is dealing with their case?

This is the true power of CTI, and the only place it can work is in the cloud.

If your CTI exists on an agent's desktop in a software adapter then by the time a call is behind your firewall, is interacting with your database and been answered by an agent - how can you prioritise it? How can you reroute it to another office?

Screen Popping and Click to Dial are very handy features for your agents. But for your business - the real value of CTI happens much, much earlier in the process.

Do you use CTI to reroute your calls across multiple offices? Do you answer some callers before others because of their CRM history?

We'd love to know your comments in the section below. Please subscribe to the sidebar and share this post with your network.